Home Improvement/Remodel Thread

[NateDawg]

I tried installing a cheap hollow core when I had to replace an interior door because … kids, and it didn’t go super easily. Long story short I ended up just installing and putting in a barn door which worked out better where it was anyways, but yes, it’s a trial and error unless you’ve done it a few times. 

[Charles]

https://ibb.co/0YHgK0C

Recent built in i did.  Led lighting was a mother...

[vikesfan89]

Would it be better to install a propane furnace or natural gas?

[Dome]

10 hours ago, vikesfan89 said:

Would it be better to install a propane furnace or natural gas?

Is one fuel source significantly cheaper than the other? That’s pretty much what it comes down to.

IMO there are more advantages with propane but they go away quickly if gas is cheaper due to propane delivery fees or something like that. Startup costs are probably more with propane too, since you gotta have a tank installed. 

Propane is not harmful to the environment if any of it escapes unburned  

it also heats more efficiently than gas so you use less of it, about half as much IIRC

your service can’t be shut off remotely, you will always have whatever is in your tank, in a pinch you can rig a way to use your BBQ propane (or backup tank) to heat the house in an emergency.

Edited October 28, 2022 by Dome

[MWil23]

44 minutes ago, Dome said:

10 hours ago, vikesfan89 said:

Would it be better to install a propane furnace or natural gas?

Is one fuel source significantly cheaper than the other? That’s pretty much what it comes down to.

IMO there are more advantages with propane but they go away quickly if gas is cheaper due to propane delivery fees or something like that. Startup costs are probably more with propane too, since you gotta have a tank installed. 

Propane is not harmful to the environment if any of it escapes unburned  

it also heats more efficiently than gas so you use less of it, about half as much IIRC

your service can’t be shut off remotely, you will always have whatever is in your tank, in a pinch you can rig a way to use your BBQ propane (or backup tank) to heat the house in an emergency.

To piggy back off of this, I have propane. Here are some things that factor in:

1. Who is your supplier? You basically have 2 options here:

A. Rent the tank from your supplier (cheaper, usually a 1 time low fee), but then you're "stuck" with them and their prices, which will go up and down depending upon the price.

B. BUY the tank outright ($1,000+ minimum, usually double that) and then shop around to providers for the lowest price.

It's also harder to "budget for", as that depends largely upon the weather. So, in colder months, a fill up can range from $400-$800. However, usually after March (here in Ohio), you'll go 6-7 months without needing a fill up as the weather gets warmer.

For us, it's the "law of averages" and we are able to squirrel away some money for the costly winter months, as we save throughout the year, but sticker shock is real and it hurts for those 4-6 winter months.

[vikesfan89]

Thanks for the replies. I can't quote you for some reason. It's actually a 5 cent discount if we own the tank here but i don't think it costs anything to get a rental tank set up.

I've got the rental tank there already because I needed propane to see if the old furnace was any good.  I assumed that I would switch to natural gas if I needed a new one but it wasn't as slam dunk of a decision after I looked into it some.  I'll have to look at the pricing a little more. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Jlash]

Someone on here was asking lawn questions a couple months ago saying they had tons of weeds. I had the same thing, but also tons of different grasses they wanted to make more uniform, so I killed it off and started again. Got the first mow on it today.

It's still a little spotty, but with two dogs who ran on it every day after I seeded it, it's the best I could've hoped for.

[vike daddy]

On 10/28/2022 at 6:03 AM, vikesfan89 said:

I've got the rental tank there already because I needed propane to see if the old furnace was any good. 

i bought a rural house once where the propane fueled water heater had a 5 gallon tank hooked up to it, like what you'd see under a bbq. lol

[Tugboat]

On 10/28/2022 at 5:34 AM, MWil23 said:

To piggy back off of this, I have propane. Here are some things that factor in:

1. Who is your supplier? You basically have 2 options here:

A. Rent the tank from your supplier (cheaper, usually a 1 time low fee), but then you're "stuck" with them and their prices, which will go up and down depending upon the price.

B. BUY the tank outright ($1,000+ minimum, usually double that) and then shop around to providers for the lowest price.

It's also harder to "budget for", as that depends largely upon the weather. So, in colder months, a fill up can range from $400-$800. However, usually after March (here in Ohio), you'll go 6-7 months without needing a fill up as the weather gets warmer.

For us, it's the "law of averages" and we are able to squirrel away some money for the costly winter months, as we save throughout the year, but sticker shock is real and it hurts for those 4-6 winter months.

I've never even heard of people having Propane heating, unless they're in the absolute ****in' boonies.

 

This is all fascinating to me.

 

Here, it's all Natural Gas, or Bunker Oil.  Propane Heating is for people who live in the middle of absolutely nowhere.

[vike daddy]

On 10/31/2022 at 2:54 PM, Tugboat said:

Propane Heating is for people who live in the middle of absolutely nowhere.

the house i live in now (built in the 60's) and am renovating originally had a propane furnace, which i removed.

it's a rural house but not at all way out in the boonies. a Home Depot is five minutes away.

[Tugboat]

On 11/6/2022 at 8:31 AM, vike daddy said:

the house i live in now (built in the 60's) and am renovating originally had a propane furnace, which i removed.

it's a rural house but not at all way out in the boonies. a Home Depot is five minutes away.

That's interesting.

 

I've always just associated it with places with no proper natural gas infrastructure.  Up Canada way at least, that's how it tends to be.  Or people just do bunker oil if their place is too old to bother retrofitting (mostly multi-unit complexes).

[Tugboat]

On 10/29/2022 at 12:41 PM, Jlash said:

Someone on here was asking lawn questions a couple months ago saying they had tons of weeds. I had the same thing, but also tons of different grasses they wanted to make more uniform, so I killed it off and started again. Got the first mow on it today.

It's still a little spotty, but with two dogs who ran on it every day after I seeded it, it's the best I could've hoped for.

My "lawn" more like:

 

How It Started:

 

How It's Going:

 

Edited November 8, 2022 by Tugboat

[bigbadbuff]

I bought my first house back in March. Wish i was more handy. I didn’t learn any of that stuff growing up. Definitely frustrating lol!

[vike daddy]

2 hours ago, bigbadbuff said:

I bought my first house back in March. Wish i was more handy. I didn’t learn any of that stuff growing up. Definitely frustrating lol!

what are you good at? what skilld DO you have that others would want?

find yourself a buddy who's a good carpenter/fixer upper type and trade him with what you do and he doesn't.

 

you wouldn't have been able to buy a house without having some marketable skill that has helped you.

[Tugboat]

6 hours ago, bigbadbuff said:

I bought my first house back in March. Wish i was more handy. I didn’t learn any of that stuff growing up. Definitely frustrating lol!

 

I've definitely learned over the years that this sort of knowledge is really easy to take for granted.  People will always say stuff like, "just youtube it, there's a tutorial for everything!".  And generally, that's true.  But they almost always rely on some sort of baseline, background understanding of what you're doing, how to use tools and things properly, and just a whole bunch of unmentioned "common sense" stuff glossed over that you actually just learn from doing other similar things a bunch of times over the years.  If you try to tackle things based on a quick youtubing without that background knowledge and technique, you're going to end up with probably disastrous results that just make the problem worse.

 

Like...there's a core skillset that i've realized i take for granted at times.  Familiarity with a large breadth of "handy" stuff that i've picked up from growing up with a father who grew up as a farmer, shop, mechanics, electronics classes and stuff in high school, working my way through school doing a variety of labor jobs, working on my own car because poor.  Just picking up all these weird little skills and tricks and things without really thinking about it.

 

One thing i might suggest to remedy some of this though, if you're serious about becoming more "handy", is to seek out a local trade school/polytechnik.  I don't know about where you are, but the one here offers some sort of "open workshop" type things.  Supposedly you just go in for a Saturday or a few evenings during the week something, and learn from tradespeople in training, how to do general sort of stuff with tools and things.  Here at least, i guess it's part of the curriculum for the students, to demonstrate some mastery by "teaching" amateurs how to do a thing properly and safely.

Bunch of different "courses" like carpentry or welding or plumbing or whatever you want.  Obviously costs a bit of money to sign up, but i know the amount of money i've saved over my life already from being fairly "handy", adds up to something pretty darn significant.  So it's probably not a bad investment.  As a first time homeowner, it sounds like you're probably discovering exactly that.

 

 

I only know this because i looked into learning to weld at one point.  That's one skill i never did pick up in life.  And i don't really want to learn from my dad, because he's a kind of **** welder.  Which i know, because i have a bunch of welder friends who are pretty obsessive about their work and talk about/show it off a lot.  But also, hate their jobs and the last thing they want to do when they get off work welding...is teach somebody like me how to weld.  I'm also not really in the same city as them anymore anyway, and don't have the time to actually follow up on learning to weld these days.

 

But the sort of "open to public" casual trade school programs definitely seem like a good thing to look into in your situation.  You're not going to become a master at anything, but just learning the basics of a handful of things should start to give you a foundation to understand how to "self teach" on a variety of other random tasks that come up.  Which is really what being "handy" is all about.  Having that framework to sus out when one thing is kind of applicable to another thing, and working from there.  A proverbial "skillset tool belt" to go with the actual tool belt.