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[Warren]

Wait. You installed wall-to-wall carpeting yourself? On the stairs no less? Dayum.
I mean, I'm a proponent of DIY, but no.

[Highway]

Wait. You installed wall-to-wall carpeting yourself? On the stairs no less? Dayum.
I mean, I'm a proponent of DIY, but no.

No, I did not install it myself. Sorry if I gave that impression. I just moved a bunch of furniture and other stuff up and down the steps. There's no way that anyone would get 1300 s.f of carpeting installed in a day if I was helping actually do any installation, as opposed to moving furniture.

It's more the spending 3 days taking apart and moving furniture, and then trying to put some of it back together afterwards (along with letting myself get dehydrated along the way) that wiped me out.

[Warren]

Ah, check. That's a sane amount of misery to take on.
Post pics when you get the furniture moved back in.

[Mo]

So after 8 long weeks, my new kitchen is close to completion. But yesterday ...

all of the sudden one of the circuits kept tripping the breaker. NBD, the electrician is coming today to finish off the last little bits anyway*. Then, around 9 PM, my wife notifies me of a leak coming from under the stairs where the water heater is. Turns out the water heater is leaking from the top. It was installed in 1998 and I was planning on replacing it this summer, but it was an unnecessary expense/waste of time. On the plus side, since my contractor was already coming in today, so I got to have my hot water heater repaired at a reasonable price (~$400 in labor) instead of the last minute plumber gouge rate.

* Turns out he did not because he had an emergency call and will come tomorrow.

[Highway]

20 years is about 12 years of borrowed time on a tank water heater. It's good it wasn't a worse breach.

[Mo]

Yeah, I agree that it was overdue and we were lucky. I hadn't noticed it was 20 years until I looked at the manual last night. Timing is still annoying. It was the planned summer project as I was looking at hybrids or tankless solutions, but that got moved up and decision was made for a well-reviewed tank solution that was in stock. Though knowing what I know now, I should have replaced the water heater when I bought the house, seeing as it was 14 years old at that point.

[Warren]

I think our HWH is original to the house 1990. Electric heater. No signs of corrosion.

[Highway]

A coworker had nothing but trouble with a hybrid water heater, heat pump + Electric. Circuit boards repeatedly failed on multiple units (but as I said before, it's usually something else causing the circuit board to fail). We had a horrible time with our first tankless, but the replacement tankless has been faultless *knocks on wood*. I still don't know if I'd recommend other people getting a tankless, tho, unless you're consistently running out of hot water with a tank. It's just a really high cost. It saves a lot on heating water, but I didn't get it for the ROI.

[Mo]

There are still no external signs of corrosion in mine either. You're not going to see the corrosion on the outside, where the water is not sitting.

[Mo]

A coworker had nothing but trouble with a hybrid water heater, heat pump + Electric. Circuit boards repeatedly failed on multiple units (but as I said before, it's usually something else causing the circuit board to fail). We had a horrible time with our first tankless, but the replacement tankless has been faultless *knocks on wood*. I still don't know if I'd recommend other people getting a tankless, tho, unless you're consistently running out of hot water with a tank. It's just a really high cost. It saves a lot on heating water, but I didn't get it for the ROI.

Well, then I'm glad I made my decision of convenience. I wasn't looking 100% at ROI. FTR, what brands did you get for the two tankless heaters.

I'm starting to get a clue that you hate heat pumps.

[Mo]

The early deep chill has made my wife so mad at me for getting the heat pump as out main source of heat.

Her: It's not working
Me: It doesn't work well below 20 and usually there's only about 15-20 days like that a year. That's why I left the baseboard heating in as a backup
Her: It's December, we're not going to save any money
Me: It won't be 10 outside for the whole winter
Her: <Anger>

[Warren]

The early deep chill has made my wife so mad at me for getting the heat pump as out main source of heat.

Her: It's not working
Me: It doesn't work well below 20 and usually there's only about 15-20 days like that a year. That's why I left the baseboard heating in as a backup
Her: It's December, we're not going to save any money
Me: It won't be 10 outside for the whole winter
Her: <Anger>

I'm happy with our heat pump.
It has settings for Cool/off/Heat/Em Heat. Emergency Heat just doesn't use the heat pump and goes directly to the electric backup. When it gets below freezing it's best to just throw it into Em Heat mode. When it's in regular heat mode, it will turn on the backup heat if the house temperature gets twice the swing from setpoint. The swing is settable in the thermostat and is how far from setpoint before turning the heat pump on. I think the default is like 0.3 degF, so it has to get 0.6 degF below what you set the thermostat to before the backup comes on. There's also a setting for "satisfy setpoint" and if it's not set, the backup heat will turn off when it gets to within one swing of setpoint so that the heat pump runs constantly and the house never gets up to temp. If you set "satisfy setpoint" it keeps the backup on until it gets one swing over setpoint and then shuts everything down.

[Highway]

Actually, I think heat pumps are great. We have a mini-split system that is a heat pump, and it is terrific as an air conditioner and for heat most of the time (it actually does provide heat at below 20 degrees, but it doesn't like it). But they have limitations that you need to know.

The first tankless we had was an Eternal, and it was finicky and had problems and the company went out of business making it impossible for it to be serviced even while under warranty. The second one is an A.O. Smith, from a product line they bought from Takagi. It's been excellent. Both of ours have been condensing units, which allows you to use just PVC for the exhaust. The Rinnai ones are non-condensing, and as such are much more persnickity about where they can be placed, because they have a minimum exhaust length, and you need to use some ridiculously expensive concentric 2-way venting / ducting for it, like 30 dollars a foot or something. The Rinnai are also not as highly rated from my experience, being picky about flow rate more than the others.

[D.A. Ridgely]

The control for one of the range elements broke so I ordered the part, watched the appropriate DYI video and have now spent over an hour trying to get two tiny Philips head screws out. They are set in an odd angle under the control panel cover and it's so far impossible to get sufficient purchase. I've WD40ed them and even bought an offset screwdriver, but so far no luck. I have a few other plans of attack, but they require rummaging around in the garage for other tools and my frustration level is high enough already today.

[Warren]

The control for one of the range elements broke so I ordered the part, watched the appropriate DYI video and have now spent over an hour trying to get two tiny Philips head screws out. They are set in an odd angle under the control panel cover and it's so far impossible to get sufficient purchase. I've WD40ed them and even bought an offset screwdriver, but so far no luck. I have a few other plans of attack, but they require rummaging around in the garage for other tools and my frustration level is high enough already today.

I have to ask. Are you using your "up close" glasses?

[D.A. Ridgely]

The control for one of the range elements broke so I ordered the part, watched the appropriate DYI video and have now spent over an hour trying to get two tiny Philips head screws out. They are set in an odd angle under the control panel cover and it's so far impossible to get sufficient purchase. I've WD40ed them and even bought an offset screwdriver, but so far no luck. I have a few other plans of attack, but they require rummaging around in the garage for other tools and my frustration level is high enough already today.

I have to ask. Are you using your "up close" glasses?

What?

[Andrew]

The control for one of the range elements broke so I ordered the part, watched the appropriate DYI video and have now spent over an hour trying to get two tiny Philips head screws out. They are set in an odd angle under the control panel cover and it's so far impossible to get sufficient purchase. I've WD40ed them and even bought an offset screwdriver, but so far no luck. I have a few other plans of attack, but they require rummaging around in the garage for other tools and my frustration level is high enough already today.

I have to ask. Are you using your "up close" glasses?

What?

Definitely not using the hearing aid.

[pistoffnick]

I put a replacement heating element in the dishwasher about 2 years ago. It must have been slightly higher heat output than the original because it melted a small hole in the bottom. I have been patching it with caulk, marine caulk, and lastly 2-part epoxy for the last year. The epoxy must have let loose last night, there was a nice 5 foot diameter puddle in the kitchen this morning.

We ordered a new stainless tubbed dishwasher. That will be my project for next weekend.

[Warren]

I put a replacement heating element in the dishwasher about 2 years ago. It must have been slightly higher heat output than the original because it melted a small hole in the bottom. I have been patching it with caulk, marine caulk, and lastly 2-part epoxy for the last year. The epoxy must have let loose last night, there was a nice 5 foot diameter puddle in the kitchen this morning.

We ordered a new stainless tubbed dishwasher. That will be my project for next weekend.

I installed a new dishwasher a couple years ago. Learn from my mistakes:

1. Have the old dw completely disconnected and removed from it's cubby hole before the new one shows up.
2. Go to the hardware store and buy a dishwasher installation kit. Spring for the biggest one they have. It will have all the hoses and adapters you will need. Sure you can save a few bucks if you really want and only buy the parts you need, but I HIGHLY recommend the big bag-o-parts to save trips.
3. Are you over 40? When was the last time you did a major project that required getting down on the floor? It's a lot more difficult and uncomfortable than you remember. Double your estimated work time.
4. Teflon tape is your friend.

ETA
Copper tubing becomes rigid after it's bent the first time. If you need to rebend copper tubing, heat it up with a blow torch and it will become malleable again.

[dead_elvis]

We have been cleaning out some garage stuff. I now have a box of stuff that includes various spray cleaners, various hot tub adjusting chemicals, a rusted can of WD-40, stuff like that. I really really wanna just toss in the trash. Near as I can tell according to the county/city websites I need to call a number to arrange taking this stuff somewhere. What a pain. There's electronics recycling everywhere but household hazardous waste, which I'm sure there is at least as much of, is mysteriously scarce. Convince me to recycle this stuff.

[Warren]

I have never seen a trash collector rummage through someone's garbage looking for contraband. Not even once.

[dead_elvis]

I have never seen a trash collector rummage through someone's garbage looking for contraband. Not even once.

Oh I know I could get away with it. I'm not particularly anal about cans and bottles and whatnot, but I would actually feel guilty about toxic things that might leak into the environment. It's just, you know, wife wants it gone right now, and the city doesn't make that easy to make happen.

[lunchstealer]

I have never seen a trash collector rummage through someone's garbage looking for contraband. Not even once.

Oh I know I could get away with it. I'm not particularly anal about cans and bottles and whatnot, but I would actually feel guilty about toxic things that might leak into the environment. It's just, you know, wife wants it gone right now, and the city doesn't make that easy to make happen.

Yeah, I'm not worried about legal sanction for this sort of thing, but I'd really appreciate it if they'd make it easy to do the right thing. Not doing that leads to people either putting it in landfills, or worse, dumping it down the sewers. It seems like that's more important than electronics recycling, but maybe that's just me.

[dhex]

Suspenders with suits is the way life was meant to be. On their own you'd better be Patti Smith or willing to take risks.

[Highway]

People don't have much of it, that's why you've gone years without worrying about it. There's way more electronic waste in the stream.

As for what to do with it, if your county has a landfill, they might have a dropoff. You might need to call just to get authorization because you're a homeowner, because they really don't want businesses abusing the free dropoffs.

Fun fact that doesn't help you at all: my county has 3 landfills, but only one accepts hazardous materials all the time. The other two hold a twice-a-year collection that gets really crowded, once in the spring, once in fall.