No, we'd be removing the dead furnace and likely ignoring the existing duct work entirely. We'd be removing the upstairs heat pump and adding a 5 head system in the house. There is the option of going with an air handler instead but the house heats in such a way that getting the downstairs comfortable during the day requires running the bedroom AC at night to get it to a nice sleeping temperature. I don't see that really being fixed without real zoning. The house had no AC aside from the upstairs heat pump. We should be getting our first quote in 2-3 days and I'm expecting 12-18k.
That is an ambitious project. Ductwork uses up a lot of space, is there a reason you want to ignore the existing ductwork? I can understand if the ductwork is torn to shit, or just corroded to not useful so it’s not a judgment I’m just curious. And it sounds like you don’t have central AC, that might be a good time to get it because you’re already be tearing the shit out of everything. And a lot of the cost of adding central AC is tearing the shit out of everything. And if you have a heat pump all you really need is a condenser the cooling coil and a fan. And zoned heating/cooling is awesome. Expensive but awesome. I wish I had it in my house, but I closed most of the downstairs Registers to balance the heating and cooling.
We wouldn't be replacing any of the ducts, just abandoning them and going with the ductless system. The upstairs heat pump isn't robust enough to handle the extra heads for the 3 rooms we'd want to control downstairs, and it's a Lennox system which is proving pretty unreliable. Even if we just went with a heat pump and air handler to use the existing ducts, adding a secondary thermostat and having the system heat the house to an average temperature doesn't 100% solve our 1st/2nd floor temperature disparity. The current thermostat is in the downstairs hallway that leads to 1 and 2.
Our floorplan, rougly, looks like this:
The current outdoor unit is on the outer wall of the addition next to the MB. The entire upstairs and garage was an addition the previous owners had built about 15 years ago.
Thanks all. Boring day at work so apologies for popping in and being all "explain this to me".
And @Iruka - thanks for the heads up. We love Fredrick. I'm in College Park now so it has that "next to the metro" extra value. Now that I stopped taking the metro, I'm fine hopefully making a few extra bucks moving further.
We're looking all the way up around Baltimore. Areas like Laurel (and Fredrick) seem great too, but yeah the pricing is wild. Since we're in no real rush to move, it's nice to be able to take the time to really wait on a good find, instead of having to scramble and find somewhere to live.
Laurel is nice, we had some friends that lived there. A nice spot if you work in College Park. Columbia is also really nice and has good schools. We're in Silver Spring now, which is nice but we were priced out home buying wise. We take walks in the nearby neighborhood and most of the homes there are over 1 million.
The ideal situation would be to sell high, rent, then buy low. However the DMV area seems pretty resistant to decreases, so it could be a toss up that stuff gets much cheaper here in the future.
Heh, I had that exact problem when I first moved in here, resorted to drilling out the pins.
Anyway today after much cajoling and swearing I have installed the new range hood!
This replaces the old microwave which blew itself up. Yeah, I've lost a bit of counter space but now I have a vent that actually... vents air to the outside. I don't think I've ever actually had one that did the job well, it's shocking.
I think we're burying the lede here. The counter install for this kitchen cut out a place for the stove, flipped it up and made it into a backsplash for the stove?
I assume that's stone and not arborite.
It's Corian
That backsplash used to go right up to the base of the microwave so it didn't look quite so out of place.
(someday gonna replace these counters but today is but that day)
Hey house folks, anyone have good recommendations for lights on the outside of the house? we want to decorate a bit for halloween but I like the idea of some lights we can program to different colors for various periods of the year. Anyone have any good halloween decorations they recommend?
My roommate found out her house is technically set up for forced air heating despite almost every room being set up for electric baseboard heating (I think the previous owners put in central air they just got sold on the potential for forced air heating and paid for a furnace).
She thinks that using the forced air this winter will make it less dry in the house and that the forced air will be more efficient.
Except the forced air is also electric heating so, no.
Which means instead of just setting the thermostat in my room to "Don't turn on unless it's cold enough for me to die" I might have to find a way to plug the air duct >_<
If it's got an inline humidifier and humidistat/hygrometer, then no.
Our furnace has a bypass duct that we open during heating season that runs the warm air over essentially a wet pad with an electrically controlled valve.
Yesterday was the big dig!
I guess there really isn't much to see since the end product got buried but here's some pics anyway.
Ended up with just the French drain sections. As we trenched everything we saw that my soul was still quite loamy and sandy with no clay at all. Had some fun dealing with a couple of gnarly roots and that absolute unit of a boulder we had to get out.
And then right as we were raking up the last of the dirt the rain came. Could hear it plinking away as it dropped through the downspout and then... well there's nothing more to see!
I'm just hoping I got everything deep enough that the grass can actually grow back and everything doesn't pop out after a couple years of erosion.
life's a game that you're bound to lose / like using a hammer to pound in screws
fuck up once and you break your thumb / if you're happy at all then you're god damn dumb
that's right we're on a fucked up cruise / God is dead but at least we have booze
bad things happen, no one knows why / the sun burns out and everyone dies
My roommate found out her house is technically set up for forced air heating despite almost every room being set up for electric baseboard heating (I think the previous owners put in central air they just got sold on the potential for forced air heating and paid for a furnace).
She thinks that using the forced air this winter will make it less dry in the house and that the forced air will be more efficient.
Except the forced air is also electric heating so, no.
Which means instead of just setting the thermostat in my room to "Don't turn on unless it's cold enough for me to die" I might have to find a way to plug the air duct >_<
There are many forced air solutions that are not electric resistance heating (the bad kind of electric heating). In many colder parts of the country, you're only going to find gas forced air furnaces. You can also hookup a heat pump system to a central internal air handler to provide both central heating and air conditioning to utilize existing ductwork. The latter is probably what your roommate should consider if she's going to be there long term. I'm guessing due to the electric baseboard heating, it doesn't get super cold there in the winter so heat pump heating should be sufficient. She also already has an air handler for central AC. She should talk to a HVAC contractor and discuss what it would cost to replace the AC unit with an appropriately sized heat pump system.
Edit: misread, thought she was looking at installing a forced air furnace, didn't realize there already was one. Advice still stands on considering replacing with a heat pump system down the road (if appropriate for your geographic location).
My roommate found out her house is technically set up for forced air heating despite almost every room being set up for electric baseboard heating (I think the previous owners put in central air they just got sold on the potential for forced air heating and paid for a furnace).
She thinks that using the forced air this winter will make it less dry in the house and that the forced air will be more efficient.
Except the forced air is also electric heating so, no.
Which means instead of just setting the thermostat in my room to "Don't turn on unless it's cold enough for me to die" I might have to find a way to plug the air duct >_<
There are many forced air solutions that are not electric resistance heating (the bad kind of electric heating). In many colder parts of the country, you're only going to find gas forced air furnaces. You can also hookup a heat pump system to a central internal air handler to provide both central heating and air conditioning to utilize existing ductwork. The latter is probably what your roommate should consider if she's going to be there long term. I'm guessing due to the electric baseboard heating, it doesn't get super cold there in the winter so heat pump heating should be sufficient. She also already has an air handler for central AC. She should talk to a HVAC contractor and discuss what it would cost to replace the AC unit with an appropriately sized heat pump system.
Edit: misread, thought she was looking at installing a forced air furnace, didn't realize there already was one. Advice still stands on considering replacing with a heat pump system down the road (if appropriate for your geographic location).
We live in North Dakota. The temp regularly spends weeks below 0℉ in the winter so a heat pump isn't really ideal for a large portion of the year.
Though obviously this varies quite a bit. Last year I think we only hit colder than -20℉ a handful of days rather than the normal handful of week long stretches.
My roommate found out her house is technically set up for forced air heating despite almost every room being set up for electric baseboard heating (I think the previous owners put in central air they just got sold on the potential for forced air heating and paid for a furnace).
She thinks that using the forced air this winter will make it less dry in the house and that the forced air will be more efficient.
Except the forced air is also electric heating so, no.
Which means instead of just setting the thermostat in my room to "Don't turn on unless it's cold enough for me to die" I might have to find a way to plug the air duct >_<
There are many forced air solutions that are not electric resistance heating (the bad kind of electric heating). In many colder parts of the country, you're only going to find gas forced air furnaces. You can also hookup a heat pump system to a central internal air handler to provide both central heating and air conditioning to utilize existing ductwork. The latter is probably what your roommate should consider if she's going to be there long term. I'm guessing due to the electric baseboard heating, it doesn't get super cold there in the winter so heat pump heating should be sufficient. She also already has an air handler for central AC. She should talk to a HVAC contractor and discuss what it would cost to replace the AC unit with an appropriately sized heat pump system.
Edit: misread, thought she was looking at installing a forced air furnace, didn't realize there already was one. Advice still stands on considering replacing with a heat pump system down the road (if appropriate for your geographic location).
We live in North Dakota. The temp regularly spends weeks below 0℉ in the winter so a heat pump isn't really ideal for a large portion of the year.
Though obviously this varies quite a bit. Last year I think we only hit colder than -20℉ a handful of days rather than the normal handful of week long stretches.
Jesus, I can't even imagine how expensive electric resistance heat is in North Dakota. I'm a little shocked you don't have a gas furnace that far north.
The Mitsubishi hyper heat units go down to -13F but yeah won't cover all the heat needs for -20F. I'm actually considering getting a unit to handle most of the AC (to replace window units) and some ancillary heat for my old unit with hydronic radiators in the Chicago climate. The boiler system is very inefficient in the spring/fall and needs a little help when it gets below -5F.
My roommate found out her house is technically set up for forced air heating despite almost every room being set up for electric baseboard heating (I think the previous owners put in central air they just got sold on the potential for forced air heating and paid for a furnace).
She thinks that using the forced air this winter will make it less dry in the house and that the forced air will be more efficient.
Except the forced air is also electric heating so, no.
Which means instead of just setting the thermostat in my room to "Don't turn on unless it's cold enough for me to die" I might have to find a way to plug the air duct >_<
There are many forced air solutions that are not electric resistance heating (the bad kind of electric heating). In many colder parts of the country, you're only going to find gas forced air furnaces. You can also hookup a heat pump system to a central internal air handler to provide both central heating and air conditioning to utilize existing ductwork. The latter is probably what your roommate should consider if she's going to be there long term. I'm guessing due to the electric baseboard heating, it doesn't get super cold there in the winter so heat pump heating should be sufficient. She also already has an air handler for central AC. She should talk to a HVAC contractor and discuss what it would cost to replace the AC unit with an appropriately sized heat pump system.
Edit: misread, thought she was looking at installing a forced air furnace, didn't realize there already was one. Advice still stands on considering replacing with a heat pump system down the road (if appropriate for your geographic location).
We live in North Dakota. The temp regularly spends weeks below 0℉ in the winter so a heat pump isn't really ideal for a large portion of the year.
Though obviously this varies quite a bit. Last year I think we only hit colder than -20℉ a handful of days rather than the normal handful of week long stretches.
Jesus, I can't even imagine how expensive electric resistance heat is in North Dakota. I'm a little shocked you don't have a gas furnace that far north.
The Mitsubishi hyper heat units go down to -13F but yeah won't cover all the heat needs for -20F. I'm actually considering getting a unit to handle most of the AC (to replace window units) and some ancillary heat for my old unit with hydronic radiators in the Chicago climate. The boiler system is very inefficient in the spring/fall and needs a little help when it gets below -5F.
Once the heat starts kicking in it's about a $60-70/month increase on our electrical bill I think? We also don't set the thermostat above 70 in the winter (though if I had my way it'd never go over 65 because we all own hoodies god damnit).
But in the upper plains I think we also tend to kind of overboard with insulation compared to a lot of other areas. Once you start dealing with sub zero temps for long stretches it really pays to insulate the shit out of everything.
Natural gas was never an option, though it just became one, but they aren't looking to replace the furnace or anything.
Not when we just found out today that the dishwasher needs to be replaced (yay burnt wiring and melted plastic!) and the washing machine can only get through about 1/20 spin cycles successfully.
My roommates' are opting to replace the dishwasher before the washing machine, which boo because I am utterly over having to fiddle with every damn load, but their house their call (and I see her point, sans dishwasher that would basically mean she has to wash every dish by hand because her husband won't because he's kind of a shithead when it comes to helping out with household chores)
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ShadowfireVermont, in the middle of nowhereRegistered Userregular
My roommate found out her house is technically set up for forced air heating despite almost every room being set up for electric baseboard heating (I think the previous owners put in central air they just got sold on the potential for forced air heating and paid for a furnace).
She thinks that using the forced air this winter will make it less dry in the house and that the forced air will be more efficient.
Except the forced air is also electric heating so, no.
Which means instead of just setting the thermostat in my room to "Don't turn on unless it's cold enough for me to die" I might have to find a way to plug the air duct >_<
There are many forced air solutions that are not electric resistance heating (the bad kind of electric heating). In many colder parts of the country, you're only going to find gas forced air furnaces. You can also hookup a heat pump system to a central internal air handler to provide both central heating and air conditioning to utilize existing ductwork. The latter is probably what your roommate should consider if she's going to be there long term. I'm guessing due to the electric baseboard heating, it doesn't get super cold there in the winter so heat pump heating should be sufficient. She also already has an air handler for central AC. She should talk to a HVAC contractor and discuss what it would cost to replace the AC unit with an appropriately sized heat pump system.
Edit: misread, thought she was looking at installing a forced air furnace, didn't realize there already was one. Advice still stands on considering replacing with a heat pump system down the road (if appropriate for your geographic location).
We live in North Dakota. The temp regularly spends weeks below 0℉ in the winter so a heat pump isn't really ideal for a large portion of the year.
Though obviously this varies quite a bit. Last year I think we only hit colder than -20℉ a handful of days rather than the normal handful of week long stretches.
Jesus, I can't even imagine how expensive electric resistance heat is in North Dakota. I'm a little shocked you don't have a gas furnace that far north.
The Mitsubishi hyper heat units go down to -13F but yeah won't cover all the heat needs for -20F. I'm actually considering getting a unit to handle most of the AC (to replace window units) and some ancillary heat for my old unit with hydronic radiators in the Chicago climate. The boiler system is very inefficient in the spring/fall and needs a little help when it gets below -5F.
Once the heat starts kicking in it's about a $60-70/month increase on our electrical bill I think? We also don't set the thermostat above 70 in the winter (though if I had my way it'd never go over 65 because we all own hoodies god damnit).
But in the upper plains I think we also tend to kind of overboard with insulation compared to a lot of other areas. Once you start dealing with sub zero temps for long stretches it really pays to insulate the shit out of everything.
Natural gas was never an option, though it just became one, but they aren't looking to replace the furnace or anything.
Not when we just found out today that the dishwasher needs to be replaced (yay burnt wiring and melted plastic!) and the washing machine can only get through about 1/20 spin cycles successfully.
My roommates' are opting to replace the dishwasher before the washing machine, which boo because I am utterly over having to fiddle with every damn load, but their house their call (and I see her point, sans dishwasher that would basically mean she has to wash every dish by hand because her husband won't because he's kind of a shithead when it comes to helping out with household chores)
Hand washing dishes is a hell of a lot easier than hand washing clothes.
But also fuck that husband. Because washing dishes is easy.
Hey house folks, anyone have good recommendations for lights on the outside of the house? we want to decorate a bit for halloween but I like the idea of some lights we can program to different colors for various periods of the year. Anyone have any good halloween decorations they recommend?
I think Philips Hue also has outside lighting. maybe a start point for looking into that.
Hey house folks, anyone have good recommendations for lights on the outside of the house? we want to decorate a bit for halloween but I like the idea of some lights we can program to different colors for various periods of the year. Anyone have any good halloween decorations they recommend?
I think Philips Hue also has outside lighting. maybe a start point for looking into that.
They do. I only have indoor Hue lights but I have been looking at the outdoor stuff some time now.
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That_GuyI don't wanna be that guyRegistered Userregular
My roommate found out her house is technically set up for forced air heating despite almost every room being set up for electric baseboard heating (I think the previous owners put in central air they just got sold on the potential for forced air heating and paid for a furnace).
She thinks that using the forced air this winter will make it less dry in the house and that the forced air will be more efficient.
Except the forced air is also electric heating so, no.
Which means instead of just setting the thermostat in my room to "Don't turn on unless it's cold enough for me to die" I might have to find a way to plug the air duct >_<
There are many forced air solutions that are not electric resistance heating (the bad kind of electric heating). In many colder parts of the country, you're only going to find gas forced air furnaces. You can also hookup a heat pump system to a central internal air handler to provide both central heating and air conditioning to utilize existing ductwork. The latter is probably what your roommate should consider if she's going to be there long term. I'm guessing due to the electric baseboard heating, it doesn't get super cold there in the winter so heat pump heating should be sufficient. She also already has an air handler for central AC. She should talk to a HVAC contractor and discuss what it would cost to replace the AC unit with an appropriately sized heat pump system.
Edit: misread, thought she was looking at installing a forced air furnace, didn't realize there already was one. Advice still stands on considering replacing with a heat pump system down the road (if appropriate for your geographic location).
We live in North Dakota. The temp regularly spends weeks below 0℉ in the winter so a heat pump isn't really ideal for a large portion of the year.
Though obviously this varies quite a bit. Last year I think we only hit colder than -20℉ a handful of days rather than the normal handful of week long stretches.
Jesus, I can't even imagine how expensive electric resistance heat is in North Dakota. I'm a little shocked you don't have a gas furnace that far north.
The Mitsubishi hyper heat units go down to -13F but yeah won't cover all the heat needs for -20F. I'm actually considering getting a unit to handle most of the AC (to replace window units) and some ancillary heat for my old unit with hydronic radiators in the Chicago climate. The boiler system is very inefficient in the spring/fall and needs a little help when it gets below -5F.
Once the heat starts kicking in it's about a $60-70/month increase on our electrical bill I think? We also don't set the thermostat above 70 in the winter (though if I had my way it'd never go over 65 because we all own hoodies god damnit).
But in the upper plains I think we also tend to kind of overboard with insulation compared to a lot of other areas. Once you start dealing with sub zero temps for long stretches it really pays to insulate the shit out of everything.
Natural gas was never an option, though it just became one, but they aren't looking to replace the furnace or anything.
Not when we just found out today that the dishwasher needs to be replaced (yay burnt wiring and melted plastic!) and the washing machine can only get through about 1/20 spin cycles successfully.
My roommates' are opting to replace the dishwasher before the washing machine, which boo because I am utterly over having to fiddle with every damn load, but their house their call (and I see her point, sans dishwasher that would basically mean she has to wash every dish by hand because her husband won't because he's kind of a shithead when it comes to helping out with household chores)
Hand washing dishes is a hell of a lot easier than hand washing clothes.
But also fuck that husband. Because washing dishes is easy.
You can always take your dirty clothes to a laundromat. I've never seen a dishomat. Plus, washing dishes by hand uses A LOT more water and energy than using a dishwasher.
My roommate found out her house is technically set up for forced air heating despite almost every room being set up for electric baseboard heating (I think the previous owners put in central air they just got sold on the potential for forced air heating and paid for a furnace).
She thinks that using the forced air this winter will make it less dry in the house and that the forced air will be more efficient.
Except the forced air is also electric heating so, no.
Which means instead of just setting the thermostat in my room to "Don't turn on unless it's cold enough for me to die" I might have to find a way to plug the air duct >_<
There are many forced air solutions that are not electric resistance heating (the bad kind of electric heating). In many colder parts of the country, you're only going to find gas forced air furnaces. You can also hookup a heat pump system to a central internal air handler to provide both central heating and air conditioning to utilize existing ductwork. The latter is probably what your roommate should consider if she's going to be there long term. I'm guessing due to the electric baseboard heating, it doesn't get super cold there in the winter so heat pump heating should be sufficient. She also already has an air handler for central AC. She should talk to a HVAC contractor and discuss what it would cost to replace the AC unit with an appropriately sized heat pump system.
Edit: misread, thought she was looking at installing a forced air furnace, didn't realize there already was one. Advice still stands on considering replacing with a heat pump system down the road (if appropriate for your geographic location).
We live in North Dakota. The temp regularly spends weeks below 0℉ in the winter so a heat pump isn't really ideal for a large portion of the year.
Though obviously this varies quite a bit. Last year I think we only hit colder than -20℉ a handful of days rather than the normal handful of week long stretches.
Jesus, I can't even imagine how expensive electric resistance heat is in North Dakota. I'm a little shocked you don't have a gas furnace that far north.
The Mitsubishi hyper heat units go down to -13F but yeah won't cover all the heat needs for -20F. I'm actually considering getting a unit to handle most of the AC (to replace window units) and some ancillary heat for my old unit with hydronic radiators in the Chicago climate. The boiler system is very inefficient in the spring/fall and needs a little help when it gets below -5F.
Once the heat starts kicking in it's about a $60-70/month increase on our electrical bill I think? We also don't set the thermostat above 70 in the winter (though if I had my way it'd never go over 65 because we all own hoodies god damnit).
But in the upper plains I think we also tend to kind of overboard with insulation compared to a lot of other areas. Once you start dealing with sub zero temps for long stretches it really pays to insulate the shit out of everything.
Natural gas was never an option, though it just became one, but they aren't looking to replace the furnace or anything.
Not when we just found out today that the dishwasher needs to be replaced (yay burnt wiring and melted plastic!) and the washing machine can only get through about 1/20 spin cycles successfully.
My roommates' are opting to replace the dishwasher before the washing machine, which boo because I am utterly over having to fiddle with every damn load, but their house their call (and I see her point, sans dishwasher that would basically mean she has to wash every dish by hand because her husband won't because he's kind of a shithead when it comes to helping out with household chores)
Hand washing dishes is a hell of a lot easier than hand washing clothes.
But also fuck that husband. Because washing dishes is easy.
To be clear the washing machine still works it's just finicky as all hell because it has mostly lost it's ability to auto-balance loads. So there's a lot of manually rearranging wet clothes to try and get the spin cycle to finish but it will eventually finish if you babysit it long enough.
I had one in the whirlpool family and they have this issue where the spin sensor fails, so it acts like the load is unbalanced when it isn't. You can replace the part without too much hassle.
life's a game that you're bound to lose / like using a hammer to pound in screws
fuck up once and you break your thumb / if you're happy at all then you're god damn dumb
that's right we're on a fucked up cruise / God is dead but at least we have booze
bad things happen, no one knows why / the sun burns out and everyone dies
I had one in the whirlpool family and they have this issue where the spin sensor fails, so it acts like the load is unbalanced when it isn't. You can replace the part without too much hassle.
It is a whirlpool but it's definitely not balancing the load properly.
You can hear the "ca-chunk Ca-Chunk CA-CHUNK" before it automatically shuts down, tries to refill itself to rebalance the load, and then does the whole thing again before beeping. Which is why we babysit it so we can stop it as soon as it starts to do the ca-chunk thing and try and rebalance the load manually.
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That_GuyI don't wanna be that guyRegistered Userregular
I had one in the whirlpool family and they have this issue where the spin sensor fails, so it acts like the load is unbalanced when it isn't. You can replace the part without too much hassle.
It is a whirlpool but it's definitely not balancing the load properly.
You can hear the "ca-chunk Ca-Chunk CA-CHUNK" before it automatically shuts down, tries to refill itself to rebalance the load, and then does the whole thing again before beeping. Which is why we babysit it so we can stop it as soon as it starts to do the ca-chunk thing and try and rebalance the load manually.
Is it an upright or a front loader? I was having a similar problem with my front loader and it turned out the bearing on the motor that runs the drive belt had come loose. The bearing was shrink fit to the shaft so I had to get a whole new motor. However it was only about 30 bucks on ebay.
I had one in the whirlpool family and they have this issue where the spin sensor fails, so it acts like the load is unbalanced when it isn't. You can replace the part without too much hassle.
It is a whirlpool but it's definitely not balancing the load properly.
You can hear the "ca-chunk Ca-Chunk CA-CHUNK" before it automatically shuts down, tries to refill itself to rebalance the load, and then does the whole thing again before beeping. Which is why we babysit it so we can stop it as soon as it starts to do the ca-chunk thing and try and rebalance the load manually.
Is it an upright or a front loader? I was having a similar problem with my front loader and it turned out the bearing on the motor that runs the drive belt had come loose. The bearing was shrink fit to the shaft so I had to get a whole new motor. However it was only about 30 bucks on ebay.
It's an upright
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That_GuyI don't wanna be that guyRegistered Userregular
I had one in the whirlpool family and they have this issue where the spin sensor fails, so it acts like the load is unbalanced when it isn't. You can replace the part without too much hassle.
It is a whirlpool but it's definitely not balancing the load properly.
You can hear the "ca-chunk Ca-Chunk CA-CHUNK" before it automatically shuts down, tries to refill itself to rebalance the load, and then does the whole thing again before beeping. Which is why we babysit it so we can stop it as soon as it starts to do the ca-chunk thing and try and rebalance the load manually.
Is it an upright or a front loader? I was having a similar problem with my front loader and it turned out the bearing on the motor that runs the drive belt had come loose. The bearing was shrink fit to the shaft so I had to get a whole new motor. However it was only about 30 bucks on ebay.
It's an upright
If you feel up to it you can flip your washer on its front to check the drum and motor mounts as well as the drive belt. If you're lucky you can just tighten a couple of bolts or swap out the belt. I've found top-loaders to harder to work on so YMMV.
I had one in the whirlpool family and they have this issue where the spin sensor fails, so it acts like the load is unbalanced when it isn't. You can replace the part without too much hassle.
It is a whirlpool but it's definitely not balancing the load properly.
You can hear the "ca-chunk Ca-Chunk CA-CHUNK" before it automatically shuts down, tries to refill itself to rebalance the load, and then does the whole thing again before beeping. Which is why we babysit it so we can stop it as soon as it starts to do the ca-chunk thing and try and rebalance the load manually.
Is it an upright or a front loader? I was having a similar problem with my front loader and it turned out the bearing on the motor that runs the drive belt had come loose. The bearing was shrink fit to the shaft so I had to get a whole new motor. However it was only about 30 bucks on ebay.
It's an upright
If you feel up to it you can flip your washer on its front to check the drum and motor mounts as well as the drive belt. If you're lucky you can just tighten a couple of bolts or swap out the belt. I've found top-loaders to harder to work on so YMMV.
My roommate took a look at the usual suspects she was able to find after doing some digging but everything seemed fine.
My guess is that it's some kind of sensor issue with the autobalancing itself but yeah from what she said it looked like it would be really hard to get at a lot of the components without essentially disassembling the entire thing.
We're wrapping up a refinance on our mortgage this month. We only bought a year ago, but the estimated value on the house rose enough that we have over 20% equity now despite only doing a 10% down payment originally. We'll get to drop down from 3.65% to 3% and eliminate our PMI. The breakeven point on the refinance is less than a year, so it seemed more or less a no brainer.
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zepherinRussian warship, go fuck yourselfRegistered Userregular
We're wrapping up a refinance on our mortgage this month. We only bought a year ago, but the estimated value on the house rose enough that we have over 20% equity now despite only doing a 10% down payment originally. We'll get to drop down from 3.65% to 3% and eliminate our PMI. The breakeven point on the refinance is less than a year, so it seemed more or less a no brainer.
We refinanced after a year too, unfortunately we still have our PMI but we dropped our mortgage payment 200 bucks a month.
Speaking of lawn care, I've never enjoyed mowing my lawn and doing the trim work and all that, so I'm finally considering a lawn service. I'm guessing there are different levels of services I can get, do you all have experience with this stuff? Is it generally worth it?
Speaking of lawn care, I've never enjoyed mowing my lawn and doing the trim work and all that, so I'm finally considering a lawn service. I'm guessing there are different levels of services I can get, do you all have experience with this stuff? Is it generally worth it?
i still have teenage boys that "get" to mow the lawn. However, we do pay for weed/bug service and they come aerate in teh fall and reseed. I find it very worth it for the price. It's not that i couldn't do it but frankly it's one less thing i have to spend time doing that i don't enjoy and as long as you find a reputable company you can call them anytime there's an issue and they'll fix it. that has been worth it alone when we had a weed infestation creeping in.
Speaking of lawn care, I've never enjoyed mowing my lawn and doing the trim work and all that, so I'm finally considering a lawn service. I'm guessing there are different levels of services I can get, do you all have experience with this stuff? Is it generally worth it?
Depends on how busy you are, your equipment, etc. I always liked mowing the lawn. We had a decent sized lot growing up and so we had a riding lawn mower. It was so much fun to go outside and drive it around when I was a kid. When I bought my first house, it had a massive yard (2+ acres) and I didn't have any equipment. Given that the house was run down and I was spending a lot of my free time tearing up carpet, removing wallpaper, etc, I ended up paying a service and it was totally worth it. Could I have bought a nice riding lawnmower for the total cost of lawncare for the 5-6 years I was there? Sure. But the time saved for me was pretty valuable as well.
It wasn't so much fun for the first month while I made a decision about paying someone vs buying something, I used my mom's weedwacker to "mow" the front yard so the city wouldn't fine me lol.
Ouch, got our initial quotes for replacing the current heat pump and furnace with a whole house system. Going with Daikin comes out to about $25k, Mitsubishi is $34k.
I haven't cut my own lawn since I moved here in 2012. I set a nominal rate of $40/hr based on how I value my time. I guessed it would take me 1-2 hrs to do it myself.
I'm on my 3rd or 4th lawn company for various reasons. I don't care how long it takes them to do the lawn, as long as they charge me at or below my estimated cost.
Overall I'm happy with the results. There are a few nitpicky things like me wanting them to vary how they cut the grass so it doesn't make ruts, but I consider that part of the control I'm giving up by having someone else do it.
If you think you'll be anal about it, do it yourself.
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zepherinRussian warship, go fuck yourselfRegistered Userregular
Ouch, got our initial quotes for replacing the current heat pump and furnace with a whole house system. Going with Daikin comes out to about $25k, Mitsubishi is $34k.
That's a lot. Have you considered just replacing the heat pump and furnace and having them re-balance your system?
In roofing news. I got a second price and it was about the same so 14k is the cost of a new 50 year shingle roof in Maryland.
I told my wife to expect about 1600-2k in change orders as well, because they didn't put down any underlayment when they installed the roof to begin with so a good amount of plywood is going to be shit .
We'd like AC downstairs. The heat dome this year showed just how uncomfortable it can get. The current heat pump only does the bedrooms and there's no room for expansion. They didn't include the air handler option in the quote, so I'll probably go back and request an estimate for that. If they zone the ducting so we have upstairs and downstairs it might be a reasonable alternative. The systems quoted were 5 head systems.
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zepherinRussian warship, go fuck yourselfRegistered Userregular
We'd like AC downstairs. The heat dome this year showed just how uncomfortable it can get. The current heat pump only does the bedrooms and there's no room for expansion. They didn't include the air handler option in the quote, so I'll probably go back and request an estimate for that. If they zone the ducting so we have upstairs and downstairs it might be a reasonable alternative. The systems quoted were 5 head systems.
It's such a mess how it is right now.
My initial instinct is to add ducting and go 5 ton condenser and coolant line outside, but I imagine your duct work is undersized because of the way this addition was done. Call the estimator that came out, and see if that's an option. It might save some money.
The upstairs is actually fully ducted, despite the heat pump. They hooked everything up to the old furnace. The estimator had said one option would be an air handler with 2 thermostats that take the average temp between the two locations. It would just be less efficient because the house's floor plan would always channel the downstairs heat upstairs.
When we were doing the walkthrough the owner's wife was going on and on about how much she loved that glass block window, she had it put in CUSTOM, it was her favorite part of the house.
Just put the final coat of polycrylic on my first actual woodworking project. It’s essentially a box to cover half of a double vanity and convert it into a split level countertop/sink (covering one of the sinks).
This took so much longer than it needed to and I made a huge number of minor (but noticeable!) mistakes, not least choosing to start with a large project with visible joints that will be mostly white.
Really couldn’t have asked for a less forgiving starter project, but it feels good to be in the final drying period.
Next project will be small… or a full-sized workbench
Just put the final coat of polycrylic on my first actual woodworking project. It’s essentially a box to cover half of a double vanity and convert it into a split level countertop/sink (covering one of the sinks).
This took so much longer than it needed to and I made a huge number of minor (but noticeable!) mistakes, not least choosing to start with a large project with visible joints that will be mostly white.
Really couldn’t have asked for a less forgiving starter project, but it feels good to be in the final drying period.
Next project will be small… or a full-sized workbench
Learning how to cover up your mistakes is half the battle!
Just put the final coat of polycrylic on my first actual woodworking project. It’s essentially a box to cover half of a double vanity and convert it into a split level countertop/sink (covering one of the sinks).
This took so much longer than it needed to and I made a huge number of minor (but noticeable!) mistakes, not least choosing to start with a large project with visible joints that will be mostly white.
Really couldn’t have asked for a less forgiving starter project, but it feels good to be in the final drying period.
Next project will be small… or a full-sized workbench
Learning how to cover up your mistakes is half the battle!
The one clever move I gathered for covering up some real shoddy seams on the top surface (themselves only visible due to an earlier mistake when I rabbeted the wrong board and decided to roll with it) was adding mitered trim to the top face’s edges. They completely cover the joint seams and provide a kind of guardrail so it should be harder for things to fall off.
It’s made me realize that more tables need guardrails.
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Our floorplan, rougly, looks like this:
The current outdoor unit is on the outer wall of the addition next to the MB. The entire upstairs and garage was an addition the previous owners had built about 15 years ago.
Laurel is nice, we had some friends that lived there. A nice spot if you work in College Park. Columbia is also really nice and has good schools. We're in Silver Spring now, which is nice but we were priced out home buying wise. We take walks in the nearby neighborhood and most of the homes there are over 1 million.
The ideal situation would be to sell high, rent, then buy low. However the DMV area seems pretty resistant to decreases, so it could be a toss up that stuff gets much cheaper here in the future.
Amazing. As is the beige outlet, old school!
She thinks that using the forced air this winter will make it less dry in the house and that the forced air will be more efficient.
Except the forced air is also electric heating so, no.
Which means instead of just setting the thermostat in my room to "Don't turn on unless it's cold enough for me to die" I might have to find a way to plug the air duct >_<
Our furnace has a bypass duct that we open during heating season that runs the warm air over essentially a wet pad with an electrically controlled valve.
I guess there really isn't much to see since the end product got buried but here's some pics anyway.
Ended up with just the French drain sections. As we trenched everything we saw that my soul was still quite loamy and sandy with no clay at all. Had some fun dealing with a couple of gnarly roots and that absolute unit of a boulder we had to get out.
And then right as we were raking up the last of the dirt the rain came. Could hear it plinking away as it dropped through the downspout and then... well there's nothing more to see!
I'm just hoping I got everything deep enough that the grass can actually grow back and everything doesn't pop out after a couple years of erosion.
fuck up once and you break your thumb / if you're happy at all then you're god damn dumb
that's right we're on a fucked up cruise / God is dead but at least we have booze
bad things happen, no one knows why / the sun burns out and everyone dies
There are many forced air solutions that are not electric resistance heating (the bad kind of electric heating). In many colder parts of the country, you're only going to find gas forced air furnaces. You can also hookup a heat pump system to a central internal air handler to provide both central heating and air conditioning to utilize existing ductwork. The latter is probably what your roommate should consider if she's going to be there long term. I'm guessing due to the electric baseboard heating, it doesn't get super cold there in the winter so heat pump heating should be sufficient. She also already has an air handler for central AC. She should talk to a HVAC contractor and discuss what it would cost to replace the AC unit with an appropriately sized heat pump system.
Edit: misread, thought she was looking at installing a forced air furnace, didn't realize there already was one. Advice still stands on considering replacing with a heat pump system down the road (if appropriate for your geographic location).
We live in North Dakota. The temp regularly spends weeks below 0℉ in the winter so a heat pump isn't really ideal for a large portion of the year.
Though obviously this varies quite a bit. Last year I think we only hit colder than -20℉ a handful of days rather than the normal handful of week long stretches.
Jesus, I can't even imagine how expensive electric resistance heat is in North Dakota. I'm a little shocked you don't have a gas furnace that far north.
The Mitsubishi hyper heat units go down to -13F but yeah won't cover all the heat needs for -20F. I'm actually considering getting a unit to handle most of the AC (to replace window units) and some ancillary heat for my old unit with hydronic radiators in the Chicago climate. The boiler system is very inefficient in the spring/fall and needs a little help when it gets below -5F.
Once the heat starts kicking in it's about a $60-70/month increase on our electrical bill I think? We also don't set the thermostat above 70 in the winter (though if I had my way it'd never go over 65 because we all own hoodies god damnit).
But in the upper plains I think we also tend to kind of overboard with insulation compared to a lot of other areas. Once you start dealing with sub zero temps for long stretches it really pays to insulate the shit out of everything.
Natural gas was never an option, though it just became one, but they aren't looking to replace the furnace or anything.
Not when we just found out today that the dishwasher needs to be replaced (yay burnt wiring and melted plastic!) and the washing machine can only get through about 1/20 spin cycles successfully.
My roommates' are opting to replace the dishwasher before the washing machine, which boo because I am utterly over having to fiddle with every damn load, but their house their call (and I see her point, sans dishwasher that would basically mean she has to wash every dish by hand because her husband won't because he's kind of a shithead when it comes to helping out with household chores)
Hand washing dishes is a hell of a lot easier than hand washing clothes.
But also fuck that husband. Because washing dishes is easy.
I think Philips Hue also has outside lighting. maybe a start point for looking into that.
They do. I only have indoor Hue lights but I have been looking at the outdoor stuff some time now.
You can always take your dirty clothes to a laundromat. I've never seen a dishomat. Plus, washing dishes by hand uses A LOT more water and energy than using a dishwasher.
To be clear the washing machine still works it's just finicky as all hell because it has mostly lost it's ability to auto-balance loads. So there's a lot of manually rearranging wet clothes to try and get the spin cycle to finish but it will eventually finish if you babysit it long enough.
I had one in the whirlpool family and they have this issue where the spin sensor fails, so it acts like the load is unbalanced when it isn't. You can replace the part without too much hassle.
fuck up once and you break your thumb / if you're happy at all then you're god damn dumb
that's right we're on a fucked up cruise / God is dead but at least we have booze
bad things happen, no one knows why / the sun burns out and everyone dies
It is a whirlpool but it's definitely not balancing the load properly.
You can hear the "ca-chunk Ca-Chunk CA-CHUNK" before it automatically shuts down, tries to refill itself to rebalance the load, and then does the whole thing again before beeping. Which is why we babysit it so we can stop it as soon as it starts to do the ca-chunk thing and try and rebalance the load manually.
Is it an upright or a front loader? I was having a similar problem with my front loader and it turned out the bearing on the motor that runs the drive belt had come loose. The bearing was shrink fit to the shaft so I had to get a whole new motor. However it was only about 30 bucks on ebay.
It's an upright
If you feel up to it you can flip your washer on its front to check the drum and motor mounts as well as the drive belt. If you're lucky you can just tighten a couple of bolts or swap out the belt. I've found top-loaders to harder to work on so YMMV.
My roommate took a look at the usual suspects she was able to find after doing some digging but everything seemed fine.
My guess is that it's some kind of sensor issue with the autobalancing itself but yeah from what she said it looked like it would be really hard to get at a lot of the components without essentially disassembling the entire thing.
Blizzard: Pailryder#1101
GoG: https://www.gog.com/u/pailryder
i still have teenage boys that "get" to mow the lawn. However, we do pay for weed/bug service and they come aerate in teh fall and reseed. I find it very worth it for the price. It's not that i couldn't do it but frankly it's one less thing i have to spend time doing that i don't enjoy and as long as you find a reputable company you can call them anytime there's an issue and they'll fix it. that has been worth it alone when we had a weed infestation creeping in.
Blizzard: Pailryder#1101
GoG: https://www.gog.com/u/pailryder
Depends on how busy you are, your equipment, etc. I always liked mowing the lawn. We had a decent sized lot growing up and so we had a riding lawn mower. It was so much fun to go outside and drive it around when I was a kid. When I bought my first house, it had a massive yard (2+ acres) and I didn't have any equipment. Given that the house was run down and I was spending a lot of my free time tearing up carpet, removing wallpaper, etc, I ended up paying a service and it was totally worth it. Could I have bought a nice riding lawnmower for the total cost of lawncare for the 5-6 years I was there? Sure. But the time saved for me was pretty valuable as well.
It wasn't so much fun for the first month while I made a decision about paying someone vs buying something, I used my mom's weedwacker to "mow" the front yard so the city wouldn't fine me lol.
I'm on my 3rd or 4th lawn company for various reasons. I don't care how long it takes them to do the lawn, as long as they charge me at or below my estimated cost.
Overall I'm happy with the results. There are a few nitpicky things like me wanting them to vary how they cut the grass so it doesn't make ruts, but I consider that part of the control I'm giving up by having someone else do it.
If you think you'll be anal about it, do it yourself.
In roofing news. I got a second price and it was about the same so 14k is the cost of a new 50 year shingle roof in Maryland.
I told my wife to expect about 1600-2k in change orders as well, because they didn't put down any underlayment when they installed the roof to begin with so a good amount of plywood is going to be shit .
My initial instinct is to add ducting and go 5 ton condenser and coolant line outside, but I imagine your duct work is undersized because of the way this addition was done. Call the estimator that came out, and see if that's an option. It might save some money.
When we were doing the walkthrough the owner's wife was going on and on about how much she loved that glass block window, she had it put in CUSTOM, it was her favorite part of the house.
My wife plans to destroy it out of spite.
This took so much longer than it needed to and I made a huge number of minor (but noticeable!) mistakes, not least choosing to start with a large project with visible joints that will be mostly white.
Really couldn’t have asked for a less forgiving starter project, but it feels good to be in the final drying period.
Next project will be small… or a full-sized workbench
Learning how to cover up your mistakes is half the battle!
Workbenches are fun. If you're going traditional, read the free PDF here: https://lostartpress.com/products/the-anarchists-workbench
The one clever move I gathered for covering up some real shoddy seams on the top surface (themselves only visible due to an earlier mistake when I rabbeted the wrong board and decided to roll with it) was adding mitered trim to the top face’s edges. They completely cover the joint seams and provide a kind of guardrail so it should be harder for things to fall off.
It’s made me realize that more tables need guardrails.