vinceg101 wrote:It's not really all that out of the ordinary for the house we work on...
Really? What all do they run? From what I can see the right panel might be stereo, er music, but on a computer level how much can you need/use? Oh sure, a bunch of tera if you have a large video collection, but you don't need all that much hardware to run a bunch of hard drives. I guess it shows what I know. Or perhaps more what I don't know.
You would be surprised. Once you start wiring up every room with multiple sources of audio, video, and in Charlie's case: smart home interface the hardware and wiring requirements start to stack up. Throw in a home theater, security interface, telephones, smoke & fire detection and remote off-site controls and yeah, your equipment closet starts looking like Charlie's.
Or this one from one of our recent projects; this was just A/V and doesn't include the theater which is a stand-alone system:
Interesting, the wiring I would expect, miles and miles of it. But I would have expected less hardware to run it.
vinceg101 wrote:It's not really all that out of the ordinary for the house we work on...
Really? What all do they run? From what I can see the right panel might be stereo, er music, but on a computer level how much can you need/use? Oh sure, a bunch of tera if you have a large video collection, but you don't need all that much hardware to run a bunch of hard drives. I guess it shows what I know. Or perhaps more what I don't know.
You would be surprised. Once you start wiring up every room with multiple sources of audio, video, and in Charlie's case: smart home interface the hardware and wiring requirements start to stack up. Throw in a home theater, security interface, telephones, smoke & fire detection and remote off-site controls and yeah, your equipment closet starts looking like Charlie's.
Or this one from one of our recent projects; this was just A/V and doesn't include the theater which is a stand-alone system:
Interesting, the wiring I would expect, miles and miles of it. But I would have expected less hardware to run it.
In the case of my photo, all that was client driven since he is a major music industry player and had some very specific, high powered requirements. Most of what you see in that photo is the equipment to high end audio & video to run the entire house with the ability to control multiple sources room by room/space by space as well as on the fly from mobile devices. The client uses his 1937 15,000 s.f. mansion for business and entertaining a lot so the concept was that guests and artists could easily port music & video to the house system in whatever room or space they were in (including service rooms like the Kitchen, baths, staff offices, exterior patios, etc.). Also the system has the ability to run and port different multiple media streams to almost every room/space simultaneously. When he entertains with over 100 people who are spread out over the house (as well as residents upstairs), each room and space is like a different party depending on who is in it at that time. There are docking stations for iPods and iPads, WAP's, local speaker connections, TV's (large & small) pretty much everywhere; all hidden of course. In some of the specific rooms (his Office, the main Bar, Den) the in-wall hidden speakers will make you cry.
Back down to earth after the most recent subthread.
Walked into the upstairs bathroom a few days ago. And went squish-squish. Not a good feeling. Sparing some of the details, the toilet tank was cracked. Right from the flush handle hole on down to the bottom. No abuse, it just cracked. We'll see if the cheapie replacement from Home Depot works out ok. I sure hope so, I hate working on toilets.
The switched light bulb in my garage quit working last week. Replacing the bulb didn't remedy the problem; turned out that the 70 year old light fixture was the cause of the problem, so I yanked that out and replaced it with a light fixture box extension ring & plate with a duplex outlet; into that I plugged the cord for the shop light fixture I've used forever with the pull string. I also replaced the old flourescent tubes with a pair of Feit Electric 4-foot LED plug & play tubes. Dang but that worked out well. Far brighter than the old fluorescents, and instant-on full light no matter how cold it is! The LED tubes came from Costco; a 2-pack was about $13. Fantastic deal.
Oh, and last week the doors we ordered finally arrived and got installed. The doors work great, but I've got a beef with the guy who measured for them, and with the guy who installed them. They made a big show of measuring to make sure they got the right size and all, but the frames on the new doors were a good 1 1/2" shorter than what came out. So there was this gaping hole above the brick mould that they filled with a piece of aluminum and a fair bit of silicone caulk. Plus when the back door was installed, he broke up a piece of siding pretty badly, then tacked it together with more of the clear silicone caulk. Dang. I thought going with this outfit would be a good idea because I've had trouble installing exterior doors before; now I wish I would've just done it myself.
And to top it off, the windows set in the doors have double-panes with the plastic strips that simulate "lites" in the windows; the doors are finished in a deep burgundy, but the strips are white. White. When we ordered the doors, the photo samples that we were shown were all white, and I didn't think to ask about the color of those strips. Now that they're in, they just stand out like sore thumbs to me. Less than satisfied customer here...
spent most of the day taking electrical boxes apart trying to find the break in the wire for the upstairs lights. gotta love old wiring that falls apart when its touched. was a nightmare.
davintosh wrote: Dang. I thought going with this outfit would be a good idea because I've had trouble installing exterior doors before; now I wish I would've just done it myself.
I got into buildings occupationally, but same thing. I got into cars first because I couldn't afford to pay someone to work on it, then I continued because I kind of enjoyed it, and now I don't trust anyone to do the kind of work I do!
Just finished another big renovation in my place in Florida. New floors, and as a consequence, new bathrooms. When the bathrooms were tiled last, they tiled AROUND the toilets and vanities. So to do the new tile, it all had to come out. It was nasty 1980's crap anyway, so no great loss. Other than having to do both bathrooms pretty much at the same time. So new tile throughout the kitchen, dining room, living room and hall and both bathrooms, and new carpet in the two bedrooms. And then the fun part, as I did the bathrooms myself. I couldn't find any vanities I liked, so I started with IKEA kitchen cabinets and cut them down to the right size. Vessel sinks so I could have two full height drawers in each for storage. New toilets - and it was a HUGE PITA to get non-chair height toilets in SW FL (too many old people). Was a fun project, but thankfully I had a friend's empty house I could stay at while the floors were being done and until I got one new toilet installed.
Also thankfully - it's only a 750sq/ft house - turns out I have REALLY expensive taste in tile...
For now, I did not have the shower stall in the master bath or the tub surround in the hall bath re-tiled. That is next year's project. Need to let the wallet recover a tad.
I have pics on my Flickr account - along with various car pics and model railroad crap:
The gutter/yard drain wasn't draining well lately, and we have had some rain so far this year for a change. I tried shoving a hose in, but only got about 7 feet, so out comes the shovel. At first I thought it was just lazy installation resulting in a collapsed drain line due to big rocks on top, but once I got it out the real culprit emerged, an old tennis ball. Oh well, parts were cheap and my labor doesn't count.
My house is a hodgepodge of stuff built by morons. The house itself was built in the mid 50s. It attaches behind a single story structure that was originally a store and an outboard motor shop for the marina that used to be across the street. On the side is a crappy 1 car garage. The garage was covered in ugly brown stucco in bad condition, the house is sided in nice aluminum siding that happens to be a fugly yellow. We decided to have the ugly stucco sided with grey siding, and the house will be painted to match.
Enter the check.
The front wall of the garage is about 12' wide, the door is narrow to the point where I can just barely squeeze a Chevy S10 through it without losing a mirror. Above the door, the stucco had a bulge, which I always thought was just the bad stucco work. Not so. The header above the garage door is four 10' 2x8 beams. Three of these are rotted, and the remaining one has a nice dip in it. The blocks above the "header" are sagging, and the bulge in the stucco is because the blocks are basically trying to cave in. The fix is going to require tearing the front wall off the garage and rebuilding it with proper lintels.
I rarely follow some of the discussion outside of techtalk but I should as there is some really interesting stuff here. And as I would expect some of you into the old BMW's are also capable of some fantastic work. Impressive.
So I will share my latest project I am finally wrapping up which was a bathroom renovation. It needed absolutely everything gutted and redone and I am a bit ashamed to admit how long it has been in the works. It's a small bathroom since it's and old (1930's) house but we squeezed in everything we wanted. I just finished (this week) putting in glass shower door and surround made to my drawings by a great shop and nice people in Nashville. I think they thought I might be a little crazy to attempt it myself but I'm happy (wife is also) with the results. It's more or less her bath in the morning and now I literally just have a bit more caulk to apply in a spot or two to be done.
The marble subway and floor is a little wet yet since I was the first to use this the other day and took the pictures afterwards to show a friend at work.
The vanity is from locally sourced Tennessee walnut from a great place in town but all the fabrication done by me in my basement shop. Custom size as nothing we could find would fit the small space we have. A local guy made the top for me to my drawing again. This has actually been in place for quite a long time and same for the storage cabinet I made to the right that hides behind the door when it is open.
That is one nice job on the vanity. I have a replacement down stairs waiting for the faucets and stuff. Yesterday, I re-installed a casement sash that needed a stile. I filled the hole with the screen wrapped in a poly drop cloth folded 4 times
Last edited by a on Jan 11, 2019 8:10 PM, edited 1 time in total.
Replaced short sections of wooden underhang and facia, now caulked and ready to paint when the weather improves...don't want to know how many times I climbed up and down the ladder
had the joy of taking apart the washing machine to clean the drain trap. Full of coins, lint, a label, and 5 years of general nastiness. Stack unit, pump on the bottom with no access panel. Drier comes off, washer comes apart from the top down. 2 hours of not a lot of fun, but at least I didn't have to buy a replacement, remove the downstairs toilet, remove the back door, and exchange machines.
So you would have to remove the toilet and the back door to get the washer out? My house was built in the 1930's and the idea of appliances as big as they are now wasn't considered yet. I've had to remove some doors and things but not a toilet.
tn535i wrote:So you would have to remove the toilet and the back door to get the washer out? My house was built in the 1930's and the idea of appliances as big as they are now wasn't considered yet. I've had to remove some doors and things but not a toilet.
Common problem.
Consider that most of the small houses from the 1920's up to the 1940's weren't even designed to house a refrigerator of any size let alone the beasts everyone seems to have these days. This was our problem in our Kitchen; we lost a lot of real estate trying to find a functional place for one.
tn535i wrote:So you would have to remove the toilet and the back door to get the washer out? My house was built in the 1930's and the idea of appliances as big as they are now wasn't considered yet. I've had to remove some doors and things but not a toilet.
The toilet wasn't an original feature. I have a utility room with the heater, washer/dryer and water heater in it. There is a door to the outside big enough to get things through, and a skinny door into the kitchen. The toilet was added later and it happens to be just far enough away from the outside door to let it swing but thats it. The door is slightly recessed in the wall so it won't swing back to the wall. You can get some things through without removing stuff, but its a PITA.
I have to preface this by saying since moving into my ancestral home a couple years ago, I've systematically removed all the bulbs throughout this 84-year-old house and replaced them with LEDs. I am particularly fond of the Philips products, including their candelabra-shaped bulbs with normal bases (4.5W), as well as their "SceneSwitch" bulbs which switch between a soft white, a daylight, and a warm glow. Each setting is found by turning the light off and on and cycling through the settings. And it remembers the last setting when you turn it off. Clever and simple.
But I wanted to start replacing some wall switches with smart dimmer switches, and there are too many to choose from. I decided upon a GE Bluetooth In-Wall Smart Dimmer... for the outdoor sconce on my porch since I wanted to operate it on a timer instead of the motion detector it had been using. One had to install a special Bluetooth app to talk to it. As it turned out, as the only device, one needed to be within a few feet of the switch... making the whole idea really, really silly. But I liked the timer aspect of it, and it has worked reliably. But I wanted to go further.
I have a mogul (E39) base standing lamp from the 1920s with a 100-200-300 watt bulb that would heat up the room. Since they also had a "GE Bluetooth Smart PlugIn Dimmer", I decided to find a bright LED Philips bulb, get a E26 -> Mogul base converter, and simply use the dimmer with that fixture. I decided to install another In-Wall Smart Dimmer for the gorgeous dining room chandelier. It now has six 4.5W LED bulbs in it, but even though I'm using 27 watts instead of at least 360W (if not 450 or 600), the bulbs were way too bright and the dimmer helped.
So the two things I learned were critical: as these are all using Bluetooth, they communicate with each other in the exact same way a mesh network works. From a marketing perspective this is genius -- the more of them you use in your home, the stronger the network is, and the easier you have reaching any devices. And now, on two levels of the home (there are 4), I'm using 3 (soon to be a 4th in the garage for floods) in-wall dimmers, one plug-in dimmer, and four plug-in switches (where I use the SceneSwitch bulbs). The more I add switches, the better it works because of the strength of the mesh network. Very slick. The other thing I learned is that the in-wall dimmers require a neutral wire. You can use a ground jumper wire (they provide) if need be.
Philosophically, I have concerns about smart homes and smart appliances. When it comes to light circuitry, I do NOT believe in smart bulbs (too expensive when they break), I do NOT believe in special weird-bulb LED fixtures where if the bulb goes, you're replacing the fixture because no one will be selling the replacement bulb at that point, and I do NOT believe in putting the logic in the fixture itself (like some Halo recessed fixtures). I believe the best place to place the logic is in the switch. I will be replacing an old inefficient halogen flood light outside next spring, and I will probably use a standard outdoor fixture, with standard outdoor LED dimmable floods. And I'll put those on an in-wall smart dimmer.
Finally, the last thing I got was one of those Halo bridge devices that basically connects the Internet Of Things Bluetooth network that all these devices speak on, to my WIFI network. Now there was no way, as an IT Security engineer would I place the devices on my existing network, and using a "guest network" for these devices didn't seem enough, so I'm using a physically separate router that only will have IoT devices on it. Right now, there's only the one Halo device. As with all security, you simply need to make it difficult enough for the criminal to move onto the next guy. That keeps everyone out except the government, and if the government is trying to break into your shit, you have bigger problems. And if you're still reading this far, the last thing I did was name all my lamps after South Park characters and integrate it with Alexa. So I can say, "Turn on Cartman to 50 percent!" and it does...
Since I just had to install a new steam boiler for the house this winter, and I live alone, I'm definitely going to get an Ecobee 4 thermostat and some sensors to measure temps in order to properly balance out my radiators (put adjustable valves on all the radiators; some were 84 years old). I need to be able to be certain to turn off the heat when I'm not home, and have it kick in 20 minutes before I arrive home. My hours vary, and the ability to change the heat with my phone or computer is important. I will be installing cameras on the property (recent burglaries in my hood) but not the type that force you to buy cloud space so they can get you for a subscription, as recent news indicates poor security protecting your data. The cameras will be a homegrown system. I may also have electronic curtains in one room, but that's a couple years out.
I don't trust locks (or my garage door opener) to these devices. Anyone else getting into smart home devices? Thoughts?
A lot of those IOT devices are not very secure, and the companies that make them aren't always good about patching security issues.
I'm actually in the market for an honest to goodness mercury thermostat for heat/ac to replace the spaztastic digital POS in my house. I did that in the garage and now the heat works when I need it to.
A lot of those IOT devices are not very secure, and the companies that make them aren't always good about patching security issues.
I'm actually in the market for an honest to goodness mercury thermostat for heat/ac to replace the spaztastic digital POS in my house. I did that in the garage and now the heat works when I need it to.
I go back and forth between a very high level of caution such as you are suggesting and giving myself a dope slap saying it's the 21st century, get used to it.
You are 100% correct. This is precisely why I will not trust door locks or doorbells that connect you to their servers. My camera solution will be home grown. And I isolated all IoT devices on a physically separate network.
I realized that I had never given much thought to how my garage was set up; I never felt I had the funds to do anything with it. I still don't have the funds but have a good collection of plywood and dimension lumber left over from past remodels. I also had used old rolling Sun Micosystem Cabinets for "closets" and they just did not work. I have a 2 car garage with four feet on either side of the door.
Before and after pictures of the right side:
Before there were 4 computer cabinets, 3 sun, one shark rack. They were superbly built but were 3 feet in depth, no room to get by at the door and they blocked a nice west facing window.
After. The racks are gone, much lighter. This part of the garage is still a work in progress (AKA, a mess). I plan on having a work table in the corner near the door to do any painting/gluing/things that are flammable.
Before and after pictures of the left side:
My neighbor got laid off his job and is a carpenter by trade; he built the cabinet in the pictures here for me. I did the paint. The only thing we bought were the bike rack and the closet doors and hardware. Hence the "Desert Mud" paint color.
Before:
After:
All of the cruft that did not go to the good will or the dump wound up in here:
And the bikes wound up here:
Here is a picture of the closet/shelves under construction:
The construction/code gang here will probably call out having the circuit breaker box in the closet. If it becomes an issue I will take off the door.
On the right side of the garage nearer the furnace I built what I would call a "fastener cabinet". All due respect to the cabinet makers it would be generous to say it is a cabinet. But. It fits and I only had to buy hinges. Notice the caster under leading edge of the door.
Even though the load rating for the hinges was 180 lbs, leverage dictated I do something to stabilize the door so it won't turn the door into a parallelogram so I put an industrial strength caster under it. I had to repeatedly shim it and hang the door to test given the floor dropped going away from the wall. Not much, but it did not take much to make it unworkable. I install pilaster strips in both the wall portion and the door so the shelves are adjustable. What is in there now are tools and my specialty tool-boxes; masonry tools on top, green box is paint brushes and painting tools, yellow box is all the shitty little houseware stuff, bottom orange is plumbing tools (pipe wrenches, etc). I have a couple of crates of spackle, nails, screws, sandpaper, etc. that I originally envisioned here so I will probably have to re-think it all.
I hope this does not bore anyone over-much. I am medically retired and have a long list of house jobs I want to do and realized I was treading junk every time I went to do some small chore. Suggestions are most welcome, criticism in any form is alright too. I am making this up as I go along.
sail_or_drive wrote: Jul 27, 2020 9:37 PM
Reorganizing my Garage.
I hope this does not bore anyone over-much. I am medically retired and have a long list of house jobs I want to do and realized I was treading junk every time I went to do some small chore. Suggestions are most welcome, criticism in any form is alright too. I am making this up as I go along.
Not boring in the least. I like your idea of a caster at the bottom of that door/cabinet.
This spring/summer was supposed to be the great backyard/house upgrade, but a pandemic got in the way so I don't even want to go rent tools and so much of what I want to do hinges on doing something else first. I got solar in just in time, but money to spend on other stuff, but it's not the right time.
sail_or_drive wrote: Jul 27, 2020 9:37 PM
Reorganizing my Garage.
I've enjoyed this thread. And I've done many many money saving and recycling of used things for jobs similar to yours. I think those stay in the basement or garage but up in the 'real' part of the house I'm the other extreme usually So I go from perfectionist (where I think my work matches any professional) to near hack (no offense meant). But what really matters is if it makes you happy and works and is convenient. Sometimes I think the 'hack' work is more fun than the other. It's about like building a tree fort when you were kid from scavenged lumber and nails from construction sites. Thank God I never fell out of any of mine!
I've lately been helping my son with a few projects at his house so not much happening at my own. I might take a few pictures to share. Son has some of the nicest storage since I sprung for those boltless shelving units as a Christmas present and then we cut particle board and put polyurethane on everything. We also built a huge shelf across the top of the garage doors suspended by threaded rod with a center section off the beam that can be used to lift his motorcycle. Recently finished turning concrete basement walls into nice insulated drywall so that it looks just like any interior with a small bathroom and kitchenette going in under and beside the stairs. Makes for a nice home theater room and he has a vintage pool table down there to boot.
I would never advocate restricting access to the service panel personally and at work it's a huge No! But homeowner's can do what they please and little chance of getting called out for code violations. I've done many things a pro would need permit and inspection and at home or with my son we try to follow code. On my bathroom remodel a while back (in this thread previous page a couple pictures) I actually called the codes people and when I told them what I planned to do the guy said "It sounds like you'll be alright... No inspection needed". I'm sure everything I did was much better than the circa 1935 stuff I tore out. I'm imagine I met some level of codes that existed between 1935 and 2020
sail_or_drive wrote: Jul 27, 2020 9:37 PM
Reorganizing my Garage.
I hope this does not bore anyone over-much. I am medically retired and have a long list of house jobs I want to do and realized I was treading junk every time I went to do some small chore. Suggestions are most welcome, criticism in any form is alright too. I am making this up as I go along.
Not boring in the least. I like your idea of a caster at the bottom of that door/cabinet.
This spring/summer was supposed to be the great backyard/house upgrade, but a pandemic got in the way so I don't even want to go rent tools and so much of what I want to do hinges on doing something else first. I got solar in just in time, but money to spend on other stuff, but it's not the right time.
Are you happy with solar? We are so far, biggest bill so far this (hot!!!) summer has been 50 dollars.
south26 wrote: Jul 28, 2020 2:07 PM
Are you happy with solar? We are so far, biggest bill so far this (hot!!!) summer has been 50 dollars.
Andy
Not really at least so far. I'm generating a ton of Kwh, but I'm still getting billed for using Kwh. The local utility PGE is of course infamous for it's fires and explosions killing many people, so ethics probably aren't high on their list, nor is customer service. I'm generating more than expected, almost 1,000 Kwh a month and historical usage has been in the 500-550 a month range. This last bill was lower, $40-50 including gas, but they're just robbing me, they're thieves. They used to put the meter reading on the bill but no longer do so since it's going down, but somehow that doesn't matter. But that's not news. I suspect it will all work out eventually, but perhaps not quite as well as I'd hoped.
Oh well, parts were cheap and my labor doesn't count.
