Yea if it has been 2 weeks I would definitely suggest calling to make sure you get that stuff.

5/19/2010 1:10:09 PM

well, my insurance agent just let me know that the title company has made out the check to the wrong company, so that's why i haven't received my policy yet. Buying foreclosed house and dealing with title company out-of-state FTL.

5/19/2010 1:24:20 PM

my shower head was clogged due to hard water so i soaked it in CLR for a few hours

everything was legit for like 5 days then the shower head blew off and the plastic ring that attaches it was cracked.

haha oops. using the spare bathroom until i can get to lowes to pick out a new one

5/19/2010 8:15:50 PM

Just bought my first house and I'm already having woes Does anyone know of a good sound resistant window product?

I'm like 4 or 5 miles from the airport in Charlotte and it seems the windows in my house are the SUPER cheap variety...and are letting in a good bit more noise (not to mention potential energy loss) than I realized when considering the house. I'd probably get used to it pretty quick, but wanted to see how expensive it would be just to upgrade the windows.

5/19/2010 9:34:19 PM

my a/c unit in my attic is producing a lot of water into the drain pan so much so that the water overflows out the drain pipe at the side of my house and this is constant.....

is this abnormal and how to fix?

5/19/2010 10:51:00 PM

about windows, might be worth the time to look into windows that can get you a tax break

not sure what the details are but something could be out there, might as well save some dollars on the tax end of it!

^ sounds abnormal to me.. google it?

oh i also want to buy another place and rent out my townhouse. move downtown into a small house or condo type place

[Edited on May 19, 2010 at 11:09 PM. Reason : sdjsdhf]

5/19/2010 11:08:48 PM

A/C units produce a lot of condensation. you need to make sure it is connected to a drain... if it is then you need to make sure the drain is not clogged.

^ rosengarten park downtown would be a good spot to buy a small home downtown.

http://www.rosengartenpark.com/

[Edited on May 19, 2010 at 11:15 PM. Reason : ^]

5/19/2010 11:10:16 PM

i live in houston

5/20/2010 12:06:29 AM

Quote :

"my a/c unit in my attic is producing a lot of water into the drain pan so much so that the water overflows out the drain pipe at the side of my house and this is constant..... is this abnormal and how to fix?"

Just to be clear, your AC unit in your attic is running, and water is coming out of the pipe outside your house, but not filling the drain pan under the unit in the attic, right?

It's normal for water to run out of the drain pipe (condensation line) outside your house. It should be something like a steady drip on really hot days.

5/20/2010 8:56:43 AM

^^Expect that water bill to be $Texas with the new rate hikes expected to top 33%

5/20/2010 10:06:41 AM

Quote :

"Just to be clear, your AC unit in your attic is running, and water is coming out of the pipe outside your house, but not filling the drain pan under the unit in the attic, right?"

the pvc pipe from the a/c unit is dripping water down to the drain pan and filling the drain pan up with water...the drain pan is connected to another pipe that goes straight out the side of the outside wall at the attic level.....

so there's water being spit outside the side of the house through the pipe from the attic level

[Edited on May 20, 2010 at 11:29 AM. Reason : k]

5/20/2010 11:28:27 AM

yea that is a a pretty standard setup. As the days heat up and your AC unit is on, the cooling coil will be condensing water out of the humid air and it will drain out of your house like this so it is not collecting/pooling in your house.

What exactly is the problem? Are you saying there is a lot of water coming out of this pipe or what?

5/20/2010 11:31:54 AM

my question is if THAT MUCH water is supposed to constantly condense like that and fill up the drain pan constantly to the point that water keeps spewing out the side of my house whenever the A/C is on

given the A/C is in the attic and it is darn hot up there so that may affect it too

[Edited on May 20, 2010 at 11:38 AM. Reason : k]

5/20/2010 11:36:15 AM

It is hard to say without actually seeing your situation (I don't know what you consider "spewing"). I will say that assuming generic standard data for your home AC unit, you can probably see 0.1 gpm (gallon per minute) or more of condensate coming off that cooling coil while the unit is running. If that figure doesn't mean anything to you, maybe a ~0.5 liter is a better comparison.

I based this on a crude calculation assuming your unit is 2000cfm & 2 tons with a 20 degree difference in supply temperature at your registers vs the return temperature (ie approaching your thermostat set temperature).

[Edited on May 20, 2010 at 12:09 PM. Reason : decimal!]

5/20/2010 11:50:13 AM

Quote :

"the pvc pipe from the a/c unit is dripping water down to the drain pan and filling the drain pan up with water...the drain pan is connected to another pipe that goes straight out the side of the outside wall at the attic level..... so there's water being spit outside the side of the house through the pipe from the attic level"

It's normal for the AC to generate condensate water. My attic AC unit has two lines, one the runs straight from the unit to the outside, and another that adjacent to it that is attached to the drain pan. For me, the only time water would get into the drain pan is if the main line got clogged or the AC unit had a leak somewhere.



If your AC is set up so the condensate water goes into the drain pan and then out, then that's normal.

How much water do you mean when you say "spit" and "spewing"?

5/20/2010 12:36:17 PM

^ yea, when someone says "spewing" I usually am picturing an outside spigot or something and I know that can't be the case here

That's why I tried to give her a flow rate to compare to but I don't know if that will really help her describe it at all...that is a hard thing to visualize.

[Edited on May 20, 2010 at 12:48 PM. Reason : ]

5/20/2010 12:47:21 PM

I'm thinking about re-sodding my whole yard. My lot is approximately 1/2 acre. How much am I looking at here? Also, when is the best time to do it and should I do this myself or hire somebody?

5/24/2010 12:40:26 PM

i've done both my front and back yard. it is fairly simple to do.

I got builder pricing and i think it was like $150is for 500 sqft.

5/24/2010 1:10:19 PM

I plan to do my front yard at some point..maybe this fall. The retaining wall project going on in my back yard right now sucked all of my money out of the exterior budget for this year but our front yard isn't that big, and if we build some flower beds out front too, I bet we would only have ~750 ft2 left to cover ourselves in the front.

5/24/2010 1:30:12 PM

^^^

depends on what type of grass you're sodding with. As for doing it yourself, it depends on how much ground prep you need to do. If all the old grass is removed and the yard is level (at least to your liking), it's not terribly bad, but the prep work can be backbreaking, especially for a half acre.


If i was doing fescue, I'd wait until the fall and I wouldn't pay for that much sod without also paying for an irrigation system. If you're doing something like bermuda, spring is probably the ideal time, and once you get past the initial phase of keeping it watered, it will take care of itself -- it's extremely drought tolerant when established.

5/24/2010 1:42:30 PM

I think when we do our front yard we are going to try Tifblair Centipede. Yea it is not the top choice for looks, but it still looks pretty good imo. That combined with the minimal maintenance and the ability to keep it looking good without an irrigation system (Talked to a few people in my neighborhood with centipede and no irrigation systems and their lawns looked pretty solid) really have me interested.

I'm not looking for an A+ Yard. I'm looking for a solid B with minimal maintenance. This seems to be a pretty good match with what I am looking for. I might even do the backyard too, but I am not sure.

[Edited on May 24, 2010 at 1:54 PM. Reason : ]

5/24/2010 1:52:51 PM

^^I think I'd probably want to go with Bermuda. They'll probably do better in the hot FL weather. I think you've seen the pics of my house, what kind of ground prep work I need to be doing?

5/24/2010 1:57:56 PM

That's right, i forgot you were in florida. I'm not sure what's ideal there, and some of what I said may not apply.

As far as ground prep, if you're going to sod, you'll want to remove the existing grass/weeds and depending on the lay of the lot, you may want/need to level out sections of the yard, remove rocks, till, add top soil if the existing soil is poor. Again, I'm not entirely familiar with some of those variables in florida, as the geography and climate determine many of those things.

found this: http://polkmastergardener.ifas.ufl.edu/faqs/turfgrass_central_florida.shtml

that might help some. there's probably other resources out there that answer some of those questions.

[Edited on May 24, 2010 at 2:50 PM. Reason : .]

5/24/2010 2:50:27 PM

Anyone have any experience with Emerald Green Thujas?

When our wall is done, I would like to do something like this:



Where our house is actually on the other side of the trees and that picture would be looking from our neighbors yard behind us. (Our wall will be about half-again as tall as that one too). I want to be able to plant something as close as possible to the wall without worrying about compromising the structure at some point. I know that having a good root system near the wall would actually help, but I don't want the roots actually potentially shifting the rocks. I've read that most privacy conifers have a pretty compact root system that is good near structure but I dono.

[Edited on May 24, 2010 at 5:12 PM. Reason : ]

5/24/2010 5:03:36 PM

Actually, another alternative I am thinking about is planting them down below the wall. It kind of makes me cringe to some extent because the initial plants we get and their first year growth will barely eclipse the wall and not provided any privacy for awhile. BUT, my wife made a good point last night that if we have to plant them 3' inside the wall on the top, and then they grow to a width of 5-10'...you really start eating into the depth of the back yard and our back yard has its size in width and isn't very deep as it is.

So, the top would provide privacy much faster since they would start out with the 4' booster being on top of the wall and after they got to be even 5' tall they would be 10' above the dirt below the wall. Or, planting below the walls maximizes our back yard space and allows us to let them grow without having to trim them much and also would stabilize the soil some down below the wall.

Any thoughts?

Also, anyone know any flowering trees/bushes that grow quickly that don't have very invasive root systems? I want to plant some on both ends of the retaining wall, but once again don't want to have to worry about affecting the wall. I was thinking about some sort of Crape Myrtles or something since I see them planted right next to driveways all the time but I am certainly open to suggestions.

5/25/2010 8:50:23 AM

I planted Nellie Stevens Hollies next to my driveway and stone walls.

http://trees2go.com/TreesAndShrubs.html#NellieRStevensHolly

5/25/2010 11:34:31 AM

Just wanted to chime in and say that the paperwork leading up to getting my first house is becoming a humongous pain in the ass. I understand that it's a very important purchase and that all this is necessary...but it's not stopping me from complaining about it.

5/25/2010 12:41:53 PM

^couldn't be worse than mine, I closed 3 weeks ago and the title company hasn't sent the paperwork to the county office yet.

5/25/2010 12:52:26 PM

we have been in our house 8 months with 3 vacant lots on one side and 5 on the other...

woke up this morning to a surveyor staking the foundations on the lot directly adjacent to ours. the fence just got bumped up a long way on the priority list.

[Edited on May 26, 2010 at 8:35 AM. Reason : .]

5/26/2010 8:35:13 AM

retaining wall project is done from the contractor's scope of work. My job to take it from here. I'll get some pictures soon, but it is one of those things where you all will probably see the pictures and think "uh hmm ok, looks decent," but you really didn't have the full picture of what the lot looked like before. Plus, the entire back yard is dirt now besides the wall since they graded it which doesn't help the attractiveness at all . But this will let me plant grass, trees, etc on the yard now. It will take me a long time to really even get everything planted and growing that I want but I think it will pay off.

5/26/2010 4:41:45 PM

buyer's remorse FTL



I can't even fake it anymore.

5/26/2010 5:57:11 PM

^ info?

5/26/2010 6:21:53 PM

Does anyone have a suggestion on an external vent hood for the kitchen?

Has anyone tackled something like this? Advice?

I'd like to upgrade and get the odors out.

5/27/2010 11:32:22 PM

how close is the vent to the exterior? what type of exterior siding do you have?

5/28/2010 9:29:10 PM

so the wall got finished but the sod delivery was delayed almost a week and we got a huggeeeeee thunderstorm and downpour tonight a lot of the loose topsoil washed out. We have some jute netting and seed nets out to try and hold the soil until the sod arrives but they can only do so much with this kind of downpour.

Oh well. The sod can't get here until wednesday now...might be trying to put down some more nets or something in the meantime :/

Time to assess the damage in the morning. I think it looked worse than it really is but I am crossing my fingers that we don't get another rain like this before the sod comes...I think once that is here the erosion will be just about nothing.

5/28/2010 9:40:32 PM

The other side of the vent is the exterior, so fairly close .

I have vinyl siding.

How well will it seal when not in use?

5/31/2010 4:20:08 AM

just depends on the vent system the hood comes with. most of them will be vented similar to a fart fan where the air pushes a little flap open.

sounds like you could do it fairly easily

5/31/2010 5:23:51 PM

So it looks like the roof on my new construction house leaks.
I went to put boxes in the attic and got wet when I pulled down the ladder. There was a decent puddle in the attic.

6/1/2010 5:23:09 PM

call the builder.

6/1/2010 5:44:30 PM

^^with the storms recently, it sounds like the roofer missed a flashing detail (or two)...

as fast as homes are built, there is no physical way to check every nook and cranny. there will always be issues with any home. i know it is frustrating, but it is part of home ownership.

6/1/2010 6:45:33 PM

I've never had an issue with my home. I just have subs that care about what they do.

6/1/2010 7:24:33 PM

Quote :

"So it looks like the roof on my new construction house leaks. I went to put boxes in the attic and got wet when I pulled down the ladder. There was a decent puddle in the attic."

roof should have its own warranty.

6/2/2010 10:06:34 AM

^if it is a new home and the roof is leaking it more than likely has to do with the install.

call the builder.

6/2/2010 4:44:55 PM

Got notice yesterday that the county raised my property tax value by 4,000 dollar bux.

6/3/2010 10:39:00 AM

Get that shit reappraised. I can't imagine any property values have gone up at all since the last assessment.

6/3/2010 3:06:52 PM

my assessed value went from $17k to $195k

6/3/2010 3:44:32 PM

GOOD THING WE ALL KNOW YOUR HOUSE IS WORTH TWICE THAT

LOL

6/3/2010 4:42:26 PM

It's a racket to collect more property tax. Houses sure aren't selling for more in my area.

6/3/2010 4:42:36 PM

^^ good thing a 760 sqft house across the street just sold for that.

6/3/2010 7:21:18 PM

I contested mine two years ago and got it dropped by 20K.

6/4/2010 3:17:49 PM