Your shower is leaking: Home Repair in 2020 (and beyond)

[Johnny Lunchbucket]

Thought we were smart scheduling a bathroom re-do while we were traveling last week. (It likely wouldn't be finished in a week but the majority of the noise dust and junk would out of our way).

They demoed the room the day before we left but the tub on order from Home Depot and due the week before they began still hasn't shown up (it's officially lost in transit--maybe ripped off? -- and a new one plus a worthless $300 discount still on the way). Until the tub is in they can't begin flooring, tiling, toilet and vanity putting-inning, etc etc., shit's all over the house, and we'll be dealing with our contractor/handyman for a few weeks still.

[Edgy MD]

So, you're ... peeing in the tenant's bathroom?

[Johnny Lunchbucket]

Nah we have 2

[Edgy MD]

Well, then a messy house is better than dysentery.

Good luck on that tub. I'd say not to sneeze at the $300, but I imagine that gets eaten up by the contractor's job getting extended.

[Johnny Lunchbucket]

Exactly

[kcmets]

Bathroom contractors are bhmc-sucking-maggots from hell.

Unless anyone who posts here is one, then I'm sure he/she is not.

[MFS62]

We had an old swing/ slide set in our back yard that hadn't been used in over five years and was an eyesore.
I was going to take it apart and to the dump. But then I realized all the metal bolts holding it together were rusted and I didn't have the wrench, or the strength, to take it apart.
So I called in a junk removal company that advertises that they take swing sets.
Two guys showed up and I wanted to see what they would use on the bolts.
They didn't. They used a chain saw and the stuff was apart and in their truck in about five minutes.

Later

[kcmets]

Reminds me of a song...

[MFS62]

Just had an oil delivery last Friday. (over $950!!).
We noticed a few drops of oil in our garage under the tank.
The service person just came, looked under under the tank and says it is thisclose to rupturing and flooding the garage with oil. It can't be patched.
We'll need a new tank - "over $3000". They'll have to pump out the oil, put in a temporary tank until the new one arrives and installed, then th e oi put back into the new tank.
No, I'm not going to try to do it myself.
Guess that new driveway will have to wait until next year.
Later

[kcmets]

We got a new 250 gallon tank about 5-6 years ago for about $2,000. Guess
everything is going through the roof these days.

(you can't do that yourself, they must weigh a couple hundred pounds at least)

[Johnny Lunchbucket]

Update on our bathroom-- tub came and installed but still awaiting a working bathroom as tiling, lighting flooring all done-- but our guy doing the plumbing work is off on another gig till next weekend when we'll finally get a toilet and sink in.

[kcmets]

Wow, so that's like a month already! Crazy....

[kcmets]

Reminds me of the episode(s) where the Russians come to remove the mold
from Doug and Carrie's house on King of Queens.

[Ceetar]

Update on our bathroom-- tub came and installed but still awaiting a working bathroom as tiling, lighting flooring all done-- but our guy doing the plumbing work is off on another gig till next weekend when we'll finally get a toilet and sink in.

did our only (we have a half in the master bedroom) bathroom in October. It makes me never want to redo anything ever again. all sorts of tub drama too.

[Johnny Lunchbucket]

Peed for the first time in more than a month. Feel like Matt Harvey.


I give up on Instagram posts here

https://www.instagram.com/p/CeJTU7NOm_P/

[Ceetar]

those tiles textured/wavy? cause I think we may have used the same ones.

[Johnny Lunchbucket]

No texture-- just large subway style. As I may have mentioned this house was a rental building for years before we moved in. Anything would have been an improvement but looks nice now.

Next up, demo the entire first floor and move the kitchen down there.

After that, reclaim the staircase between the floors so we no longer have to share it withe the tenants. That means building a crazy new staircase and demoing the old kitchen/Living room.

But it will also unite the 1st and 2nd stories of the house which are separate apartments now

[Johnny Lunchbucket]

The projects never stop at Stately Lunchbucket Manor.

Used a Father's Day Home Depot gift card to become the proud owner of a Hammer Drill, as well as a set of carbide bits, and steel-dismembering reciprocating saw blades, and celebrated our nation's birthday by toppling a matching set of steel-and-concrete filled clothesline supports that used to run across our rectangular yard the short way, and setting up a pulley-system clothesline to run the long way starting at our bedroom window on the second floor to an existing steel tower/ladder in the rear of the yard.

That meant climbing a 20-foot ladder we borrowed from our neighbor, and drilling into the mortar on the house itself to secure a hook for one pulley, and climbing that scary tower in the back to hook on the other pulley, all while keeping Edgys back injury in mind (how did you fall off a ladder?).

I thought the hard part was over when I did all that without injury or missing fingers only to discover that the clothesline rope I ran (1/4 inch width) was impossible to thread through the narrow opening of the "clothesline tightener" doodad sold alongside the line at Home Depot. I literally spent hours trying everything, needles wire, WD 40, fire, vice grips, clamps twisting, duct tape.. not even close

Should have run 3/16 line? I dunno. Anyway back to the Home Depot today for an alternative rope-tightener (Im going to try the knotless caribiner-style "figure 9" thing, hopefully that can work while reaching from a second floor window). I'm also going to buy a narrower clothesline withe hopes that i can return it.

Ps-- hammer drills are fun, and im going to fuck up the garage walls and hang everything

[Edgy MD]

(how did you fall off a ladder?).

It would take diagrams and photographs with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one, but suffice to say that Daddy was careless and stupid.

[Ceetar]

(how did you fall off a ladder?).

It would take diagrams and photographs with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one, but suffice to say that Daddy was careless and stupid.

shouldn't have put that envelope under all that garbage, clearly.

speaking of ladders, think I might be healed enough to go take those christmas lights down..

[Johnny Lunchbucket]

success! (PS, that's our neighbor's yard below; in case you're wondering what happened to the grill and the flourishing veggie garden)

[Marshmallowmilkshake]

Our hot water heater was installed when Gregg Jefferies was a rookie, and I've heard horror stories about what happens when they fail. We decided to be proactive and replace it, upgrading from a 40-gallon to a 50 gallon tank.

The heater cost $579, and I was thinking, "Hey, that's not that bad." But the installation was about $900, with a $75 permit fee. Yikes!

[MFS62]

That's a lot of money when you consider you only have to know three things to be a plumber:
Steam goes up
S**t goes down
Payday is Friday.

Later

[kcmets]

Under $2,000 is pretty reasonable to me. I think my next door neighbor paid
$2,200 in the spring but we live in one of the most expensive counties in the US.
$75 permit fee? Is that a town scumbag that pockets that or a county scumbag?

And MFS, geez, a good experience licensed plumbing professional deserves a
little more respect than your attempt at humor.

[MFS62]

Under $2,000 is pretty reasonable to me. I think my next door neighbor paid
$2,200 in the spring but we live in one of the most expensive counties in the US.
$75 permit fee? Is that a town scumbag that pockets that or a county scumbag?

And MFS, geez, a good experience licensed plumbing professional deserves a
little more respect than your attempt at humor.

It was told to me BY a plumber.
Of course, it was 2 AM at a New Years Eve party, so he could have been "under the influence".
And the plumber we use has a big house, swimming pool and tennis court in his back yard.
But he's been there when we've needed him.
He gets my respect.
Later