BG Homeowner and DIY Thread - Out of the Basement Edition

[Souj]

I am sure you are already thinking of this, but make sure that heater isn't responsible for keeping any pipes thawed, for instance in a space above the garage.
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Detached garage with no running water. I’m reasonably sure there’s no water pipes in there, at least I hope not. There were a few questionable choices the previous homeowners made when updating their house. Lol

[Souj]

So my next big draft problem is… the bottom of this wall. Cold just comes on through beneath the cabinets, dishwasher, and oven. Anyone know any solution to this problem?

Spoiler: show

Cat wants the food I stopped mid-prep for a pic before I forgot.

[Drai]

might be an issue with the insulation around the rim joist in that area of the basement, might be as simple as replacing the insulation, if it’s a siding issue then that’s outside of my area of experience.

[Jaybar]

If you can feel air flow then the building wasn't properly wrapped at the base of the exterior wall. Could perform an exploratory opening down there to see what is going on, or just call in one of those building enclosure contractors to take a look and provide recommendations.

[Byrthnoth]

If you check a thermal/IR camera out of the library (call them, might have it) then you can plug it into your phone and walk around the house looking at the drafts. Helped us locate a tricky one in a crawlspace for sure.

[Souj]

Really not sure how/why the previous owners didn’t deal with this considering how bad this stuff is. Money’s tied up already for the winter so it’ll have to wait a little bit to fix.
Temporary quick fixed the known problems.
Fuse box feels like it might just connect straight to the outside. And wife didn’t want this particular window covered in plastic so I just taped it up with the only masking tape we had- green. Fuse box is mostly hidden so didn’t bother making it look nice. I actually had a giant roll of plastic wrap that the movers we hired accidentally left behind.

Spoiler: show

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[Ksandra]

Any guesses on what's happening?

We have for forever used wall mounts for our TVs with no issues. We wanted to put a TV up in our computer area and my hubby is having issues with the wall where the lag bolt keeps breaking. My wall is now dotted with holes that have bolts in them (going to patch them up, but kinda waiting until it's finally up since there's like 3 now that have been broken). He's very frustrated about it. He's broken bolts that the mount came with and ones he bought at Lowe's (all three brand new). Is it possible there's something behind the wall that's causing them to snap?

So weird, because between homes and apartments we've probably put up TVs about 10 times and we've never had a bolt break. Don't think we've done anything different, either.

[Kirin]

Like mounting bolts? Bad batch?

Small enough to be running into a nail protection plate and breaking? Running into cast iron plumbing pipes?

[Jaybar]

Lag bolts or wall anchors? Lag bolts (big ass screws with a hex head) shouldn't be snapping if just going into wood studs. Might be you're hitting pipe or conduit and the husband is trying to force it through?

[Ksandra]

Lag bolts or wall anchors? Lag bolts (big ass screws with a hex head) shouldn't be snapping if just going into wood studs. Might be you're hitting pipe or conduit and the husband is trying to force it through?

Yeah they are lag bolts. These are the ones we got from Lowe's (same size as ones that came from the box): 1/4-IN X 3-IN Z HX LAG SCREW And we have a stud finder, so it's going into a stud. We did one stud, then had to do another because now there are bolts in the wall in the way (can't get the broken ones out). Two studs we used were ~2 feet apart (eyeballing from my computer chair). And it happened in both.

It's so fucking weird. Unfortunately, that's really the wall a TV should go on if it's to go anywhere, but we are not sure what's going on, and don't want to break more screws in the wall without figuring out what's happening.

[Drai]

stud finder’s are not always perfect, they can mistake drainage for studs very easily, also if there’s protection plates on the stud to protect wring or waterline penetrations then I’m not suprised the bolts are snapping, could also be a super gnarly knot in the wood itself that’s hard as heck.

[Cantih]

Jay, Jaaaaaaaaaaaaay

[Jaybar]

Imma die.

[thetruepandagod]

i discovered hinge door stops are absolutely horrendous if u have heavy solid core doors, that is all, do not make this mistake.

[Byrthnoth]

punched through your wall, eh?

[thetruepandagod]

nah chipped away the brand new paint and started to crack one of the doorframes

[Souj]

Spoiler: show

Finally got around to clearing out the house of unopened moving boxes and start putting it all away in the garage. Still got plenty of work to do. Got a few more old consoles I’ll hook up to it and I’ll probably set up a portion of it for Warhammer 40k building/painting.
Chose the two coldest days of the year to do it, but hey, my garage’s got a heater. Huzzah.

[Tyche]

I finally have a close date on my house. Feb 11th, then getting keys 1 week later. Already have a slew of home projects to begin tackling.

The water heaters in the house are original...from 1989. I bought 2 Rheem platinum hybrid water heaters. They can run on heat pumps, which will dehumidify my finished basement, and have built in leak detection and valve shutoffs. And they run at around 25% the power of the current units.

I've priced out about 15g's in home theater equipment. SVS PB-2000 subs, SVS Ultra sides and surrounds, and a JVC NX5 projector. I'm trying to get a hold of an Onkyo RZ50 AVR, but not having much luck.




I've bought a slew of Z-wave switches and sensors to install to run home assistant on my UNRAID server in a Linux VM. I'm pretty excited about this. I have to have an electrician over to install a ton of recessed lighting in the living area, office, master bedroom, and master bath. For whatever reason, those are the only rooms without recessed lighting (just "nipple" or fan lights). I'm also going to get some outdoor PoE cameras to run through the server for continuous recording. The home also has a full ADT security system already wired up, and I believe I can gut the panel and install a Konnected system and use all the ADT wiring and sensors in Home Assistant.



There's also a large rec room in the basement, separate from what will be the home theater room. It currently has a half kitchen. It's about to de demo'd and converted to a whole ass bar.

[Outlaw]

There's also a large rec room in the basement, separate from what will be the home theater room. It currently has a half kitchen. It's about to de demo'd and converted to a whole ass bar.

I want to see a pic when you get the bar done. Nice looking place.

[Tyche]

I'm sure I'll have do a breakdown of the basement work. There's a lot there we plan to do.

For the home theater room, we already have total light control. The room is going to get painted black. Wife isn't too happy about that, but I want it done right. I think I'm going to do a combo of matte and flat to have some contrast between the walls and trim. I have always wanted the carpet from The Shining in my HT room, but it poses two problems. 1. The carpet is pretty bright and distracting. 2. One company has the carpet rights, they're out of the UK, and it's not remotely affordable at over 400 GBP per SQ meter.

The audio in the room is going to be obscene. 7.1.4

SVS PB-2000 pro subwoofer
SVS Ultra center channel
SVS Prime Pinnacle towers
SVS Ultra Dual surround channels (x4)
Still deciding on Atmos speakers. I'd like them angled at 45 degrees, but those speakers are usually expensive and need a lot of clearance and I don't know how much clearance I have until I get in the house.

I'm going to run all this on an Onkyo RZ50 if I can find one. Looks like there could be a march restock. But it's the only good 11 channel option with Dirac Live.

For the projector, I'm leaning toward a JVC NP5. It's a true 4k projector and not a "shift 4k". HDMI 2.1, so 4k at 120Hz. It is supposed to release this March.

I really don't know what I'm going to do with the larger rec room other than the bar in the back of the room. The other side of the room, it's...odd. It has an off-center fireplace. I'd like some sort of gaming table/gathering table. Will probably just bring someone in to design the room, interior design is not my thing.