What did you do to your house today?
 

I thought there was already a thread like this but I couldn't find it.

Anyways, since most of us are homeowners, I figured it'd be nice to see what people are up to, in terms of repairs, maintenance and upgrades.

Last month, I got a pinhole leak from my hot water piping (fucking Poly B). Good thing it was just in a closet on the first floor, above the crawlspace and I have vinyl flooring.

Replaced both lines in the closet and cleaned some bullshit coming off the HW tank. Fucking copper/sharkbite/PEX/Poly B, all within 12".

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Since I was already down there, figured I might as well seal up the ductwork, good and tight.

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Last night, the GF tells me the dryer is running but not blowing any heat. Yay #dadjobs :rukidding:

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Whew. Just a heating element. Full kit, with thermostat, thermistor and fuse, $50 on Prime. Luckily, a serviceable part that's readily available.

I was looking at new washers and dryers but cotdamn, everything uses proprietary circuits and computers and shit. I just want an old fashioned timer, don't need fancy shit.

I also hate washing machines on the 2nd floor. If I didn't have to sacrifice, precious garage space, it'd be in there.

Good on you for tackling all of this, most would just replace it as that's the type of world we live in these days.

Thanks.

Yeah, we live in a disposable world - just throw it out and buy a new one. Problem is, it's a waste of resources, costly and there's down time. Of course, it depends on the cost of the parts, which is another reason I prefer old tech. I don't need bells and whistles. If it's clean and works, I'm good.

In your first pic, did they put a shut off inside the wall or was there an access panel?

Simple one yesterday, replaced the discharge hose on my samsung washer. Should have done this sooner, the old hose was filthy.

why do you have vinyl flooring? and is it the old vinyl or like vinyl plank?

we are considering changing carpet to vinyl plank....

Just redid my flooring for my entire kitchen and all my washrooms with vinyl plank. Vinyl plank is great... water resistant and durable.

How do you like it so far? My designer is pushing me to get what they call here "luxury vinyl." I'm not opposed to it but I'm still a fan of a good engineered laminate.

We did all the bathrooms with vinyl plank, mainly because young kids = lots of water going everywhere. It was amazing to work with, a little fiddly keeping the first few pieces locked together but once you get going it's a breeze (especially compared to the headaches of installing our bamboo flooring). Aside from all the usual advantages of a manmade product, you can cut it with a box cutter. No running outside to use a saw, no duct to clean up, no noise. You could do your entire place at 3am in the middle of a blizzard.

Right on for getting rid of that polyB. Since most of these systems are coming up to the 25-30 year mark in age, I'm hearing more and more failures these days.

I had a professional crew re-pipe our whole house last year. It wasn't cheap (over 10K), but piece of mind is pretty important.

Installed 2 things today.

Eufy Smart lock and a new furnace. Costco has a promotion for the month of February. Up to $1500 giftcard and Fortis BC has a rebate until March.

Eufy smart lock is awesome too. Pin pad, traditional key and fingerprint. Fingerprint unlocking and locked is super fast.

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Oh hey I got the Eufy doorbell too. 4K, no subscription. It's great! I haven't installed yet tho, because I need to figure out how to mount it to siding LOL

Vinyl plank. Did the whole main floor including kitchen and powder room. It's nice to not have any transitions. Not only is it waterproof but the joints are so tight that water doesn't go through them. Another cool thing is that it hardly expands or contracts, like wood or laminate. So it's not a big deal to install fairly tight against walls that can't be covered by trim (think closet J beads. Hell, I didn't even undercut some door jambs and it looks good.

If I do tile the main bathrooms (just for esthetics), I'd be comfortable butting up the vinyl to the metal edging - maybe a 1mm gap, caulked.

Glad to know vinyl plank doesn't expand/contract like wood and laminate - I didn't consider this. I put more thought on this for my main floor because it's the coldest as it's on concrete.

We have vinyl plank above sheet vinyl in our kitchen (from the previous owner) and in our basement on top of concrete. Vinyl plank is a maintenance-free product, but it's pretty thin and so you have to be mindful if you want to place it on an existing hard subfloor, like concrete or tile. You might want to add another insulating/padding layer in between your subfloor and the layer of vinyl.

Will be getting heated floors.

One important thing to mention about vinyl plank is to make sure your floor is leveled before installing. A disadvantage of vinyl planks....don't think it is possible to rip off just one plank if you want to redo it after being installed.

If you are having contractors do it for you. Make sure to tell them to level the floor before installing..because mine didnt tell me and the corner of my powder room is creaking. They are coming back to try to glue or nail it down to fix the creaks.

My friend who is also renovating had unleveled floors. His contractors didn't tell him too but my friend caught it just in time before they installed. It was an extra charge for him if he wanted it leveled.

Just a FYI

IN my last place where we had the washer and dryer side by side I tackled it and fixed it. Now that I'm in a townhouse where it's stacked and almost no room to really work on it even if I could get it down myself fucking no way lol.

bought a new bathroom fan and relocated it so it's more centralized in the room.

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Which make/model and CFM is your bathroom fan? I'm looking to switch mine out to Panasonic units.

Also interested I need to replace the fans because the cheap ass developer didn't install the wind flap and you can't buy the part alone. It's cold as fuck during cold days/nights

I replaced all 3 of my fans with these panasonic ones. Very quiet. Not too hard to install. Have 2 fan settings... 80 or 110 CFM.

$150 at homedepot

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So many different ones offered by Panasonic. I did quite a bit of research before I bought mine. I removed my current one to see how the old one was installed. I needed to measure my clearances, the current ducts, and read the instructions of the ones I was thinking of buying.

I ended up buying 3 different models based on the access I had to work on it, clearances, ducting, cfms.
The one in the pic is 290 cfm, 2 sonnes, requires attic access, 6" duct for about $250. All my old ones were 90 cfm, 2.5 sonnes and couldn't be removed from the ceiling hole, so I needed to cut the ceiling to get to the mounts. Paint was peeling on the door trim to the washroom, so I had to make some upgrades.

What size duct? My old one was 4 inch. Maybe you can make the duct work on yours.