🏡 Better Homes Brag / Complain About a DIY Project Thread

Lord Tin Foilhat

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Stuck my head in the fireplace...stack is MINT. All metal. No cleaning needed thats for sure. Looks barely used.

Anybody know if I need to repair the pit area? Or should be good?

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SleeperLS

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Stuck my head in the fireplace...stack is MINT. All metal. No cleaning needed thats for sure. Looks barely used.

Anybody know if I need to repair the pit area? Or should be good?

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That crack would make me nervous. How deep is it? Can you feel any air coming through it? If you hold a lit match up does the flame blow at all? I would be worried flames would escape out of it and catch the house on fire. But, I also am not a fireplace expert.
 
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Lord Tin Foilhat

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That crack would make me nervous. How deep is it? Can you feel any air coming through it? If you hold a lit match up does the flame blow at all? I would be worried flames would escape out of it and catch the house on fire. But, I also am not a fireplace expert.
I'll try that but I dont think so. On the other side of that is a good foot or 2 gap before the actual fireplace exterior siding.
 

SpeedSpeak2me

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Ever since we put the twins in a bunk bed, we couldn't use the ceiling fan due to it being right next to the top bunk snd ladder.

Well finally got around to replacing it with this tiny guy. It's 18" across vs the 48" the old fan was.

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That's pretty neat! How many CFM is it rated for? Wondering how much air it can move around compared to a 42" or 52" fan.
 

SpeedSpeak2me

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Finally got around to throwing up a scanner (5Mhz - 900Mhz) antenna on the roof. Used the old mast from my DirecTV dish as it was pretty close to plumb. Just needed something temporary to get me through the winter. One, for using the scanner on amateur radio bands (HF, VHF, UHF), and second but more importantly I can use it for a few of the stereos in the house that have either an F-connector or line level input. Tested it out on my old Pioneer SX-990 and it works fantastic.

Need to clean everything up a bit. But for about 3 hours of work, including running to the stores to get the parts (u-bolt, clamps, splitter, connectors, etc) I think it came out pretty good. Already had a 4-line run of RG6 on the roof from the dish installation, which gives me coax runs to three different rooms in the house.

Once the sun bakes the coax for a few days to make it a bit more pliable I'll go out and straighten it up. All the connectors got dielectric grease and a wrap of electrical tape to give me some weatherproofing.
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Did run into an issue where the mast I got (fence rail) had an OD a bit too large to fit the saddle bracket and u-clamp that was with the antenna. Seeing as how the antenna is a good 30 years old and I think I got it from Radio Shack, I wasn't about to go looking or ordering another. I just took a hammer to the end of the pipe while the pipe rested on the garage floor, LOL
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Chester Copperpot

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Kid woke up at the cunthair of dawn thanks to the time change and proceeded to pull the bathroom cabinet [almost] on top of himself. Luckily he was fine but it crashed down into the tub. Unbeknownst to us, it broke the shower line from the valve to the shower head. Megan went to take a shower and proceeded to flood the bathroom and the basement.

Two hour Home Depot trip double and triple checking fittings and piping to the new fixture. Two hours later after I’m almost finished, I leave the down pipe lose on the valve to check fitment/space, I proceed to sweat the rest of the pipe on that goes to the spigot…

Guess I’m going to the store AGAIN tomorrow to buy more copper fittings. At the least the good news is it fixed the lazy water pressure at the spigot. All this piping and the valve itself was FULL of iron.

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Five-0

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So I had this bright idea to make a kitchen table, benches, chairs, and stools for the new house. Walnut furniture is stupid expensive and I figured I could do it for less and get a better end product. Piece of cake! (Not)

I sourced the wood and was smart enough to realize a nice finished product was beyond my tools and skill level. So had it finished locally. Fantastic decision.

The frame I decided I wanted out of metal so I could powder coat it to match the kitchen hardware instead of the typical white wood frames. Again, sounded easy.

greasy greasy is a Saint and came out to lend a hand and his welding skills a couple days. We made some solid progress and I’ll keep picking away at this project that was supposed to be quick and easy.

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DanJ

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What say you TCG amateur plumbers? I have a nibco 580 2 piece ball valve that goes to one of my outside faucets. It has a very mild stem leak I’m trying to resolve. All the videos I’ve found there’s a nut to tighten the packing with. These apparently have a “packing glan”. The service instructions say packing adjustments should be made an 1/8 turn at a time to stop leaks, but I have nothing to turn.


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The handle stays off as it’s in my basement ceiling and I can’t shut the access panel with it off. Handle just hangs on a screw next to it.
 

Yaj Yak

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Kid woke up at the cunthair of dawn thanks to the time change and proceeded to pull the bathroom cabinet [almost] on top of himself. Luckily he was fine but it crashed down into the tub. Unbeknownst to us, it broke the shower line from the valve to the shower head. Megan went to take a shower and proceeded to flood the bathroom and the basement.

Two hour Home Depot trip double and triple checking fittings and piping to the new fixture. Two hours later after I’m almost finished, I leave the down pipe lose on the valve to check fitment/space, I proceed to sweat the rest of the pipe on that goes to the spigot…

Guess I’m going to the store AGAIN tomorrow to buy more copper fittings. At the least the good news is it fixed the lazy water pressure at the spigot. All this piping and the valve itself was FULL of iron.

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does the true value in westfield just have jack shit?

 

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