What home improvement work did you do today?

I replaced a Pfister bathroom faucet with a Delta today. I noticed there was some water gathering at the base of it and figured out it was leaking. It's the 2nd one I've had to replace in the last two years (I put them in about 6 years ago). I feel like I got "Pfisted". I know I could have opened them up and replaced cartridges and shit but I figured I'd rather go with Delta. I have one more in the house to replace and I'll be done with that brand.

When I pulled the faucet out it was nasty. I must have been doing it for a while and I just never noticed it or it was trapped. No damage in the cabinet. I cleaned up all the nastiness too...

 

Fixed our microwave. Microwave was tripping the breaker every time we’d try to run it.

the wife was upset and was ready to go buy a new one. Thank god for the youtoobs.

Ended up being one of the 3 door switches. It was gunked up and not flipping on and off as the door closed. Cleaned it up and working good as new.

 

Cleaned up the side yard.
Shoveled and hauled 5600lbs of dirt away from the egress window job.
Shoveled and laid about 3 yards of rock in and made a little retaining wall for it.

 

I started my deck demolition this morning by accidentally stepping through my deck. Fortunately I have cat like reflexes meaning I jumped back and hissed.

The house is pier and beam with balloon rafters so when something gets under the house, it can easily access the walls. After we moved here, I put hardware cloth around the perimeter of the home to keep things out. The deck was built attached to two different outdoor steps. Last year, we had rats in the walls. I figured they were crawling under the deck and dug under the steps so I spent a week putting hardware cloth around the entire deck.

Anyways, I brought that up because as soon as I broke through the deck, I created an entry point for rats, opossums, and armadillos. Which means I spent the a good part of the hot, humid day ripping out my deck where it was attached the house and then filling in holes where the pests were getting in.

It sucked. I'll never put a wood deck in again and if I absolutely have to, I won't buy treated wood from Lowes.


The rotten wood was the "treated wood" from Lowes that was installed 5 years ago. The stairs were probably built in the 90's. Notice from the picture below that the wood looks new.


Something dug this damn hole.

I'm going to have to replace part of these steps but it'll do for now.


Underside of some of 5 year-old deck board.

 

Finally got our mini-split heat pump and out main house heat pump installed and working at home.

 

Finally got the coop finished. Just ripped the old coop pen down and graded, dropped a tree, and pulling permits to start the 12x24 shed/toy stable.

 

I thought I built the Taj Mahal for a chicken coop, but that thing is even nicer!
How many do you have?

 

@FlyingWolfe ,Woah that is so cool! Can I live there?!
@WAtundra4x4 looks great, very clean!
@TaquitoBandito , it almost seems like untreated wood was used maybe?

 

Part of the issue with this failure is lack of ventilation under the deck. Composite deck would have failed too. The stringers were probably not treated for ground contact, like the 4 x 4’s, so they failed also. A concrete patio or brick pavers are by far your best choice.

 

Its the Cluckingham Palace.
We have 7 elders that are four years old and just raised 8 pullets (and 2 roos, not by choice.. their fate remains to be seen) that are about two months old.

 

Nice
We’ve currently got 14 hens between 6 and 2 yrs, and one pullet almost ready to start laying. We were at 24 about 6 weeks ago but coyotes have been relentless (and we try to free range as much as possible).

We lost our rooster last year, but had him for about 4 years. If you have one with good temperament, it’s impressive the sort of harmony they bring to a flock. But if he’s a fighter or an asshole…soup stock. Sir Henry was a good one, but we’ve been hesitant to try to replace home.

 

It was all treated wood but my decking guy didn't use ground contact treated wood for anything close to the ground. It sucks because I knew nothing about the wood and he went with me to Lowes to get the lumber. He did say something about how they don't treat them as well as they used to. It seems like he would have had me buy the ground contact shit for the base. He didn't charge me much to build it (I want to say we traded a website design for it) and went out of his way to make it super nice. I still can't believe the top part of the deck only lasted 5 years.

 

I picked off a fox with the rifle last year that was trying to get into the girl’s pen at 5 in the morning (the girls woke us up). Where theres chickens theres always predators.
Roos are a hard pass. Ive had chickens the last 30 years, a couple dozen rooster and have only had two that were cool/tolerable. Dads farm is next door to us and he has two of them that never stfu, thats plenty.

 

I don’t know that I’ve ever seen ground contact rated wood at Lowe’s/HD. I’ve always had to order it from a true lumber yard.

and yes, they don’t treat any of it like they used to. creosote and copper arsenate are both some nasty environmental hazards, but they did remarkable jobs at preserving wood.

 

I was out mowing last week and the damn yote was on the neighbors side of the fence just standing there…
I’m gonna start packing heat when I mow.

or get one of these

 

That might be the reason. Dude was the most honest worker I'd ever hired. I owed him $35 for some work he did in our kitchen. I didn't have change so I gave him $40. He picks up a broom starts sweeping and says "I'm gonna earn that extra $5."

 

Doesn't @War Machine deal in those?

 

Cocky little bastard, shoot his ass.
Never turn down some good target practice on predators.

 

I immediately went and got the 300BLK and leaned it next to the fence but the bastard never came back. I seriously am going to start carrying when mowing - this was 11am on a Saturday. And the fucker had gotten three little peacock babies in the past few days that were at the neighbors too (long story, but we have “wild” peacocks living around our house).

 

Honest worker is not always good worker. I've done some questionable stuff in the past when I didn't know what I was doing, but I was honest as hell! (Still am.)

In no way am I knocking the man's work or skill level, just a general statement that sometimes applies.

 

I spent the last few days doing the final raking if the rocks, twigs, wood pieces, etc off the yard. The further back and more slope the less critical I was, definite body aches in this old guy. My neighbor sent a photo to my wife, I didn’t notice the deer when I was working out putting the piles of debris into the loader to move it to the back “dip”. A overall photo of the area I’m going to attempt growing grass and wildflowers. We have several islands of plants we moved from the front of the house along with dogwoods, an apple tree and a tree from the front, Canadian Red berry. I noticed the deer was there when I took the overall photo. I’m recouping with a gin and tonic pain reliever.

 

Unless that apple tree is well established, cage it till it is. Them deer will wreak havoc on it

 

Yep, they have been nibbling already. It was a gift so I’m obligated to plant it. The deer have been nibbling on the laurels and holly. They normally leave those alone somewhat. I’ll try to get some protector on it as the deer away stuff works for a few days if it does not rain imo.

 

Agreed. When just moved to new home, there would be like a dozen deer roaming late evening. I was like omg omg deer!! This is adorable!!

Few months later, wtf deer you ate the flowers!!! And bit my trees!!! Please kill and eat them all someone!

 

We moved from a neighborhood where we had deer all the time, so we are used to their “ nibbling”. At the old house neighborhood, we had elk, bobcats, coyotes, and occasional bear. I only knew of one cougar, when I helped the DNR set up a trap for it. Never caught it. Oh, and lots of rabbits sometimes. The rabbits have their own selection of plants.
Some plants they, the deer, only nibble on for the first year, then they leave alone.

 

I don't have a chicken mansion but I did get my girls an wifi auto door.

 

That’s some straight up nerd shit there. I love it!