What home improvement work did you do today?

Egress window in…

 

Dishwasher supply line failed...New flooring and trim wasnt on the brain. But now its in the pipeline.

 

Quick and easy project yesterday replacing all the T8 fluorescent bulbs in my garage fixtures with LEDs, I bought the contractor 20 pack at Lowe's for about $75 and used 12 of them. Huge difference for my old eyes. And no more buzzing!

 

I need to do that in mine. But in 16 years, the fluorescents are still going strong

 

more lighting....


Cheap dollar store solar LEDs.

Driveway lighting for $8.52 in today's economy, priceless....

 

I went to get flourescent replacement bulbs but then saw that now these just pop in to your flourescent fixtures.

 

Interested in the longevity. We replaced a bunch at work and the powers at be wanted us to rewire stating with the ballets in there it would kill the LED faster. No idea if that is true

 

The downsides I read about using ballast compatible tubes vs. retrofit are you forfeit some of the energy savings since the ballast itself uses some energy, the bulbs may not burn as bright, and you still need to replace ballasts as they fail.

Supposedly, "some" ballasts produce a surge when activated that can kill the LED bulb. Hopefully my ballasts are not in this catagory. We shall see.

 

Got three yards of rocks, did drip irrigation, and some drought resistant plants. Man rocks get everywhere on the tundra lol. Took me an hour to get a majority of rocks out of my tailgate but there’s still some in there. Every time I close my tailgate a few more falls out lol.

 

Finally took back control of my patio. Got rid of the old grill and replaces the towel storage. Last fall's leaves bagged. Only thing left is to put polyureathane on the island.

 

My 5 year old deck is rotting. Not happy about it and I'll never buy treated decking from Lowes again... I was going to try to repair the rotting boards and repaint the deck but I'll end up needing to replace 90% of it. I'm thinking about tearing it out and just trying to do a paver or brick patio. Any suggestions?

 

The only thing I use pressure-treated wood for is for ground contact points. Pressure treated wood twists and warps when it dries making your hard work look poor relatively soon. The next time I re-do a deck it will be with a composite material for the surface.

 

Pulled out the armoire/organizer/utility cabinets that we’ve used in our master closet for about 16 years and finally got to work on the built-ins

her side:


And my side:


The core is an Ikea dresser that is 19” deep (the deepest I could find) and 31.5” wide. The actual shelves and verticals are 22” deep so I made a custom top to replace the factory one on the dresser on her side so the the dresser is flush in the front but there is no gap at the back. The verticals are attached to the dresser so it is all one unit.

On my side I had a limited area to work in - currently the dresser is just set into place but I think I’m going to do a custom top on it too and bring it out flush to the corner (will make the baseboards easier to do).

And baseboards will be this week/weekend.

 

Most of what I do is commercial LED retrofits. Putting the TLED's in on the existing ballast will likely kill the older ballasts quicker as they were designed to drive a standard 32w or 28w lamp. We see some fail faster than others but you can always replace the ballast just make sure you get the electronic ballasts. You could also get direct wire TLED's that will work directly off 120v and do away with the ballasts all together. For what you are looking for I think you made the right call and looks great.

 

Finished moving the sprinkler line and installing the window and well…I know the window doesn’t sit center of the well but it will work better in the room this way and the well needed room from the gas meter.

 

I'm from the south, so we don't have basements....so excuse my ignorance. What was the point of this? Was it just for light? Access/evacuation point? Anything with air/ventilation/off-gassing from boilers? I'm pulling at straws. My only idea is for light and/or evac or access point.
I like it regardless, I'm just trying to fill my tiny brain with a tad more knowledge

 

Evacuation. ‘Legally’ you can’t call a subgrade room a bedroom without an egress. You’ll see people list a ‘non-conforming’ bedroom that’s basically a subgrade bedroom without a window you can jump out of.

was framing out and finishing the basement so I figured the $1400 was worth it and worth doing now rather than wishing later

 

Nice, hope you have some good drainage outside the window! Good call and doing it now instead of wishing you had done it after the fact

 

Thanks. After talking to a few GC friends I ended up making a dry well pipe down to the foundation weeping tile. There is a drain pipe just under the top level of rocks at the bottom of the window well

 

That's what I plan on doing in my garage soon.

 

Get the double ended TLED's so you don't have any issues with shunted or unshunted lamp holders. Line to one end and neutral to the other easy peasy!

 

Thanks, yeah I’m pretty happy with how it turned out and even though that window is on the west side, the white well and window let it a bunch of light. Worth it

 

I have this downspout that catches most of the run off from the roof and all that water would pool up around the foundation and flow across the bottom of the steps, I know that's not doing the foundation any good.

got some diverter stuff from lowes and fresh mulch (40 bags all total). and got a "Water Feature" now.


Finally had a thunderstorm roll though so I can see it in action. I'll get the mulch moved around and get a better flow but the run off now flows down my sidewalk more evenly flowing into the yard.
It's a small victory but I'll take it.

 

Garage is finally done. Gave up my parking spot for the sim…

 

When I build my shop, I was hoping to put one in as well

 

Not much here it's been in the 100's. I added a 2nd flagpole holder - finally got my embroidered American Flag. The other flag is an embroidered Army flag. I'm going to apply for embassy status next.

 

You're going to need to get rid of that barn looking thing poking out between your (2) A-Frame roof structures if you want embassy status. They can't have that structure overshadowing your elevation. Plus, it looks like they might have high ground over the back half of your residence/property!

 

That's the back half of the main house - three peaks. Speaking of, I got a quote for roof replacement. $30,500. That's just the old part of the house. It's like 3 story's tall at the roof and there are two layers of roofing underneath so there's a bit of an up charge.

 

Yikes, I hate spending money on repairs. It feels like you just dumped a ton of cash and got nothing in return. Now dump $30k into your truck, and you know you got some new shit to play with...