I'm not talking about huge things like a house, but smaller purchases that had a surprisingly big, positive impact on your daily life. A good mattress? A better coffee maker? What's your best ""quality of life"" hack?

Wondering what brands of toilet are good yet under $250? Anyone know if Glacier Bay is a good brand? How is American Standard these days? Thanks.

I have been working with Resnick since last fall {2024}. I upgraded my power panel and installed a battery system with other companies. Resnick are still stalling as of the middle of August 2025. They keep promising they'll schedule the install "soon". It seems like every time I reach out to them, it's several days before they get back to me, then they always need to check something and it's several more days or a week before I hear more excuses.

Now, we're nearing the end of the rebate program and I don't believe they will have the solar system installed and working in time. It's too late to start over with another provider.

I'm just going to cancel their solar work. What a waste of my time and effort!

Correction to the title! My floors are waterproof vinyl planks!

We bought our first home 1.5 years ago. It had been a rental, and the previous owner fully renovated it before our closing.

The contractors installed laminate flooring, but after a few months it started buckling and coming up in several places. I spoke with the previous owner (who I’ve known most of my life), and he sent the contractors back out as a favor. They fixed the worst spots, but now the problem is occurring again and it’s worse.

I’m not sure if this is from improper installation or if I caused it somehow. For the first year I used a string mop and bucket, and this year I switched to the new O-Cedar flat mop bucket system (which is amazing, by the way).

My knowledge of laminate (I looked at a photo I had of the box it says waterproof vinyl plank) flooring is limited, but I’ve heard that flooring used for repairs needs to match the current flooring’s lot number. I have the lot number, but the original may have bought this flooring in bulk years ago since they renovated multiple houses.

Does anyone know the best way to fix this? Any solutions, advice, or insight would be greatly appreciated. I’ve included a link with some photos (not all the buckling shows up clearly in photos). The issues are in my kitchen, living room, and the doorways of two other rooms. I also have dogs, and since it’s been raining, the floor is dirty.

Also I checked with my neighbor who bought her house from the same people - same contractors - and her floors did the same thing

https://imgur.com/a/9X8DIdE

I have historically avoided getting a building permit. I'm in rural NY so that is pretty common here. I knew there would be a reconning at some point, and now that we have decided to add on to our house, we are there. Ultimately they will need to see my basement and this will be there - see below. What is the best approach for correcting? Fix and then disclose to the building inspector? Or, do I show him the he damage and ask how he wants it corrected? Trying to do the right thing, but also trying to avoid getting an engineer and contractor involved with it becoming unaffordable... Again. Thoughts? Suggestions?

During COVID I did quite a bit of work on my house, mostly in my basement, as we needed space for our laundry, more private space so my wife and I could both work from home, etc. This also included access to our basement that is not to code, and would be a huge flag for a building inspector. He laundry - will be- to code, and the office is.

We knew when we bought the house that the previous owners had cut into floor joists pretty severely to get plumbing in. What we didn't know is that there was also water damage from a bad roof and gutters that had rotted through several joists and studs in the wall. Rather than fixing (also because we couldn't afford to at the time- covid only made that worse with lumber prices), we added interioy access to our basement that we didn't have prior (we have a weird split level).

While I added a beam where the opening was from the rotten studs, I didn't properly correct the joists that are still being held up by a load bearing wall I built that was meant to be temporary. The stairs are also far from being to code for head room and stair run/rise. The fix is fairly easy with sistering the joist and lag bolting in place for the three joists that were cut to resupport everything. I can also re-add and frame out the studs easily enough.

Good morning! I have a problem to solve... I live in a condominium in which I recently purchased an apartment but in the cellar room, when it rains a lot or there are big storms the corridor floods and consequently also my cellar. Since there is no talk of solving the problem as the other tenants say they have lived with this situation for years, I would like to partially solve the problem. I was thinking of placing some igloos about 40cm high and 50x50cm wide, if I'm not mistaken, I would place some OSB boards on top.. I wouldn't want to pour concrete on the igloos for reasons of future practicality and to keep costs down a bit.. Advice? Could this be doable? Thanks for the help

Looking at finishing a basement in my new construction home. Inside, however, are these odd cement partitions. They’re somewhat evenly spaced along the wall, every 15-20 ft or so. They stick out about 4 ft into the living area and are about 6 inches thick. They don’t connect to the ceiling so they don’t feel structural to me. Any idea what they are? I’ve never seen anything like this in a basement before.

Edit: you can see two of them at the rear wall in linked pic https://imgur.com/a/4yw7haM

Hi. This is my first post because I’m genuinely stumped. I’m renovating a 1930s property. The living room ceiling needs to come down to rewire the house (the other two ceilings need to come down anyway because of walls being removed, the living room has polystyrene tiles applied with what seems like concrete from edge to edge).

I’ve removed ceiling tiles before but these bad boys are not coming off, so I am removing a combination of layers all stuck together of polystyrene tiles, plasterboard and plaster (leaving the lath underneath as the only part I can separate). How the hell do I dispose of it? Skips won’t take plasterboard. Plasterboard skips won’t take polystyrene. Similarly the recycling centre can’t take it because I can’t separate it.

Halp!

 Hi all,

 First post here in this sub, so hopefully the right place. Looking for a bit of advice on how to help my dad end a relationship with a contractor that’s gone sour, what if any options we should look at, and how to pick up the pieces and move on.  

Original project:

• Had an estimate and required close to 70% up front
• I did not receive, nor do I recall any standard contract spelling out any details on what happens if things go south or arbitration or termination details, etc.
• Two month estimated completion date

Before I say anything more, let me say this: We are already aware of our stupidity in this situation and the fact that we should have understood and noticed what was happening far earlier. I won’t bore you with excuses -- we were very anxious to get someone for the project and this person came highly recommended, so our guards were down. My dad had the ultimate say in choosing the contractor, but I was there, too, which is why I’m including myself in the stupid part.   What was supposed to be a 60-day project has turned into 18 months with many twists, turns, and delays – some valid and caused by outside sources, some I believe have been manufactured, and some deliberate with the contactor taking other work.

When there were valid delays, we really tried to help him through them with additional work or financial help, but he complained almost from the start about how he was always losing money or in the wrong business or how we were causing him to see money slip out of his hands, etc. A lot of what I felt was pretty unprofessional stuff to say to a client.

• I feel he used the delays to expand the scope of the project to include a lot of other work and lock us into him.
• It also feels like he led us astray with many things that shouldn’t have been done or jumped to before the original project was finished.
• Looking back, leaving things unfinished was a big pattern; the contractor liked to work on things that he could invoice for, rather than work on things he had already been paid for.

Last week, after becoming belligerent with me over some innocuous questioning, and then having a meltdown with one of the trades onsite, he basically took some of his stuff and walked off the job without any notice. Later that day, he sent a letter saying that he was going to take a break from all his work for my dad. The letter was basically a litany of misleading info or outright lies trying to rewrite history, cover his butt, and justify being able to just stop/pause work. I’m not even sure why he would send it, because we have kept comprehensive documentation that easily disputes everything he included in his letter. Moreover, it makes him look like the huge liar he is apparently.

Him walking off also came just a few days before he would have been able to call for one of his framing inspections – something we’ve been waiting forever for, and he knows this. 

So now, this is what we are left with:

• Incomplete contracted and paid for work throughout the home
• Uncertain permit status with no contractor to complete inspections
• My dad who is distraught and just wants to get into his home.
• A few very shady (possibly fraudulent) things we found looking back more closely through the invoices
• A contractor who has paused all his work and seemingly thinks he’s got us over a barrel and can just come back when he needs money again
• Or, possibly, a contractor who wants us to fire him and thinks he can bully us into paying for incomplete work
• There is a LOT more to this including multiple other ways he has shown his true colors and could have complaints no doubt filed against him, but this is already way too long and convoluted. Apologies!

Whatever the state of this shit show, I do know when it comes down to the bottom line, my dad just wants him gone now. He wants him to come and pick up his tools and never set foot on the property again after all the stress this past week. 

• When push comes to shove, he owes us more for the incomplete work and some work that never started, along with some financial assistance he agreed on paper to pay back, than we owe him.
• If we owe him anything at the end of this (and I’m not sure how that would be possible with the work not completed), it’s very minimal (less than 1.5k).
• I don’t believe we owe him a dime at this point, and if anything, we’re the ones who are going to probably have to cut our losses and lose a lot of money, because I’m pretty sure he doesn’t have any. 
• Just for more context, we did check on his credentials and insurance etc., before we hired him.
• I also couldn’t find any complaints against him, but after what’s happened, I have a sick feeling this isn’t the first time he’s pulled something like this, probably just on a smaller scale.

It was like he was three steps ahead of us from day one and knew what he was doing – even going so far as to be careful and very vague with what he said in emails/texts, and sent out invoices that on the surface, seemed very detailed, but most of the time didn’t include enough detail in the title or the information throughout the invoice to identify which room of the house he was actually billing for. 

Anyway, apologies for how long this is…I’ve tried to shorten it several times but not having much luck. Any advice or guidance would be appreciated – especially advice on how to kick him to the curb without leaving my dad vulnerable to any more of his B.S.

 Thank you! 

TU

Is it legal at all or by any means, in the State of Nevada to renovate a garage and/or tear the garage down and start over with the existing foundation?

My garage is pretty old and rugged.

I would either like to make it a pull in car port or a work shop with some comfortable renovations. And an idea of making it a living space has crossed my mind.

So, what would I need to do if it is legal to do it all myself or hire someone to come build/renovate it?

If it wasn’t legal, what steps would I need to be able to do this?

When I moved I to my current house it has a strong old house/old person kinds of smell. I have done everything at it is still there. I cleaned the vents, painted everything twice, replaced almost all the carpet, cleaned everywhere and there smell is still there, just as strong. I am kinda going crazy and not sure what to do next.

I removed 3 lag bolts (5/16" x 3") that were drilled vertically on the center of one wall stud, with about 1 foot between each hole. Can I just patch the drywall and paint? Will the 5/16" holes compromise the integirty of the wall studs, esp during an earthquake? Or do I need to drill very short lag bolts back into the wall studs, and then patch and paint? I live in a single story home in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Ok so we are refurbishing - important as we want to to some degree keep the old features but add a modern twist to it - our old colonial Jhb home. It was in quiet rough condition as far as maintaince is concerned. We started with clearing to get a blank canvas. The home is built in old red bricks and originally we wanted to strip the paint of the bricks (half painted half plastered rough) and get the bricks to look nice. But the would have entailed re-doing the mortar between the bricks and honestly half of the bricks were quiet chipped and damaged. So now we've plastered over them smooth. Leaving the top row of brick open so we can paint it (like a line across the house). The problem we have is that the rest of the wall is textured and when painted the same colour it looks really odd. So we got a company in to quote us to smooth out the rough and make it match , it's going to add about 2 inches of plaster if we don't want to chip the plaster off and then smooth it out. It's a really big home. My idea is to make the smooth plaster match the rough plaster (owners of the home in the 70s used pebbles in the the plaster to really texture it so it's going to add inches on the plaster too) Our other option is to paint the smooth part a different colour. I have no idea what to do with that either , something dark I think would look nice but our colours are light grey black (window sills) and white (gutters and facial boards). Our roof is Harvey tiles so we don't wanna paint it and it's brick red.

Honestly still heart broken we didn't have the chance to refurbish the brick.

Any advice would be great.

I recently purchased a home and my wife wants to install an attic fan. Our home has 2 gables. one on each side of the house. So naturally I assumed we should just put a gable fan which seems like a pretty easy install. But my wife is saying she wants a roof mounted attic fan because she thinks it would me more effective since we can place it near the middle of the house which will make it more effective. I'm not sure that's exactly how these things work. but would it be a mistake to install a roof mounted attic fan if we already have 2 Gables? should I just go with the gable fan?

I cant really find any info on which if the two types of attic fans I should go with. are they both essentially the same? If you have Gables go with the gable fan and if not then go with the roof mounted fan?

I bought a ranch style house about 15 years ago. I really didn't notice the outside noise until I quit sleeping in the far bedroom. It has a slab floor. The other part is oak flooring with a good size crawl space. We quit using the back bedroom to save on electricity.
We had new attic insulation installed in the main body of the house. It helped some. Was thinking about new windows, but that's very expensive. And I am not positive about that making it quieter. Neighbors fussing carries into our house. You don't hear the words , but you sure can hear them fussing. And they are about 75 yards away. Now we have new neighbors down the road, which were blasting Latin music last night. What do y'all think, maybe carpet?

Been shopping for window treatments for 3 windows and 3 sliding doors. After looking at blinds, drapes and shades - (aesthetically) I’m leaning towards roller shades for the windows and vertical cellular shades for the sliding doors.

https://imgur.com/a/h8l4n9h

Pics are AI generated based on real shade samples that I liked & real room layout. Shades are from Hunter Douglas or Alta and some other cheaper companies.

The issue is for 6 total treatments- I’m getting quotes around $6k-8k including installation. This is way outside my budget of $3k.

So, my question is where should I be looking to get something that looks similar but costs much less?

So I switched from an under cabinet to Wall mount range hood.

Long story short, the studs were too far apart by an inch or too for the new one to be mounted. So I just mounted one side to a stud and the other side to the drywall.

Am I better off cutting a portion of the drywall and screwing in another 2x4 to the existing stud to extend it and then screw in the other side of the hood?

Or screwing in a large piece of plywood to the existing studs and mounting the hood to the Plywood?

Thanks in advance

I could use a little advice on how to handle a situation with a general contractor.

I am about 50% done with a basement refinishing that I've hired out through a general contractor.

A couple days ago his plumber installed a new Instant Hot Water heater in the basement, and headed out for the day. When I went to go use the water fixtures, I noticed that about half my water fixtures had zero or a tiny amount of pressure.

I called the general contractor out to come look at it with his plumber, and they started pulling out rockwool insulation from the water lines that seemed to be clogging up the lines before exiting the water fixtures.

In talking to the plumber 1-on-1 he mentioned that there was a heated argument between him and a drywall sub the prior day because he'd needed to cut some of their drywall to install piping. Apparently it was going to cause them to come back out, and he believed the drywall subcontractor had stuffed the lines with insulation out of spite.

Feeling a little shocked at how this has gone as all prior experiences have gone fine. Do I need to do anything special to ensure there's no lasting damage? How would you go about handling this with the general contractor?

Looking to build a carport off my house.I live in the redwoods and I have a buddy w access to logs and a bandsaw mill. It needs to be 20’ deep and 25’ wide, here’s my lumber wishlist so far (for lean to type setup) (6) 6x6 8’ posts (2) 6x8 20’ beams (16) 4x6 25’ “Perlins “ (remember you’re talking to a DIY guy here) on 24” centers Sound insane? B/c overbuilt or I’m missing something?? It’s only got to have room for the minivan, I want the bonus space for upteen million other projects that need to be head height, so considering going higher w the posts but not essential. What yall think??

Hey folks,
I’m stuck trying to figure out what to do with my basement. I’ve seen people turn theirs into gyms, bars, movie rooms, even offices, and now I can’t decide what direction to go.

If you’ve finished your basement, what’s the basement finishing idea you went with that you actually love (and use)? Also curious if there’s anything you tried that just ended up being a waste of space.

Appreciate any thoughts or inspo!

I placed a Varathane Golden Oak stain that shows a light colour on the label. But it turned the nearly white pine into something completely different. https://imgur.com/a/sd8SukT

I can't stand the stuff, where I had gotten compliments before staining it. I can't turn back time now, but what can be done here?

I am in the process of remodeling a bathroom in my house because of a leak from on old toilet seal. I've laid the underlayment and tile. I just got this Oatey screw to fit flange with a little gasket on it.

I just realized I think I was supposed to remove this metal piece that feeds the pipe. So the 3" flange is too small and the 4" too big.

Is there any way salvage this without pulling up tile? Also, yes I realize my rushed tile job looks like crap. This project quickly turning into my biggest home improvement fail.

Years ago, our landscaper installed a brass hose bib off of what I think is our irrigation lines. It developed a crack and a persistent leak, so I sought out a solution at home depot. I figured PVC is easy enough to work with, shouldn't be a problem. Famous last words. First photo below is the original (cracked) setup:

https://imgur.com/Q5CCUpI

So I went to HD, and asked an older employee who looked like a retired contractor, what my best option was. He helped me find the pieces for this solution:

https://imgur.com/sUwkP7D

Which upon further inspection after I got home, is not intended for constant pressure use, and of course it leaked (at the red arrow) like a cross-threaded hose fitting once the water was turned on.

So I cut that out and went back to HD and found some other parts that seemed like they would work, and made this:

https://imgur.com/84t7a7M

And was very proud of myself. Until I turned the water back on, and it is now leaking (slow drip) from the two arrows. Now I know I could likely fix the leak at the green arrow with some PVC adhesive applied to the PVC threads (which currently only have PTFE tape on them). The blue arrow though is brass on PVC, which I take it is not recommended. I have PTFE tape there too, but it still drips.

So given what you see in the photos, any solution? I told my wife I was just going to cap it and we could do without, to which she gave a look that would tell any man to seek other options ASAP. So here I am.

TIA for any marital harmony-inducing solutions anyone can suggest. :)

ETA: the PVC is all 3/4" in case it wasn't obvious. And the threads are 3/4" NPT

Am I fucked? I can't find anything by the chimney. I'm finding a lot of dead ones on the second floor. I just bought the home 10 days ago

https://imgur.com/a/wN9RITK