Enough of COVID...what are you doing to the house? | Page 65 | GTAMotorcycle.com

Enough of COVID...what are you doing to the house?

When we eventually upgrade our bathrooms in the house....we’re putting in warmers under the tiles. Cousins did it and it’s awesome.
Our old townhouse I cheaped out and didn’t do it....only to find out it was like $400 for the material.
 
mimico_polak said:
When we eventually upgrade our bathrooms in the house....we’re putting in warmers under the tiles. Cousins did it and it’s awesome.
Our old townhouse I cheaped out and didn’t do it....only to find out it was like $400 for the material.
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To put it in properly you need a megger to check the installed cable before you bury it. Friends tried to skip that step and got unlucky and it quickly stopped working. Very few people have a megger kicking around so make sure you can beg/borrow/steal one for install weekend. I will get one eventually, but haven't come across one at a price that makes sense for me given its occasional usage.
 
For that work id probably just get an electrician to wire the damn thing. All the walls would be out so not a major undertaking.
 
Anybody know anything about fence repair? I got a wooden fence which is leaning heavily cause the posts are rising out of the ground, they're leaning in different directions and tearing the fence apart. I called like 12 different contractors and have not managed to get a single one to come over and give me an estimate, they're all either booked up or not answering, one guy said he'd come over but never did, and another guy said it's not worth repairing a leaning fence and he would just replace it (is that true?). What would be a fair price to get this fixed, there are a total of 7 posts all of which need to be reinserted and the concrete around them redone.
 
danp said:
Anybody know anything about fence repair? I got a wooden fence which is leaning heavily cause the posts are rising out of the ground, they're leaning in different directions and tearing the fence apart. I called like 12 different contractors and have not managed to get a single one to come over and give me an estimate, they're all either booked up or not answering, one guy said he'd come over but never did, and another guy said it's not worth repairing a leaning fence and he would just replace it (is that true?). What would be a fair price to get this fixed, there are a total of 7 posts all of which need to be reinserted and the concrete around them redone.
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How much lean? He wasn't wrong, if they weren't set deep enough, any repair will be temporary. I am assuming you have 4x4's plunged into concrete footings. Is the concrete intact or has it broken up? At our last house the concrete had broken up so I drove pressure treated wedges between the low side and concrete to straighten it. If that didn't want to tip it enough, a little digging on the high side let it come up. I went from a fence that wasn't going to survive another winter do one that lasted at least five more years (still going afaik). The top of the fence line was about 12" out of line and after repair was within ~1". I cut my own wedges so that they were long (~12-18") and a very gradual taper (~1" wide at the top). That helps a lot when driving them and spreads the load so they stay.
 
Some of the posts still got good concrete while others are all broken up. But in all cases the concrete has come out of the ground by like 6-8 inches. I guess the posts need to be replaced but I don't see why we can't reuse all the wood between the posts. I guess it's not a very profitable job so they can't be bothered to come fix it. If I could get someone to just do the posts I could do the fence between them myself.
 
danp said:
Some of the posts still got good concrete while others are all broken up. But in all cases the concrete has come out of the ground by like 6-8 inches. I guess the posts need to be replaced but I don't see why we can't reuse all the wood between the posts. I guess it's not a very profitable job so they can't be bothered to come fix it. If I could get someone to just do the posts I could do the fence between them myself.
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I'm not sure where you are but I have used post holes plus before with good results. I have no affiliation with them. No machine access to the backyard so I needed to hand dig 8 10" (nominal, we went with the smallest 10" to ease the workload) deck footings. They came, hand dug them all to 48", dropped in the sonotube I supplied, filled them and tooled the top. Mix was a little wetter than I would like but held up while I owned the house. If they could have got the machine in, price would have been much lower and it would have been much faster.

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Edit:

If it's like my fence they were far from 48" penetration and the frost popped them. I hate it when people suck at the job that they are paid to do. Sadly, due to crap-ass workmanship, I have very rarely been able to pay to have anything done and have to do it all myself so it gets done properly.
 
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danp said:
Anybody know anything about fence repair? I got a wooden fence which is leaning heavily cause the posts are rising out of the ground, they're leaning in different directions and tearing the fence apart. I called like 12 different contractors and have not managed to get a single one to come over and give me an estimate, they're all either booked up or not answering, one guy said he'd come over but never did, and another guy said it's not worth repairing a leaning fence and he would just replace it (is that true?). What would be a fair price to get this fixed, there are a total of 7 posts all of which need to be reinserted and the concrete around them redone.
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We had this in Ottawa...a fencing company replaced the posts that were leaning by redigging and putting them in new concrete. It saved the rest of the fence. Didn’t need to replace it all. Call a fencing company not a general contractor. If there’s nothing wrong with the rest of the fence it doesn’t need replacing.
 
danp said:
Some of the posts still got good concrete while others are all broken up. But in all cases the concrete has come out of the ground by like 6-8 inches. I guess the posts need to be replaced but I don't see why we can't reuse all the wood between the posts. I guess it's not a very profitable job so they can't be bothered to come fix it. If I could get someone to just do the posts I could do the fence between them myself.
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The problem.

Fixing stuff requires the use of knowledge. R&R can use grunt labour which is cheaper.

I have the same problem, 20 year old posts to come out and new ones installed. I did one a couple of years ago and it was no big deal. It's amazing what one can do with a car jack and some leverage.

My game plan is to sawzall the joints free and save the panels. Pull the concrete and posts. Replace the posts and refit the panels.
 
GreyGhost said:
To put it in properly you need a megger to check the installed cable before you bury it. Friends tried to skip that step and got unlucky and it quickly stopped working. Very few people have a megger kicking around so make sure you can beg/borrow/steal one for install weekend. I will get one eventually, but haven't come across one at a price that makes sense for me given its occasional usage.
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The problem rate for electric floor warming is quite low. One manufacturer has a problem once every 3000 cables. However that is like a low rate of motorcycle crashes. It doesn't matter unless it happens to you.

One big problem is other trades damaging the cables.

People walk on them. Tile setters drop boxes on them and drop buckets of thin set on them.

I have a picture somewhere of the cable just laid and unprotected and someone had piled a washer and drier on it.

Another job, I assume when no one was around to keep an eye on things, someone went into the room where a cable had just been skin coated and obviously put something on the floor and used a razor knife to cut a shape. The cuts weren't noticed until the tile was down.

One manufacturer sells prepunched strap to hold the cable but the strap is poorly made and has burrs that can cut the cable, especially if someone trips over the cable and it gets yanked against the burr.

Some cables get stapled down with a crowned staples and while day dreaming a staple goes through the cable instead of around it. You can get a special stapler that is more protective but it costs a bit more.

Tilers can get aggressive in cleaning out grout lines.

If the damage is minor repairs aren't a big deal but not cheap. More than a new cable but it saves the tear out costs.

The controllers aren't cheap but have GFI protection. Sometimes to save on controllers installers use a contractor to power a number of cables. Great! The GFI function now only protects the coil of the contactor. If there is a fault in the cable, over current can cause massive burnout.

One of my favourites was a job I checked out when the installer wasn't able to attend. I called him later to discuss some discrepancies. He explained that it was his first installation and he was so concerned he read the instructions over five times. He said he still had the instructions as they were in the box with the other half of the cable.

I asked him to get the instructions and read item 5 in the warnings. He started reading Do not......cut............the.............cable.....silence...

I wouldn't sweat blood over an installation but beware of the clumsy worker.
 
nobbie48 said:
The problem rate for electric floor warming is quite low. One manufacturer has a problem once every 3000 cables. However that is like a low rate of motorcycle crashes. It doesn't matter unless it happens to you.

One big problem is other trades damaging the cables.

People walk on them. Tile setters drop boxes on them and drop buckets of thin set on them.

I have a picture somewhere of the cable just laid and unprotected and someone had piled a washer and drier on it.

Another job, I assume when no one was around to keep an eye on things, someone went into the room where a cable had just been skin coated and obviously put something on the floor and used a razor knife to cut a shape. The cuts weren't noticed until the tile was down.

One manufacturer sells prepunched strap to hold the cable but the strap is poorly made and has burrs that can cut the cable, especially if someone trips over the cable and it gets yanked against the burr.

Some cables get stapled down with a crowned staples and while day dreaming a staple goes through the cable instead of around it. You can get a special stapler that is more protective but it costs a bit more.

Tilers can get aggressive in cleaning out grout lines.

If the damage is minor repairs aren't a big deal but not cheap. More than a new cable but it saves the tear out costs.

The controllers aren't cheap but have GFI protection. Sometimes to save on controllers installers use a contractor to power a number of cables. Great! The GFI function now only protects the coil of the contactor. If there is a fault in the cable, over current can cause massive burnout.

One of my favourites was a job I checked out when the installer wasn't able to attend. I called him later to discuss some discrepancies. He explained that it was his first installation and he was so concerned he read the instructions over five times. He said he still had the instructions as they were in the box with the other half of the cable.

I asked him to get the instructions and read item 5 in the warnings. He started reading Do not......cut............the.............cable.....silence...

I wouldn't sweat blood over an installation but beware of the clumsy worker.
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A friend put them in without checking with a megger (as required by the instructions but one wasn't available during install). They tested ok with conventional tests. Both thermostats were buried for redundancy. They tiled the floor and the heated floor didn't work. Maybe caught bad luck with the odds, maybe somebody damaged them after installation/before thinset, I don't know. The cables don't work and they don't feel like tearing apart the floor to fix it. A lot of money down the drain and an unhappy wife.

Our ensuite bathroom is interesting. They ran 12 ga on a 15A breaker (in a weird path, garage up to second floor, across the attic, back to main floor). It runs <20 minutes a day when set to 67-70 (heats up for wakeup and bedtime). I haven't measured it to see what it actually draws. I suspect they thought due to distance and draw 14 ga wasn't a great idea but that is shocking considering the general crap-assery of the rest of their work.
 
GreyGhost said:
A friend put them in without checking with a megger (as required by the instructions but one wasn't available during install). They tested ok with conventional tests. Both thermostats were buried for redundancy. They tiled the floor and the heated floor didn't work. Maybe caught bad luck with the odds, maybe somebody damaged them after installation/before thinset, I don't know. The cables don't work and they don't feel like tearing apart the floor to fix it. A lot of money down the drain and an unhappy wife.

Our ensuite bathroom is interesting. They ran 12 ga on a 15A breaker (in a weird path, garage up to second floor, across the attic, back to main floor). It runs <20 minutes a day when set to 67-70 (heats up for wakeup and bedtime). I haven't measured it to see what it actually draws. I suspect they thought due to distance and draw 14 ga wasn't a great idea but that is shocking considering the general crap-assery of the rest of their work.
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Did your friend have someone trouble shoot the cables? Sometimes the problem is easily fixed.

I drove 1 1/2 hours to Niagara on the Lake because the cables weren't heating. I turned up the thermostat. A few red faces.
 
danp said:
Anybody know anything about fence repair? I got a wooden fence which is leaning heavily cause the posts are rising out of the ground, they're leaning in different directions and tearing the fence apart. I called like 12 different contractors and have not managed to get a single one to come over and give me an estimate, they're all either booked up or not answering, one guy said he'd come over but never did, and another guy said it's not worth repairing a leaning fence and he would just replace it (is that true?). What would be a fair price to get this fixed, there are a total of 7 posts all of which need to be reinserted and the concrete around them redone.
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We had something similar. It was a fairly easy fix on our fence, and it's been going well for over a year now.

First we punched in these:

Then we cut a 4x4 to the appropriate length.

Then we used lag screws (if that's the word) to screw the fence post 4x4s to the one we just made.

It's a temporary fix until we replace the entire fence, but it's held up fine for us and barely moves.
 
This is what we did...
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FML again upside down. WTH. Photos taken in different phone orientations.
 

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mimico_polak said:
This is what we did...
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I'm no expert but to me that looks like a very temporary fix if you just drove the spikes into the ground with no concrete. But at least it was cheap. I guess it also depends on how much wind the fence receives, eg if it's right next to the house and the house blocks most of the wind, vs my fence where the fence receives the full force of the wind. I guess the guy who built my fence didn't do the posts/concrete properly if the concrete is rising out of the ground. I have another fence on the other side of my yard and that fence is still perfect, so the guy that built that part must have been more experienced. I think it's more complex than simply digging a hole and putting a 4x4 in it and putting concrete around it, there is a technique to doing the concrete if you expect it to last. I read you are supposed to make the concrete in a pyramid shape which prevents it from rising out of the ground.
 
danp said:
I'm no expert but to me that looks like a very temporary fix if you just drove the spikes into the ground with no concrete. But at least it was cheap. I guess it also depends on how much wind the fence receives, eg if it's right next to the house and the house blocks most of the wind, vs my fence where the fence receives the full force of the wind. I guess the guy who built my fence didn't do the posts/concrete properly if the concrete is rising out of the ground. I have another fence on the other side of my yard and that fence is still perfect, so the guy that built that part must have been more experienced. I think it's more complex than simply digging a hole and putting a 4x4 in it and putting concrete around it, there is a technique to doing the concrete if you expect it to last. I read you are supposed to make the concrete in a pyramid shape which prevents it from rising out of the ground.
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Yes you are correct. It's a temporary fix...until we replace the full fence. But I'm willing to spend $200 as it's kept up for 1.5 years now with no real issue. A new fence is going to be 10-15k, so I'm willing to do this in the meantime.

In your situation, the concrete most likely didn't go down below the frost line, hence the heave. You need to be sure to drop it below that frost line. Otherwise you're wasting your time/money.

EDIT: was planning on building the fence this year, but with the price of lumber I’m just going to hold off. I’ve got about....150ft of fence to put up....that’s not going to be cheap in any way shape or form. I’m actually wondering if I could build the panels and then put the posts in so it’s all said and ready. But then the posts need to be bang on, otherwise I’m screwed.
 
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Holy crap is a fence really that expensive? Maybe you could hire someone to do just the posts then complete the rest yourself. I think posts need to be done by someone who knows what they're doing if you expect them to last, but the rest of the work seems pretty simple to me.
 
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