The Home Improvement Thread

Parent Cafe
3664

I’m not familiar with Dornbracht, but German and Swiss are all about quality and reliability. My parents both immigrated from Switzerland.

We have Delta faucets, and our refreshed double sink vanity has new Delta faucets. To me, worth the price.

Our kitchen sink is a 3 bowl Kohler in cream color - the two large sinks are 7” deep and 12” across and 12” towards the wall; the middle sink is 3 1/2” deep and 9” across the front and 5” near the faucet. We got the replacement faucet at Home Depot to match the cream color (not that many found in cream color) - I didn’t go to the upscale store to see/order – I figure this 3rd faucet will last through when we do sell the home. When we built the home, I told the cabinet shop we were putting in a 3 bowl sink (the heavier sink needed better cabinetry reinforcement) - which the shop didn’t do right, so it had to be taken out and redone.

Our stainless-steel double sink laundry has the original Delta faucet.

3665

Anytime someone flaunts their religion like that I put my hand on my purse - it really bothers me and reeks of things better left unsaid. Sorry, really feel like religion has been hijacked by a lot of not so great people. Religion shouldn’t play a part in your basement, certainly doesn’t make them more trustworth - look at some of the crazy evangelicals ripping off everyone - actually, could be used as a warning.

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3666

I love having a septic tank as someone who never had one before. They have no odor and they don’t back up and there just isn’t any work to them. We have a pretty large one and the kids have been gone for a while but we do pump it every 5-7 years just because that’s what they said to do when we bought the house. We also have a pretty flat yard where the drain field is so there is never any standing water, I’m guessing it continues to drain well. Wouldn’t want to hook up to a sewer again - seemed always have other peoples backup making odors in your home. Don’t like other peoples lack of maintenance interfering with my home life.

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3667

We have relatives in TN that had septic, but their area really wasn’t suitable (next door neighbor did have standing water and it was a hazard to their water) - and the city put in sewer system and every home had to put in the connection from their home to the street - fortunately they had a guy in the family to do the work reasonably (just the cost of renting the equipment and his know-how with the rest of it). It was an expense, but they had no choice, and they liked their house - and didn’t want to move.

Our system does save us money on our water bill - our city subdivision is entirely septic systems, but later developments are all with city sewer.

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3668

I hope my husband and I can manage to stay married over the next couple of weeks, having our basement rehabbed from the wastewater flood we had, while trying to keep control of our crazy kitten who can open the basement door even though it opens towards him, likely losing access to at least half of our garage because of dumpster placement and trying to pack for a vacation.

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3669

We have a gas cooktop in our kitchen that needs to be replaced. A bit of a pain since I have to find a cooktop with almost the same dimensions - underneath the cooktop are three drawers and the top drawer is cut a bit on one side to accommodate the cooktop. We also have a vent above that needs to be replaced - preferably with a better one and installed slightly higher, getting rid of the cabinet that’s currently on top of the vent. Bottom line, these changes while not massive, might require some work with the existing cabinets and the backsplash.

Would you start by contacting a general contractor for this?

3670

Here is what we have done which may or may not work in your case. Other than the cooktop, my husband replaced all appliances leaving some imperfections in the cabinetry and then we got bids for cabinet refacing. The contractor we picked made sure to take care of these imperfections by adding wider paneling etc. We bought the cooktop but did not install it until we hired a contractor to replace the ugly countertops. The contractor made a hole in the countertop and dropped the cooktop in, and my husband finished installation. Eight years later, we replaced the gas cooktop with an induction one after carefully measuring the dimensions to make sure the new cooktop would fit without any countertop modifications. Thankfully, we already had a 220v line that only needed to be rerouted a little.

Thinking out loud, you might need a contractor that specializes in appliance installation if a DIY route is not possible. I recommend asking someone at a specialized appliance store for recommendations of both a replacement cooktop and a contractor. We got a list of such contractors from a local appliance store when we bought our induction cooktop but ended up not needing to hire anyone.

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3671

For me the cooktop would be a DIY job. Installing a new vent hood might be easy but might require outside help, depending on how the ductwork lined up.

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3672

DIY is out of the question here - H and I wouldn’t survive that :slight_smile:

I have been thinking about the best way to do this. First find a cooktop that would potentially fit and then look around for contractors that could install the appliance and do the refinishing necessary - that’s my current thought.

@BunsenBurner - how do you like your induction cooktop? A friend was suggesting that we should look at this since we are planning a change anyway.

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3673

I like it! My cooktop is a Miele replacing my Miele gas cooktop. The induction heating is super fast, so it required a few days to adjust my cooking techniques and routines.

We’ve been warned that induction can be noisy. I did not find that to be a problem at all. Some pots and pans generate quiet clicking noises when heated, but some are completely silent. Apparently it depends on the pot construction.

Cleanup of the cooktop is a breeze compared to the scrubbing of the gas one! This was a big selling point to me.

One additional thing… We have a friend with a pacemaker. They now politely decline our dinner invitations because they’ve heard that induction cooktops could interfere with certain pacemakers. We said we would not use the stove while they are visiting, but they still say next time.
Oh well.

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3674

Wow, that is interesting!

3675

I looked it up, and apparently some older type of pacemakers could be affected by being in close proximity to an induction cooktop. Modern pacemakers are apparently safe, so the fear maybe irrational.

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3676

Does it matter if it is being used at the time?

3677

Only when a burner is on. When the stove is off, there is no electromagnetic field.

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3678

Huh. I didn’t know that about induction cooktops. DH has a pacemaker, so I guess we won’t be going induction anytime soon.

3679

He should check with his cardiologist if it would be OK to be very close to an induction burner.

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3680

I don’t want to give him any reason not to cook!!

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3681

I guess I failed to post after our basement rehab. The company did a really good job, and finished in 3 days (they thought it might take 6). We had to wait another day or so before we could walk around much on the stairs and in the basement, but we got quite a bit put back together before we left for vacation.

One thing we paid extra for, which was definitely worth the price, is having the LVP for the stairs molded to go over the top of the steps, instead of having something on the edge of every step that would be a tripping hazard. We stayed in a townhouse last week on our vacation, and that edge thing was on the steps, and 2 of 4 of us tripped on the steps during that one week. It cost about $100 per step to have the molding done, but I would definitely do it again. The LVP is much nicer than carpet for the basement also.

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3682

That’s impressive how well your systems have held up with careful use and maintenance — do you think avoiding heavy garbage disposal use and spreading out loads is the main reason your septic and appliances lasted so long, because in my opinion consistent habits like that make a bigger difference than brand or equipment alone?

3683

100% on minimal garbage disposal use, and also proper installation of septic. A friend had a mess from both heavy garbage disposal use, not great field lines or a problem along that way. They had a pretty big expense to fix the field lines/septic which probably wasn’t put in great to start – but the garbage disposal heavy use and careless on what went down it was what set it all off.

My next-door neighbor had an issue because when their septic was pumped out, the guy forgot to turn the valve for the flow to the field lines (and that might have been why they needed their septic pumped out). They are on lower lying area, and the builder (3 owners ago) didn’t have the proper drainage from around the house, so moisture/water was gathering under the house (in the crawl space) and rotted out stuff/mold. Yuck. That was repaired by prior owner.

From what I know from others (and places like Consumer Reports) the aging of dishwasher, other appliances.

We don’t have ‘hard water’ - lots of minerals. We just replaced our 80-gallon water heater (20 years old - a fair amount of sediment in it) - if you flush them yearly, you can perhaps get more years out of them. We noticed it was going out, based on hot water supply. Our other water heater was replaced some years ago, and should be good for a while.

If one has hard water, one needs to run dishwasher and washing machine cleaning cycle once a month. Purchase the products for that. My daughter needs to do that in San Antonio - their rent house doesn’t have a water softener system but I guess the water is not bad for use but hard on appliances.

This is our first (and probably only home) to have septic. Our builder put it in right and ‘went big’ on what the septic tank and system could handle. Having the separate line for the laundry room also keeps the septic system from getting alkaline which kills off the bacterial breakdown of waste.

We put in ‘good stuff’ - mid to high end on appliances. Rheem water heater through Home Depot - the 80 gallon is ‘commercial’ - I guess a lot of homes don’t put in the super large Jacuzzi to need that. Maybe some have two water heaters due to areas of the home, or have one be instant hot water (small) located near heavy or important use (master bath for example).

We also live in the south (N AL) - if we were further north, I would be feeding RidX more over winter months. You don’t want the bacteria in the septic tank to be dormant, and the cold could possibly cause that to happen.