The Home Improvement Thread

Parent Cafe
1641

The Friday night before we left for vacation, I went down to the basement to retrieve a piece of luggage. The floor was wet – our 26 yo water heater finally bit the dust. DH shut off the water and a gas valve, only to learn when the plumber arrived Saturday am that the water heater did not have a gas shutoff!!! (Apparently DH shut off the gas line to the furnace.)

Water and gas were capped, tank removed, and it will be replaced when we return from vacation. All I can think of is “What if I had waited til Sunday to bring up that bag?” and that if I had brought it up at the beginning of the week, I wouldn’t have gone downstairs until my final house check before leaving.

So…any opinions on tankless gas water heaters? DH is interested.

1642

Yikes - perfect timing. Get a cheapo water leak alarm if you don’t have one.

In this house, we have a combiboiler with hydroair. I personally like it. The major drawback is that when power goes out, you are out of hot water. Another issue I never thought of is the annual backflow valve inspections which your municipality might require. Real PITA because you have to remember when to call for an inspection and wait for the dude to show up. Tank heaters don’t need a backflow valve. And finally, make sure that the heater can supply enough hot water for the entire house (so when the dishwasher is running, your shower is not lukewarm).

1643

Our county now requires backflow valves, even for gas heaters. We have a 40-gallon tank now, but we’ve been told the new standard is 30 or 50. We never run out of hot water, even when the guys lived at home.

On e of DH’s colleagues mentioned having a tankless, so now he thinks that’s cool. Not that either of us know anything about them!

1644

Interesting. I am sure water heaters come in 40 gallons and other sizes. Our water heater in House1 was 70 gallons. :slight_smile:

If you read reviews of tankless, you will see a bunch of Zero and five star ratings. Installation is apparently very important. Tankless also don’t last forever, and ours is approaching the end of its road. The pro who serviced our boiler recommended Lochinvar with fire tube technology.

http://lochinvar.com/Default.aspx

1645

That said, Mr. B really wants to install a tank with our next on demand boiler.

1646

Flooring orientation question:

The Cape house has a long room at the back that runs the full length of the house, about 40’ x 12’. On the back corner it is joined by the new foyer, which is about 20’ long x 8’ or 12’ wide, depending on where you are. It forms a big L, more or less.

I’ve always been told you should run the flooring in the long direction of the room, as it looks nicer.

The question is - should we turn the flooring when we get to the foyer so it can run the long way? Or is it ok to run it the same direction as the big room?

If we turn it, we would have to put in some sort of transition strip, which will create a bump on the floor (the flooring is LVT).

Thoughts/opinions?

I feel like, no matter how low profile the transition strip is, I will still trip on it. :slight_smile: But I don’t want it to look weird either.

1647

I would run it in the same direction as the existing flooring.

1648

Can you run your flooring all in the same direction and break the weirdness in the foyer by adding a tile or some other inlay? I think it would be weirder to have a transition strip than running all of it in the same direction.

1649

There actually isn’t any flooring there right now (well, the plywood sub-floor), but I assume you mean run everything in the same direction?

1650

Yes…run it all in the same direction. Sorry for the misunderstanding!

1651

Can you mix tile and LVT?

A compass inlay would be cool, I wonder if anyone makes those from LVT. Hmm…

1652

It sounds like medallions can be done with vinyl:

http://www.carpetfloor-more.com/flooring-floor-covering-los-angeles/resilient-flooring-los-angeles/luxury-vinyl-tile-lvt-lvp/centiva-event-wood-planks.html

https://www.tandus-centiva.com/product-solutions/imaginations-floor-design/hard-surface

1653

We just had that same question when we installed LVT in our house. We ran it the long way and continued in the same direction for the hallway that formed an L with the longer room. It looks fine. We didn’t consider changing the direction of the flooring.

1654

I immediately thought of you running them like a mitered corner. Have each room run it’s long way and meet at the 90 degree angle with some sort of cool design?

1655

I would not change direction, insert a transition piece or do an inlay. Any change in direction or design chops up the continuity of the flooring and makes the spaces look smaller.

The reason people run floors down the long way is less cuts required. You only have to cut the pieces at the long ends.

I would suggest that you run the long way from your entry. When people walk in the front door it draws the eye to the furthest point. In your case, I believe that would be your view windows.

However…if you have sliding doors along the opposite wall, that creates cuts against the doorways where they cannot be hidden by baseboard. Make sure the flooring installer buys transition pieces to cover the cut edges against the doorways, including at the front door.

If you would prefer to lengthen the large living area, rather than the entry area ( and have clean lines along the sliding doors), then run lengthwise in the big room. That would be less cuts in the grand scheme of things.

1656

Mr. B just finished painting the most challenging piece of our siding. Phew.

1657

Aaaaannnd… we have a new project! Yippee! The bathroom mirror glued to the wall in the MB cracked. It is still stuck to the wall, but it can come crashing down any minute. Lol. Electric Mirror, here we come.

https://www.electricmirror.com/product/integrity-lighted-mirror-tv/

1658

Well, today they’re putting the shutters back on the house. Finally. These are 100+ year old shutters with (formerly) moveable louvers. I’m lucky the guys nailed them back together so they’re sturdy.

But on some of those shutters, the louvers are painted shut in the wrong direction. We decided this is an old problem, probably back decades and right now, I’m not going to worry. It’s not noticeable and if it is, later, I’ll just have the pieces swapped to the least visible side of the house. For now, my brain can’t take any more. Tomorrow the first part of the boiler project starts, chimney repair and a new flue.

1659

We are finally within sight of the finish line.

Master bath: just needs final touches. The wrong doorknobs were installed and need to be replaced. The fabricator needs to make changes to the niche. It holds water! The rest of the hardware needs to be installed on the cabinets. And we need the glass insert for the linen cabinet door. Window shutter is scheduled to be installed next week.

Kitchen: cabinets are in, floor is done, paint has been selected, appliances are being installed, fabricator has measured for the counters (due next week), the lights are here, ready to be installed. I should be able to do laundry today. We still need to order new hardware/replacement parts for our Anderson sliding door. Kitchen glass inserts will be installed next week. DH is refinishing the kitchen table.

Door knobs: with the exception of the kids bedroom closets, we are replacing all doorknobs in the house with Baldwin Satin Nickel …like these but with a square plate:

https://www.baldwinhardware.com/products/details/door-hardware/levers/estate-lever-5116-150

Lights, kitchen:

Over the triple window, two small sconces will be installed over the two side windows. They are from Etsy but I don’t have the link.

Over the island, two of these:
https://www.wayfair.com/lighting/hd0/lakeshore-1-light-schoolhouse-pendant-l6087-k~lfmf2469.html

Over the table
https://www.hinkleylightinglights.com/product/hinkley-lighting-fulton-foyer-lighting-3334bz.html

Floors: they did a great job with repairs to the hardwood floor, replaced the dining room floor and also finished the front hall.

Paint: the contractor will paint the kitchen and dining room. A painter will paint much of the rest of the house the week of 8/20. A faux painter work in the master bedroom a couple of days beginning 8/29.

Bathroom paints:
BM Horizon walls
BM White trim

Kitchen, Dining Room, Living Room
BM Sea Pearl
BM Simply White trim

Main Hall, Family Room, Stairs, Upstairs Hall
BM Milky Way
BM Guilford Green on curved stairway wall
BM Simply White trim

If you are curious, I have a Photo account started. If you are a regular poster here and want to see, send me a PM and I’ll reply with the account.

1660

The cabinets are in, and the appliances all fit!

https://www.■■■■■■■■■■/photos/32532343@N00/42159377120/in/dateposted-public/

The cabinet with the built-in microwave is actually a base cabinet that my builder trimmed the some of the base off, and added a small filler. He also pulled all of the base cabinets down 3/4" and the uppers on the right (fortunately I did a blind cabinet in the corner so there was room, because the dang range is more that 24" deep!!!

Who is designing these appliances to not fit a standard cabinet configuration without sticking out?!

Electrician will be there over the weekend installing lights, countertop templating is Monday, flooring is ordered, the cable railing for the stairs and balcony is ordered. Hopefully the tile guy gets in there soon. Things are moving along!