What house maintenance thing did you do recently?

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DetroitRick
Posts: 1488
Joined: Wed Mar 23, 2016 9:28 am
Location: SE Michigan

Re: What house maintenance thing did you do recently?

Post by DetroitRick »

In the last 7 days (it's that time of year here):

Fixed two wood casement windows that weren't opening properly
Repaired minor chimney leak (contractor did 80%, I did 20%
Sanded, primed, caulked and painted some exterior wood trim
Replaced expansion joints in garage and between garage and driveway with Sikaflex (self-leveling sealer)
Changed all my backup batteries: smoke detectors, co2 detector, thermostat
Changed furnace filter, humidifier pad
Inspected wood windows and doorwalls for deterioration. For once, checked out great.

Next week
Minor wood rot repair (epoxy) on one window

Stuff I had done earlier in the month (by contractors): replaced broken hose bib and had piping re-routed (some idiot put it over the electric panel), bat remediation (caught it early thankfully), new garage door opener/springs/door trim.

Hopefully done for a while...
pomomojo
Posts: 109
Joined: Sat Oct 16, 2010 12:07 pm

Re: What house maintenance thing did you do recently?

Post by pomomojo »

Remote receiver on garage door died (circa 1996).

I had to buy two from HomeDepot and it took approximately 10-12 hours to exchange both units, including the trip to HD and calling customer support to change the settings on the phone app. Also setup the OEM remotes and a third party extra from Amazon. Not incredibly difficult though rewiring was about half the labor.
shunkman
Posts: 667
Joined: Mon Feb 26, 2018 8:59 pm

Re: What house maintenance thing did you do recently?

Post by shunkman »

Recently, due to a false alarm, the fire department had to break into a neighbors home while they were away for the weekend. I used compressed air to blow out all of my home's smoke detectors. They were going off even though I replaced them all two years ago.
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z91
Posts: 790
Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2014 12:19 pm

Re: What house maintenance thing did you do recently?

Post by z91 »

shunkman wrote: Thu Oct 14, 2021 6:39 am Recently, due to a false alarm, the fire department had to break into a neighbors home while they were away for the weekend. I used compressed air to blow out all of my home's smoke detectors. They were going off even though I replaced them all two years ago.
Ouch! I had this happen once. One of my neighbors had a smoke alarm that was going off. It started around 6am and nobody was home. I think they were on vacation or something. At 8am I had enough and called up the safety line for my city. They immediately called the fire department, came out with an engine and kicked their door down. They turned off the alarm and left a note.
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Sandtrap
Posts: 19591
Joined: Sat Nov 26, 2016 5:32 pm
Location: Hawaii No Ka Oi - white sandy beaches, N. Arizona 1 mile high.

Re: What house maintenance thing did you do recently?

Post by Sandtrap »

32 degrees on the back porch the other morning.
Winter prep chores:

Clean n prep all warehouse parked equipment and hook up battery minders. Service tractor and zero turn mower.

Unhook all automatically horse waterers and hoses on yard faucets. Put insulated covers on outside house wall faucets.

Change HVAC filters on each floor to winter heating filters.

Fixed sparking short on the perimeter elec fence line.

Ordered 120 tons of spec AB to resurface the grounds and driveway and redo the stable parking and loading area.

Retiree chores.
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kidshrink
Posts: 73
Joined: Mon Mar 25, 2013 2:33 pm

Re: What house maintenance thing did you do recently?

Post by kidshrink »

Called the landlord to fix the rotting deck.
Called the landlord to fix a broken water main line.
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quantAndHold
Posts: 10141
Joined: Thu Sep 17, 2015 10:39 pm
Location: West Coast

Re: What house maintenance thing did you do recently?

Post by quantAndHold »

Rewired two outlets. Back when we had a remodel done five years ago, we had the bright idea of having all the outlets in the house replaced with white ones. Fast forward to the lightning storm we had last week. I got the idea while lightning was hitting the ground on all sides of the house to order some surge protectors. Amazon delivers them, I plug the first one in under my desk, and…the fault light comes on. I plugged an outlet tester into the outlet, and hot and neutral are reversed. Then my wife plugs a surge protector into the outlet in her sewing room, and…the fault light comes on. Hot and neutral are reversed. Seeing a pattern, I checked every outlet in the house, and found a third one with a problem.

I fixed two, but managed to tear a rotator cuff crawling around under my desk on the second one. So the third one will have to wait.
duuuuuude
Posts: 72
Joined: Mon Dec 12, 2016 10:42 pm

Re: What house maintenance thing did you do recently?

Post by duuuuuude »

Learned a new skill this past week.

Our 3 year old threw a painting puck and broke one a window pane on a double hung window.

Replaced the glass after watching youtube and picking up the necesary parts from the hardware store.

Cutting glass is pretty cool!

Glass has been replaced, but the artistry of window glazing still needs work.

Will work to clean it up a little and repaint the wood section of the window.
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Tubes
Posts: 1881
Joined: Wed Apr 22, 2020 6:33 am

Re: What house maintenance thing did you do recently?

Post by Tubes »

Stained the deck.

This is both routine re-application, and also first application on repairs I did over the summer.
HomeStretch
Posts: 11417
Joined: Thu Dec 27, 2018 2:06 pm

Re: What house maintenance thing did you do recently?

Post by HomeStretch »

Random Poster wrote: Sun Oct 10, 2021 3:15 pm Tried to turn off my underground irrigation system for winter. …

Plumber comes by a few hours later and discovers that the brass valve casing somehow cracked. …

but I’ve never owned a house before either and done any maintenance stuff on it. …

I don’t have to worry about turning the irrigation system back on in the spring or winterizing it again next fall. …

Discover that my underground irrigation system is a mess and wonder why anyone thinks that they are a good idea, especially in places where you have to winterize them. …
Does your winterization plan just involve turning off the system? In cold climes, it’s usually recommended to blow out the lines. My irrigation company uses a compressor to do so.

The only time I had a brass valve case crack in 20 years is likely due to a bit of water left in (not completely blown out) coupled with cold winter temps. If you’re a new owner, perhaps the prior owner didn’t properly winterize the system.

Is it possible to have the plumber install an irrigation shutoff that is more easily accessed by you?
rixer
Posts: 758
Joined: Tue Sep 11, 2012 4:18 pm

Re: What house maintenance thing did you do recently?

Post by rixer »

We are working on the hall bath right now. It's an older house and the vanity was pretty dated. We tore out the tile counter, sink and backsplash and have a quartz slab, undermount sink and faucet being installed shortly. Then I have to get new doors and a drawerfront made. And we are also painting the bathroom.
Random Poster
Posts: 3314
Joined: Wed Feb 03, 2010 9:17 am

Re: What house maintenance thing did you do recently?

Post by Random Poster »

HomeStretch wrote: Sun Oct 17, 2021 8:30 am
Does your winterization plan just involve turning off the system? In cold climes, it’s usually recommended to blow out the lines. My irrigation company uses a compressor to do so.

The only time I had a brass valve case crack in 20 years is likely due to a bit of water left in (not completely blown out) coupled with cold winter temps. If you’re a new owner, perhaps the prior owner didn’t properly winterize the system.

Is it possible to have the plumber install an irrigation shutoff that is more easily accessed by you?
Pretty much. The irrigation system is all drip lines and the information the HOA puts out on how to winterize just says to turn a few valves and to remove a filter. They don’t say anything about blowing out the lines, and I don’t see anyone in the neighborhood doing that.

That said, of the 5 people I’ve told my story to in the neighborhood, 4 of them have had irrigation system issues that have caused leaks.

It is certainly possible that the underlying cause of my problem was water left in the line, but 1) When I turned the system on in the spring, there was no evidence of any water leaking; 2) my water bills over the past few months have been pretty reasonable (around 1500 gallons a month for two people), so I don’t think it was leaking over the summer; and 3) the experiences of my neighbors (all of whom are more experienced homeowners than me) suggests there is something wrong with the irrigation system in general.

We just left the shut-off in its original location, but did make it easier to disconnect from the pipes in case something happens in the future.
Most experiences are better imagined.
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z91
Posts: 790
Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2014 12:19 pm

Re: What house maintenance thing did you do recently?

Post by z91 »

Woohoo and our bathroom is almost complete. Tiling should happen tomorrow and we will finally be done with this. We've been wanting a double sink for the longest time.
Topic Author
z91
Posts: 790
Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2014 12:19 pm

Re: What house maintenance thing did you do recently?

Post by z91 »

Patched up a ceiling hole today after inspecting my plumbing with a borescope. If you don't have a borescope, I highly, highly recommend one.
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