Home Remodel: Do, Don'ts, Advice

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Originally Posted by Skistack

You need some gopher gasser my friend.

Attachment 494937


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Yep. I use these for my lawn. The only thing i have found effective.


If the holes are big enough you could use the old match heads in a tennis ball smoke bomb. Really any smoke bomb will do. Just dont light your field on fire.


My vote is to get a small herd of barn cats. Theres two cats in my suburban neighborhood that have committed a rabbit genocide this spring. My garden has never looked better and my neighbors have never been busier disposing of rodent corpses.

I like the look of those gophinator traps. The neighbor across the way about 500yds away has an orange barn cat that we have seen over here, but we should probably get a couple to live in our barn.

My parking pad is an old garage concrete foundation that is above a slope in my lot. Block legend is the garage burned down. There is a wood section of the floor for the front wheels of one of the spots made of wood- maybe a failure of the original foundation? There is an access to the 'crawlspace' which is nice for storage. Anyhow, there is a 4x8 pressure treated frame structure supporting it, but the spans are very uneven and the largest is 21.5" oc. The wood for the driveway is 2x6 tongue and groove, and it's time to replace it. I think the material is called car decking which gives me hope that it would be the right product for the job.

I think I am going to ignore the long span. Or maybe I need to be told how I'm going to die. My thinking is it has supported parking just fine for at least the decade I've had it, and I'm not trying to make this a huge project- can't upset the 120 year old 'let the next guy worry about it' theme. Should I care what kind of wood the car decking I get or just whatever is cheapest? I'll try to get treated wood- should I do anything else to it?

pm sorrybro

I always thought car decking was named so because it was used in rail cars…

Anyway - I’ve only ever seen it in standard building wood; whatever pine / fir is used in your area… I’ve never seen it PT.


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3x6 t&g is available too, tho likely not PT either


I worked on an old brick warehouse where the floor sandwich was diagonal 2x6 t&g over 2x6s laid on their short sides. Seemed pretty beefy.

We had a power outage last weekend, and it fried the motherboard on our dual boiler.
Any sparky advice on a whole house surge protector?
Easy diy install? Or pay a pro?
Any product recommendations?

A picture of the parking area would be cool.

Not an electrician but...I see the sparky's put the Eaton ones in on the new builds I work on. I'm not sure on the install. I think they are on the line side of the main disconnect and sit inside the panel.

Personally, I change fixtures and devices but don't fuck with the panel. But one of my best friends is a master electrician so I bit easier for me to get help.

Check the ground path and the ground rod/UFER also. [just a fuckin' contractor with a dangerous amount of general knowledge.]

Brief googling says they’re cheap insurance & seemingly it’s simple wiring diagram, but i don’t know what i don’t know
As you say, fucking around with real line voltage I usually leave to paid pros

My whole house surge is an Eaton (new build). I have a panel on the exterior that has the service line coming in with breakers for the surge protector, the input from my PV array, and feeds to the main house panel (in the garage) and to an outbuilding panel. I also have access to a service line shutoff at the meter, before the exterior panel.

Since I have access to the service line shutoff and could confidently disconnect from all supply (grid and PV) I'd probably tackle it myself if I needed a replacement. The wiring looks straightforward. If I couldn't do that I'd probably call a sparky.

I’m in the middle of a panel swap and new service now, maybe I should add one….?

I'd say yes as someone who got burned -- we have so many electronics in our houses now
Likely the panel mfr makes an integrated option for you

I sent a pic of my panels to a friendly electrician -- gonna get a recco from him more directly since we have some janky remodel circuits in there too
linked an Eaton & an Intermatic for his opinion

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Originally Posted by zion zig zag

I’m in the middle of a panel swap and new service now, maybe I should add one….?

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I did that 10+ years ago and it was only a few hundred bucks to add whole house surge protection to the project at the time.

Yeah. Mine has vintage capacitors on a double pole breaker.

This thread is a good reminder to upgrade to smarter tech.
Thx maggots

https://www.popularmechanics.com/hom...rge-protectors

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Originally Posted by ::: :::

We had a power outage last weekend, and it fried the motherboard on our dual boiler.
Any sparky advice on a whole house surge protector?
Easy diy install? Or pay a pro?
Any product recommendations?

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Your post got me thinking maybe it was a power surge that fried the control board on my fridge.

What I’ve learned is that it doesn’t have to be just a single outage but multiples add up over time and the motherboard finally has one push it over the edge
(One big one can fry it too)

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Originally Posted by Mazderati

A picture of the parking area would be cool.

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Here's what it looks like.
Attachment 495327

I did check under a couple of the boards and some of the 4x8s beams on the support framing are rotted a bit- most were fine but a couple had some softness. The worst one I could dig out maybe 2" down (of the 7" dimension). Fuck. Any hope here? Sister? Mending plates?

We don't really park on that side anymore and our car is short enough to fit without going on the wood- but figure someday someone will. Should I just give up and fill the whole thing in with dirt? I like the storage underneath but not to the tune of thousands of dollars of concrete work- plus the framing that is there makes it kind of janky.

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Originally Posted by Garbowski

Here's what it looks like.
Attachment 495327

I did check under a couple of the boards and some of the 4x8s beams on the support framing are rotted a bit- most were fine but a couple had some softness. The worst one I could dig out maybe 2" down (of the 7" dimension). Fuck. Any hope here? Sister? Mending plates?

We don't really park on that side anymore and our car is short enough to fit without going on the wood- but figure someday someone will. Should I just give up and fill the whole thing in with dirt? I like the storage underneath but not to the tune of thousands of dollars of concrete work- plus the framing that is there makes it kind of janky.

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Next time you see some roadwork being done, go grab a black coffee from the nearest coffee shop, return to the construction location and ask for the guy in charge. Bring him the coffee, and then ask him how and where he procurred the steel plate that is covering up the trench. Ask if you can buy it off them once the job is done, and if that guy cant make the decision, he should know who can. It'll cost you about a grand, but you will never have to worry about it again and can park/store whatever you please on top of it.

Or buy a steel road plate new for a little more than a grand. Again, the setup/labor involves dropping it on the ground and then walking away.

I don't understand, you say there's some kind of access way beneath the wood?

FYI Gophinator traps are very effective. Put some PB on the trigger and down in the hole. Stackin' em up. Biggest downside is not always body capture and sometimes leg hold and you gotta dispatch them.

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Originally Posted by Whiteroom_Guardian

FYI Gophinator traps are very effective. Put some PB on the trigger and down in the hole. Stackin' em up. Biggest downside is not always body capture and sometimes leg hold and you gotta dispatch them.

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They were going to get eaten by something anyway. I have gotten down to 3-5 brave/dumb immigrants every summer. After they are dispatched peace on the ranch. Now if I could get rid of the moles. But they are suppose to be good aerators.

Homeowner DIY goes pro [no paywall]: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/21/r...e=articleShare

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Originally Posted by ::: :::

Homeowner DIY goes pro [no paywall]: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/21/r...e=articleShare

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That is unbelievably cool. They have such determination. Thanks.

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Originally Posted by Djongo Unchained

I don't understand, you say there's some kind of access way beneath the wood?

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Yeah, there is a concrete floor and an opening on the back side of the foundation (yard is sloped, garage/pad is level) so it is sort of like a crawlspace. I store yard shit/car ramps etc. in there. I'm not sure what the deal with it was, but it seems like they added the frame structure and wood top later since the frame makes it a lot less usable as storage, and uses modernish looking hardware (those plates with nails- gang plates?) for joining the beams. Maybe when the garage was there it was workable as the wood would not rot in the Seattle weather.

I've thought about the trench plates before- the outer and back sides have a high lip and would not have anything to brace them. I suppose if it overlaps enough on the front and inner side and we only keep the pressure on the front half it may work. Or I could pour a sonotube for support or something.