Appreciate you always taking the time to respond to ignorant folks like me
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I’ve run the numbers, and the news is good. Home value unaffected by eyesore big red chimney, owing to expert plumbing at frost-proof sillcock.
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If he can’t find them, thoughts on offering to buy the bricks yourself and send him the bill for materials.
Oreo is a resourceful guy. If someone has those bricks are in Ontario, I’m sure he will find them.
Just trying to find a contractor is a nightmare. Calling a bunch of building supply places to source material is whatever is worse than a nightmare. I’d pay someone else 50% more than I’m paying this guy to not have to deal with any of this.
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Zikzak his 100% correct with his advice. Do not let them use red brick. You will just end up having it replaced again or be annoyed every time you see it.
The worst possible scenario is the red brick chimney. We must avoid that at all costs.
So turned out to be much ado about nothing as this morning he offered me
and that’s close enough for me
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The sun will eventually engulf our planet and none of it will matter, anyway.
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Chimney will probably hold up to the heat pretty well for a while, though.
Anyone know anything about central air conditioners? Our AC unit is from 2006, and yesterday, the second hottest day of the year so far, we noticed that the fan stopped spinning. We stopped it, googled it, saw that blown capacitors were the likely culprit, and then saw that no capacitors were visibly blown or suspect. We had a guy look at it today, and after his inspection, it actually came back without him doing anything. Diagnosis: fan motor old and dubious, but once again working for now. $800 to replace the fan motor, but also, our unit uses older coolant such that ~any issue with anything other than the fan and its motor is likely a full replacement job. We were told that AC units allegedly last 15-20 years, but I’m not sure how much I’m supposed to believe that. I’m also not sure about turnaround times. The motor could be replaced just inside of a week, but I haven’t yet gotten any info if a unit replacement could be done faster (because they have units on hand) or slower (because it’s a bigger job). I kinda hate the idea of replacing the fan motor only to have to replace the whole unit in short order, but if the fan motor replacement can buy us 2+ years of good operation before replacing the whole unit, that’s probably a win. Unless, I suppose, if the unit replacement falls in the middle of another heat wave when all the repairers are booked. Certainly less downtime is worth something, especially at the worst of times, but that’s hard to put a precise price on. It’s especially hard to know when to perhaps pro-actively replace either the fan motor or the whole unit without downtime before failure. So, any opinions?
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I don’t know a ton about HVAC stuff, but that lifespan estimate sounds about right.
The actual motor itself can’t be more than a couple hundred bucks if you’re in the mood for some DIY.
Do you guys know what I can do to diagnose this problem?
This wet spot appeared on my basement ceiling under the kitchen. But there’s no obvious source of a leak. None of the pipes seem to leak if I run the water. Where did this moisture come from?
I just had my fan motor replaced within 24 hours after a big company said they couldn’t even slot me in for an appointment for 3 days. Went to Thumbtack and hired a highly rated guy. With those types of technicians, they’ll just go to a local hardware/specialty store to get your parts.
Generally, Thumbtack is soooo much better than similar type services. Think there business model is to just charge the service providers a few bucks for each lead and that is it. And if no one is responding to your job, they’ll forward your job to service providers for free.
Contrast that with something like Handy that bills you directly and takes insane cut, like 50% or more.
Assuming the damage is relatively new, there’s something leaking right above it. You might as well tear down that messed up whatever it is anyway and you’ll get a better look.
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Do you have kids?
If not, check the compression fittings right under the sink near the trap. Then check under the dishwasher.
It appears that there’s a kind of trough built into the ceiling underneath the larger black pipes that run out to the septic tank. But none of these pipes visibly leak when I run all the water in the house, it’s weird.
I’ll take down more of the drop ceiling panels and see what I can find. Its really weird that there isn’t something obvious.
By the way, yes this is new but I dont know exactly how new. I don’t go into this utility space every single day so this may have been like this for a week.
No kids. I looked under the kitchen island with the dishwasher and there were no obvious signs of water. I’ll pull out the dishwasher and take a closer look.
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