The Home Improvement Thread

[photon]

We've got engineered hardwood on the whole 1st floor and it's been fine in the kitchen and dining room, though it does accumulate wear over time. As mentioned the issue has been more with dropping things than water. Though I personally probably would still prefer tile.

I would say to anyone that has kids to wait until they hit like 10 or something to do it.

Don't leave a window open around it though, I did that with my office where the window is very protected since it opens onto the front deck and one day it rained sideways when I wasn't home and I ended up with some warping there

Get some extra boards to allow for some replacement in the future.

[Nufy]

I just did engineered H/W as well on the main floor of my house.

Left overs available in the marketplace. /shameless plug...

No concerns about water yet...obviously anything will warp if water is left standing.

[b1crunch]

Went to look at lumber tonight because we wanted to do some repairs on our deck this summer, along with possibly adding some more boxed in flower beds. I was shocked at the price of lumber in general. I know prices went up during the pandemic, and I understand there's inflation pressures right now, but the prices feel extreme. Last time I bought lumber was 4-5 years ago and it feels like prices have doubled or tripled in that time?

Am I wrong or are lumber prices terrible?

I ended up leaving the store to rethink my plans.

[speede5]

Prices are beyond extreme, it is sickening what they are charging for lumber right now. I don't know if theres an end in site but I am doing nothing this year that requires wood unless absolutely necessary.

I don't see how these prices are sustainable, the cost for new builds must have a huge covid margin attached right now.

[PaperBagger'14]

I'm sure glad there wasn't much framing needed for my basement, that really helped keep costs down. It's still quite expensive mind you but considering how much finished square footage we're adding and the finishes are still top tier, it's not outrageous

[81MC]

Originally Posted by b1crunch

Went to look at lumber tonight because we wanted to do some repairs on our deck this summer, along with possibly adding some more boxed in flower beds. I was shocked at the price of lumber in general. I know prices went up during the pandemic, and I understand there's inflation pressures right now, but the prices feel extreme. Last time I bought lumber was 4-5 years ago and it feels like prices have doubled or tripled in that time?

Am I wrong or are lumber prices terrible?

I ended up leaving the store to rethink my plans.

Oh yeah, almost every time I go to get material I just get deflated and leave. Maybe I’m misremembering, but I feel like BF prices in general are nearly double what they were 5 years ago even for common species.

[Lubicon]

Prices spiked last summer but I had thought they had come down significantly since then?

Okay, just looked at prices. They are currently down about 40% since summer but up 30% since fall (they dropped by over half last fall). Crap, was hoping they would be reasonable this year as I need to replace my deck and delayed doing it last year due to prices.

[Monahammer]

Yeah the current lumber price, in addition to the import price rocking up little things like NAILS for example (I guess I should have known all were made in China but who really knew how dramatic this could be...) really make me question how on earth they propose we flatten housing prices?

Cheap money isn't the only reason housing prices are going through the ####ing roof if the base cost of a new build bungalow to build is 500k because of materials and labour. Raising the interest rate and stopping foreign buyers is literally going to do nothing to stop this.

[speede5]

When you have both parties promising to build more affordable housing I don't think you'll see any material suppliers feeling a need to lower prices.

[Shazam]

Originally Posted by photon

Hm not sure what other features I would want that are only on a convection microwave, I thought the convection feature might be useful to do small things without heating up the whole oven. Is there a feature you use with it that you like even though you don't use the heating element?

Maybe I'd be better off just getting a normal microwave and a good toaster oven.

The fan had higher CFM than the next model and it was quieter.

[81MC]

Originally Posted by speede5

When you have both parties promising to build more affordable housing I don't think you'll see any material suppliers feeling a need to lower prices.

And you won’t see any contractors/trades reducing their markup. No word of a lie, I know tradesmen who make more than a months salary on the equipment markup alone.

Housing is like the ultimate cash cow, and the government can say they’re going to reduce costa all they want. All that will happen is developers and contractors will continue to make bank and it’ll be subsidized by Canadians en masse rather than individually. Giant farce.

[opendoor]

That depends if credit dries up. If all of the sudden people stop renovating their houses because they can't access credit to do so (or lose their jobs), I imagine competition among contractors will reduce some of the margins (that's what happened in 2008).

[Shazam]

Originally Posted by opendoor

That depends if credit dries up. If all of the sudden people stop renovating their houses because they can't access credit to do so (or lose their jobs), I imagine competition among contractors will reduce some of the margins (that's what happened in 2008).

It happened at the start of the pandemic. Business dried up overnight, everybody offered discounts.

That changed fast though lol.

[Frequitude]

I want to get a power washer so I can, you know, totally necessarily power wash some things around the house. What’s the minimum PSI & gpm so it’s not a useless cheap piece of crap. And same question for electric vs gas…can you get away with electric ones these days?

[Fuzz]

I have a 1800psi electric. It's..ok. Like, you can wash your car with it, but it's not the same as a car wash. I do siding, the deck...it's fine for that. If it's too powerful it'll start stripping your deck stain anyway.

[Shazam]

They make ones like this now:

https://www.homedepot.ca/product/ryo...her/1001662889

I always wreck the large wheeled ones, this seems like it'd be a lot easier to deal with when the cold weather comes.

[Hemi-Cuda]

A couple of days ago I had to cleanup a big water spill in the upstairs bathroom after the kids made a huge mess, and I noticed that there was a cracked tile beside the toilet. And now today I see this on the living room ceiling directly underneath that bathroom

Spoiler!

So question 1, do I have to worry about any sort of rot issues with water soaking all the way through the upstairs floor? And 2nd, does anyone have any recommendations for a contractor to retile a bathroom and/or fix a popcorn ceiling?

[PaperBagger'14]

I have nothing to add other than that now I would like some ice cream

[Wormius]

Originally Posted by Hemi-Cuda

A couple of days ago I had to cleanup a big water spill in the upstairs bathroom after the kids made a huge mess, and I noticed that there was a cracked tile beside the toilet. And now today I see this on the living room ceiling directly underneath that bathroom

Spoiler!

So question 1, do I have to worry about any sort of rot issues with water soaking all the way through the upstairs floor? And 2nd, does anyone have any recommendations for a contractor to retile a bathroom and/or fix a popcorn ceiling?

For the ceiling, if you want to give it a try, the bleach / water trick worked really well on our textured ceiling. It's worth a shot. A couple of rounds of light misting was all I did. It will smell like a swimming pool for a day or so.

Before



After

[Hemi-Cuda]

Originally Posted by Wormius

For the ceiling, if you want to give it a try, the bleach / water trick worked really well on our textured ceiling. It's worth a shot. A couple of rounds of light misting was all I did. It will smell like a swimming pool for a day or so.

Couldn't hurt to give that a shot. Did you just mix it 50/50 in a spray bottle?