The Home Improvement Thread

[Ducay]

Originally Posted by photon

Thanks, Orbit ones would have worked but they only had 15' ones max.. I got one anyway thinking it would probably be fine, but somehow ended up with a 12' one lol. So went to Lowes and they sold Rain Bird ones and got the exact one I needed.

When I went to replace it the little mesh filter thing was broken off inside the popup, spent a while trying to fish it out, ended up just turning the sprinklers on with no nozzle on that one and after sputtering for 30 seconds the mesh thing popped out

Works great now, my near dead grass will be happy.

Good to know Lowes has the Rain Bird. I'll admit the orbit ones are pretty gutless and you need to go a range higher than you need (ie 8 ft one covers 4 ft well).

Next time Im near a Lowes Ill stock up on the Rain Bird ones

[Bill Bumface]

I have a friend who did a small cantilever on his house without a permit (seriously, it's not me, I just went through 4 months of fun getting permits for my place).

His house also encroaches on one of the setbacks, so he'd need a DP to do pretty much anything.

If he does another small addition with no permit, what are the potential problems?

If he goes for a new permit, and includes the part he already did, will they actually find out it was already done?

[Methanolic]

^ They would likely spot it immediately from the original real property report

[Bill Bumface]

And then what? Should he just not get permits for anything and deal with a horrible mess when he goes to sell?

I have another friend who's parents have added onto their house several times... cantilevers, a sunroom... permits for nothing. I've always wondered what happens when they go to sell it one day.

[DuffMan]

Originally Posted by hulkrogan

And then what? Should he just not get permits for anything and deal with a horrible mess when he goes to sell?

I have another friend who's parents have added onto their house several times... cantilevers, a sunroom... permits for nothing. I've always wondered what happens when they go to sell it one day.

Tear it down.

[Ducay]

Originally Posted by hulkrogan

And then what? Should he just not get permits for anything and deal with a horrible mess when he goes to sell?

I have another friend who's parents have added onto their house several times... cantilevers, a sunroom... permits for nothing. I've always wondered what happens when they go to sell it one day.

Well when they go to get the RPR updated, as long as it isn't encroaching on any setbacks, RoW, that are obvious and get flagged on the RPR itself, it will be up to the person at the city permits desk if it gets caught.

On an RPR it might not be clearly obvious there has been modifications made, especially if the footprint hasn't changed or you can get a real dummy at the desk who issues a stamp without noticing something.

Chances are it would get noticed though. And in that case they'd likely need to get everything inspected and permitted (which may involve taking some of it down depending on the inspectors, and what they want to see).

Or perhaps they could try to find a dumb buyer who is willing to ignore needing an approved RPR (and thus need to have a really really dumb lawyer).

That or market it on ComFree and try and find a cheap-a$$ trying to do it themselves, legal docs and all.

[Ducay]

Originally Posted by photon

Thanks, Orbit ones would have worked but they only had 15' ones max.. I got one anyway thinking it would probably be fine, but somehow ended up with a 12' one lol. So went to Lowes and they sold Rain Bird ones and got the exact one I needed.

Just got me thinking, if you needed more than 15 feet, might be worth swapping those out to Gear drive sprinklers (ie ones that go back and forth), which are often better for larger areas.

[ranchlandsselling]

Have we gone over LED lights in this thread?

I've got a ton of pot lights, 4" I think that use those little bulbs that have two prongs and twist into place. I'm pretty sure they're awful for power waste?

Figured it was time to go as LED as possible as things wear out.

These kind of look like what I'm looking for:
http://www.dx.com/p/gu10-6-4w-6500k-...ac-220v-119224

Any other suggestions? What bulbs are people buying these days? I don't know if I want to go buy a bunch of those ugly spirals bulbs, what are they flourescents?

[calgarygeologist]

Originally Posted by ranchlandsselling

Have we gone over LED lights in this thread?

I've got a ton of pot lights, 4" I think that use those little bulbs that have two prongs and twist into place. I'm pretty sure they're awful for power waste?

Figured it was time to go as LED as possible as things wear out.

These kind of look like what I'm looking for:
http://www.dx.com/p/gu10-6-4w-6500k-...ac-220v-119224

Any other suggestions? What bulbs are people buying these days? I don't know if I want to go buy a bunch of those ugly spirals bulbs, what are they flourescents?

I replaced all my GU10 bulbs with LEDs that I bought at Costco. They are/were sold in two packs and the price was somewhere between $10 and $15 (I think I picked up a few packages on sale one week for just under $10.)

[photon]

Ugh, 6500K... to me that's not daylight, that's ricer fake HID headlight blue.



Probably not quite that bad but I still really don't like it. Some people do though, but you have to consider what else is around too, if you have other lights and they're a warmer colour the contrast can be very distracting IMO.

I used the Philips bulbs from Home Depot and like them (3000K), they have 35W and 50W equivalent, but they're 2-3 times more than the dx ones.

Lowes carries Cree which I also like as a brand for LED lights, but they don't seem to have them on their website, and I don't know if Cree makes a GU10 bulb.

[V]

6500K is very cold. The only place I'd consider them is in a kitchen, and even then I don't know if I want them that cold. I don't know if I'd go past 5000K. I wouldn't want to go lower than 4000K for a kitchen. Any living space or bedroom should use somewhere around 3500K.

[photon]

My kitchen, dining and living room are all open to each other, so I don't like having different light temperature in the kitchen compared to the rest, so I keep it all the same.

[ranchlandsselling]

Quadrouple thanks ^^^^

[Titan]

Originally Posted by ranchlandsselling

http://www.dx.com/p/gu10-6-4w-6500k-...ac-220v-119224

Free shipping to Canada. Wow. That is pretty impressive.

[photon]

They've got some warmer ones too:

http://www.dx.com/p/gu10-7-5w-720lm-...1#.U9bpzPldV8E

I guess maybe random Chinese bulbs (dx has 758 types of GU10 bulbs!!!) are cheap enough that even if they had a higher failure rate would still be cheaper.

[ranchlandsselling]

Originally Posted by photon

They've got some warmer ones too:

http://www.dx.com/p/gu10-7-5w-720lm-...1#.U9bpzPldV8E

I guess maybe random Chinese bulbs (dx has 758 types of GU10 bulbs!!!) are cheap enough that even if they had a higher failure rate would still be cheaper.

lol,
that looks awfully yellow. Maybe I need to figure out the K reading of my current lights. Is that possible when I didn't buy them?

[photon]

Bulbs sometimes have the temperature lableled right on them, or maybe there's a model # on them.

Or get a lamp with a regular incandescent bulb or some other bulb you know the temperature of and eyeball it.

EDIT: The actual temperature isn't going to be nearly as yellow as in the picture, it'll be somewhere between the left and middle in the pic I posted earlier.

Could just order one as well and try it.

[calgarygeologist]

We are replacing a bunch of windows in our house this fall and we need to pick a colour of brickmold for the windows. I'm a little stumped when it comes to making a decision. They offer about 18 colours. Next summer we are planning on having the exterior of our house painted and I'll probably go with a currently propular, modern grey shade.

Should I consider doing a darker grey for the exterior and a lighter grey for trim and brickmold? Would a lighter grey exterior with darker grey trim and brickmold be better? What about any grey with white trim and brickmold?

[Clarkey]

Originally Posted by hulkrogan

I have a friend who did a small cantilever on his house without a permit (seriously, it's not me, I just went through 4 months of fun getting permits for my place).

Does the cantilever exceed the soffit/eaves?

[photon]

Anyone have any recommendations for storm doors? Checked out the usual suspects (Lowes, Home Depot, Rona), like the self storing ones at Lowes (Larson) and Home Depot (Andersen) well enough.

Are there any other places in Calgary that would sell storm doors?