Shrink wrapped heat gun solder connectors are the shit. 120PCS Solder Seal Wire Connectors - Sopoby Heat Shrink Solder Connectors - Waterproof Solder Butt Connector Kit Insulated Automotive Marine Electrical Wire Terminals https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B07S62KYSL...t_i_3FQKEFK7PPQNVMZD3R2T?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1
I was assuming @NatCH doesn't have a heat gun. Do you know how they work with other heat sources, like a torch or plain ol lighter?
Those will work with regular butt connectors and shrink wrap. I don't know if they would work with the soldering type like Nett posted. Perhaps he knows. A heat gun is one of those tools that a typical DIY person will use rarely, but they do come in handy. I used mine more on boats than my house, by far. @Nettdata is beyond typical.
I’m working on it. When we first closed on the house, I asked my dad (whose job post-retirement is to live in a cabin in rural Maine, and be the handyman for our extended family’s adjacent summer cabin), “so what tools do you suggest I get?” He said “(NatCH), get ALL of them.”
If you want to play it smart, think through all the major "oh shit" events that could blow up on you at 3am. Water pipe bursts. Hot water tank lets go and floods your place. Toilet seal lets go and starts flooding. Laundry water line blows up. Dishwasher water line blows up. You'll notice that a LOT of shit can go wrong with water. Why? Because water don't give a FUCK. It'll keep coming, and coming, and just go everywhere down hill, until it's either stopped, or it runs out, or there is no more downhill. I highly recommend you play through each one of those scenarios, and ask yourself, "what would I do if that happens?" If you don't know, then figure it out. If you need tools to handle that shit, then go and buy them, and play with them until you feel confident that you know how to use them. For instance, I have a main water valve coming into the house. It's old as fuck. So if something lets go, then I go to it, and close it to shut water off. But what if THAT breaks? Do I then start calling plumbers who might make it out here in 3 hours, all the while water is spraying into your house and causing damage? FUCK NO. I have taken precautions. Shark bite is your BFF. Don't just coast with your new house. Learn it. Learn how all of the shit within it works, with an eye to what will fail. I'd much rather spend some time and effort doing that than have shit get seriously damaged and wait for insurance to clean up the mess afterwards. As you get more and more handy, and do more and more DIY stuff yourself, then start thinking about how you can do improvements. Example: you want to replace the faucets in your kitchen sink to have one of those cool hanging down hand sprayers. But in order to do so, you have to kill the water to your entire house. Well, that sucks. So instead, think about putting in a separate cutoff just for your kitchen water, under the sink. Maybe one for the faucet, and one for the dishwasher supply as well. This way, if something goes wrong, or you want to do some maintenance (replace washers, etc), you can now isolate your individual services from the main water supply with a simple valve turn. When people built your house, odds are they were fucking cheap, and put in the minimal required by code. It's nice to be able to improve shit to make your life better down the road. And PEX and SharkBite are a FUCK of a lot better than copper and sweating joints... and way less fires as well.
Do you guys know what these things are? They’re in wrapped bundles that say “Endicott,” and I looked that up and it’s a clay company. So I think they’re brick veneers, but the grooves on the back are weird. I can’t find anything specifically like this. Is it for a specific type of mounting board? Also the color is dark as fuck and metallic-like…the closest I can see is some color style called “ironspot.” Anyway, the old owners left a shit-ton of these. But not enough to do anything major. I just have no idea what exactly it is and what I might use it for (or sell it for maybe).
I know, I said I looked them up. I’m just not able to find this specific design. I’m curious about the shape of the back. Even all their dimension charts don’t show anything except flat-sided bricks.
Usually faux bricks have recesses like that to account for adhesive and/or surface imperfections. As far as the color goes, I have no idea. Could be a discontinued color? I know when we redid our kitchen, we searched 15-20 flooring companies and couldn't find an exact match.
Karma's a bitch, y'all. Early in the winter I noticed a shit-ton of squirrels around, and they were really going hard at the bird feeders I'd put up for the first time in forever. I thought I was being sneaky by buying a 50 lbs bag of peanuts and sling-shotting them into the neighbour's back yard all winter. It worked! The squirrels stayed the hell out of my back yard, but went nuts for his. Fast forward to the past few days when he's had a squirrel going nuts and trying to eat it's way into his shed. Spoiler Fast forward to today, when it was nice and warm and sunny, and I hear the hammering, sawing, and power drilling of repair work going on next door, and the neighbour is fixing his shed from the damage. He then goes on to talk shit about his other neighbour who's been feeding the fucking squirrels all winter, to the point that his sliding patio door wouldn't open because the track is full of peanuts. "they're everywhere!". I smile, giggle, and concur that the old guy is a bastard for feeding them, and then go back to work. Later tonight, I'm out on the deck searing a t-bone, and I look over and notice something doesn't look right with MY shed. Oh for fuck sake. Spoiler I've got an even bigger hole in my shed, and when I opened it up, HUGE nests everywhere. Luckily they were all empty, but they were still full of squirrel shit and piss and took me almost 20 minutes to empty out. After a nice long Silkwood shower I'm now having a beer or three thinking upon my winter transgressions. Next year it's back to the pellet gun.
Well. Today ended up being Toilet Leak Repair Day. Last night, I decided to adjust the pull chain on our toilet so there wasn’t too much slack before starting to flush. I don’t know if I bumped it or did just enough to expose the issue, but I woke up and there was a little water all around the base. Fuck wax rings, fuck them the whole way to hell. I did not enjoy cleaning that shit up. So I got the Fernco Wax Free seal. I read a lot of good reviews - I read a few bad reviews. I opted for it, and followed the instructions. Luckily most of the wax was stuck on the floor/flange, but I used isopropyl alcohol and cleaned the toilet horn about three or four times, until no wax residue was on the rag. Set the seal, installed it, looks like it’s working. I prefer the Fernco design because it goes down into the drain farther than any other. And I bought their stuff before, and it’s easy to use. And again - fuck wax. The flange is another story, the positioning isn’t extremely ideal for the bolts (they’re pretty much right at the first spot where they can be tightened before being removed) - but the long term plan is to totally redo this bathroom (including repositioning the toilet) so I’m not gonna deal with that right now.
If you were messing with the tank and its innards, it seems more likely that it would be the gasket between the tank and the bowl, unless the toilet wasn't bolted down tight. If you wake up and have a small puddle again, that's the next move.
That was the area I first checked, because it made more sense to me. No water was coming from the tank gasket, I inspected all around it, no water dripping down. And when I lifted up the toilet, the evidence of water dissolving wax and pushing it out toward the base confirmed it. And then after a bunch of test flushes, I inspected the tank gasket again to make sure the ring seal repair hadn’t loosened it. No water this morning. So that’s a good sign.
Anyone got smart locks? Carpal tunnel and arthritis is making using conventional door locks a hassle. I’d like to swap to a proximity card or phone/smart watch controller,I’ve got regular dead bolts and door locks as well as a security screen. Advice on what to prioritise and what to avoid? I’m also considering a nearish future where my partner and her kid might move in with me. Need to secure the medications and poisons and tools in the garage, and my office door. Not locks that need real security to keep out malicious third parties, but enough to keep a curious kid from getting hurt or getting exposed to my work from home conversations. Working in the disability sector sometimes I get read into abuse histories and stuff that would be pretty traumatic. And legal privacy requirements are intense. I don’t want to spend the same kind of money as the security that keeps burglars out - but ideally I want the same app or token or whatever to open all the doors. I don’t want to carry a whole collection of keys. I also don’t trust biometric locks to be anything but a pain in the balls.