The Home Improvement Thread

[Amberdrake]

I do electrical myself.

Opened a plug socket the other day and discovered the horrible shortcuts from original construction.

 

On a side note that dust is horrible!

If you can try wet grinding, deals with alot of that dust

Edited August 24, 2016 by Amberdrake

[dev null]

I do electrical myself.

Opened a plug socket the other day and discovered the horrible shortcuts from original construction.

 

On a side note that dust is horrible!

If you can try wet grinding, deals with alot of that dust

 

Don't even get me started on the shoddy workmanship.  When I stayed in Paarl, they were busy building a new home across from me. I visited the site every night to get insights in the process. If only the owners knew what went into their walls. Pieces of rolled up paper, as well as parts of trees the were cut down. All and sundry was used to fill holes in the walls that was built as if done by a guy on LSD.

[Gen]

Don't even get me started on the shoddy workmanship. When I stayed in Paarl, they were busy building a new home across from me. I visited the site every night to get insights in the process. If only the owners knew what went into their walls. Pieces of rolled up paper, as well as parts of trees the were cut down. All and sundry was used to fill holes in the walls that was built as if done by a guy on LSD.

[emoji15]

[Frosty]

Opened a plug socket the other day and discovered the horrible shortcuts from original construction.

The amount of work I'd had to redo, or have redone (if it's outside my scope of ability), is alarming.

 

From electrical to plumbing, finishings, painting (poor base coat), plastering (minimal cement used), and the list goes on. All of this in 8 years since we signed off and moved in. Whatever the NHBRC could help with was after the 5 years had lapsed.

 

Learnt more in these 8 years than in the other 35 years of my existence on planet Earth.

 

I'm in priority mode, so a number of things to do aren't critical, but is an eye-sore.

[Captain Fastbastard Mayhem]

The amount of work I'd had to redo, or have redone (if it's outside my scope of ability), is alarming.

 

From electrical to plumbing, finishings, painting (poor base coat), plastering (minimal cement used), and the list goes on. All of this in 8 years since we signed off and moved in. Whatever the NHBRC could help with was after the 5 years had lapsed.

 

Learnt more in these 8 years than in the other 35 years of my existence on planet Earth.

 

I'm in priority mode, so a number of things to do aren't critical, but is an eye-sore.

Tell me about it... Yissie. 

 

The quick fix "get your house redone before you sell" jobs are starting to come home to roost now that we've been in for 8 years. Kitchen - useless tiling and budget cabinetry. Bad plumbing (no stopcock) and bad prep on the walls prior to painting. Bad repointing on the brickwork just above the lintel on the sliding door. Geyser overflow pipe just 5cm too short so it's been sloooowly dripping into the fascia and onto the ceiling in the bedroom... 

 

And and and. 

[LeTurbo]

Moridin, I've been thinking about your garage wall. I saw some stuff - Sikagard 703W - that's a water repellant, probably silicon-based, and that (by the picture on the bottle) can be sprayed with a garden pressure sprayer/ It's R539 /5litres at Pennypinchers. Maybe that for the outside wall?

 

And then, can you squeeze a gutter pipe down the side of the building? That might be enough to catch water off-run and carry it away from the building. 

 

Just thoughts. 

 

Oh yes, if you have an older house (+/- pre 1910, as I recall) in Cape Town, please do research on water-proofing of old/heritage houses. You can't use cretestone or cement, or acrylic paints, and most water-proofing solutions are counter-productive. The older bricks and materials and design relied on good ventilation so that the walls can breathe. Ideally, they should only be plastered with lime plaster (very eco-friendly, at least) and traditional whitewashes or milk paints. 

 

There's often no dampcourse in these older houses either - the rocks used as the foundation were often dampcourse enough - provided, as I say, the walls can breathe.  

[dev null]

Lucky then my home was built in 1986.  Not very well on the garage side I might add. I hate it when the contractors work on garage as an afterthought.  Or the give it to the trainees to do. In case they stuff up.

[GrumpyOldGuy]

Tell me about it... Yissie. 

 

The quick fix "get your house redone before you sell" jobs are starting to come home to roost now that we've been in for 8 years. Kitchen - useless tiling and budget cabinetry. Bad plumbing (no stopcock) and bad prep on the walls prior to painting. Bad repointing on the brickwork just above the lintel on the sliding door. Geyser overflow pipe just 5cm too short so it's been sloooowly dripping into the fascia and onto the ceiling in the bedroom... 

 

And and and. 

Yip, and the single prime reason is because there are no longer qualified trade tested artisans doing the work. Cheap and plentiful is the name of the game and qualified artisans are neither cheap or plentiful.

[GrumpyOldGuy]

On another note.

 

I have a big tiling job coming up.  I already have about 90 sq m of tiling.

 

Do I attempt this job myself, or get someone to do it?

 

About 50 sq m of the job will require chopping out the old tiles with screed, and laying new screed.

 

Getting someone willing to do it all seems to be my current problem.

I sympathize with your issue of finding someone to do the job, some years back I needed some tiling done in my Cape Town house, two bathrooms, walls and floors, a passage and the kitchen. I contacted four or five tiling companies and made arrangements to meet them at my house for a quote. I flew all the way from JHB to be there.

 

Not one turned up. Not one.!

 

I threw my toys out, called my tiler in JHB, put him and his tools on a Greyhound bus down to Cape Town and in 10 days he was done and took the bus home. Everyone was happy.

 

Anyway, 90 sq is not that much, if its just floors I would do it myself, chipping out is not too bad if the tiles are laid with tiling cement only.

 

In old houses, often they didn't plaster then use tiling cement to lay tiles, they simply laid the tiles in the plaster cement and this is a major problem to remove, in these cases, if you can, it may be easier to just tile over the old tiles, theres nothing wrong with this at all, its often done, just check there is sufficient clearances, or you can create sufficient clearances under doors windows ledges etc.

 

If its walls and floors you may need a helper, but in my opinion its still a doable area for someone like you who is obviously very hands on.

[Amberdrake]

Moridin that hammer drill u got if it has a function to just chisel will make removal of tile's super easy.

I wouldn't tile (hate tiling and painting) but for that size it is always possible to do.

 

When I removed bathtub I found following as filler:

Hammer

Cardboard from tile boxes

Cement bag

"NOTHING" (Litteraly managed to leave massive airgaps)

 

Also found they never filled cavity in the wall where piping was done.... thus the excessive cracking in corner of house......

 

Also the whole corner's construction was crap.

 

So geyser replacement was done (I watched and stopped most of crap)

They still managed to stuff up electrical. I did inside so that was fine but outside is meh

 

Note Plumbler connected the mixer tap swapped around (hot is cold)

and they never flushed pipes so pressure on one tap stuffed from the crap stuck in it.

 

Im happy with doing the work unfortunately most jobs arnt one man easy. Really need to get a good helper.

[GLuvsMtb]

Moridin that hammer drill u got if it has a function to just chisel will make removal of tile's super easy.

I wouldn't tile (hate tiling and painting) but for that size it is always possible to do.

 

When I removed bathtub I found following as filler:

Hammer

Cardboard from tile boxes

Cement bag

"NOTHING" (Litteraly managed to leave massive airgaps)

 

Also found they never filled cavity in the wall where piping was done.... thus the excessive cracking in corner of house......

 

Also the whole corner's construction was crap.

 

So geyser replacement was done (I watched and stopped most of crap)

They still managed to stuff up electrical. I did inside so that was fine but outside is meh

 

Note Plumbler connected the mixer tap swapped around (hot is cold)

and they never flushed pipes so pressure on one tap stuffed from the crap stuck in it.

 

Im happy with doing the work unfortunately most jobs arnt one man easy. Really need to get a good helper.

Enter my son in 9 or 10 years time... padampam_DISH.

Edited August 25, 2016 by GLuvsMtb

[Frosty]

It's not on a timer. I have the pool pump on a timer though.

I was always under the impression that switching the geyser on and off uses more electricity to get the water back up to temp as when it is off then the water cools down and take more power to heat up again. Or I am I missing something here?

 

Let's go into a comparison between switching the geyser on/off.

 

To calculate the power required, the formula is: A*B*C/D

 

A) Geyser size in liters

B) 4 (given factor)*

C) Temp difference from start to finish

D) 3412 (give constant - to convert to KWh from BTU)

 

*energy required to heat 1Kg of water by 1^C is 4200 joules, or 4.2Kj - specific heat capacity of water. A Kj is the amount of energy provided by a heat source running at 1KW for 1 second

 

So, for a 200L geyser, to heat up from 30^C to 60^C (30^C) it would be 200*4*30/3412=7.03KWh.

 

What size element? Assume 3KW

 

It will take 2.34 hours to heat the water.

Multiply by the Rand/KWh and you'll get the cost to hear heat the geyser for that specific period.

 

The switching on and off is not really comparable due to the usage of hot water, but for the sake of this comparison, let's assume the thermostat kicks in at 59^C and switches off at 61^C, giving a 2^C difference.

 

200*4*2/3412=0.47KWh

The same 3KWh element means 0.156 hours (9 mins) to heat the water 2^C.

 

Take the previous value (7.03KWh) and divide by the latter value (0.47KWh). This will give you the number of times per day the geyser would have to switch on/off to compare directly to running it once. The answer is 15 times.

 

But remember that your geyser temperature will drop more at night that during the day, which is why you want to insulate the geyser, and the pipes.

 

As soon as you start showering, the element will kick in and start heating the water - if you leave the geyser switched on. This makes the comparison somewhat meaningless, but having it switch on for 9 mins for up to 15 times a day (3.75%) justifies having it on a timer as it would be on anyway while you are showering.

Edited August 25, 2016 by geraldm24

[Eddy Gordo]

Tell me about it... Yissie. 

 

The quick fix "get your house redone before you sell" jobs are starting to come home to roost now that we've been in for 8 years. Kitchen - useless tiling and budget cabinetry. Bad plumbing (no stopcock) and bad prep on the walls prior to painting. Bad repointing on the brickwork just above the lintel on the sliding door. Geyser overflow pipe just 5cm too short so it's been sloooowly dripping into the fascia and onto the ceiling in the bedroom... 

 

And and and. 

 

 

Get some of that new white pipe that replaces the copper pipe and an elbow. Then connect to your overflow and lead to the drain.

Edited August 25, 2016 by Eddy Gordo

[Frosty]

Get some of that new white pipe that replaces the copper pipe and an elbow. Then connect to your overflow and lead to the drain bucket or other container to use in the garden.

Small correction - but that's another topic on conserving energy/resources/etc. [emoji16]

[Amberdrake]

If you use the "new white pipe" really cant remember what they call it.

Just remember it needs a insert inside the pipe before using a connector.

It will leak without the insert.

[Eddy Gordo]

My bad absolutely.

I used to have a small goldfish pond that was fed by my overflow.