Avoid Protection One. They suck and they also happen to be in the process of acquiring ADT. If you're looking for home automation out of your system Vivint specializes in that (but you're going to pay for it).
Vivint doesn't really specialize in it other than selling the 2GIG Go system. You can get that system from many other companies. I'd recommend it if you have any interest in home automation via ZWave.
I saw them present at an investor conference recently and they claim to have a lot of proprietary things coming down the pipeline.
We closed on our house on Friday and were also there 3 separate times over the weekend. Going to be dangerous. Also, things I've learned from 3 days of home-ownership - it's possible to buy garbage cans that are too big for the town to pick up. Who knew there were size limits? We bought what we thought were common, 50 gallon cans. Nope.
You have to buy your own garbage can? In our city there are 7 garbage truck companies licensed by the city. Each one offers weekly pick up of one of three different sized cans and they supply the can (shown below). There is a cost difference based on your can size. The city provides recycling services (contracted through Allied Waste) every other week and they supply the (largest size) can for that. I'm curious which one of us is unique versus the rest of the country.
Ours, in NY, is done by the town, we buy our own cans. My dad in NJ has privatized and the company supplied the cans.
Ours, they supply one of the big ones pictured above, and you can put up to two of your own big cans next to it if you have that much trash All recycling you haul yourself if you wish to do so
Anyone have any washer/dryer recs? Our house doesn't have one, and I have no idea about them. It's just me+wife. It'll be in the basement so noise isn't really an issue Think it's OK for a basic cheap one? We don't need any too fancy
buy the basic cheap ones now, maybe even used off craigslist then be sure and post in the dumb shit my wife does thread later when she starts bitching about wanting new fancy front loaders
Why do they suck? They claim the customer service wait times are far better than ADT, the time from customer call to technician visit is much quicker, and their attrition slaughters ADT.
got the whirlpool cabrio combo. like 1300 installed? got em at best buy on sale you could smuggle 11 Guatemalans in these things. they huge. and we've never had an issue.
Maybe they have gotten better under PE ownership but they were a disaster when Westar (Kansas utility) owned them. They almost bankrupt the utility. My fraternity had them for our fire alarm support and they put us in test mode for 15 months without telling us and charged us full price throughout. Our experience didn't seem unique.
Westar sold them in 2003. Their entire executive management staff is new and doesn't appear to have worked at the company that long ago.
Yeah, I'm old. I was covering utilities in 2003 when they sold them. It was hard to believe how bad they were. I'm sure they've gotten better with PE ownership but if somebody wants to avoid ADT it makes sense to avoid the merger partner too.
http://www.actionnewsjax.com/news/trending-now/hgtvs-love-it-or-list-it-sued/224930982 Can't remember if it was before the crash but I think we had a discussion at some point about how crappy the construction work is on Property Brothers. Looks like Love or List it is similar. Not a huge surprise.
Did you end up going this route? Pretty interested on the experience as I love saving money but those customer reviews would scare me off.
Grass and landscaping went in today, the only thing left really is carpet in bedrooms and blinds, then we are (finally) done.
What's everyone's thoughts on Scotts lawn service? The manager stopped by today to give us his "new construction discount" of $40/month for full service. I'm just curious if with new sod it's best to go ahead and use them for a little while. Never used any lawn service company so just curious on the TMB's insight. TIA
I use a company called Weedman and they come out basically every other month year round. I started using them right after sodding our back yard. It has made a huge difference in my opinion. I have far less weeds and grass looks so much better than people who don't put anything down. I'm sure I could get same results on my own but the cost is minimal.
I've bought from Sears Outlet 4 or 5 times and never had any issues. It's all new stuff but might have a scratch or dent somewhere so they can't sell it in the store.
Installed a water filter system (softener, iron, brine tank, sediment filter), removed 2 old hot water heaters upstairs and got a high efficiency stainless steel one installed downstairs, and now trying to get some general repair done. The drywall were the heaters were, some siding, painting some French doors, and a new cooktop stove. Still need to get a couple of trees removed, clean the gutters, and get the pool up and running. Also fix some screens around the lanai that are torn and old. Man, home ownership wooo
No, it's a 2511 sq ft house built in 1997. Homeowners moved out early last summer and looks like they let a lot go before they even left. Most of the stuff is still original and needed to be serviced/replaced and just hadn't been done. I'm going to be here in Fla for a while so I like the projects once I get to a good baseline
Any tru green people? Got my first treatment about a month ago. Going through the death phase for weeds and grass is now filling in. Was pretty expensive as I have 1.7 acres, so I'm hoping it's worth it.
I did. Got a brand new electrolux fridge that was overstock material. Retails for $2300 at at HD, but got it for $1250. http://m.homedepot.com/p/Electrolux...less-Steel-Counter-Depth-EI23BC30KS/203747185
Looking for a pressure washer. Any of you guys have any recommendations? Main uses will be washing our house, driveway, cars, fence and outdoor furniture. Also the will be stripping my garage and fence at some point. Leaning towards gas powered but just looking for experience/recs.
Rumpke does our trash/recycling. It's like $13/mo. $15 if you lease their trash container. They will take whatever, whether it's your own trash can, or if you just throw your bags out there. We chose to lease their container because it's a nice 96 gallon roller can and if it breaks they replace it. Cheapest route would obviously be just tossing your bags out on the curb on Friday mornings, but fuck piling garbage bags in your garage all week waiting on Friday
Has anyone else used Alliance Security? I signed up with them. I have sensors on the all entry points on the first floor, touchpad, camera, and wifi thermostat with scheduling capability. $200 for the thermostat at the time of install and $38/mo.
Got them about a month ago. Have had one treatment and an aeration. Seeing a big difference already. I'm on .62 acres and it's running a little over a grand a year for soil amendment, aeration and eight treatments.
we pay like $8/month for trash and recycling. trash we can leave out in bags (but I bought a can at Home Depot that I use) and recycling is in a big can they provided. trash picks up twice a week and recycling once. lumped in with our water bill.
Anyone ever dealt with having to overhaul a large part of their yard because of weeds? Now that the snow is gone and stuff is sprouting, I have a ton of weeds popping up in both my front and back yards. Not surprised as there is a decent amount of exposed soil, but it just seems like it's going to be a daunting task getting rid of them all. What should be my approach? Spend an afternoon ripping them out and then spraying with Roundup or some other form of weed killer and let it sit for a couple of days? Thinking of laying some seed in the exposed soil areas once cleared to get some grass to fill in.
How expensive we talking? See my above post. Going through a weed problem now and trying to determine the best remedy. Previous owner said weeds would be an issue.
I'm redoing my entire yard as we speak. It's definitively a large job though. The short of it is I sprayed everything with glyphosate (the active ingredient in round up, a lot cheaper to buy just as glyphosate) about two weeks ago. Everything has died off and now I'm just cleaning everything up to get it ready. Getting all the weeds cleaned up, pine straw raked up, and going to basically scalp what grass I do have and bag that. This weekend I'm renting a big ass tiller to till everything up, and then roll it all out to get as flat a yard as I can. Then I'm seeding with compadre zoysia. If everything goes to plan I should have a damn nice yard by end of summer.
Speaking of weeds, I have a few hundred square yards of ground cover that I just hit with roundup. Anyone know if I can burn those in a burn barrel or something instead of bagging?