Home Buyin/Maintenance Thread - Where most of us are 30ish but act 47. Oh, and fuck home inspectors

Discussion in 'The Mainboard' started by Swim Cantore, May 4, 2015.

  1. blotter

    blotter Aristocratic Bum
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    Helped a weed grower expand his basement space back in the day. Ran a conveyor through a window into a truck bed.
     
  2. Duck70

    Duck70 Let's just do it and be legends, man
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    that was my thought as well.
     
  3. THF

    THF BITE THE NUTS, THUMB IN THE ASS!
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    Bifen IT. Get it on Amazon. You don’t need much but it will kill everything.

    Bifen IT Control Solutions Insecticide Concentrates
     
  4. bigred77

    bigred77 Well-Known Member
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    This is what I use around my house all the time
    We live near the lake and get big ass water roaches show up if I dont spray a few times a year
     
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  5. THF

    THF BITE THE NUTS, THUMB IN THE ASS!
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    Same here. Only lack of a lake.
     
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  6. bigred77

    bigred77 Well-Known Member
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    Seems to have helped a lot with the scorpions the past few years since I discovered bifen too
     
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  7. Rabid

    Rabid Fan of: DQ Treats
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    Yes, and more or less that is what they did. I think it was shovels, wheel barrow and a conveyor belt that brought it through the egress window and dumped in to a wheel barrow outside. Like this but smaller.

    [​IMG]

    Afterward they had to do something to anchor the footings (like a metal brace around it) because I think my floor is now poured slightly below the footings. It gave about 11 inches more headroom which makes a world of difference.
     
    #21407 Rabid, Jan 6, 2020
    Last edited: Jan 6, 2020
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  8. thunderstruck

    thunderstruck I'm a Boss

    Anyone have any experience with Goodman HVAC units?

    Just had one installed Friday... I almost feel relieved just to be done with the last one. It was 16 years old and every summer there was an issue.
     
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  9. Rabid

    Rabid Fan of: DQ Treats
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    As I recall, they have that and Amana. Both good reputations. I think my A/C is Goodman but it was already here when I moved in 6 years ago. Minimal issues, just something that needed to be rewired because it kept blowing fuses.
     
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  10. bigred77

    bigred77 Well-Known Member
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    Goodman is good man
     
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  11. Duck70

    Duck70 Let's just do it and be legends, man
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    Nice!

    I was gonna say, how did that work with footings? I might just dig a hole in my floor this summer (lower water table) up against the wall and see how much further down the footings are. To make my basement livable/viable i would need to take it down about 25”.
     
  12. Oranjello

    Oranjello Well-Known Member
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    Was out of town this weekend, and on the way home Sunday the BFF was texting me about how she hoped I was excited about her "surprise." Before I left, her weekend plans were to organize an air conditioned room under our kitchen (adjacent to the garage -- have to go through the garage to get to it) that we use to store stuff in (clothes, suitcases, boxes of shit, etc.). Because the main kitchen drain had a leak this past summer that leaked into the storage room, there had been a somewhat musty smell to the room that was on our list of things to fix. Well, to get rid of the musty smell and unbeknownst to me, her surprise was that she spent the weekend ripping out all of the carpet, exposing cement/the foundation. With no plan for what to do afterward :facepalm:

    So now I am trying to figure out what kind of flooring to put in the room. Given that the room is only used for storage (by us and the former owners) and there may be a leak again in the future, I was simply thinking of laying down some vinyl plank flooring, as it is cost effective and can be done quickly ourselves. Any other thoughts?
     
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  13. goblue31602

    goblue31602 Well-Known Member
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    Yeah I'd go that route or epoxy the floor.
     
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  14. Truman

    Truman Well-Known Member
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    My mom has the plank flooring in her basement. It looks pretty good. Apparently it's pretty easy to install. Also to pull up and clean up any leaks, and reinstall.
     
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  15. DriveByBBQ

    DriveByBBQ Well-Known Member
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    Stain it. Also I recommend getting some “damp rid”
     
  16. Det. Frank Bullitt

    Det. Frank Bullitt God Bless Texas
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    Our new house is being wired for ethernet today. I am a geek about this stuff and will post the results.

    We have AT&T fiber (true 1000mbps up and down) which has been lovely at the router location, but not so much on wifi.
     
  17. NineteenNine

    NineteenNine Divers are, in fact, wankers. It's science.
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    Yeah epoxy it and call it good.
     
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  18. DriveByBBQ

    DriveByBBQ Well-Known Member
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    installed a ubiquti enterprise home network last year ama.
     
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  19. WillySaliba

    WillySaliba Well-Known Member
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    This is what you want to do. Not sure on your sq, but would only need a few to light your place up.
     
  20. Det. Frank Bullitt

    Det. Frank Bullitt God Bless Texas
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    I plan to do a before/after and share here, but how much $$$ was your build out DriveByBBQ
     
  21. WillySaliba

    WillySaliba Well-Known Member
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    Probably about tree fitty up front and subsequently another $150 or so to light up my entire property. The one in the back yard was viable as we put in an 800 sq patio, the front was just because I’m a loser and I can. But yeah, pretty much fuck cables other than heavy PC/server use or gaming if that’s your thing.

    edit: your drops will still be good for access points so they won’t go to waste, need those hard wired obviously.
     
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  22. DriveByBBQ

    DriveByBBQ Well-Known Member
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    C49FCB92-430D-49EE-8A49-7AAB5EDA1E33.jpeg 3C792389-CDB2-47F6-9A5F-0711DE533CDE.jpeg 3EE1EAA4-30A4-4B18-8D0B-FC579EBB6FD4.jpeg 4833EE8C-E1DA-43E4-BE49-594CB668F604.png 3535ADAF-BBE8-4AF7-875E-73D70CF7A2D6.png
    Our house was built in 1923 two-story, has plaster walls in certain parts and the signal was garbage. (I couldn't stream upstairs because the router is in the den) We purchased the house after a contractor renovated and flipped it. Thankfully, he wired additional Ethernet ports to the den, kitchen, and master upstairs, so I didn't have run a bunch of line. Also, the company I work for is awesome and encourages work/life balance so our IT contractor designed the system and we installed it together (i.e. I paid no labor cost but with assessment, design, and install it probably took 5 hours?) That being said, after shadowing the design phase and helping install, you can do it yourself. My system is comprised of the hardware above. I already had the modem/router and I added another port replicator behind the TV in the den to hard wire as much as possible. According to my IT guy this system is crazy overkill for my house but considering the circumstances we decided to blow it out of the water and I'm very glad we did. So my total out of pocket was +/-$600? The mobile app is very, very comprehensive and provides insights to all kinds of usage metrics, real time stats, client data, etc.... I'll post some screen shots of that too.
     
    #21422 DriveByBBQ, Jan 7, 2020
    Last edited: Jan 7, 2020
  23. Det. Frank Bullitt

    Det. Frank Bullitt God Bless Texas
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    Interesting Willpépé. It seems to be a popular solution.I had seen multiple youtube videos where guys run that in their home - though the PoE and in-ceiling stuff feels a little above my paygrade for maintenance.

    This is our first house. I had lived within the limitations (e.g. renting) of previous houses and apartments that I couldn't outfit to the degree I wanted to. Nothing crazy, but consistent internet speeds across the home. In our new house (1953 construction; diagram below), every room where it makes sense has a drop w/ 2 outlets. The hub is an unused closet in the laundry room adjacent to ONT.

    It was the wired connections for a handful of devices below that had me wanting to do the ethernet project.
    • gigabit pc where I sometimes recreationally game.
    • gigabit work computer
    • entertainment center > Xbox One X, Apple TV and 4k Smart TV
    I also had some subpar experiences with existing setup/equipment that when added up, convinced me to do it.
    • a sony 4k tv that has a terrible wifi chip. Beautiful picture but the wifi drops.
    • powerline adapters used in a previous home weren't living up to the expectations I had. Gigabit in > ~75mbps out on the other end. Interestingly enough, the powerline adapters worked very well at the last house (constructed in the 1930s).
    • I wanted to hardwire the wifi extender that is placed on the other end of the house because the combo router/modem is on one end of a long single story house because that's the connection point where AT&T ran the fiber.
    • Less buffering on the Nest cams, seemingly due to Wifi signal strength.
    • At the opposite end of the house from the router, my phone shows 60-90mbps. Older devices would likely be even less if I tested on them. From right next to the router, my phone can do roughly 500mbps up and down. Why pay for fiber internet if the out of the box wifi experience is as low as 60mbps?
    I think the project cost is about $225 in labor (4 drops) and $185 in materials. To me, that's tremendously affordable as long as it works as expected as it's really future proofed. For the average person, I bet they'd rather have their $400-$500 for something else.

    It is wired with Cat6a cabling but my installer only had cat6 jacks, so I'll likely have to upgrade those later when I get into true 10gbps situations if that is a bottleneck. I'm not buying a 10gig switch now, but will do so when prices drop in the coming years. No devices in my home support 10gig currently. Who knows what WiFi will look like in 5 years either.

    I attached the diagram I drew up as an exercise to understand the system better, as I have no experience in home networking, setting up LAN party, etc.

    Generally those boxes on the left side of the house are the drops. Warning, large image.
    IMG_20191221_103413.jpg
     
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  24. WillySaliba

    WillySaliba Well-Known Member
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    The runs can stay where they are you could use in wall APs instead of ceiling. Ceiling probably covers a bit more area just because the way the signal broadcasts. You could also piece meal the solution as you go. We’re also to a point where you’re not going to be outdated from a wire or wireless standpoint in the next 5-10 years, in homes at least. Wireless offers more flexibility but that’s another discussion and you’d need to be doing some crazy shit for that to matter anyway.

    In terms of in ceiling APs, just hire an electrician to run your cables and mount the AP.

    POE is very simple. There are two ways the points can receive power. First your switch is providing the power for the device but the device has to be capable of handling such a thing, this is true Power over Ethernet. The other solution is run your Ethernet back to your switch but instead of plugging it in directly to the switch it’s going to plug into a POE injector. Basically it’s a little power supply/brick with two RJ 45 slots. One slot will plug into your AP and the other into your switch port. It can seem complicated but it’s pretty simple at a base level. The second just involves a power strip and few more cables.
     
  25. DriveByBBQ

    DriveByBBQ Well-Known Member
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    I didn’t mount my ceiling AP, it still pumps it out laying on the cabinet.
     
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  26. DriveByBBQ

    DriveByBBQ Well-Known Member
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  27. Sub-Zero

    Sub-Zero ALL THE TOSTITOS!!!
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    escrow surplus check like :dennard:
     
  28. Imurhuckleberry

    Imurhuckleberry Avid spectator of windmill warriors
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    Was looking for some pointers (as usual in here) about a remodel on my master bath. the current master bath is a split with one side having a shower, shitter and a sink, then a little separator hallway, then the other side having a old whirlpool and a sink. The shower pan was bad so figured this should be the first room that gets remodeled. as mentioned in other threads, i lost my remodeling designer and crew in the breakup so now trying to figure it out. By combining the two rooms i end up with a space that is 17' long, 8' wide and 8' tall. I know that master bath is a big selling point when i go to sell this in a year so want to have something that looks impressive but dont want to outprice my neighborhood. I signed up for a pro account at floor decor and have been looking through the interwebs for an interesting layout. Leaning towards a shower with the double rain style showerhead, along with side nozzles running along one end. 8' long by maybe x' wide. A soaking tub either in the enclosed shower space or maybe somewhere else in the space. a water closet and then a double vessel sink setup.

    Are there any workflows or layouts that you all have seen that could be cool?
     
  29. Funshot Residue

    Funshot Residue Mammoth Stabber
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    Just make sure you put a linen closet in there, bitches love linen closets.
     
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  30. NDfanPSUgrad

    NDfanPSUgrad Well-Known Member
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    DriveByBBQ
    Willpépé was helping me with almost a similar configuration and I have just been too busy to install. My one big hang up is the ceiling mounts and I was considering the in wall units. Are you happy with yours?

    I have an office above my garage and master bedroom that it wouldn’t be difficult for me to cut into and maybe build a recessed shelf to give me access above my ceilings. Just probably waiting until the weather breaks to do so.
     
  31. WillySaliba

    WillySaliba Well-Known Member
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    You can always get one of the indoor/outdoor mesh to supplement where needed. It’s what I used outside, all wireless, does the job. Only downside would be it’s more expensive but if it saves you not having to worry about mounting a ceiling AP, it’ll do the trick. Looks like that’s what driveby did.
     
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  32. DriveByBBQ

    DriveByBBQ Well-Known Member
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    Yeah I’ve been very happy with it, my system runs like a rocket ship. My in wall unit is in the Master which typically runs the Appletv, my wife’s tablet she streams every night and occasionally the office TV if it isn’t picked up by the back yard AP. Never had any issue with speed.

    Some tips/thoughts (you may already know all of this but it’s been a learning experience for me);

    -is the client 5g capable? My office tv usually runs on 2g which and probably has the weakest connection of any client. And it still streams live sports fine.

    - the network dynamically optimizes the client’s connection. If I’m in the back yard on my phone and run upstairs, it will swap my phone from the “backyard AP” to the “master AP” or whatever provides the best signal strength.

    -if you have Sonos, make sure one Sonos device is hardwired to the Ethernet to create the sub mesh network and free up bandwidth.

    - The cat line we added we ran on the exterior of the house from the main switchback/hub back outside the house. I’d rather have one exit point and buy 1500 feet of cat6 and run it around the house than mess with trying to punch holes and run line inside the house.

    - my ceiling mount has been laying flat on the top of the piece of future that houses all my network hardware since we did the install and I haven’t once considered mounting it. The inwall is much lower profile and I’m not sure there’s any difference in its output vs. the ceiling mount.
     
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  33. DriveByBBQ

    DriveByBBQ Well-Known Member
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    yeah the outdoor is great for watching tv outside, podcasts and music while doing yard work, software updates in the automobiles, etc...
     
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  34. Det. Frank Bullitt

    Det. Frank Bullitt God Bless Texas
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    Update! Wired connection to my computer.

    PING ms
    2

    DOWNLOAD Mbps
    874.14

    UPLOAD Mbps
    940.05


    Labor
    $250 for 6 drops (4 terminated drops + 2 origination drops)

    Parts
    $306 for cabling, extra patch cables, switches, jacks, wall plates, etc. I had no idea jacks were roughly $4/each.

    Final Costs $556

    I'll clean this up properly later. short (2") patch cables make it way easier to manage.

    IMG_20200109_200234.jpg

     
    #21434 Det. Frank Bullitt, Jan 8, 2020
    Last edited: Jan 10, 2020
  35. Druce

    Druce Fuck football.
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    One of you guys want to come to the Detroit area and set up a mesh network in my house? I'll take you on a tour of Detroit, we'll make a weekend of it!
     
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  36. NoNatty

    NoNatty Keyboard Cowboy
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    Zillow’s monthly report says homes in my zip code are only expected to rise 0.4% over the next year. Market looks to be flattening. :ohdear:
     
  37. Det. Frank Bullitt

    Det. Frank Bullitt God Bless Texas
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    I have a love/hate with those things, and I haven't even been a homeowner very long.

    What market/metro are you in or closest to...does that go against your "senses"?
     
  38. NoNatty

    NoNatty Keyboard Cowboy
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    I’m in Salem Oregon which is about 40 miles south of Portland. I didn’t expect 10% increases year over year, but I was a little surprised to see it as basically flat.
     
  39. WillySaliba

    WillySaliba Well-Known Member
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    There are very user friendly versions of what we have done. This isn’t the only option but the simplified version of what we did. You move the AP around and set it all up via an app. No wires to the points, just plug it in.

     
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  40. arrdub

    arrdub Well-Known Member
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    I have a netgear Orbi mesh that I got for $180 with 3 units and get 150 MB throughout home

    lots of options to choose from that are effective for average household use
     
  41. Jc6

    Jc6 Space for Rent
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    We just put an offer in on a turn key property in Gatlinburg TN in an up and coming resort. We were originally thinking beach house for our first vacation property, but visited here with family in the summer and liked it.

    Anyone else have experience vacation properties? We found a local property manager to manage the property for us. We will use our own accountant.
     
  42. texasraider

    texasraider thanks
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    I bought two cabins on the river in Broken Bow and it has been a fantastic decision despite a bunch of unexpected expenses. I’ll say that having a great property manager has been crucial and luckily we have a great one
     
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  43. Jc6

    Jc6 Space for Rent
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    Seller accepted our offer!
     
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  44. Boo MFer!

    Boo MFer! No longer a cog in some powerhouse machine
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    Keep the bubbly stocked for all those honeymooners.
     
  45. DriveByBBQ

    DriveByBBQ Well-Known Member
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    yeah my guy was like this is silly but why not. Also said my system is the same hardware they use to set up temporary networks and WiFi at music festivals and shit like that. It’s overkill for sure.
     
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  46. g8r

    g8r Well-Known Member
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    Buying what would be my fourth home (obviously sold the other three) and although I generally don’t care for home inspectors dude got the sellers insurance to put a new roof on it due to hail damage earlier this year. Was awesome because the roof was about 14 years old and was needing replacement.
     
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  47. g8r

    g8r Well-Known Member
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    It is also nice to be in the 15 year mortgage life.
     
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  48. The Hebrew Husker

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    Any simple/quick idea for something I can put under my car in the garage to soak up melted snow? Not a big issue, just realizing it’ll get pretty messy.
     
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  49. Houndster

    Houndster Well-Known Member
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    I’ve got the Google version and it’s pretty dummy proof.
     
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  50. PAHokie

    PAHokie Can't a bitch living say I bought her Michael Kors
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    cardboard.
     
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