Pretty country up that way. Not many places I'd be willing to move to, but Shenandoah Valley is on that short list. West of where you were, but not far.
@ computer how much should I expect to pay for asphalt or concrete paving for a driveway these days and no it’s not an easy job and I shouldn’t do it myself
Is it remove and replace? Or new on un prepped land? Flat land or sloped, need a retaining wall, etc?
Who the hell is responsible for marking our underground cable wire? The 411 guys said it’s Spectrums responsibility, they said they don’t mark bc they run the wire in line with the electric. I’m 99.9% certain that’s not true, bc we cut the wire once while digging, lol. Fence company won’t come out to fix our fence until everything is marked. They’ve tried to get 411 out (they say) but 411 never showed up until we called them. I just want my damn fence fixed. Pull the broken posts out, replace them, and take my money! /rant
And they said they don't do it. 411 guy said they always have problems with them. So what's my solution?
Tough to say. We deal with it on a commercial level so we have more mechanisms to motivate them. If you don’t want to deal with that, you can always call a private locate company to come out and find it. They have a variety of means to find it, but it’ll cost you. Not sure how much for just 1 house but i bet at least a couple hundred.
Also you could pothole it yourself. If you can safely dig up the line and visually locate it, then the fencing company should accept that. If you know approx location, know with 100% certainty there is not water/gas/electric in your dig area, and dig slowly and carefully, you can expose it without breaking it. Fiber and coax lines get hit all the time and are more of an inconvenience than a danger. But don’t fuck around under any circumstances with power/gas/water/sewer.
Doesn’t 100% mean you wont be liable still though. If you know its there, you are responsible for identifying it. Spectrum may charge you to fix it still.
Need to take out trees and regrade slope. Not sure if I’ll do that part ahead of paving; though. What would be $/sf for prepped vs unprepped.
Sprinkler guy sliced my cable line this week. They're sending a spectrum underground team to run a new line.
Unprepared, no trees, 4" thick flatwork concrete is about $9 a square foot around here Gimme a minute and I can look up some recent asphalt #s I got for clearing trees and all
Asphalt is about $45 per square yard prep (10 inch deep excavate and haul in and place 8 inches of base) including some not so big trees Plus about $15 per square yard of HMAC on top (2" thick) arrdub
So, this brings up an interesting question. Is it worth exploring asphalt for a 20x20 or so pad? It'd be under a roof (basically a garage that was never enclosed, and then with a little 15x5 runner to the alley/street. I'm not doing this anytime soon, but just wondering, especially as this would cover my sewer line, which...yeah. I mostly just would like something better to work on my cars with. Also exploring some sort of prefab floor that I could install after levelling.
Yeah, we installed the fence ourselves, and hit the line. Spliced it and moved it back, away from the post hole. Can tell where it is bc grass hasn’t grown back. If they pull the broken posts out, and put new ones in, there will be no problem. Issue is if they won’t come out until somebody marks it. Only one company has gotten back to us about this repair :(
I hear that, just expensive as fuck. I can't do it myself, so I'm tempted to level it and do gravel in some sort of matrix.
Any tile contractors on here? Curious what waterproofing methods y’all are using. We’ve been using Schluter Kerdi on all our bathroom remodels, but I’m seriously considering switching to Laticrete Hydro Ban board. Wanted to see if anyone else is installing Laticrete now and what their thoughts were.
Granted, I dont know shit about fuck, but it seems like the board is the way to go for vertical surfaces and Kerdi is what to use for horizontal right?
Depends. We use a lot of Kerdi membrane over green board. What I don’t like about it and why I’m considering switching to Laticrete boards is the seaming methods for the Kerdi membrane. Even if you use Kerdi Board, you still have to band the screw holes and seams, which creates a bump in the wall. The biggest problem areas are the inside corners, the pan-to-wall joints, and around niches, where you’re getting an additional 2-3 layers of material and thinset. Just creates an uneven buildup that can make it difficult to get tile to sit flush. With the Laticrete system, they use a sealant, similar to a caulk, with their board to seal all the seams and screw holes. So there’s no additional layers of materials. So, there’s no thinset used to install their wall boards and waterproof it. I just haven’t used their system before, and while it all seems great, maybe someone has some first-hand experience with it.
I used Kerdi on our bathroom floor and definitely struggled with those additional layers at the seems. I have a few raised areas, but luckily they were under the cabinet. Do you use the red waterproofing paint over the laticrete system after you get everything sealed up?
You don’t have to. They have their own brand of Redguard. It’s called HydroBan. But those boards are designed to tile directly on them. As long as you use their sealant, it’s supposed to be waterproof.
Have blink and ring products that work for me solar ones are nice for true wireless but battery life is pretty robust even without that
Yeah, they're the ones who said the cable company is responsible. Cable company says 811 is responsible. Fun little loop we're in here.
Idk. Fence company said 811 has to come out before they fix our fence. They marked a water line nowhere near the fence, and said spectrum had to mark their own line. Spectrum said they don’t mark their lines, they run them directly under the power line. (I know this is false bc we cut the cable while installing the dense ourselves. It’s a few feet outside the power line.) Fence company will be pulling out a few old posts and putting in new ones, as well as rails. Of course, one they have to pull out is in the spot we cut the cable. We did move the cable after cutting it and repairing it.
I intially started off with Arlo. Not thrilled with them. Feel like their alerts/sensors suck and are super delayed. My front door opens out and if the door is unlocked and someone walks up and goes in the arlo doorbell camera literally only catches the backside of the door and you can't even see who walked in. Fucking pointless. I have this Eufy in my backyard it works well: I got deep into the weeds with this guy a couple years ago: https://www.youtube.com/@LifeHackster He reviews every camera, tests every one the same using a stop watch to see how quickly the camera picks up motion, how far away, how quick you get notifications to your phone, etc.. Very in depth and real world testing that matters. I would watch his videos for whatever you were considering. Here is his best of: spoiler
My ring camera is atleast 29x's worse than my wyze camera at every category they are talking about If that fucking thing wasn't so expensive. I would have trashed it and replaced with a wyze by now
In laws have wyze and I use blink. The wyze is significantly better, but both obviously stink compared to wireless.
My wife just sent me a house that's newer, bigger, and cheaper than what we currently have. I'm prepared to buy this site unseen
Sure, unless it involves the tiny support spindles on deck railing. That makes me want to burn my house down.
whats that website where i could hire someone to sketch some designs for a renovation? i need to submit my plans to the HOA and those might help get everything passed smoothly.
well if you need a private locate you can call someone like GPRS or Pen Hall to come do it Not really sure what else to do besides 811 or a private locate, maybe try to find the director of construction/development with Spectrum in your area and get in touch with them directly
Was all pointless in the end, lol. They didn’t replace any posts, just some boards and wiring. Pretty disappointed in them, really. Reused 90% of our own materials. Pretty sure we got hosed, lol. They quoted $1700, but that included replacing any damaged posts, new boards plus wire, fixing/replacing damaged door. They didn’t replace any posts, probably used 8 of their own boards, 30 ft of wire, used all original materials on the door. gave them the $850 required, no way we’re paying the rest.