I have a bunch of projects going on and this one kept getting delayed but I tackled it yesterday finally. Took about 2.5 hours which is embarrassing considering it should've only taken 20 min. if I knew exactly what I was doing. Amazingly I fixed it with just black electrical tape. If anyone has a squeaky dryer and is as clueless as I was, I've got more details... Spoiler The dryer was intimidating for me because I know nothing about the internals but once you open it up you realize it's pretty simple. Motor turns a belt attached to the drum and the clothes inside rotate. The drum rests on rollers (black wheels with blue inside): 2 in the front, 2 in the back. These are a common cause of squeaking but mine were un-damaged. Here I've taken the drum out and you can see the two rear rollers and at the bottom middle is the idler pulley (white round plastic that gives the belt tension): Next I inspected the drum and belt. Both looked fine but at the bottom of the dryer near the idler pulley I noticed black shavings, presumably from the belt. I took off the idler pulley and sure enough it was cracked, likely the culprit of my squeaking: I don't have a lot of spare dryer parts laying around especially an idler pulley so I ordered one, but I came to fix this so I wrapped it in electrical tape hoping to create a smooth surface for the belt to run on again: Incredibly this worked and stopped the squeaking, for now. I'll hang onto the new idler pulley until the tape gives way. In retrospect there is a small access panel in the rear which would've made the job easier if I knew what the problem was from the start. All in all though a very satisfying project.
My dryer is doing the same thing. Was the squeaking kind of intermident? I thought it was just overloaded but noticed it'd do it on small loads too. It comes and goes but usually squeaks at some point during a cycle.
Bought these for the upstairs hallway as they are way easier than installing LED ribbons lining the stairs which was my first plan. One by the light switch by the stairs, one by hallway light switch near bathroom. Put the third one at the bottom of the stairs above the coat closet. Worked like a charm. Will save the led ribbons for under the kitchen cabinets
I think you are implying the heat from the friction will melt the electrical tape turning it into a gummy mess, but my understanding is electrical tape is designed not to melt?
Real nice deal on a garage door opener for anyone looking to upgrade, i'm contemplating it. Normally $300, on sale for $179.99 http://www.sears.com/craftsman-1-hp...=11044874&utm_medium=1122587_4485850_11044874
I think the electrical tape should be a fine stop-gap until your replacement part arrives. I doubt the belt will generate a lot of friction heat. The adhesive might get a little melted.
No. Call your lender. It's an application process & will likely involve you paying for an appraisal, but way cheaper than a refi
The property we were looking at (the one we listed our home just to offer on) fell through. Sellers were divorced and were really squirrely about responding to offers and inquiries, and disclosed after our second offer that they would only be able to convey about 66% of the property that they were marketing. That issue was especially egregious because I had asked the agent about that issue specifically because I suspected something was off, and I was assured that all was well, but was told there was no survey and that I'd need to have one done if my lender required it (which of course they do, for this reason). Anyway, come to find out there is a survey, and it showed the issue plainly. The sellers sold a parcel earlier this year. That's either incompetence bordering on negligence on behalf of their agent, or outright misrepresentation on behalf of the sellers. Lots of other stuff that was just poor form. So we passed. Less than a week on the market we got two offers on our house, one at 98% of ask, and one at 101% of ask, but the over-ask offer was a contingency contract, so we actually went with the lower offer and are currently under contract. Assuming the sale goes through without any repairs or concessions after inspection, we'll be selling our home for 21% more than we paid in November 2013 with literally no updates. Meeting with a contractor soon and if all goes well, we may be putting an offer on a pre-list fixer, in which case I will have much to contribute to this thread if everything goes through to closing. /dear diary
Scheduled our CO inspection for Wednesday. The finished the hardwoods and installed master BR carpet last week. Doing subway tile kitchen backsplash right now. Looks like we're going to be right on budget and might not touch the contingency, will know for sure this afternoon but we're so close I'm a happy man.
I've got so many I'm waiting til completion to make an imgur album. Still have to do existing bathroom once we have CO.
thermostat question: ours keep setting itself to 85 degrees randomly throughout the day. It's a programmable, non-smart thermostat. I have gone through the programming settings and nothing is set to go to 85. As I google the issue, some responses say the thermostat could be bad and to replace. which leads me to wanting a smart thermostat (Ecobee was recommending in this thread a few weeks ago), which requires a c wire. I looked at my panel and I do not have a c wire (at least connected, have not checked behind the wall) Anyone had an electrician run a c-wire just for a smart thermostat?
Just spent a few days turning a patch of grass and mostly weeds into this. Still have to complete the edging and have some cushions on the way for the benches
Gave them a little test and they were solid without shifting. Obviously they aren't meant for people to "plop" down on. Used some heavy duty liquid nails to bond the cinderblocks together for more stability as well.
I figured this is as good a place to detail the process of buying my second home. I posted 3 weeks or so ago that I went under contract with a house, a mid century modern style house, corner lot, built in 1956. The market here in Charlotte is kind of wild, there's just very limited intermediate inventory. I'm using intermediate to define a house between your first house and your forever house. Some people can find their forever house first, some find theirs 5 houses later, but i'm going to assume that i'm following an average path. This house is in a neighborhood that hasn't started turning over, but when it does it will in a hurry. There have been a lot of renovations in neighboring streets, so you can almost see it in the cards if the market continues in the way that it has. So my offer wins against 6 others, all is well. The inspection comes back with practically nothing except some TLC projects like thoroughly cleaning the gutters, there's vegetation on the roof, some deck boards have splintered, there's a vent cover installed backwards, etc. Things that aren't deal breakers and have me second guessing the house. In fact, after the inspection I realized how quick this house could be great. Here's where things were on the rocks... the Lender I was using has a policy where they use "local" appraisers but it's basically bid out and the lowest appraiser gets it. I used local in quotes because the company that performed the appraisal wasn't from Charlotte, they were based in Matthews, a suburb 25-30 minutes away from my house. This wasn't an immediate red flag, but I knew this was somewhat of a delicate appraisal due to the comparables being wildly different (think new homes in a close neighborhood) and of course the appraisal came back low. It didn't take into account that the kitchen was renovated a year earlier, the garage was massive & had ac/heat, etc. This basically torpedoed the deal with the first lender. There was no way that 30k difference was going to be made up, nor was I going to surrender everything in my nest egg. I decided to follow my realtor's advice and use a very local lender who only bid to appraisers that worked that area a lot. This may sound dumb, but I went into the transaction thinking my way was fine, but it really wasn't, and I should've asked from the start. The new lender performed a rush appraisal and came back very close to the purchase price. I close on monday and all is well. I believe the true value of the home is around where I purchased it. I have an unhealthy obsession with checking Charlotte real estate, so I feel pretty well informed on it for a guy who's profession has nothing to do with real estate. I know there are people in similar situations with appraisal issues, so I wanted to show that it can and does work out, even if it seems like things are going off the rails for a bit.
So, an issue has come up during diligence that I'm debating walking away from the house for. The house has been marketed as a 3-bedroom during the whole process. They converted the garage into a third bedroom and built a free standing shed and carport. They dropped the bomb on us recently that the home is technically only on file as a 2-bedroom and the septic tank is only the permitted size for a 2-bedroom house. We received quotes, and to replace the septic tank with one large enough for a 3-bedroom or connect to the city sewer line were in excess of $30-40k. The seller views connecting to the city sewer line as an "upgrade" and refuses to pay the full price of the connection as the home is sold as is. On one hand, we don't want to walk into a $30-40k liability on day one and dealing with a connection to the sewer line eventually sounds like a nightmare (e.g. we would have to broker a deal with a neighbor to dig through his land to hook it up). On the other hand, when we sell the house in 7-10 years we can just call it "2 bedrooms and a den" and just do nothing to the city sewer line connection. Pretty torn on reducing price 1-2% for this and seeing if it sticks vs. just walking away and moving on.
If you can't sell it in the future as a 3 bedroom, you can't buy it right now at 3 bedroom value. 1-2% reduction doesn't sound like enough but if it is below comps, you have to consider that. Don't trust your agent completely in this, they've already spent the commission they are going to make on this deal.
So you're going to get comped against 2B's rather than 3B's at resale, how much is the difference? Wouldn't you want closer to a $30-40k cost reduction relative to the sewer work if it's going to be purchased at a 3B number?
Part of me wants to tell you to just go for it - to me it doesn't seem like a huge deal as long as you're not concerned with your house appraising. We went through a similar situation when we bought our house last April. The basement was "finished", but could not technically be considered finished because the only egress was into the garage (apparently there needs to be another door, OR the windows need to be a specific size and no more than xft off the floor, which ours weren't). We were a bit concerned with the house appraising since the comps we got all had finished basements, but it ended up being fine. The only worry for us is if/when we do decide to sell down the road, we need to add an egress ($7-8k to fix the windows, $10k for sliding glass doors) or deal with the same issue. We don't plan on moving anytime soon, and would like to put the sliding doors in eventually anyway, so it's a non-issue; but I would suggest you consider future plans. Also - you could always ask if they would consider a reduced offer. We did and the seller said no, but still honored our initial offer when we decided to purchase they house anyway.
Yeah, I agree. Our agent gave us a preliminary estimate of ~$15k he would drop for the house not having a certified third bedroom based on what he feels the house is worth with 2 or 3 bedrooms. I told him that feels light and we might just want to drop the full ~$30-40k and if he rejects it, he rejects it. I told him I wanted to see 2-bedroom comps, however, and am interested in how far off they are. The appraisal comes in on Friday and I think that'll help me frame my mindset. Our agent has said all along that he thinks this appraises well above the value we got it at, so if it does we may realize we still have a good deal, if not, it's more ammo to re-cut the deal or walk. As mentioned previously, most homes in LA are going well above ask right now, so I still may feel ok getting it at a reduction to ask if the appraisal supports it.
There's no bidding process with regard to appraisals. There are strict guidelines with regard to contact between a lender & an appraiser, so they are typically ordered through 3rd party vendors... be it a local or national lender. It's random. Congrats on the home
And this only pertains to residential. Commercial and multifamily is not the same, I've always had direct access (bid and picked appraiser myself) and then justified value, cap rate, or comp changes to get the number we need.
Very similar situation, buying a 4 year old home that the builder was renting out who is a client of mine. Whole street is new last 4 years, overall development is about 7 years old with a lot of stuff still being built and it's a mile from DT. Then around it's all old homes. Not a ton of turnover at the moment but a bunch are gonna close after mine. Used a non local lender who just took whatever appraiser came up on the list. Came back low. I know in the next couple months there will be good comps for my purchase price & I didn't use a realtor so I'm getting 2% for close. Talk to local lender and I am informed that that apprisor has been taken off the list of every local lender. Got the deal at a dip in interest rates so I'm going to move to 15% down to cover the difference. Actually very happy with the deal overall but it was an annoying couple weeks. Hopefully close next week.
After a year in the new house, I opted to not renew the home warranty, despite it being an older house AND filing a claim on the AC last year. It was great only paying a service charge of $60, but rather than replace the $300 part, it took them a week (in the summer without AC) to fix it. I would've rather paid the $600 to replace it that first day. I was nervous listening to the forecast this week, with lows at night staying in the mid 80s.
One of my best friends was at my house two weeks back and as a prank he swapped my zone 4 wire with my p wire on my rachio. This resulted in zone 4 sprinklers turning on no matter which zone I started up. I was incredibly confused. Zone 4 started getting ridicuously green as you can imagine. I ended up pulling (what I thought was) the zone 4 wire out of its slot and those sprinklers would still be on. What kind of fucked up prank is that? What happened to the good old days of TP in the tree?
Getting a new dishwasher today. Thought about installing it myself. I've decided I'm really happy I passed
Installing one is easy. Basically just hook up a hose and plug it in. If you have to wire it, then black to black, white to white, green to ground.
Gotta get 12 feet of my main sewer drain line replaced. I didn't want that $2000 anyways....fuck this shit.
Sounds like the type of prank someone who has cultivated several online personas to troll specific individuals would enjoy, IMO.