Still in philly? I just bought in fishtown.

Ya cool. Ha, I looked at tons of places in Fishtown & Pennsport. Ended up in East Falls. Wider layout, closer to work & parking. Cons are only 1bath, no more walk to gym/groceries and farther to Parx. I suppose Kelly Drive can be the new gym.

If you wanna see the 9ers get rocked Sunday I got the ticket

My friend just bought and moved in east falls....he got a new job in Boston. His place was nice but right on the tracks.

Yea, as long as york is at the helm I'm not sure if I can support the niners financially. We are redskins west now...ugh.

I may have moved next door. The train was really quiet when the realtor was showing but that appears to have been a fluke or conspiracy, Lol. Doesn't really bother me fortunately.

My friend lives and just put up his house on Conrad--houses were finished this year and really not totally done. It's the last house on the left and it's pretty wide.

Marathon the million episodes of This Old House. Seriously, fast forward through stuff you'll never bother with.

You probably can learn to do anything watching youtube. Find what needs to be fixed or done, google building codes if it's something like that, search youtube. Ask questions here or trade forums.

Just give it time. Being a homeowner makes the learning process inevitable, at least to a degree. How much you get your DIY hands dirty is your call but YouTube definitely helps make those calls a lot easier (and more informed) than they used to be.

And then sometimes you just have to learn by doing to figure out what jobs suit you. For example I now know can hang cabinets, paint, most electrical, and do anything with drywall - and with reliably good results. On the other hand I don't really want to do any plumbing-related jobs outside of maybe replacing a toilet, and most likely I'll never tile anything or put in fence posts again. But you ask other people and they have their own list of things.

I would start with googling home maintenance checklists. Fixing things you can do via google/youtube. But knowing to replace your air filters and filling your water softener, etc is something you'll want to do to prevent things from breaking in the first place. Some of the tasks aren't that important, eg. flushing your water heater is something that is debatable if it's worth your time.

Is a hot water heater the kind of thing you should spend the extra money on to get a good one? Any recommendations for a 40 gallon water heater?

Depends on how much you like having hot water, how frequently you want to pay a plumber to replace it, and whether or not you're baller enough to ignore operating costs.

Tankless water heater FTW

Just painted closet with wife and awaiting shelves and closet wall racks to arrive on Monday.

Went cheap with IKEA. Too poor for the high end stuff.

How well did she spread?

I would not get a tankless. They will probably end up costing more in the long run because of the high up front cost. As for gas vs electric, I think gas is a little cheaper, but it probably doesn't matter too much as long as there won't be any weird installation problems with the gas. People seem to like Rheem and AO Smith. I would assume they're all around the same. They make them with warranties that last X # of years. I'd probably spring a little and buy one that comes with at least a 9 year warranty.

I love my gas on demand (tank less). Now that I have one I can never go back.

Its a bit cheaper on gas. Probably takes 8-10 years to pay off the extra costs. In the mean time you never run out of hot water. People can shower all day long and you never run out... feel free to take a 20 min shower on a cold winters day after everyone else in the house has just finished bathing. Due to this it probably ends up costing you more money on gas in the long run

https://rinnai.us/tankless-water-heater/ultra-series

Thats the one I have had for about 10 years. I've also used the bosch and I had some problems with it, needed regular maintenance. In my limited experience I found the rinnai to be more reliable.

Closet installed

nice looking closet

here is my kitchen

I think this is what you call a gut job

They have electric pumps to circulate the hot water through the house, might be worth looking into before you go tankless

Recirculating pumps are different than tankless HW heaters. Tankless will give the continuous hot water, the circulating pumps is for getting hot water to the far reaches of your home faster. If you have a small home or depending on where your HW heater is located there might be no need to get a pump installed. If you are lucky and the house was plumbed for the recirculating pump where you don't need the check valves under your farthest sink supply lines is a plus.

Also, they have tankless that don't need a 3/4" gas line, it will run off 1/2". I have seen 1/2" pipe with a 3/4" bushing to accomidate a larger shutoff valve done too. You need to calculate the volume of gas for that. I think most of the time it's been enough to not have to have a new 3/4" line ran.

We moved into our new house a few weeks ago. Two things on the inspection report that I want to address still.

The furnace has some sort of timer that was not set. The inspector said it is to bring in fresh air I believe. I am assuming that it has not been set for the entire 2 years the previous owners lived here and that there was also no maintenance on the furnace in that period.

Is it worth it to have a company come out and do a tune up etc? I feel like I can probably set the timer in question with some Google fu.

Also, there is nice carpet in upstairs that is clearly thicker than what it replaced. Several of the bedroom doors are tight and the inspection noted that. The inspector said that it can create an issue for airflow and harm your blower if there is not a sufficient gap under the doors. I already cut the tight ones down and rehung them, but only left about 3/8" gap, not the 1" he recommended, which seemed ridiculous. After reading this thread where people were saying you should keep doors open for the sake of your hvac, I am wondering if I should cut more on them?

And on another note, has anyone had experience with these wipe on gel stains for cabinets? We have really good boxes, and I used to be a cabinet refacer and still have all the tools to do it, but I have heard that diy restaining is a thing now and fairly easy as well as dirt cheap. It may be worth it until we are ready to reface down the road.

Also, I am happy to share my experience if anyone has questions about refacing cabinets with wood veneer or laminate.

You can get your house pressure tested for not too much $$

If you have gas to your house I would recommend a gas water heater. It will keep working if you have a power outage. Unless it happens to be a power vent or tankless water heater. Electric tankless water heaters are not worth it (yet) unless you live somewhere with very cheap electricity. Tankless are a larger initial investment. You should have a 1" gas line run to the heater then reduced to the 3/4 connection. They must be vented to the outside. And you have to have a drain for the condensation. Installing them outside is not recommended. At least in a Northern climate. You may have to have your gas company upsize your gas meter also. Usually runs about $5000 for heater and install.

Or you can buy an electric water heater for $500 and install that every ten years.

AC incoming

nice....please tell me lighting is also on the list?