miele dishwasher and gas range
zephyr range hood
subzero french door fridge
sharp over the counter microwave
lg washer and dryer

appliances sitting in living room and dining room waiting to be installed (aside from dishwasher in pic above)

Wife pushing hard for central air conditioning. Gonna cost $5k in total. Seems to make sense as it saves on electricity and theoretically improves home value by more than that. Thoughts?

$5k doesn't sound too bad. what kind of air conditioning do you have now and what type of climate do you live in?

We have one large in-wall AC that probably has been there since the house was built in the 70s. It's a high ranch and we'd only need the central air in the upstairs. Current AC cools mostly entire upstairs to about 72 at best in the summer. 74 or so on the really hot days. Live in NY so the electric savings would only apply for like 2-3 months a year but my electric bill was $500/month in those months last summer. Moved in exactly one year ago.

i'm not sure how you heat your house, but if your furnace is getting near the end of its life you might also look into a ductless mini-split system which can both heat and cool.

low-e only really matters when it comes to heat gain from solar radiation (i.e. the sun shining on the glass). low-e prevents heat from the sun from getting inside.
if it's winter and the sun shines on your storm door then you don't want low-e because the additional heat from the sun is welcome inside.
if it's summer and the sun shines on your storm door then you do want low-e because you probably don't want any additional heat in your house.

Anyone familiar with hot tub rules? I tried to look up my city ordnance but it appears they only have one for pools. I mostly want to know if I need a fence as is required for pools.

As I don't know where you live, my best suggestion would be to call your city hall.

Thanks. I'll do that.

Anyone have experience buying a hot tub? Online? I bought couches on Wayfair and the delievery worked out fine. It took like a month but otherwise great.

Thinking about this model.
https://www.walmart.com/ip/Futura-Sp...-Spa/147134767

Whichever model you buy, you can be confident that you will stop using it within a year and be desperate to get rid of it within 3.

Lol zikzak.

I'll send you a pm eastern.

So buy a used one on Craigslist?

Super common here in Colorado to see working hot tubs listed for free on Craig's if "buyer" can haul them away.

Knowing why would be helpful to me as the spouse would like a hot tub and I am not in favor of it.

On an unrelated subject, a company stopped by and offered to do some yard work (stump removal, power raking, and reseeding) proudly proclaiming they were listed in Home Advisor. Is being on Home Advisor that much of a guarantee of a good company and is power raking a good idea?

I use my hot tub 2-4 x per month year round. It costs about $500 per year to run it.

A hot tub is something you will use either constantly, or not at all. It would be good to figure which one before purchasing one of your own. Most people fall under not at all.

Note to self. Never mention to spouse that something can be gotten "free" no matter how many states away the item is if it is something the spouse wants.

Woke up to water coming in through my kitchen light fixture. Happy Monday!

Does it ever makes sense to hire someone just to help with the planning of renovations and cost-benefit type analysis?

On the first floor I want to replace all the floors, refurbish the kitchen, replace most windows, fix the fireplace, and refurbish the bathroom -- but I'm not sure if things should be addressed in a logical order (like do all the floors first), and if they can be done cheaper if all in the same timeframe (which probably means living elsewhere for a while), or can we address in some logical order over a year or so without too much extra cost.

Alternatively, we might want to sell the house "as is" and just buy a new one since doing everything we want to do will probably result in have a house worth a lot less than we've sunk into it.

That's the purpose of hiring a general contractor who will know what needs to be done and in what order. But it will cost you 10-30% more than coordinating it all yourself.

Can you hire one way up front just to consult and kick ideas around with - say on an hourly basis?

Or it might save money. I've seen a lot of people dig themselves into a huge financial hole thinking they could coordinate everything themselves, and being wrong.

If you ask around you could probably find somebody who would do that, but try to get a personal recommendation from friends/family/coworkers. That's probably not the sort of thing where you're going to have good luck flipping through the phone book, especially if you live in a state with no licensing requirements.

It sounds like the person you're looking for is a fee-based construction project manager. That's pretty common in commercial, and very rare in residential.

what model is the LG washer? i have an LG toploader that is about 5 years old from the inverted direct drive series- it has sucked from day 1 - constantly saying its out of balance and it will add more water for hours on end trying to 'level' itself. sometimes it will finish - other times it will give up about 4 hours later and just flash UE on the screen, which forces you to pause and manually adjust the load.

Just saying - I hope you did your research on the washing machine. I hate this one so much i probably wouldn't even give it away on craigslist

I'll give Samsung a plug for washers and dryers.

I bought some front loaders about 8 years ago that have serviced an average of 5 adults for all that time, and had my first problem last week. The heating element went out on the dryer... it was a cheap and easy DIY repair. A lot of that time was on hard farm water. True champions.

Planning on putting in a patio behind my house. First step will be laying pavers, I'm going with these travertine 6 x 12 pavers, about 600 s.f. Going to have the sand and the pavers delivered, then going for a DIY.

From my research, this should be pretty doable, since I'm going right over the top of a pretty flat concrete slab. No ground prep to do. Any reason going DIY on this is a bad idea?