Yes, you could put a lav sink and shower on a studor vent. The inspectors here in Seattle only want you to use stupid vents (as I call them) if you have no other choice. But as long as your inspector is fine with it there is no problem.

The air admittance valve always has to be accessible and needs air to work. There is a box with a grill plate you can buy to put it into a finished wall. Technically the studor only has to be 4 inches above the p trap. If you tie two vents together though they should be 6 inches above the flood rim of the sink. So tie the vents together at 42 inches and install a studor there.

Interesting thread. The depth of subjects here on 2+2 never ceases to amaze..

Anyway, we're getting ready to build a home and one of the things we need to decide on is water heaters. I'd really like to go with tankless instead of traditional so I don't have to pay to keep 100+ gallons of water hot all the time, especially for the lower level guest bathrooms that won't get frequent use.

Anyone have any experience with these? How do you like them?

gas vs electric? (we have no lng to the property so it would be propane). From what I've read gas is more costly up front but cheaper and more efficient to use.

What about a recirc loop? seems like I'd want that too so we get instant hot everywhere. Worth it? I guess that might come down to a savings in water vs a small increase in energy usage.

I think we talked about tankless heaters a few pages back. I don't recommend the electric tankless unless you live where the cost of electricity is dirt cheap. I recommend a condensating gas tankless with recirc pump. If you have a large soaker tub that is used often you would probably want to have two tankless heaters.

The water in the lines cools down so you will still have some cool water if you haven't used a fixture for a while. And they can only heat so much water so fast. Read up on the Rinnai and Navien websites for how much hot water you get and how fast.

Costco apparently has some sort of deal on AC Smith tankless water heaters (I guess I don't really know if it's a good deal or not, since I haven't priced out the various options yet). Do you have any experience with or thoughts about that brand?

I believe you mean AO Smith? I have worked on one but not installed one. Most of the heaters I have installed or serviced are Rinnai or Navien. AO Smith is a major water heater company though. The installation could be the more expensive aspect depending on your existing set up.

several tankless conversations itt apparently...

ahh, search, ftw. ironic since searching for something else ('architect') is what brought me to this thread to begin with.

I like the thought of gas vs electric for the efficiency. I wish we had lng to the property but we'd have to just size our propane tank appropriately if we go gas.

Rinnai is what I'd get I think.

Yeah, AO Smith. Sorry about that.

I only heard of them because I saw a flyer at Costco. I figured that for the most part, Costco stuff is good quality, so maybe I should at least investigate the brand. After our last convo in this thread, I was only thinking about Rinnai or Navien.

In escrow on a home. Appears downstairs living area has nice hardwood under the carpet.
Anyone have experience refinishing hardwood floors? Time and cost commitment?

Better off hiring someone?

We’ll have about three weeks from close to move in date, but time could be short given our schedules.

Have done. Will type more when on computer instead of phone, but it's relatively low threat.

Yes, I would hire someone. Not something for a first timer in my opinion. Get some estimates. You could pull all the carpet and tack strip. Pull any nails, etc to save on some labor. But some boards may need to be replaced. Then sanding and refinishing. Good luck!

So now that I'm typing on a computer, step one is to remove the carpet, pad, and tack strips. You'll need a small pry-bar and some non-marking way to remove tacks. A flat-head screwdriver with the edges smoothed off works well. This is super-easy work any homeowner can do. You might want gloves when handling the tack strips. They bite.

Then it depends on what condition the floor underneath is in. It's possible that once you get the carpet out, you're done, but it's probably at least is a bit discolored.

If it's just old varnish, you can clean that off, re-stain, and varnish yourself, (budget about 3 days, plus) or you can get a budget "floor re-finishing" company like Mr. Sandless to do it for you in a day (their quick drying stain/varnish combo is convenient, and low fume, but also scratches pretty easily).

If the floor needs sanding, I would not do that myself again, as getting it smooth and even is very difficult. I'd call a real floor refinisher. That process can take a week or two, and you def want to do it when the house is empty, as it generates a ton of dust.

Update - since the original roofing material is no longer made or available, and since I have a homeowners policy that mandates "repair or replace to original condition" after 6 months of run-around my contractor is the happy possessor of a check for 96K and I get a new roof for a problem that is about 15 feet x 10 feet in size on a roof that is at least 95% bigger than that.

I'm conditionally happy.

MM MD

Looking to refinance and trying to figure out if I'm getting hosed on the closing costs. From what I can tell, should generally be about 1.5%. This looks quite a bit higher.

Where do I yell at / negotiate on?

App Fee: $95
Processing Fee: $1145
Appraisal Fee: $500
Title Search: $175
Signing Fee: $405
Title Examination: $95
Attorney Fee: $320
Recording Service Fee: $45
Lenders Title Insurance: $904
Coordination Fee: $75
Delivery Fee: $30
Closing Protection Letter Fee: $75
Attorney Fee: $85
Wire Fee: $15
Delivery Fee: $30
Recording Fees: $283

Estimated costs: $4277
Origination Points: 1.00%, $3,260

Refinance amount is $316,500.

App Fee
Processing Fee
Signing Fee
Coordination Fee (!)


All junk.

yes, the coordination fee had me lol a bit

getting another quote from PNC that's coming in lower. slightly higher rate (3.25 vs 3.125 on a 15 year refi), but no origination points. going to have to play them off each other a bit i imagine.

In other news, my solar panels finally got turned on - had a bad inverter that needed replaced, but I'm up and generating electricity. huzzah



mmm panels

I missed the originally post.
What type of roofing material?
Where do you live?

Looks good. Did they get the solar stands installed on the underlayment before the shingles went on?

unfortunately not. would have been ideal to sync that up, but the roof/skylights had to be replaced last year due to a leak. knew when we bought the place a roof replacement was coming, just didn't expect it within 4 months. :\

this was the op

Northern Nevada.

Long story - about 10 years ago I had a new roof put on using a new composite (sand/resin) shingle for fire reasons. They don't make them anymore - they get brittle and crack, so people stopped buying them and the company went out of business. Insurer looked all over the country for replacement shingles with no luck. Hours is a 5000+ square foot giant A-frame, so it's basically all roof. Flashing leaked around a couple of skylites, and here we are.....

MM MD

The best kind of mounts for asphalt shingle roofs are flashed like this:



and they have to be installed after the shingles are done. You slide it in between shingles.

That's a pretty huge array (but I guess we already knew that) and it's kinda nuts to have no setbacks from the sides or the ridge. Partly that's for the sake of the installers because they had to do a little daredevilling to install that, but most of the cities around here require setbacks for the fire department.

Looks good though.

I'm curious, what's a typical setback, and what's the advantage for the fire department?

That is too bad
The retrofit stands most of the companies use will not protext the roof for as long as the panels are guarantees for.

This is one of the better retro-fit ones, but the superior option is having the stands installed on the underlayment, for either tile or shingles.