House Projects

[98gstaherns]

Thanks ill check them out!

[scheides]

I've used this space on the side of my garage for everything from motorcycles to a car to construction trash storage. After the neighbors re-did their fence last year I've been slowly-but surely cleaning up back here, extending the retaining wall all the way back, and finally I decided it was time to get rid of the f-ugly fence that was shoddily installed before I took ownership.

Loaded up mah truck at the home despot:
http://www.scheides.com/albums/passat-wagon/Photo_11.sized.jpg

Dug out a good hole and filled it with a 4x4 and some cement (that's my dad helping):
http://www.scheides.com/albums/house-work/Photo_14.sized.jpg

Then affixed some 6' high gates to either side for nice easy access!
http://www.scheides.com/albums/house-work/Photo_15.sized.jpg

I have it locked with a big bike lock for now, but I'll find something better down the road. I ordered up some black privacy slats to fill the gaps a bit since I live in the city, but now I have a nice open space beside my garage for...something!

[goodhart]

fill it with a 1g :)

[A//// Guy]

Nice work! I dug 10 holes for posts over the weekend too, 7 more to go and then its fence time too. Isnt it fun?

So much to do before it snows.

[scheides]

I've been on a bit of a home automation kick lately. Mostly just dabbling, trying to keep things on the cheap, semi-aimed at increasing efficiency.

First off, in the name of efficiency, I replaced of the most commonly used bulbs in my house with Cree brand LEDs from Home Depot. I made a nifty spreadsheet weighing hours used per day, wattage, etc and figure I should save a solid $20 per month with about a $300 investment. These things are supposed to last 20 years, so if they hold up like some of the other LED bulbs I have, I will be happy. I got the soft-white version and they are nearly identical to the incandescent bulbs that I replaced them with.

http://www.scheides.com/albums/house-work/image_2.sized.jpeg

Next up, I installed a 'smarter' thermostat. I had a cheaper unit that I could not get the schedule to work to save my life, so I grabbed a Nest on black friday. Instead of putting it in the corner next to a window where the current thermostat is, I got some 18/5 cable, cut a few holes (PITA in this old house, bleh) and mounted it right in the center of the entire living space.

http://www.scheides.com/albums/house-work/image_1.sized.jpeg

This thing is awesome, it has a motion sensor on it and does auto-scheduling and auto-away, and I can check the status or change things on it from anywhere, anytime.

http://www.scheides.com/albums/house-work/image.sized.jpeg



Next up I grabbed a few of the Belkin WeMo light switches. These things are nice for an out-of-the-box product. I ordered from amazon but you can get them at BestBuy now as well! Basically I wanted to setup a schedule so lights were on/off surrounding my normal schedule, and some random on/offs for semi-theft deterrent.

http://www.scheides.com/albums/house-work/photo_001.sized.png

Next piece to the puzzle is garage monitoring. I wanted a way I could open/close the garage remotely and get notified if it gets left open. I decided to do a little home-brew action with a raspberry pi. I followed this (https://github.com/andrewshilliday/garage-door-controller) guy's tutorial & codebase and have been modifying it to add features.

Setup for testing on my ottoman:
http://www.scheides.com/albums/house-work/Photo_3_001.sized.jpg

Mag switch installed:
http://www.scheides.com/albums/house-work/Photo_1.sized.jpg

Temporary wiring install for initial testing. I think I bumped some other cabling though when I was installing, because my existing garage door openers don't seem to work as well as they used to, only from about 5-10' away, not outside the garage.

http://www.scheides.com/albums/house-work/Photo_2.sized.jpg

I added a rpi camera module & setup the dashboard so it would display a static image that is updated every 5 seconds, and then I wrote some scripts that will email & txt me in case the door gets left open for too long. Lots of refinement to do here, but I can access the unit remotely and it works absolutely perfect thus far.

http://www.scheides.com/albums/house-work/Photo_3.sized.jpg

http://www.scheides.com/albums/house-work/photo5.sized.png

http://www.scheides.com/albums/house-work/photo_6.sized.jpeg

http://www.scheides.com/albums/house-work/photo_7.sized.jpeg

'Access Door' is the human-sized door with a handle on it, I will be running a mag sensor to it as well but for now the pin that would connect to it is just simply unhooked (thus it shows 'Open').

And yes, I will be cleaning up the wiring and mounting, just wanted to get things rolling with it :)

[A//// Guy]

Nice! I plan on setting up some home automation this year too, pretty nifty stuff. I was looking to use this hardware/software. http://mobilincstore.com/ http://www.insteon.com/

[turbotalon1g]

Some peemp stuff, raspberry pi ftw!!!

Our house was pretty much turnkey, just organizing the garage a bit so I can start working on the car.

[rose0529]

that garage door stuff is awesome. Nice work dude

[cmspaz]

I could open his garage door right now...

But I won't be a dick. :D

[Halon]

Not much of a project, but this past year we've been really trying to attract wild life to the house and get them to be not so afraid of us. Seems to be working...


This past fall. They laid eggs in our trees which was kinda neat.
http://mitsustyle.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=14133&stc=1&d=1390402477

Last night, awkward staring contest.
http://mitsustyle.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=14134&stc=1&d=1390402477