House Projects

[asshanson]

In my kitchen alone I'm saving nearly 400W when they're on. Living room and bedroom will be 120W savings each. For me it works out to about $5/month based on some estimated usage.
CFL's are still way cheaper (especially at WalMart they are dirt cheap), they use a little more energy than LED but still much less than a standard incandescent. They can pay for themselves in a couple months, these LEDs will take a year to pay for themselves. I just can't stand the warm up process for CFL, apparently they have instant brightness CFL now but they last shorter, the other LED benefit is 20 year life.

Edit: almost forgot about this, funny story from today. Went to Menards looking for a lawn mower, we moved to our first standalone house over winter and haven't had a yard before this, so we have zero lawn care tools. I have always liked electric motors over gasoline, so I was intrigued by this electric mower which was marked down from $200 to $100 on clearance. I bought it on impulse, only to come home and find out it's plugin with extension cord vs a battery like I thought. I had no idea they even made extension cord lawn mowers after the 80's, battery tech is so much better now (our yard is pretty small and will probably take 20 minutes to mow)

Then I read up on electric mowers and found out you have to replace the battery every few years which costs a decent amount, and the corded ones have virtually zero maintenance. I'm getting used to the idea of a cord and start to plan out how I would mow always moving away from the house so the cord would never get in the way, and then Emily vetoes the idea because she would have to mow when I'm on a trip. She equated it to vacuuming and running over the cord, which I said was totally different since you are always moving forward, not back and forth like a vacuum. Anyway, guess I'm getting a gas mower after all. Boo.

[Murlo26]

I added another nest product to my house. I needed a new fire alarm upstairs near the bedrooms and I didn't have a CO detector at all, so this was a no brainer. Pretty cool little guy, bummer they just had to disable the wave feature but it will be back in a few months.



Also has a built in "night light" feature that is cool. When you walk under it lights up the hall a bit.

[A//// Guy]

Andrew, def get a gas mower.. You will be mowing a lot more often if you get an electric, since they cant handle higher grass and you cant pick up and bag either. When leaves start to fall this is a major time saver for me than raking. I dont think you have many trees though.

LED or CFL is the way to go for sure, I converted to CFL when we moved in and found some instant on bulbs that work great. Even our outside lights are CFL 100 watts and they work great through all of winter too, even though they arent rated below 30 degrees or whatever. Just takes a little longer to become 100% bright.

[asshanson]

It has a mulch feature and a bagger too, but yea prob going gas. I now have a super old one in the garage, just need to clean the carb, and fresh oil and gas. It's been sitting at her family's farm for 10 years lol.

[A//// Guy]

Ahh okay, that will work for now!

[rose0529]

Originally Posted by asshanson

It has a mulch feature and a bagger too, but yea prob going gas. I now have a super old one in the garage, just need to clean the carb, and fresh oil and gas. It's been sitting at her family's farm for 10 years lol.

Sounds to me like you already have a gas one for her to use when you are out of town!

[scheides]

Did you get the battery-powered or direct-wire nest protect?

Also wow, they stopped selling it outright? That's pretty nutzo.

[Murlo26]

Originally Posted by scheides

Did you get the battery-powered or direct-wire nest protect?

Also wow, they stopped selling it outright? That's pretty nutzo.

Direct wire, as that is how my old one was.

Yea, the CEO sent an email out and they don't want to sell it until they feel 100% that its safe with all the features. I think it shows they care a lot about their customers to stop selling something as that is a lot of lost revenue.

It's pretty cool now though that I have the thermostat and the smoke/co alarm in the app on my iphone, pretty nifty. I plan to put one nest protect on each level. I don't want to replace all my smoke alarms with them though, they are too damn pricey, but I think one on each level makes sense.

[turbotalon1g]

I have to get a mower this year too, not looking to spending that much.

I have CFLs all thru the house for the most part. I'm most likely going to take a break from modding cars this year as long as they run and try to get the house running smoothly how I want it. (lower monthly expenses, fix stuff, etc.)

[scheides]

Originally Posted by turbotalon1g

I have to get a mower this year too, not looking to spending that much.

I have CFLs all thru the house for the most part. I'm most likely going to take a break from modding cars this year as long as they run and try to get the house running smoothly how I want it. (lower monthly expenses, fix stuff, etc.)

I bought a cheapo from sears 10 years ago now and rebuilt the plastic carbs and changed the oil twice, it runs like a champ. Pretty sure I paid like $120 for it

Aaron, weak! Man up and go fast, prove you are drag king!

[A//// Guy]

Yea mowers are pretty cheap in the scheme of things.. lol Good self propelled mower is a couple hundred bucks. And they usually run forever.

[turbotalon1g]

Originally Posted by scheides

I bought a cheapo from sears 10 years ago now and rebuilt the plastic carbs and changed the oil twice, it runs like a champ. Pretty sure I paid like $120 for it

Aaron, weak! Man up and go fast, prove you are drag king!

I'll be going fast, but I'm no drag king.

Originally Posted by A//// Guy

Yea mowers are pretty cheap in the scheme of things.. lol Good self propelled mower is a couple hundred bucks. And they usually run forever.

yeah, I have a bit of yard, so I'm thinking a rider is in my future.

[A//// Guy]

Me too, its a good leg workout! haha

[turbotalon1g]

^Good point.

[Halon]

Spring time, so doing some more stuff in the yard to try and attract more wildlife. Mallard duck house was put out by the pond this weekend. A Wood Duck couple already scoping it out.

[Halon]

Inside the house, I've been working on finishing up our wine cellar / storage room. It was one small area we left unfinished when we built the house, and basically just keep the deep freezer and beer fridge in there for now, but eventually will put up some wine shelves and other just misc shelves for overflow grocery storage.

Here's basically what it looked like. I threw up some 2x2 furring strips on the cement wall sides.





Entry into the area, small dim wall sconce to give it a dungeon feel lol


Went to Menards and got this Pine tongue/groove planking for half off. Thought this was a neater look for a room like this rather than just sheetrock. Also installed/wired up a handful of outlets since it only had 1 to begin with.


Here is how it sits today. All that is left is to put some clear sealer on it (not staining). And I bought cork flooring that should arrive early May.







The theatre room project is on hold. We found a little bit of water in there and we want to get that figured out before finishing the room. Don't want a mold issue.

[goodhart]

Wow that looks great! Def more of a 'cellar' look to it with that pine

[JET]

Yeah, great choice using the pine. Looks good!

[A//// Guy]

Looks great!

[Murlo26]

Love the pine, looking sharp sir.

After not having blinds in my house in my guest bedroom for 4 years I finally bought some cheap ones from Blinds.com.

The driving force is the fact that the window is eastward facing so the sun shines in bright and early. So anyone who ever used my guest bed woke up at dawn lol. So now the gf stays over with her 5 year old quite a bit so in an effort to let the human alarm clock sleep more I did this. Added benefit is allowing drunk friends more sleep.

It isn't pretty but it works and was cheap.



The gap in the middle is a bit more than what I would like but I don't care to try and fix it as there isn't a whole lot I can do with these blinds as the hardware just has space in them. I could probably gain a half inch and cut it down but this works and keeps the sun out of your face.