For all of you guys who are homeowners or newly owned

[Redacted01]

Re: For all of you guys who are homeowners or newly owned

That sucks WTF. My basement is finished and it would just be a real mess to deal with all that if it happened. I at least have a daylight so I'm hoping that limits the possibility since it's at least somewhat above ground, but anything is possible.

But I do have a problem with my basement. I've started getting all these gnats that at this point I think are coming from the utility room, likely the sump pit. The internet hasn't been much help so far and I don't even know if they are coming from it for sure. I've covered windows to make sure they weren't getting in that way. I've covered bathroom drains in the basement. They aren't coming from there either. They're only in the basement so I know it isn't through ventilation. My sump pump seems different in that the drain pipe goes back down into the foundation, instead of up and out so I'm not sure where it goes. There is also this large outlet at the top of the sump pit that seems to go out to the back of the house, but I'm not sure where it goes either as I can't see anything along the back of the house in the backyard where a pipe would go.

Anyone else run into these before and have a good way to get rid of the little bastards? I don't really want to fill the thing up with bleach and water as I'm not sure how good that is for the motor, or which way they're coming from since there are two paths for water. Worst case, the builder should be doing their 45 days in the next week or two so I'll see what they can look into.

[seasprite]

Re: For all of you guys who are homeowners or newly owned

Starting to get the pool ready for the summer and have really been thinking about adding something to the back yard to accompany our pool area. GF has really been wanting an above ground firepit and maybe some seating to go around it. Has anyone had any experience building these?

[Fresh Tendrils]

Re: For all of you guys who are homeowners or newly owned

What are your guys' thoughts on patios? My (future) in-laws offered to buy us a fence or a patio for our house warming gift so we elected for a fence, but I would still like to add a patio to the outside of our sunroom. We're trying to decide if I we want to just have somebody come and pour slabs or try and do it ourselves with paver stones.

[23]

Re: For all of you guys who are homeowners or newly owned

I take the most expensive one for the gift


But if you are going to do yard work be ready to bust your behind because it takes work.

[Fresh Tendrils]

Re: For all of you guys who are homeowners or newly owned

We figured the fence would be more expensive. I just want a space to put the grill and some chairs. Nothing major.

[23]

Re: For all of you guys who are homeowners or newly owned

Man yeah i did a small section that was too close to a door in my back yard with my gardener. 2 days and alot of digging and sweat and got it done. I respecr landscapers even more after that.

Laid down a small walkway with pavers lined up as the side borders. Id do it again but just be prepared and have somewhere to dump alot of dirt

[Fresh Tendrils]

Re: For all of you guys who are homeowners or newly owned

Do any of you guys have any experience with stamped concrete?

[KG]

Re: For all of you guys who are homeowners or newly owned

We figured the fence would be more expensive. I just want a space to put the grill and some chairs. Nothing major.

If you have a dog and/or kids go with the fence. The costs really depend on how big the fence/patio will be and of course how elaborate you'll want them.

[Fresh Tendrils]

Re: For all of you guys who are homeowners or newly owned

We're doing both, but with a dog we figured we'd go ahead and get the fence out of the way. I would like to do the patio myself just so that we have something to do to the house (it was a flipped house so everything has been remodeled and is 100% turnkey), but am trying to get an idea if its cheaper to just pay somebody to lay concrete (stamped or no) versus doing the pavers ourselves.

[jeremym480]

Re: For all of you guys who are homeowners or newly owned

Yeah man, it hurt. Throwing out a ton of stuff today. Papers and pictures that we tried to dry, peeled and ripped apart.

Id give up my possessions gladly to trade for the things we lost. I emptied 98 Shop Vacs full of water, I think 12 gallons per load.

I've left messages with my agent to see if I can claim anything at all.

I got super paranoid about flooding during on of the hurricanes here and ended up driving to the fire department in the middle of it to shovel mud into bags to make sandbags. Thankfully, we the water never actually got into the house, but it was nerve racking for a while.

I know that's a tough think to go through. Hopefully, your agent can do something for you.

Starting to get the pool ready for the summer and have really been thinking about adding something to the back yard to accompany our pool area. GF has really been wanting an above ground firepit and maybe some seating to go around it. Has anyone had any experience building these?

We're getting a pool next year and our current plan is to do a covered pavilion with a fireplace on one side Pre-lit Cantilever Umbrella (already purchased) on the other side. We're putting a sectional with a tv in the pavilion area and we'll have a dining table under the umbrella. I can't wait!

Oh, and to answer your question I don't have any experience building them. I know my wife looked into it some kits. However, I'm not much of a builder/masonry or anything that involves manual labor for that matter, so we would have to pay someone to put ours together. Here's a link to kind of what we were looking at http://www.mantelsdirect.com/Product...pywaAkQs8P8HAQ

What are your guys' thoughts on patios? My (future) in-laws offered to buy us a fence or a patio for our house warming gift so we elected for a fence, but I would still like to add a patio to the outside of our sunroom. We're trying to decide if I we want to just have somebody come and pour slabs or try and do it ourselves with paver stones.

Fence for sure, especially since you have Gemma. We've been in our house for 5 years and we've made a lot of purchases and our fence is still our most expensive one to date.

A patio is nice, but isn't as functional and not nearly as costly as a fence. At our old house there was on old broken up piece of concrete and we put 4 inch pavers all around the perimeter and loaded the middle with pea gravel. I can't remember the exact cost, but I don't think we spent over $300 or $400 on the entire thing, whereas our fence cost between $5000-$6000.

[WTF]

Re: For all of you guys who are homeowners or newly owned

Yep, as figured, I'm SOL. Tough, tough break.

I now hate basements, haha. I'm trying to list out the monetary total that was lost, and holy geez, you don't realize how much value can be contained in a relatively small space.

This one hurts, no doubt.

[JMD]

Re: For all of you guys who are homeowners or newly owned

Well gentlemen, me and the family lost a ton of our possessions last night during a flood. We're the least likely home to flood, no flood insurance, but weather phenomena happen. My wife had just taken a bunch of stuff to the basement yesterday too.

Tough night. Now we try to salvage whatever keepsakes we can, and then throw out the rest.

Word to the wise, no matter where you look to buy, look into flood coverage.

Install a sump pump. I did years ago and it has saved my drum kit from floating around the basement several times. Just make sure it is always plugged in and you may even want a battery back up incase if power failure during a storm.

I had a guy come in and jack hammer a 16"x16" square hole in the floor in the corner of the basement. Then I dug down in the dirt 1 foot and placed the pump in the hole. I also had the guy make a hole in the basement wall above ground level so I could run the pump hose out side. Then I built a wooden box to hide the pump. I plugged it in 15 years ago and haven't touched it since. If we get a lot of rain as soon as that hole in the floor gets a couple inches deep with water the pump turns on and out goes the water. It never gets to the floor level.

[DocHolliday]

Re: For all of you guys who are homeowners or newly owned

Do any of you guys have any experience with stamped concrete?

Is just stamped my backyard patio last year. It looks great and saves a ton of money.

You have to make sure your guy does it correctly or it will crack fairly quickly, from what I have heard and researched.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[seasprite]

Re: For all of you guys who are homeowners or newly owned

Thinking about converting the pool to a salt water pool. Anyone have any experience with this?

[aukevin]

Re: For all of you guys who are homeowners or newly owned

Thinking about converting the pool to a salt water pool. Anyone have any experience with this?

Happy I converted. Cost me around $2500 I think but I've bought very few chemicals since then other than salt. I think salt is about $16 a bag from where I get it. I use Valley Pools in Madison. This will be my third season with it. First year I had to add a lot of Stabilizer to get the chlorinator just right, but last year I didn't add any chemicals to the pool other than salt. About three weeks ago my pool was pretty swampy because I had my liner replaced in the winter and never put salt back in the pool, so once it warmed up I put the salt in there and two bags of shock to kick-start it and the swamp was gone the next day. Haven't touched it again. My water is nice and blue, but a little cloudy, I need to put some clarifier in it. But yeah, the salt system has been great. Once you get it to where it is suppose to be, it's on auto-pilot from there it seems. Plus, my old system didn't have a scheduler or anything and my salt system does, so it turns on my lights, polaris, etc for me.