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PaperclipPerfector  3mo ago (text post)   2363 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for July 28, 2024

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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As a very long-term but low profile mottizen, I feel like I have made a thread about quite a lot of important junctions in my life asking for advise. Here comes the next one:

I bought a house! Still not 100% official but will be soon. It is not in a perfectly pristine condition but did not seem too bad either. Needs some urgent renovations like a new floor and some semi urgent ones like a new kitchen.

I assume most people here are a bit older than me and have some experience with such things. So give me your best house owning tips please. Especially looking for websites/books/Youtube channels about DIY and house decoration and whatnot.

A lot more things than you realise will need maintenance. Find the manuals for all of your appliances and check the recommendations. Normally you won't need to do it as often as a manual recommends, but you at least need to bear it in mind.

Loads of household DIY jobs can be easily done thanks to the internet and youtube, but the biggest barrier is tools. Unless you've got plenty of disposable income, don't stress about buying everything you need at once. A good set of screwdrivers, a hammer, and some allen keys will take of a lot initially. Remember you can easily buy this stuff second hand.

Furniture as well. When I first moved into my own home, we bought a lot of very expensive items brand new. And what difference did they make? Look and quality was not that spectacular. Years later, we buy a lot more stuff from ebay, facebook, etc. A wooden table from 20 years ago will be just as solid as one you buy now. Mattress and sofas I can understand, but anything else? see what's out there

I'm in a similar situation, having just recently got a house with my wife.

I absolutely despise and am bad at handyman work stuff, but I also despise spending money, so am willing to suck it up and learn stuff if that's what it takes.

That said, I am willing to spend money if it's something that actually requires expertise, or is going to save lots of effort relative to its cost. Which general maintenance tasks or categories of tasks have a higher efficiency in terms of money saved / time spent such that I should definitely learn how to do myself, and which tasks fall on the end that I should hire someone to do?

The things you want to learn are the basics of each category, so you're not calling out an electrician or plumber for very simple things. You should know how to clear minor drain blockages, check and clear your traps, replace taps/faucets, and drain your radiators. Above that level, get a plumber.

You want to be able to replace light switches, sockets, and fuses, but leave the rest to electricians. Get a saw and keep hold of any wood off cuts so you can do minor repairs and throw together simple items without calling a joiner/whatever Americans call them.

Hocam is this in Turkey or a western country? Advice will vary based on your answer

Paşam this is Western Europe

  1. You will have people advertising their services too you directly for the sorts of things you need when you own a house(eg home repairs and maintenance services, pest control, alarms, etc). All of the direct advertisers cost more for a lesser quality of work than contractors you can find on your lonesome, and this is not an exaggeration. Keep a capacitor on hand for your air conditioner(you can order one off of Amazon for like 10% of what an HVAC company sells them for) and swap it out off of a youtube video before you call a company.

  2. Save up for property taxes- it's cheaper than escrow.

  3. If you have wooden subflooring, just ripping the carpet up and staining it will probably look quite nice. This is extremely easy to do and you can buy stain and some rags from home depot, and get a friend to help you for pizza. If you have concrete subflooring home depot linoleum is extremely cheap and similarly easy. Likewise, painting is pretty easy- but use primer(which is much cheaper than regular paint) for two coats, then one of paint. You will never match paint colors perfectly and for your top coat of paint, you do get what you pay for.

  4. Keep trees away from your house. There's foundation issues, roof damage, it invites additional pests, etc.

  5. On plumbing- take your p-traps apart and clean them under each sink when you move in and then every year, and flush tree killer down your toilets every year. The good stuff will be labeled something like 'not for sale in blue states'. Plumbing youtube is generally very easy to follow and has most homeowner-friendly repairs in multiple easy-to-find videos- and major plumbing companies sometimes publish tutorials on stuff like fixing toilets as a form of advertising.

  6. You can get good used appliances for like half the price- both from professional used appliance dealers who offer a warranty, and from randos on craigslist who don't need them anymore.

4chan.org/diy

There’s always something more to do.

lol I didn’t expect that. It’s mostly electronic design though I think

Click on the catalogue to get the full listing.

https://boards.4chan.org/diy/catalog

Many general threads.

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