From: Chuck


On Sun, 23 Jan 2005 16:35:18 GMT, "Christopher H. Laco"
wrote:

HaHaHa wrote:
Your home probably suffers from being too damn tight.

Exactly. But they knew that going into the build, unless they're stupid.
There shouldn't be a new home built without some sort of exchanger in it
to equalize pressure when every year, home get more and more
insulated/too sealed.

Not to excuse the powers that be, but these issues don't crop up everywhere,
and some of them depend on the the way a particular family utilizes the home.

Understand that homebuilding is a business, not an art or a science, at least
not to the builders and developers who are in it for the money. The market is
what dictates what homes will and will not include, unless a code dictates
otherwise.

Asking "why didn't the builder just...?" is a sure sign that you the homeowner
thought s/he bought a home, when in reality, you bought a house.



You need to exhaust the excessive humidity from bathrooms and kitchen and
possible introduce an outdoor air exchanger.

Working on it.

The "3 way" light on my second floor
isn't; the third switch cuts power to the first two switches entirely
rendering them useless.


Simple fix as it sounds like 1 traveller and the common wires have been
reversed.

Hopefully. I'm not brave enough to futz with it, and it's low on the
fixit list for now.

Ah but it's the little things like that which when repaired, really give a
feeling of accomplishment and alleviate the distressful feeling that there's
something wrong with everything.




The utility tub in the basement was installed by
glueing a male connecter to a male connector because some dip**** put
the wrong thing in the pipe sticking out of the floor.


Does it work?

Well, water flows into it, and drains out of it; except for the big
friggin leak at the m-2-m joint where the glue cracked open.

This is an easy weekend fix, but I don't use the sink much. Either way,
it never should've happened.


OK LOL! Iget it, the threaded male ends were glued to each other ?

I'm suprised it didn't raise the inspector's eyebrow. Maybe the original
homeowner righhed this up, paid only for the "rough-in?"




The closet
shelves (installed by the builder) hit 0% of the studs.


Are these those wire-frame closet shelve systems designed to not have to
hit
studs?

The shelves are, the clothes hanger pipes aren't. The close hangers
pulled out already. Nothing a stud finder, and large screws didn't fix
in that case. Now it's a chinup bar. :-)


I too just can't understand why the framers don't automaticlly install a stud
in the center of the bar space. But some framers are still working like it's
pre-1980 and expect the old pine wood shelf to be installed on a pine 1 x 3 on
the backside, and both sides of the closet, with the clothes bar sockets
screwed into the 1 x 3.




The entire
electrical run to the garage (which has only 2 friggin outlets)


Code calls for only one friggin outlet. Did the original owner pay for
extras?

Fine, even one would be nice if it could actually power someting.



is on 16
(possibly 14) gauge


Definately 14 guage, or else there would be no C of O.

Yup, 14.



instead 12 gauge like everything else;


12 guage is beyond what code calls for. Did the original owner pay for a
20a,
instead of a 15a circuit in the garage?


and on a
10amp cirtuit to boot.


There's no such animal.

15, sorry.



Jesus, how much more would it have cost to run 20
foot of 12 gauge people.


How much more does a Lexus cost to build as opposed to a Maxima? You don't
get
it.

Hey now, don't rip on Maximas. :-)

Come on. It's the ONLY 14 gauge wire in the house. That's silly. We're
talking about 20ft of 12g on a 150k house.


1- Where the heck do YOU live?! 150k?!?!?

2- I'm not ripping on Maximas, I'm ripping on the practice MANY people have who
gripe about the quality of anything and everything no matter what it is.

3- I suspect this home was, as many are, fed power during construction with the
garage outlet(s) live before the rest of the house was actually wired.

4- Consider yourself lucky that the the entire house is wired with 12 guage.
99% of homes aren't, they're wired mostly with 14 guage and use 12 guage only
where necessary by code. And not to burst your bubble about that "luck" I have
to imagine that since your general purpose convenience receptacles are on 20a
circuits, you now actually have fewer circuits than you would if more typical
wiring methods were employed.



I couldn't even run my compresser to pump up a
tire. It's a friggin garage!!!!! :-/


Yes it's a garage, not a service station. Not a workshop. It's for storing
cars. Not for fixing them. Not for compressors. Not for welders. All it
needs
is a light and an outlet.

I call BS on that. Find me one garage that doesn't have at least a
garage door opener, maybe two, and at least one power tool. Forget the
compresser, the small table saw did the same thing. What's acceptable, a
drill? It's a garage. People own tools.

It's not like I've got a 4000000 gal 200gigawat compresser here.
Many people have small portable compresser just for tiers and such.

Believe it or not, MOST people DON'T. In fact, MOST people don't even change
their own oil anymore, nor do they even have the pleasure of washing their own
car.

MOST people use a blowdrier, It's so common in fact that a bathroom outlet,
(even after GFCI protection was required) was only one of up to 10-12 outlets
on a circuit, ncluding the bathroom lights, and might share all the outlets in
a typical bedroom AND livingroom. Now bathroom outlets MUST be on their own 20
circuit. That's because MOST people will overload a 15a convenience circuit
nowadays.

(BTW after GFCI protection was required, it was VERY common to have ONE GFCI'd
circuit in a residence which included ALL of the bathroom outlets and lavatory
outlets (no matter how many) AND the required outdoor outlet as well as the ONE
garage outlet.) So if it makes you feel any better, be thankful that at least
your garage has it's own circuit. It's still not required by code.




As if you can't tell, I'm very stressed about my windows. :-)


That's putting it mildly. You've actually worked yourself up into a tizzy.


You're correct. I've spent most of the winter watching my windows rot
away slowly. That's not terribly fun. I'm trying to get it fixed, but
I'm having a hard enough time finding someone local who knows there
stuff rather than just being a cleaning part swapper. (not that those
aren't good skills too).

Well on the one hand you've got too much humidity. On the other hand, you can't
lower it much because, as you claim, much of your furniture is wood.

I suspect your windows were either installed improperly, or weren't very well
insulated to begin with. If the glass on the interior is that cold, and the
humidity in your home is that high, one of the 2 HAS to change.




Personally, any builder who builds a highly R rated sealed house now a
days should be shot for not also planning for the high humidity problem
most houses have by thinking about the fan ventings and HVAC system
issues.

-=Chris


Changes in building codes have caused the problems. You need to crack open
a
couple of windows.

In the dead of winter. So the snow/sleet can come in, and sit on the
tops of the wood window frames? No thanks.


Uh... I said CRACK.


Besides, I've tried the cracking the window for a day experiment, and it
had no effect other than to loose heat.

Whatever you do to remediate this, you are going to have to lose heat. Proper
venting causes heat loss. Proper air-exchanging when appropriate does cause
heat loss.

You'll be no worse off than if you didn't have these condensation issues
because the home wasn't built as tight.

Hell, I've skipped days of
taking showers in the master bath, and taken them in the other bath in
the hall seperated from the more problemed rooms. The humidity is still
retarded in there.

How about house plants? Aquariums? Indoor hottubs? Boil a lot of water?







Does the humidity seem to be high throughout the house? A dehumidifier
would of course help till you can get something done like air
exchanger. The house I had prior to current one, was tight as hell.
I had localized humidity problem. I would turn central heat blower
"on" versus automatic. (for short periods of time) Also ceiling fan
being on in master BR helped master bath a lot. (yes I had vent fan
in bathroom on too..)
Doing this spread the humidity around. I believe my problem was
initial install of HVAC system wasn't planned properly. With tight
house, great insulation, gas pack heating and A/C unit of unknown
size, ,, A/C or Heat ran very few minutes every hour to heat/cool
house. Did very little to move air around.
Like they say,, an oversized heating -A/C unit is not the best way to
go.
Chuck