Has the war made life in the US incredibly expensive as well? (Page 6/8)
MidEngineManiac JUL 29, 08:47 PM

quote
Originally posted by Patrick:

Never, never again!



We gotta stop agreeing like this !!!!

Back around 2010 mom and dad decided to sell grandma's house. They had been renting it out for about 15 years. 2 different tenants had set up grow-ops in the basement, bypassed meters, over-head irrigation, hydro from the empty one next door....whole 9 yeards.....PLUS 50 years of grandmas "call the neighbor to fix it". (Grandad died in the 50's and she never hooked up again)

Ontario was changing laws so stuff had to meet code before being sold, and they were trying to beat the deadline.

So I moved in for 6 months to do what I could.....aluminum wiring mixed with knob. 1/2 of it couldn't even be traced. Just wire end that started at a switch and went....damned if I ever figured it out. Add to that a mix of vermiculate and cellulose insulation. What is it ? Asbestos ? WHO the hell knows.

Buyer got disclosure, a cheap price and chopped it into student housing and we got the hell outa dodge while gettin was good.

Never again.

[This message has been edited by MidEngineManiac (edited 07-29-2022).]

82-T/A [At Work] AUG 01, 08:24 AM

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Originally posted by maryjane:

Sounds like the previous owner of my place. I don't know exactly 'what' he was, but he was NOT a carpenter or electrician.

Flooring everywhere except kitchen,dining and bathrooms is all cheap floating stuff and too much of it is scratched/marred up and it is not fitting right.
Little crap but it drives me nuts.
Switches that evidently do nothing.
He evidently had a fetish for extension cords.
He hung several 4' plug in type florescent lights in the little shed and garage but none were anywhere close to an outlet.

Guest bathroom toilet paper holder. Who thehell puts a tp dispenser behind ya?

Look now, at how they did the tile below the tp roll holder.. 1/2" space between the tle and the cabinet.

Look at the same sink in the mirror reflection..overflow is chipped, missing porcelain and rusting out.
(a habitat for humanity reject? )

Main dist panel. Not a single breaker was marked. (I take that back...one had a penciled line off to the side stating "Mark's room". (that was a pain in the ass to trace out too.

The shed out by the pool. Wired for 120v but 'looks like' he brought 12/2 with ground in underground.... using nm romex.
No load center of any kind in the shed, lights and outlets all tied together. Just protected by breaker in MDP.
Should have, a local load center with at least 3 spaces, a line1, line 2 (neutral) bus and a separate buss for ground bonded to outside copper coated ground rod. Preferably, a main disconnect right outside the building as well.
(in outbuildings, you cannot use the house grounding as ground and ground/neutral cannot be tied together anywhere except 1st means of disconnect which is usually MDP.





I'm willing to bet the guy put the toilet paper roll there because it was solid (particle board) that he could drill into, rather than having to mount it in drywall, or find a stud to screw part of it into... heh.

As for the tile job... jeeze... yeah, that bugs me. Normally, if I'm going to go through the effort of replacing the tile (at which point you would be changing out the toilet as well), I'm going to pull up the vanity too. I don't know if this is right or wrong, but I always replace the tile and then put the vanity on top of it. Usually because I like vanities that are open on the bottom, but never the less... the only time I've not done that is in my Texas house in the upstairs bathroom, in which I only did a slight renovation. New sinks / faucets, tile, toilet, and wainscotting. I laid the tile, and cut it right up to the base of the vanity. There was no point in me removing it because it was a second floor, and there was no point in me having another 150 pounds of tile sitting under a closed-bottom 96" vanity that no one would ever see... (adding 150+ pounds to the weight of the floor). But I made sure to cut the tile as close to the vanity as possible.

Whatever... I suspect the guy didn't do it himself, but he paid people to do it... and most people just don't give a **** , which is also frustrating... and part of the reason why so many more people try to do things themselves now.
maryjane AUG 01, 01:45 PM

quote
I'm willing to bet the guy put the toilet paper roll there because it was solid (particle board) that he could drill into, rather than having to mount it in drywall, or find a stud to screw part of it into... heh.



They make roll holders that mount only on centerline so you only have to find 1 stud.
He used one in the other bathroom.



He was just a lazy sob.

[This message has been edited by maryjane (edited 08-01-2022).]

Rickady88GT AUG 02, 07:20 AM
I believe the covid lockdowns have more to do with our current economy than the "war".
Cliff Pennock SEP 06, 01:10 PM
Gas and electricity prices have skyrocketed lately. I pay a fixed amount every month and at the end of the year, they'll calculate if I'll have to pay extra or I get money back. I now pay about $285 per month, which is already almost 3 times as high as I paid 3 years ago, and almost double of what I pad last year (even though my usage has halved). And for a 775 ft² house, that is a lot.

But it can always get worse I guess. Because of the high energy prices, they predict that by the end of the year, I will have to pay around $4,000 extra, unless I increase my monthly payment to (drumroll please), $690 per month. So yeah, no way I can afford that. Neither can about 3/4 of the population of The Netherlands. It's going to be a bloodbath...
MidEngineManiac SEP 06, 02:46 PM
Electricity here is regional, by county/city. We pay separately for the power used, and the transmission costs. Same bill but both costs are itemized.

Last place was about 500 sq.ft (1-bedroom house) and ran about $200/mo....but rural so transmission cost was high

Here we have twice the room (about 900 sq.ft., 2 bedroom) but are in town and run about $110/mo. More use but much lower transmission cost since the power company isnt maintaining lines to just a few houses.
RWDPLZ SEP 06, 05:26 PM
Electric bill isn't quite double from last year, but higher than ever. Water & gas is about the same, ~$40//month. I was paying $100/month for water in San Jose back in 2015.
blackrams SEP 06, 07:34 PM

quote
Originally posted by Cliff Pennock:

Gas and electricity prices have skyrocketed lately. I pay a fixed amount every month and at the end of the year, they'll calculate if I'll have to pay extra or I get money back. I now pay about $285 per month, which is already almost 3 times as high as I paid 3 years ago, and almost double of what I pad last year (even though my usage has halved). And for a 775 ft² house, that is a lot.



Whoa!!! My Lord, what is the price of electricity per kilowatt hour?

I'm thankful that while renovating my current home, I decided to have the home fully spray foam insulated. We more than doubled the size of the home with an addition. The home is just over 3800 square feet, two HVACs, one for upstairs, one for downstairs. We only really use the upstairs unit when we have company but, it's usually set at 78 degrees F when not occupied. Yeah, it does kick on, this is Southern Mississippi. Regardless, our highest electricity bill in August was $180.00. That's about equal to what it was before the renovation. Our average usage is very close to what the house used before the renovation. Yeah, I like that foam insulation.

Rams

[This message has been edited by blackrams (edited 09-06-2022).]

kslish SEP 07, 02:50 AM

quote
Originally posted by blackrams:

Whoa!!! My Lord, what is the price of electricity per kilowatt hour?




I watched a news clip on Bloomburg that stated wholesale electric rates in France have gone from the equivalent of $0.18 per kilowatt hour to to $0.34 per kilowatt hour. And if price controls wouldn't have kicked in they said it could have gone as high as $1 per kw/h in some cases.

They also went on about how France is bringing retired nuclear reactors back online at roughly the rate of one per month and all the reactors in the country will be back in operation by winter. I didn't realize nuclear plants could be turned around that quick.

Crazy.....

This country is no where close in comparison to what Europe is facing this winter. Most of our issues are self inflicted....because we could be pretty self sustaining if we wanted to be.

[This message has been edited by kslish (edited 09-07-2022).]

blackrams SEP 07, 08:29 AM

quote
Originally posted by kslish:

Crazy.....

This country is no where close in comparison to what Europe is facing this winter. Most of our issues are self Biden inflicted....because we could be pretty self sustaining if we wanted to be.




Hope you don't mind my change to your post but, I think the correction is precisely point on.

Rams

[This message has been edited by blackrams (edited 09-07-2022).]