Presenting real answers to questions we've gotten:
Yeah, so i've got some guys replacing the ducts under my house…Why? You could just crawl under there and do it yourself.No i can't. There's about 24" clearance under there. At the highest. Mostly it's around 12" of fine dust filled hell. i've been down there twice. Unless there's a damn good reason, i'm not going down there again.Yeah, but all you need to do is wrap the ducts with some tape and…Wow. i'd hate to think of what you'd do if your transmission failed. Let me see if i can explain. The ducts in the house are originals, meaning they're older than i am. They're made out of steel, meaning they're prone to rusting out, crimping, and otherwise being destroyed. They're barely insulated meaning that by the time the air reaches the far corners of the house, the temperature is significantly different than when it left the HVAC unit. Remember that scene in Time Bandits? These ducts are like that.Yeah, but…You know, it's possible to refine plutonium in your shed, fix your gas lines and perform surgery on yourself too. i chose not to do those things. i'd rather find an expert and pay them a fair wage to tap into the same sort of expertise someone is paying me for. And thus the great wheel of our economy turns.
Sorry, a tad cranky since i woke up this morning without much of a voice.
I am more impressed by Radioactive Man's side kick, Beta-Particle Boy.
I do enjoy, to some extent, understanding the way the world around me operates, but my preference for DIY-ism is when it is something that you can't really kill yourself with. Unless it is really cool.
I'm about 3 months removed from painting 4 rooms of my house. For the rest of my life, if I need any painting done I will be paying someone to do it for me.
My friends combined in with my wife and I on buying a fourplex. We painted 2 of the units (still need to do the trim) on Sat, and still have one left that needs painting. That's 5 bedrooms, 4 bathrooms, 2 kitchens, 2 living rooms, and 2 halls. Now, admitedly, an empty building in which you are replacing flooring makes the job MUCH easier, but still.
>Why? You could just crawl under there and do it yourself.
How much would you have saved if you had done it yourself? I'm contemplating this, but I hate spiders.
If sanity had not really held fast and I actually was dumb enough to do that, I could have probably patched things up with a couple of rolls of duct tape.
As it was, it cost about $2400 to reduct the house (it worked out to be a bit more than that because crawling under my house is made of "suck" and they did a helluva good job.)
Mind you, I'll probably recover a fair lot of that from my gas and electric bill since I won't be heating and cooling the great outdoors more than my own house. I figure within 5 years it'll pay for itself.
Take it from somebody that has DIYed and screwed up more crap than he cares to think about — it's worth it to save your money, call a dude, and have it done. Good call, JR.
Save This Page
Though I understand and admire people who do stuff like that, especially if they do it competently, I am of the opinion that if there are people in the world who will do it for you, in exchange for money, then they can come do it for me with bells on.
I do not like crawlspaces. Our family had one in Maple Ridge. It was full of spiders.