I bought my house in May 2025. The inspection went well, and I was told it had good bones. Fast forward to this year, and I find out they did an overall bad job on a lot of things. The bathroom wasn’t painted with the right kind of paint. They installed a rainfall shower-head that got water everywhere. There are cracks in the paint. Today, I noticed a spot hidden behind the toilet that’s bubbling out. The caulk has already come loose and water got under it. I not have to call a mold inspector because it smells rank near it. They didn’t do a good job caulking the sink either. There’s no backsplash or anything against the wall and it’s a small, shallow sink so water gets everywhere. I’ve already had to redo the caulk and it’s lasted longer than the job they did. I was going to repaint the bathroom so I’d been ignoring the cracks in the paint since they weren’t bad and I got a shower head that doesn’t hit the wall anymore. But now I have to deal with that one bubble and who knows how bad that’s going to be.
Also, I found out they basically just put anew frame over rotted wood for my back door. My dad just told me to leave it alone because no house is perfect. But is it genuinely that hard to make sure you caulk well enough that water damage doesn’t happen? (Adding here that they didn’t caulk behind the kitchen counters either. And those are butcher block).

I do genuinely love my house, but the amount of fixed I’ve had to do because of flipper laziness is annoying. And now I get to find out how bad the water damage in my bathroom is. I’m hoping I saw it soon enough that it won’t be horrible. But who knows.

update: I’m blown away by the number of responses 🤣 I had inaccurate info in my post. I wasn’t present for the install, I’d been quoted for rheem but apparently my husband told me it didn’t end up fitting so we got a Bradford White. Obviously better quality. The size of the tank, plus the access (utility room in basement downstairs), plus cost of living, and the fact that we used a larger company with fully licensed plumbers has brought me to the conclusion that $5300 was a higher end but not unfair price. Thank you all for playing

HCOL/Westchester County NY

We had a new 75 gallon Rheem gas fired tank put in after our 14 year old tank died this weekend. I probably don’t need 75 gallons, but we already had that size tank came with the house, and I hate running out of hot water. I wanted to do tankless but they quoted me over $9k. They sent 3 guys to do the job

This company did a fantastic job with previous work for us so I didn’t question the price initially, I am also sleep-deprived and had many other projects ongoing with our fixer upper. I hadnt had a hot shower all weekend, and didn’t want to do multiple quotes…

We paid $5300. My skin is crawling now after googling typical prices. I’m really bummed out because this company was great to work with previously, and we’ve had multiple bad experiences with contractors and workmen. i just want to know if I overpaid by a lot.

Our 1964 kitchen has knotty pine cabinets we want to keep. Floor is black laminate. What kind of counters should I get? I’m learning changing counters would require losing our backsplash (which I love). What would you use?

I bought my house in 2021 and the gas water heater was noted to be 20+ years old. We can’t find a date on it but the inspector noted it looked quite old and mentioned we should be prepared to replace it.

We had our furnace/ac replaced a year ago and the company did a free 1-year utility maintenance inspection which included draining the water heater. Due to the age of the water heater the technician said he could not touch it based on their company policy and the risk of damaging it.

I have never drained or replaced the anodes on it. Should I be doing the maintenance or should I just let it sit? I have a budget to replace it but if it’s working fine for now do I even worry?

I do have a floor drain near it in the event of a failure.

Any help is appreciated. Thanks!

My lavender paint, second and last coat applied on June 29th, is coming off and I can see the white undercoat coming through in dots here and there. I'm guessing I shouldn't have wiped it so soon but what now? How do I fix it? Thin brush and reapplying the paint where needed?

Wanting to re-do my floors. They have the original 26 year old ceramic tiles. Some are cracked and the styling is really dated. 1400sqft home in Florida. What are my options? Is it worth the cost to have them removed? Should I install right over them? Or just try to clean them up as much as I can and cover the cracks with rugs? I don’t think anything I replace it with would be as durable as the ceramic tile.

Our house was built ~10 years ago. It’s a nice home, but you can tell the quality just isn’t there…

We purchased the house in the fall, and in the area we live, that’s the 2 months out of the year with perfect humidity.

We had the carpet replaced in the bedrooms, and the old owners had replaced the LVP 1-2 months before they sold. We saw there were 2 cracked tiles in the bathroom floor but didn’t think much of it.

Now that we’ve lived here a couple of years, things are starting to get a little rough. As the air dried up in the winter, we started noticing a lot more creaks and squeaks in the floor, both under the LVP and the carpeted areas. The tiles in the bathroom started popping and grout started coming loose in chunks. On certain areas of the carpet, you can feel that the subfloor has popped loose on an edge and if you step just right you can feel it and it will “snap” back into place.

My SO is a very big guy, and the areas where he walks the most (his side of the bed, closet, etc) seem to be worsening much quicker than the others.

The main issues we are having is that we’d like to retile our 2 bathrooms with the tiling issues in the next 1-2 years and hold off a few years on the rest of the flooring as it’s relatively new and we like it a lot. Is this possible? I have never dealt with home remodels before so I’m not sure and I don’t want to sound like a dummy or get taken advantage of by contractors. In hindsight, we should have had the subfloor fixed before the carpet, but the issues didn’t start up until after the fact.

Any advice is greatly appreciated!

One of my exterior doors has a gap at the top latch side where you can see light coming through from the inside.

I’ve tried replacing the screws in the top hinge with 3” screws (it already had 2 that were 3” but I replaced the other 3 smaller ones) and that did not make a difference. Similarly I replaced some in the middle hinge.

The door also seems to not fully shut at the top as I can push on that top corner and the visible gap will disappear though the gap at the top is still wider on the latch side compared to hinge side since I am just pushing the door to the frame but not lifting it.

I’ve also tried replacing the weather stripping.

What else can I try?

For the second time in a year raccoons have destroyed the fascia in front of our house. Same spot each time.

I read on here to try "hardware cloth" but it didn't mention specifics.

Does anyone know what kind we should get? We have a gaping hole now that anyone or anything can get into.

We’re doing some major regrading on our 30-year-old property to fix our slope, and we’re stuck on what material to actually use. We’ve heard conflicting advice from contractors, so we’d love to get some outside advice.

Context:

• Foundation: Unpainted/unsealed exposed cinder block (2 blocks exposed currently).
• Depth Needed: Adding about 6 inches of dirt against the foundation to establish proper slope.
• There are two different zones: Open lawn (where we want healthy grass to grow). And where we want to put a deck (no grass needed, purely about drainage and stability).
• We live in a state that's already pretty grassy and that has soil with a naturally high clay content

Problem:

Contractors have mainly suggested topsoil, fill dirt, and clay.

Topsoil is obviously ideal for our lawn, but we’re worried about it holding moisture directly against our bare block foundation.

Clay / fill dirt sheds water great, but might not be great for getting our grass to grow later.

Layering clay on the bottom with topsoil over it has come up as another option, but we aren't sure about the depth of each layer.

What we want to know is if there's single soil/dirt type or blend that works for both zones to keep things simple/cheap, or should we use two different materials?

If we layer different soils, how many inches of topsoil do we need minimum for grass to thrive without compromising the slope/drainage underneath?

What are your thoughts?

I had a toilet that was running, and I’ve bought four different flappers to try to fit it, but they all don’t fit correctly. (It seems to have an odd combo of a large hole but a short distance from the pipe where it connects.) Unfortunately, I didn’t think ahead to take the original flapper to the hardware store, and it was honestly pretty gross and wasting away.

I’ve just stopped using that toilet because it was running so much with all the new flappers.

I now have a second toilet that appears to be running. I cannot afford to lose another toilet, so seeking advice for how to maybe rectify both at the same time!

For #2, I do still have the flapper and will bring it with me, so hopefully that will solve my problem.

Fixed up a wall in my property that had some water damage (leak has been fixed). I scrapped off the old flaking paint, plastered the wall where the damage was, smoothed it out and the transitions. Did a little patch work yesterday with some areas that chipped when sanding down. Came back today to sand the patches and paint, first half of the painting goes fine, get to the longer part of the wall and the wall is flaking off in places. Why? How do I fix this?

Butcher block counter that doesn't sit exactly flush on one end by a small bit. Someone told me to put a piece of quarter round down it to keep water out as it is behind the sink.

My wife thinks that could cause issues and so does Google AI which I take with a dose of salt.

Should we cover this or leave it be

I have long term plans of building a nice fire pit with pavers, but I'd like to have some bonfires in the meantime before I get a more permanent setup. Can I just throw some sand/gravel/pavers down, put a metal fire ring on that, and have a fire? Obviously the grass under the fire will die, but besides that (and ensuring I'm >10' away from my septic field), am I good to go?

What do you think of drill and fill insulation from outside (cutting holes through the outside stucco wall) in a 1950s stucco house? The house has one bedroom that juts out and three of the four bedroom walls are exterior walls. Would you be worried about all of the 3 inch holes cut through the stucco causing irreparable damage to the stucco? Some articles state not to cut holes in the stucco because it damages / ruins the waterproof barrier. Some articles also state that filling the walls with insulation traps moisture and can damage the stucco. Location: Sacramento, California where the summer temps can get up to 105 F and winter temps down to 40 F.

One insulation company offered to either do the work from the inside (warning that it is very messy) or from the outside, another company said that they would only do the work by cutting through the stucco since it is such a messy job.

One company offered either fiberglass or cellulose fill, the other would only do cellulose. Any stucco experts here? Anyone who has gone through "Drill and Fill" insultation?

We had a bathroom recently redone and there’s a rubber seal along the exterior base of the bathtub that’s already peeling back. The company we hired isn’t responding to any of our calls or e-mails so I figured I’d handle it myself. My question is if anyone knows if it’s better to peel the whole thing off, clean the area, and then caulk it with silicone? Or is there an adhesive I can use to stick the peeling section back on the tub? Sorry if this is a dumb question, first time home owner so I haven’t had to dive too much into home repair before.

This is a follow up to my post here: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskElectricians/comments/1uqaedc/upgrading_to_larger_electrical_panel/

I just got a quote from my kitchen contractor and his electrician is quoting:

1. Electric panel.
   upgrade from 150 amp to 200 amp also changing the exterior
   Meter box and overhead Mast adding a whole house shut off per code.
   $4,750.

I live in Ann Arbor, Michigan, which from my understanding has some of the highest contractor rates in the country. I think electricians usually charge around $140/hr. I'm not sure how the $4,750 is broken down in terms of time and material, but at $140/hr, it's coming out to be about 34 hours all of that is spent on time

Note also that code in this city requires each appliance in the kitchen to have its own circuit. My prior panel was pretty much completely full, and they needed to add 5 new circuits.

I have no knowledge of this trade, so I have no clue if this cost is reasonable. This doesn't include any other electrical work like running the new circuits - that was already billed separately.

I also don't think I have time to get quotes from other electricians and it'd also put me in an awkward situation with my contractor if I wanted to get my own electrician for this work.

Here are some pics and videos of my existing panel:

https://imgur.com/ybPEFp0 

https://imgur.com/OwwkhrV

https://imgur.com/RzGppDV

https://imgur.com/NU1j03y

https://imgur.com/XsMsl9m

https://imgur.com/7meAx0G

https://imgur.com/IXbwyxJ

https://imgur.com/yrIojYd

https://imgur.com/ef8K6VN

This is what he said previously when i asked if we can install a subpanel instead of swapping out the panel: https://imgur.com/kGzHCFW

Has anyone installed a tankless hot water heater in the Cleveland area and what was the average cost, gas vs electric, pros and cons, and recommended plumbing companies?

Hey folks, trying to vault the ceiling on a small room bump out attached to my house. The room has a chimney at one gable and a traditional exterior/gable wall at the other. Everything online says "just add a ridge beam" but I can't figure out how it would attach properly at the chimney end and carry that weight down without sacrificing some serious square footage. The chimney is old enough we don't want it carrying half the weight of the roof. Could I install 2 "ridge beams" - one connecting on on either side of the chimney? Anyway, ideas appreciated.

Picture of the deck

Looking for some advice on refinishing my front patio deck. My house was built in 1970 and I can’t be certain but the front patio likely has never been refinished. I’ve been here 4 years and haven’t touched it.

It’s not in terrible shape and is covered. However rain does hit inside which you can see from the pic on the left side the boards are a little discolored. No rot, so I don’t think I need to replace any boards. My son got a splinter the other day and I’m thinking that I could clean, sand and stain/seal it myself? It’s fairly small 23 foot x 4 foot.

Am I out of my league here? I’m not trying to really upgrade the space, just help maintain it. My son and I are out in this patio everyday.

I’ve read a bit online and it makes it seem fairly simple. Clean it. Sand it. Stain it (not sure I even care about staining it?) and Seal it.

I’ve sanded and stained before but just woodworking stuff I’ve built. Nothing like this.

Any suggestions on whether this is a doable diy project? Anything to look out for? Should I stain it or just sand and seal? Any particular sealant that works best? Orbital sander okay for this sort of thing?

Appreciate your thoughts!

~ a mom just trying to prevent my 3 year old from getting splinters.

Has anyone else noticed that contractors don't like to provide statements of work or invoices for work that has been completed? I live in CA and have seen this with contractors I have hired for projects.

I have now seen this also with a property owner not providing these for work they mention in seller disclosures, and I can only conclude that they never received or asked for one. Instead, the seller provided contact info for the contractor hired and the contractor answered questions over the phone, but they left no paper trail documenting their work.

https://i.imgur.com/TtnpmEN.jpeg

As you can see there is a 2-3mm gap where the upper extension part of the panel is.

I'm not sure how this was supposed to fully seal with the upper extension piece being slightly narrower than the lower piece.

Would a strong piece of tape work?

Has anyone used the Rust-Oleum RockSolid Polycuramine Garage Floor Kit on a basement concrete floor? If so, how has it held up over time?

I'm especially interested in hearing from people who either did or didn't apply the optional clear topcoat. Would you recommend it, or would you skip it?

We recently completed the full prep process in our basement (cleaner, degreaser, etch kit, then Polycuramine). Because we had some color variation with the first coat, we ended up applying a second full coat of Polycuramine, and now the color looks great.

Our original plan was to apply the optional clear topcoat, but now that the floor has two coats of Polycuramine, I'm questioning whether it's really necessary or if I should just return it and save the money.

We didn't use decorative flakes or anti-skid additive. The floor isn't overly slippery, and it's already plenty glossy. At this point, the only reason I'd apply the clear coat would be for extra protection. Given how hard and durable Polycuramine is supposed to be, I'm wondering if the added protection is actually worth the added cost.

For those with experience, how has your floor held up with or without the clear topcoat? Any regrets either way?

For context, this basement will be fully finished with bedrooms and a living room. TIA!

My husband and I recently installed wood baseboards in our new house and there are still gaps even with additional nails, so we want to caulk the top to give it a smooth finish and prevent things from being able to get in there. There are so many different types of caulks available and we don’t know what kind is best for this job. What do you all recommend?