Builder is terrible. I'm bleeding money
Weeps A Lot
6 years ago
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Comments (14)
peterchamber123
6 years agomillworkman
6 years agoRelated Discussions
New Homeowner with terrible lawn - Help Please!
Comments (14)Honestly I would just mow it short and do nothing until the fall when you zap the whole yard with Roundup. Unless you are going to use KGB exclusively you're only talking 1-2 weeks MAX before you have a nice bed of green (to appease the wife). Much better results and much less work/$$$ than what you plan to do. Just live with a somewhat bad looking lawn for the spring/summer (honestly if you mow short all the bad spots will fill in with weeds and grass and not look horrible from a moderate distance). Think of all the extra time you'll have to do other home projects! That fence looks pretty awful. :) Since you don't have to worry about harming the grass why not power-wash and stain! When I first moved into my house (10 years ago now) my backyard was a beautiful green, dense, lush.....mess of clover and broadleaf weeds. When cut to 1.5" or so unless you were looking at the individual blades I constantly got praise for my "lawn". For years I tried this or that product not willing to go and Roundup it and start from scratch and a lot of time and money was wasted. I ended up successfully renovating it to fescue but it was a TON of work. In hindsight I should have either stuck with the weeds and mowed low, or completely started from scratch (my recommendation for you)....See MoreHelp! Terrible soil & very expensive options
Comments (31)I'm not sure where to give more explanation and where to be brief. I tend toward verbose even though I try not to be. Feeding food to your soil works to build organic matter because the microbes eat the food and reproduce. They become the valuable life in your soil. Let the soil dry out for an extended period of time and the microbes will die or go dormant. That soil is dead. The old school of organic thought taught that compost was the only thing you needed for your soil and nothing else had any value. Nobody really knew why compost worked but it seemed to work. When I say it 'seemed' to work, well, sometimes it didn't. Inexplicably. If it worked last year, then why not this year? There was a range of success from very dramatic to nothing at all. Fast forward from the 1940s to the 1990s when DNA research was going on. Scientists and students have been growing microbes on Petri dishes in the lab forever. Put a little soil on the agar and you might be able to get a dozen different species of microbes in the dish. Biologists suspected there were more species but how many more was anyone's guess. A dozen species did not explain the complexity of processes attributed to the soil. When DNA testing got cheap enough to run on soil, they found that there were 35,000 species of microbes in forest soil and maybe 15,000 in a typical garden. All of a sudden the life in soil explained the ability of soil to clean itself, feed itself, feed plants, protect plants, and cause disease when the normal balance was tipped. Later DNA testing showed as many as 100,000 different species of microbes. Excellent, finished compost has all these microbes in it. Compost is made by tossing food in a pile and letting it rot. Organic fertilizer works by tossing food on the ground and letting it decompose. In this scenario, rot and decompose are exactly the same process. For compost it happens in a pile. For fertilizer it happens on the surface of the garden. In the compost pile the microbes live there and decompose the banana peels as you toss them in. When the banana peels are gone, the microbes go to sleep or are consumed by other microbes. The point is the food that went into the pile disappears leaving only the microbes. Any plant food those microbes may have produced would be consumed by other microbes instead of by plants. All the value goes into the pile and stays there until it is gone. When you fertilize on the soil instead of into a pile, the decomposing microbes live out in the garden and continue to help out in the garden instead of in the pile. Some of the microbes produce ready-to-eat plant food. If they do that in the pile, your grass misses the benefit. Here is a picture showing the effect of applying alfalfa pellets to the lawn 3 weeks prior to the photo. This photo was posted here at GW last year. Note how the fertilized zoysia is more dense and a deeper color of green. You can see this effect every time you apply alfalfa, not just sometimes. This was not an experimental patch at a university - it was someone's home. If you would like to try this at home but don't want to buy 50 pounds of alfalfa, try it with a small bag of dry dog or cat food. They have the same animal feeds in them as you get at the feed store. The rate is 20 pounds per 1,000 or 2 pounds per 100 square feet. So that would be 2 pounds on a 10 foot by 10 foot area. Moisten it so the food gets too soggy for birds to carry away. Then come back in 3 full weeks to see the difference. It should look like the photo above only bigger. If you want to scale down to 1 square foot, then use only about a handful. Leaves will not decompose without moisture. If you have had a moist winter, then the leaves should be decomposing. Look for them. If they look fresh, then they are not getting enough moisture. They should have mold spots at least....See MoreCan paste used to install vinyl bleed thru as 'red' ?
Comments (11)would guess they may have used a latex based patch. WHILE GLENN DIDN'T LIKE CAPS, THERE IS NO OTHER WAY TO 'DISTINGUISH' MY REPLY AND IT'S TOO CUMBERSOME TO WRITE A NEW PARAGRAPH UNDER THIS ONE (OR ANY ANSWER) ...ANYWAY I DO REMEMBER THEY PATCHED WITH CEMENT...Your floor I bet is allowing moisture (not moisture that you can see or feel), just a type of vapor to rise through the slab, causing mildew growth under the vinyl, thus staining the vinyl. Some times, this moisture release can be seasonal based on outside temperature. Especially if frost occurs in your area. FLOOR IS IN THE SOUTH - HOT/HUMID..ANY FROST IS ONLY ABOUT 1-2 DAYS AT MOST 1X YEAR A moisture test should be taken on the cement before re-installing the vinyl. O.K.A cement based patch must be used. O.K. If it is continuing to occur, I would bet anything it is home condition and not installation. I am not saying that every precaution or test was properly taken, but I do believe something with that slab is causing the staining. It can at time be tough to determine. I would probably run from it as a carpet store, or i would skim that cement with a quality portland based patch, then use a good loose laid vinyl (Airstep Plus perhaps)...I do believe they warrant against staining from under (which is a foolish warranty IMO). I am not 100% sure on that , but I do know there are some vinyls today that warrant against it. Oh, by the way, Glen's post is right on the money. NOT BOTHERING TO CONTACT MFG - WE DIDN'T PAY FOR THE FLOOR - PRIOR VINYL WAS IN SAME AREA WITH NO PROBLEMS ...SO IF IT IS AN 'ATMOSPHERIC' PROBLEM THAT FLOOR NEVER SHOWED PROBLEMS... thanks anyway ... we'll just let a new store do the job (after checking references)and seeing the paste-bucket with the flooring manufacturer logo 'unopened' !! appreciate all the help !...See MorePainting knotty-pine...how to stop knots from bleeding through??
Comments (27)Ok...Prime just the side that will be visible. Also do the ends and any joints. You don't have to do the backside unless it's going outside. If you are planning on doing this pre-installation, only do the first coat of paint. Save the second for after install, that way you can cover up nail holes and make it look really nice. If it's going to be a day or two for install, clean out your paint tray. Wrap your brush in plastic wrap or a plastic bag. (Shopping sacks work well.) Do the same with your roller, handle and all. Then put both in a garbage bag and wrap it up tight. They'll stay wet and usable at least a week. You can also put them in the fridge, but I never have room, so I don't. The Bin dries super fast. (I really love that!) I would bet by the time you get done priming, you can turn around and start your first coat of paint! You can do it in the garage, just make sure it's at least 52 degrees F. Anything less than that compromises dry time and adhesion. You can do your first coat of paint in the garage too, as long as it's warm enough. You're very welcome. :)...See Morejust_janni
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6 years agoKristin S
6 years agoWeeps A Lot
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