Does this work?

Baseboards BEFORE flooring install? How does that work?

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Well after reading this...it scares me. I've been in the industry for over 30 years, and there are pros for both methods as well as cons. Choose wisely as it can affect your future situations. First, one post talks about setting doors in on top of floors to eliminate cutting around casing. This is WRONG on many levels. First if the door is exterior it has to set directly on the main floor, either concrete or subfloor. If interior use a piece of 1/2 inch drywall for doors and for the base to leave a gap. If your doors already go all the way down just use a jamb saw to trim the casing and there will be no cut lines around them. This is why they make the saw. Also, think, if you put your doors, trim, or cabinets on top of a floor and then there is a problem with your floor, you have to remove it all. This adds risk and cost. But, if you use shoe mold or quarter round, then you never affect anything but that part. Imaging breaking $5000 worth of granite because you put flooring under your cabinets and couldn't get it out without removing them. Yes you could cut around them but what if water was involved? Do you want water there underneath where it can mold?. Shoe is cheap, quick and easy. Minimal added expense to protect the possibilities. You can remove flooring without affecting surface materials and vice versa. Sure, flooring installers like to do floor first because it's easier and faster with less cutting. But they don't pa for the problems that arise in the future. Think hard about saving a very small amount of money in the scheme of your project. I will NEVER do a job where the flooring is underneath, I'd rather just walk away and let someone else absorb the risk.

Mosquito Control: Does Dynatrap Work?

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Hi I recently moved from Northern CA to Southern CA and the mosquitoes in the San Diego area are relentless (to our shock and surprise). They are the aedes aegypti mosquito which are commonly known as "ankle biters" but they will bite anywhere they can. The first month in San Diego I received no less than 40 mosquito bites nearly all on my ankles. They are small...but if you touch / scratch them they get larger and then the itching begins. I've learned not "do not touch under all circumstances" and they they go away in about 72 hours. The weather is getting cooler here but they are still out and about. Now to the Dynatrap device. I read good reviews from a lot of people but with mixed advice. People who live on farms or places with wide open space, rivers, ponds, places water could stand anywhere near a house...had the most problems. We did have a small fountain pond which we quickly removed. That helped. I hung the device about 30 feet away from where our outdoor sitting area is. The device should be 20-50 feet away from where the majority of your activity is based. You have to leave the machine running constantly, 24/7....and you have to be vigilant about that. Also the machine is greatly helped by a small packet of horridly smelling mosquito bait (small soaked pad with what smells like the worst animal urine on the planet). Don't worry you can only smell it when you open the package and after that....you can't smell it outdoors. But the mosquitos can find it and they most certainly do. The instruction say that you have to leave this device going non stop 24/7 never turning it off for a minimum of 30 days to see relief. After 30 days you continue to leave it on BUT the mosquitos are now trained to go THERE instead of YOU. They think the device is a living breathing animal. I will say, after 30 days...we do have a great deal of relief and I was outside for two nights and ZERO mosquito bites. It has gotten cooler now that it's November in San Diego but not that cool (maybe mid 50's?) But no bites. The 10 bites a week is now down to more like maybe 1 a week if that. The cost on this is that you have to replace the bulb light every 60-90 days and you also have to replace the stinky bait as well as that loses attractiveness over time. The bottom of the container catches all sorts of bugs too, oddly moths are VERY attracted to this device and we have a TON of moths around here. So that's been helpful too. At this point I would give two thumbs up to using a Dynatrap machine. It's not even noticeable outside, just the glowing purple blue light at night, that's it. I will continue using this device as long as I live in this somewhat infested urban neighborhood.

Our new hestan oven does not work

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11/29/23 Sharing my experience: My household's experience with Hestan has left us with a bad taste for the company. (And being good cooks we pride ourselves on our taste! ;-) ) I purchased a model KRG365-NG from an authorized seller with a good reputation. (A 36 Inch Freestanding Professional Gas Range with 4 Dual-Flow Burner System, 5.8 Cu. Ft. Capacity) Installation date: April 2022. Summary: Their appliances look (are) beautiful externally; internally... well that's a whole other story. And backing up their warranty promise is a joke. (They'll send repair people on a revolving carousel over many months to string you along and keep up the facade of "we stand committed behind our products".) Details: The oven door has been causing issues since nearly the first time it was used. Some of the knobs at the top become extremely hot to the touch (enough that one requires oven mitts to adjust certain knobs while in operation if one isn't excited about a trip to the local ER). Unfortunately, Hestan's service repair technician has attempted to adjust the door but it seems to get misaligned and needs adjustment shortly after or he hasn't actually fixed the problem. (Two times it was the internal sensor for the electric stuff - placed in the space between the oven and the high BTU gas range (???!) so that when both functions are operating on full, as when preparing a multi-dish formal dinner for many folks, the electric components get hot really fast and shut off to self-preserve - (I respect the instinct) triggering the oven-control shut off. This most recent time the oven electric controls seem to be working but no heat occurs when turning the knobs on. The issue of an internal sensor getting overheated, triggering a safety mechanism, that shuts off the oven function has happened often enough that it reflects a serious design flaw, or a spoiled lemon.) BTW: The repair technician is nice, polite, responsive, respectful, and sympathetic. He didn't manufacture the piece.) Re: warranty service issue, Hestan hasn't been responsive with timely communications or been honest regarding honoring their warranty coverage for malfunctioning systems (weeks of being ignored or pat emails saying "your request has been transferred to the right dept blah blah" and then crickets...). I have had multiple service requests to fix the oven after it stopped working, always sometime after the oven is used on high heat for several hours. I know. It's an oven. Foolish of me to expect it to operate the way it's advertised. To put it plainly: That's a non-working oven, folks, for a household that cooks a whole bunch for extended family and friends and does plenty of hosting on weekends. Significant levels of creativity and a whole lotta flexibility are required to substitute on-range cooking for oven roasting. To be fair: No working oven does increase kitchen storage space when one takes out the racks -- on the bright side of things! Hestan didn't bother responding to a detailed letter sent to their warranty dept. delineating the issues in October of 2023 and requesting an exchange. Nor did they respond to a follow-up letter 2 weeks later. (Seems like this is standard operating procedure rather than a fluke.) This is the third time the oven has had the same issue amongst others. (Another interesting factoid: In Northern California's Bay Area, home to a population of over 7.5 million eating humans there is a dearth of authorized service technicians vetted by the company. It takes time for them to be available for repairs; anywhere between three to five weeks. Then when a part needs to be ordered -- an often occurrence -- add another several weeks to your broken-cooking-appliance-saga aka. buddhist-exercise-in-patience. Scheduling repeated service repair visits that take several weeks to implement, (no fault to the repair dudes) I believe is a deliberate business decision intended to string along disgruntled consumers until they get exhausted from keeping up with the saga or they get deported; immigrate to Finland; convert to outdoor brick oven cooking; lose their memory; or other stuff happens making this recede into the background. Dragging on the ticket/ case by scheduling repeated visits for the same issue, interchanged with executing a non-response policy till the pesky issue of a valid warranty expires, is not unintentional. And brings to Case Closed.) Bears repeating: Our model had issues with the oven (whether heating up properly or heating up at all) since a few short weeks after it was first installed by a licensed electrician. As well, the oven door has issues closing fully so as to be flush against the oven cavity interior - to prevent escaping air, uneven baking temperatures, and hot, Hot, HOT, range/ oven control knobs. The gas range, contrastingly, has always worked well, except for one burner whose simmer function has stopped working. I am filing a complaint against their business practices with the BBB. (I wish I had read their reviews, and had read this site's threads before choosing the company. It does place the company in an unflattering light). If anyone has gone the arbitration route, please share your experience. CONCLUSION: We would not recommend their appliances to others - based on their awesome lack of responsiveness to broken residential appliances, coupled with a seeming lack of honoring warranty assurances (by replacing or exchanging the model) in situations where several service repair visits have occurred -- with no lasting fix. I wish I had known that the ability to endure and practice stoicism is a requirement when purchasing from HESTAN. (Some products are bound to have quality issues -- to be expected. What isn't expected is not honoring their part of the warranty agreement. It's a lack of integrity and commitment and makes one feel cheap and invalidated. I may need somatic therapy for this!) ________ I am posting on this useful thread for other consumers to let them (you, the reader) know that if one is dealt a bad hand with a residential appliance from Hestan, set really low expectations for warranty fulfillment. And with timely service visits. (If you are in NorCal.) (Easily over several weeks, up to 7 by me, until the issue is properly addressed: the repair tech comes; he/ she figures out what part needs ordering; the part gets ordered; the part gets shipped; the part gets delivered; another visit is scheduled; the repair tech is available to swing by again, and finally the part is installed and that -- miraculously -- fixes the problem, leaving one with a working appliance -- at least until the Gods decide to amuse themselves again.) If you want to play "roll the dice" with individual appliances: Sprint, don't shuffle, to your nearest HESTAN authorized seller.