Sealing a basic hole is a straightforward job that doesn’t require $100 - $400 for a contractor to do. His business sounds like it has one employee (himself) and sending that employee to complete basic jobs is quite logical. While a contractor could certainly get the job done, I have seen my fair share of contractors that are actively bad at their jobs and will produce a worse result than researching the issue and solving it in-house.
If he messes it up based on internet research and burns the building down, or causes some other harm to a tenant then he’s going to have a lot harder time dealing with the insurance claim than if he hired someone whose job it is to do that kind of thing.
As a business expense the contractor price is tax deductible as well.
Wrong foam insulation resulting in overheating or toxic/ flammable off-gassing, wrong amount of foam, attaching something conductive to the copper pipes, accidentally nicking a wire in the wall, I don’t know about a billion things could go wrong, and you don’t want it to be your fault if it does.
"this is for a rental unit so I'm trying to keep cost low"
This sounds like the kind of BS that gives you apartments that are infested by bugs and still somehow charge 4k a month.
He says there are bugs already. Just lucky it's silverfish and not cockroaches. Do the job correctly and it will save money in long term.
Imo, duct tape the shit out of that. I had a similar hole in my apt, and I just did maybe paper over it and then long strips down, layering them a bit, and then over, and it all gets a bit fucked in the middle, but point being you can get a seal. Cost is a half a roll of duct tape
Are the cracks just in the paint, or do they go all the way through to the drywall beneath?
Drywall joint compound has no flex. These cracks were caused by the wall moving via some means. Either thermal expansion and contraction, the house settling, or some other construction putting torsion on it. Therefore, if you fill it with joint compound it’ll just crack again. The “correct” method I suppose is to notch it out and make a joint over it with seam tape and joint compound, then sand it flat, touch it up, sand it flat again, etc.
Here in reality, though, I had several of these in the walls in my house (particularly in the corners) and I just filled them in with painter’s caulk – which does flex. Screw it. It’s getting painted over anyway. I’ve had no issues, and I probably avoided taking years off my life not only in aggravation but also in not breathing yet more drywall dust.
(In tithe US) It’s not safe or up to code to cover knob and tube wiring with insulation because that can cause it to overheat and start fires. But this is modern Romex wiring, not 100+ year old wiring. Many wires in your house are running through insulation - like everything in an exterior wall. They’re designed for this.
lol I made it half way through your comment and went “That doesn’t look like knob and tube! It looks like Romex!” and then literally the next sentence said the same thing.
Ha, realizing the oddity of my phrasing in hindsight. My guess was OP had some smidge of a memory hearing that insulating over wire was bad, so thought it would be worth a little context.
There should be three adjuster screws on the cylinder. One adjusts the swing speed (how fast it closes), one adjusts the latch speed (how fast in closes in the final few inches) and one adjusts the back stop (the limit to how wide it opens).
Likely you need to adjust the latch speed and slow it down. You might also need to adjust the swing speed.
Yeah dunno our mirror is gonna be across that part anyways (I hope it will cover that up) but well you can see I sanded to much mud or didn't put enough mud across the plasterboard so thats why there is a "dent".
To me I gotta say it doesn't look fine but looks fine enough for saving that much money lol.
Id argue 90% of home ownership boils down to trying to keep outside air and water out of the house. If you can do both of those, you're winning the battle.
It’ll be ugly as all getout from the inside, but this is probably the only thing you can do aside from replacing the drawer or replacing the backer board.
That said, you should probably fix the primary reason this broke. That much force means:
the drawer guides may also need work or it will happen again.
the items in the drawer which may have jammed it shut should get reorganized to keep it from happening again.
the temper may need some work if this was purely a result of unloading frustration on furniture. This fix may not cost a significant amount, but a bad temper can generate drastically more financial (and sometimes criminal) damage than moderate self control. I know this one well.
Wholeheartedly agree. I’ve had emergency reconstruction done and some of those "pros" are just about being fast so they can do as many jobs as possible.
Plenty of good thoughts in other comments, but absolutely do not "disassemble" that door closer. There is a heavy spring inside which has a slight potential of causing injury. Even without that hazard, you will never get the spring back in place and the oil refilled.
The installation looks weird and the design of the closer itself is different than I am personally used to. I'm guessing you aren't in the U.S.? Even if you aren't all the basic principles remain the same.
It is possible that the hydraulic fluid has leaked out as others have stated. This is very often the cause of a closer slamming the door. But there is no visible indication of a leak in your picture. If it had leaked out, I would expect there to be stains on the very bottom point that is visible in the photo. Instead, it looks clean and perfectly fine.
The bent arm and mounting point on the door are related, I would guess. The installer did a crappy job. At a wild guess, the factory mounting only allowed around 100 degrees of opening, but the users wanted something closer to 180, so things were fudged. Not the end of the world and never the cause of slamming.
The people saying you need to adjust it are likely the ones who have it right. Fortunately for us all, your picture shows what I am quite certain are the adjustment screws/valves. The two screws on the right hand side, sitting parallel to the cylinder. They are both clearly backed out nearly as far as they can go, this would cause slamming 100% of the time. You can even see that the top one is protruding from the surrounding body of the closer.
Turn those clockwise and see if it helps. I'd start at something like 2 complete turns clockwise on both and then test the door. Keep going that way until the door is closing too slowly, then back one off and see if it speeds up. Remember, one controls the speed from full open until nearly closed, so you have to identify which is which by adjusting one at a time, make sense?
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