Edmunds Members - Cars and Conversations (Archived)

snakeweasel

driver100 said:

ab348 said:

I was out front yesterday trying to do some work on my front steps and in seeing people come and go around the neighborhood, I had a thought:

Subarus (esp the SUV varieties, but not exclusively) are the new Buicks for the older generations.

Discuss.

I read a little column in the newspaper and she said she just turned 60 and wanted a new car....and she was going to get a Suburu because all of her retired friends had one. I think the reliability, the large windows, and the all-wheel drive are big factors, and the reasonable cost. And, I heard a commercial on the radio that said;
"96% of Subaru vehicles sold in the last 10 years are still on the road today, more than Honda or Toyota brands."

So the other 4% ran long enough to make it back to the garage?

driver100 said:

We went to the rec center for pickleball this morning, and MrsD100 noticed there were 5 Hyundais parked in a row, and 7 of the 15 cars parked on that lot were Hyundai's. They are taking over the world.

I think Weather Tech will beat them to it.

driver100

snakeweasel said:

oldfarmer50 said:

snakeweasel said:

explorerx4 said:

Sometimes houses are intentionally underpriced in hopes of starting a bidding war.

That could back fire as a bidding war might not happen or it could not be bid up to a true market price. If a bidding war would bring it up well over market price listing it at market price would likely result in a bidding war.

That being said I see the house I want to retire to is back on the market. Too bad retirement is a little over 5 years away.

https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/323-Elm-Pl-Princeton-IL-61356/91350148_zpid/?

$69/sqft. Is a lot cheaper than around me. Must be haunted or have bodies buried in the basement.

You could buy it now, have an exorcism and then rent it out to make sure the spirits take it out on someone else before you move in.🧟‍♀️

It is a lot cheaper than around me too. But it is in the middle of farmland almost an hour due east of the quad cities. It is the largest town in a county with a population of less than 40K people, so you don't get to high of prices..

I knew it wasn't a normal house in town.

I know people like to live in the country, it seems to be very calm, and restful....but I would really think about it before making a big change in your life. And that is from personal experience.

When I met MrsD100 she lived on a country road, about 15 minutes out of town. Here are some of the reasons I wanted to move back into town;
*15 minute ride each way just to start your trip to somewhere. Sometimes you do that several times a day, go to work, return, then go out and return in the evening.
*Big trip every time you need something in town, or at a grocery store,
*People stopping in front and dumping their tires and sofas
*1/4 mile driveway that could have snow or ice on the trees...had to have a 4 wheel drive JEEP,
*Can't go for a walk easily in the evening, and no street lights.
*If you go for a walk it pretty well has to be on the property, country road not that safe to walk on.
*The sound of frogs and crickets at night........really loud
*A lot more dealing with racoons, squirrels and other pests like once a possum!
*Sound travels at night in the country, on Saturdays you could here cars at the race track 5 miles away
*A big one is that in the city we are closer to hospitals, and doctors, and easier for an ambulance to reach us.
*And the big one, you feel isolated and have to find ways to be in contact with people. If I am in the city I have neighbors, I don't have to talk or see my neighbors, but I know I am in civilization.

Our son loves living in a remote area....2 hours down a "Use at Your Own Risk" logging road. The a 20 minute ride to the other side of the river to get to his house. Population 200 people. I know some people love living in the country, I thought it would be great until I tried it....just saying, it may not be what you think it will be.

snakeweasel

fintail said:

I would say so, if on owned land. I've seen some pretty nice modern MFHs, probably nicer than basic new stick built houses.

oldfarmer50 said:

driver100 said:

@snakeweasel
A beautiful house for $200K.
I don't think you could buy a garage around here for that much.
Actually I lied, I decided to check and see what I could buy for under $200000. This one is $199000 CDND

https://www.realtor.ca/real-estate/24582131/110-rodeo-dr-hamilton-freelton

Do mobile homes count?

Last time we were in Florida we took a day and looked at homes in retirement communities. We looked at some in a MFH community and to tell the truth those doublewides are really nice. You would never know you were in a MFH.

snakeweasel

fintail said:

I don't want to be mean to kids, but I will snark on the parents. This has been a laugh point for me for years. Of course, I was born in the 70s and grew up in the 80s, when half the girls I knew were named Jennifer or Rachel or Becky, and the boys I knew were usually named John or Rob or Steve, end of an era.

Several years ago a co-worker brought in a list of her kid's classmate names for me to peruse. Different for the sake of being different, not sure if I would name my devilspawn Kash or Jezebel.

sda said:

fintail said:

The overlanding gear is a weird virtue signal in Spokane. What's the point in being outdoorsy if you can't show it off?

Local gas price complainers are a couple with an overcompensator truck and a full sized leviathan SUV, live in a large questionable quality house miles from services or employment centers, drive Aiden, Brayden, Caiden, Draiden, Jaiden, Kayden, etc absolutely everywhere, and complain about fuel prices.

Michaell said:

kyfdx said:

Absolutely. Especially the Outback.

Ouch. I was 52 when we bought ours.

Surprising how many younger folks also buy them, and add lift kits and a bunch of "overlanding" gear to them. Then complain about the gas mileage.

I read this to my 20 yr old daughter, she laughed and said yep you nailed it! She says the current trend is to add lyn to the end of a traditional name, ex: Katy=Katylyn.

My nephew is married to a Mon lady who still has relatives in Asia. They had a relative back in Asia who had a child and were planning on moving to the U.S. so they look at western names to name their daughter. The one they liked and picked was Medusa. My nephew quickly explained who Medusa was.

snakeweasel

driver100 said:

snakeweasel said:

oldfarmer50 said:

snakeweasel said:

explorerx4 said:

Sometimes houses are intentionally underpriced in hopes of starting a bidding war.

That could back fire as a bidding war might not happen or it could not be bid up to a true market price. If a bidding war would bring it up well over market price listing it at market price would likely result in a bidding war.

That being said I see the house I want to retire to is back on the market. Too bad retirement is a little over 5 years away.

https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/323-Elm-Pl-Princeton-IL-61356/91350148_zpid/?

$69/sqft. Is a lot cheaper than around me. Must be haunted or have bodies buried in the basement.

You could buy it now, have an exorcism and then rent it out to make sure the spirits take it out on someone else before you move in.🧟‍♀️

It is a lot cheaper than around me too. But it is in the middle of farmland almost an hour due east of the quad cities. It is the largest town in a county with a population of less than 40K people, so you don't get to high of prices..

I knew it wasn't a normal house in town.

I know people like to live in the country, it seems to be very calm, and restful....but I would really think about it before making a big change in your life. And that is from personal experience.

When I met MrsD100 she lived on a country road, about 15 minutes out of town. Here are some of the reasons I wanted to move back into town;
*15 minute ride each way just to start your trip to somewhere. Sometimes you do that several times a day, go to work, return, then go out and return in the evening.
*Big trip every time you need something in town, or at a grocery store,
*People stopping in front and dumping their tires and sofas
*1/4 mile driveway that could have snow or ice on the trees...had to have a 4 wheel drive JEEP,
*Can't go for a walk easily in the evening, and no street lights.
*If you go for a walk it pretty well has to be on the property, country road not that safe to walk on.
*The sound of frogs and crickets at night........really loud
*A lot more dealing with racoons, squirrels and other pests like once a possum!
*Sound travels at night in the country, on Saturdays you could here cars at the race track 5 miles away
*A big one is that in the city we are closer to hospitals, and doctors, and easier for an ambulance to reach us.
*And the big one, you feel isolated and have to find ways to be in contact with people. If I am in the city I have neighbors, I don't have to talk or see my neighbors, but I know I am in civilization.

Our son loves living in a remote area....2 hours down a "Use at Your Own Risk" logging road. The a 20 minute ride to the other side of the river to get to his house. Population 200 people. I know some people love living in the country, I thought it would be great until I tried it....just saying, it may not be what you think it will be.

Oh it's in town just at the edge of town. You can almost walk to the Walmart or the grocery store.

BTW I live in the suburbs of Chicago and you should hear the bull frogs in my back yard.

oldfarmer50

driver100 said:

snakeweasel said:

oldfarmer50 said:

snakeweasel said:

explorerx4 said:

Sometimes houses are intentionally underpriced in hopes of starting a bidding war.

That could back fire as a bidding war might not happen or it could not be bid up to a true market price. If a bidding war would bring it up well over market price listing it at market price would likely result in a bidding war.

That being said I see the house I want to retire to is back on the market. Too bad retirement is a little over 5 years away.

https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/323-Elm-Pl-Princeton-IL-61356/91350148_zpid/?

$69/sqft. Is a lot cheaper than around me. Must be haunted or have bodies buried in the basement.

You could buy it now, have an exorcism and then rent it out to make sure the spirits take it out on someone else before you move in.🧟‍♀️

It is a lot cheaper than around me too. But it is in the middle of farmland almost an hour due east of the quad cities. It is the largest town in a county with a population of less than 40K people, so you don't get to high of prices..

I knew it wasn't a normal house in town.

I know people like to live in the country, it seems to be very calm, and restful....but I would really think about it before making a big change in your life. And that is from personal experience.

When I met MrsD100 she lived on a country road, about 15 minutes out of town. Here are some of the reasons I wanted to move back into town;
*15 minute ride each way just to start your trip to somewhere. Sometimes you do that several times a day, go to work, return, then go out and return in the evening.
*Big trip every time you need something in town, or at a grocery store,
*People stopping in front and dumping their tires and sofas
*1/4 mile driveway that could have snow or ice on the trees...had to have a 4 wheel drive JEEP,
*Can't go for a walk easily in the evening, and no street lights.
*If you go for a walk it pretty well has to be on the property, country road not that safe to walk on.
*The sound of frogs and crickets at night........really loud
*A lot more dealing with racoons, squirrels and other pests like once a possum!
*Sound travels at night in the country, on Saturdays you could here cars at the race track 5 miles away
*A big one is that in the city we are closer to hospitals, and doctors, and easier for an ambulance to reach us.
*And the big one, you feel isolated and have to find ways to be in contact with people. If I am in the city I have neighbors, I don't have to talk or see my neighbors, but I know I am in civilization.

Our son loves living in a remote area....2 hours down a "Use at Your Own Risk" logging road. The a 20 minute ride to the other side of the river to get to his house. Population 200 people. I know some people love living in the country, I thought it would be great until I tried it....just saying, it may not be what you think it will be.

When my son lived in the city there were restaurants, stores and transportation within a block of his front door. 7 people were shot in front of that door.

I live within sight of the city but I haven’t had to lock my doors in 40 years.

What do you have against frogs and crickets?

roadburner

I love the fact that I have no neighbors within a one mile radius of my home. No geezers critiquing how often I mow my lawn, no one to complain if my son and I watch movies with the sound at THX reference levels, no worries about leaving a garage door open with my tools in full view- and the list goes on.
If you can't take a leak in your front yard , then your neighbors live too close.

jipster

Have 2 midsize maples > @ab348 said:

I was out front yesterday trying to do some work on my front steps and in seeing people come and go around the neighborhood, I had a thought:

Subarus (esp the SUV varieties, but not exclusively) are the new Buicks for the older generations.

Discuss.

Thought Subarus would appeal more to the younger outdoors folks. My daughter just bought a 2022 Outback. She's 27. Liked the rear cargo area for her 2 rather large dogs, AWD, and the room to grow family factor. Wouldn't think many older gens would go for the larger Outback...maybe the Forrester. But they both look like station wagons on steroids.

I'm trying to talk Mrs. Jip into looking at a Mazda CX5, when she's ready to let go of the Veracruz. But, she likes Hyundai. So probably looking at a Tucson.

tjc78

@roadburner said:
I love the fact that I have no neighbors within a one mile radius of my home. No geezers critiquing how often I mow my lawn, no one to complain if my son and I watch movies with the sound at THX reference levels, no worries about leaving a garage door open with my tools in full view- and the list goes on.
If you can't take a leak in your front yard , then your neighbors live too close.

I have an old set of speakers and receiver in the garage. When I am home and cleaning the cars or whatever I naturally crank up the tunes. I’ve gotten more than a few dirty looks from people from the development walking. Of course that just makes me turn it up more!

sda

roadburner said:

I love the fact that I have no neighbors within a one mile radius of my home. No geezers critiquing how often I mow my lawn, no one to complain if my son and I watch movies with the sound at THX reference levels, no worries about leaving a garage door open with my tools in full view- and the list goes on.
If you can't take a leak in your front yard , then your neighbors live too close.

We are so over living in a typical HOA hyper active neighborhood. My wife loves gardening at all levels and would like to have a decent size organic vegetable garden. Nope. She did do a small garden, out of nosy view, of tomatoes, peppers, etc. which we have enjoyed and shared with others. In the next few years we plan to move to a place where she can garden and for me, a garage where I can have a fun car.

tjc78

It’s not so much the HOA is hyper.. it’s that the people who live here are just so picky and snobbish. It’s not like this is a fancy pants town. I don’t get it. I love my house and the quietness of the fairly small development but people need to get over themselves.

Halloween is coming and I was thinking about setting up my DJ speakers and playing a Halloween themed playlist for a few hours during trick or treat but my luck I’ll be bashed on the community FB page.

imidazol97

I had a landominium with a HOA back in 1978-80 or so in the Cincy area. I said I'd never live in an HOA again. The people that ran it would do anything to their landominiums and everyone else had to follow the "rules" which were sometimes imaginary interpretations of some word on the paper.

Plus the builder was Ryan Homes. I don't think they exist any longer. Good riddance. LOL

Instead I bought in a well run city with ordinances and enforcement officers who handle keeping things neat and tidy.

driver100

oldfarmer50 said:

driver100 said:

snakeweasel said:

oldfarmer50 said:

snakeweasel said:

explorerx4 said:

Sometimes houses are intentionally underpriced in hopes of starting a bidding war.

That could back fire as a bidding war might not happen or it could not be bid up to a true market price. If a bidding war would bring it up well over market price listing it at market price would likely result in a bidding war.

That being said I see the house I want to retire to is back on the market. Too bad retirement is a little over 5 years away.

https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/323-Elm-Pl-Princeton-IL-61356/91350148_zpid/?

$69/sqft. Is a lot cheaper than around me. Must be haunted or have bodies buried in the basement.

You could buy it now, have an exorcism and then rent it out to make sure the spirits take it out on someone else before you move in.🧟‍♀️

It is a lot cheaper than around me too. But it is in the middle of farmland almost an hour due east of the quad cities. It is the largest town in a county with a population of less than 40K people, so you don't get to high of prices..

I knew it wasn't a normal house in town.

I know people like to live in the country, it seems to be very calm, and restful....but I would really think about it before making a big change in your life. And that is from personal experience.

When I met MrsD100 she lived on a country road, about 15 minutes out of town. Here are some of the reasons I wanted to move back into town;
*15 minute ride each way just to start your trip to somewhere. Sometimes you do that several times a day, go to work, return, then go out and return in the evening.
*Big trip every time you need something in town, or at a grocery store,
*People stopping in front and dumping their tires and sofas
*1/4 mile driveway that could have snow or ice on the trees...had to have a 4 wheel drive JEEP,
*Can't go for a walk easily in the evening, and no street lights.
*If you go for a walk it pretty well has to be on the property, country road not that safe to walk on.
*The sound of frogs and crickets at night........really loud
*A lot more dealing with racoons, squirrels and other pests like once a possum!
*Sound travels at night in the country, on Saturdays you could here cars at the race track 5 miles away
*A big one is that in the city we are closer to hospitals, and doctors, and easier for an ambulance to reach us.
*And the big one, you feel isolated and have to find ways to be in contact with people. If I am in the city I have neighbors, I don't have to talk or see my neighbors, but I know I am in civilization.

Our son loves living in a remote area....2 hours down a "Use at Your Own Risk" logging road. The a 20 minute ride to the other side of the river to get to his house. Population 200 people. I know some people love living in the country, I thought it would be great until I tried it....just saying, it may not be what you think it will be.

What do you have against frogs and crickets?

When I heard the crickets and frogs I thought I was in the movie Deliverance.
When we lived in the country, we had a shotgun handy, if someone does want to invade your home you are pretty isolated.

One thing, I do know there are advantages and disadvantages, I prefer the city personally. And though I like trees and plants, I like looking at architecture and seeing my neighbors once in a while - and I prefer urban walks to walking in fields.

driver100

jipster said:

Have 2 midsize maples > @ab348 said:

I was out front yesterday trying to do some work on my front steps and in seeing people come and go around the neighborhood, I had a thought:

Subarus (esp the SUV varieties, but not exclusively) are the new Buicks for the older generations.

Discuss.

Thought Subarus would appeal more to the younger outdoors folks.

Subaru sells a lot of cars to the older crowd, now they are trying to appeal to the nature crowd who tend to own dogs, and to a younger demographic too.

tjc78

@imidazol97 said:
I had a landominium with a HOA back in 1978-80 or so in the Cincy area. I said I'd never live in an HOA again. The people that ran it would do anything to their landominiums and everyone else had to follow the "rules" which were sometimes imaginary interpretations of some word on the paper.

Plus the builder was Ryan Homes. I don't think they exist any longer. Good riddance. LOL

Instead I bought in a well run city with ordinances and enforcement officers who handle keeping things neat and tidy.

Ryan homes is alive and well.

Our home was built by Ryan. Other than finding out the outlets were backstabbed and not the finest plumbing under sink valves I’m pretty happy with the quality.

henryn

On the subject of mobile homes, I have 2 big reasons against owning one. The first is the build quality. On most, I could take my index finger and poke a hole right through the closet doors. And my fist could easily break through the entrance door. The second problem is that mobile homes almost always depreciate in value. If you buy land and place the mobile home on land that you own, the land will appreciate and the total value of the land and mobile home together will probably appreciate, but not nearly as much as a conventional home. And if the mobile home does not sit on land that you own, it will most definitely depreciate.

With that said, I have several times over the course of my long life lived in a mobile home, and I have owned two of them. Sometimes it is the best (or least bad) option available to you.

tjc78

Before we had the home at the shore we had a park model trailer which is essentially a mobile home sized to fit where a 5th wheel or destination trailer could fit.

Ours we brought brand new and it was built by Skyline. The quality was decent. The doors and windows were comparable to stick built homes. The plumbing fixtures were just ok and walls and trim were ok as well. Exterior was standard vinyl siding with architectural shingles.

This was ours. Last pic was on delivery day before I installed the skirting

ab348

roadburner said:

I love the fact that I have no neighbors within a one mile radius of my home. No geezers critiquing how often I mow my lawn, no one to complain if my son and I watch movies with the sound at THX reference levels, no worries about leaving a garage door open with my tools in full view- and the list goes on.
If you can't take a leak in your front yard , then your neighbors live too close.

I bet a lot of your neighbors are happy that you live at least a mile away from them too.

tjc78

@graphicguy
@roadburner

Since I had pulled out my old subwoofer when the new one went bad, I decided to hook it up too.

Worked out well since the receiver had a LFE for one and a stereo out too. Ran the second smaller one out of phase from the main and crossed it over just a bit lower.

Overall pleased with the results..

Edit - just got a text that wife can hear it two floors up. Mission accomplished

jmonroe1

roadburner said:

I love the fact that I have no neighbors within a one mile radius of my home. No geezers critiquing how often I mow my lawn, no one to complain if my son and I watch movies with the sound at THX reference levels, no worries about leaving a garage door open with my tools in full view- and the list goes on.
If you can't take a leak in your front yard , then your neighbors live too close.

————————————————
I just tell my neighbor to look in the other yard when I don’t think I can make it into the house.

jmonroe

tjc78

I need to do some better cable management, but pretty happy with this setup. Lights are on and projector is on ECO.

jmonroe1

tjc78 said:

It’s not so much the HOA is hyper.. it’s that the people who live here are just so picky and snobbish. It’s not like this is a fancy pants town. I don’t get it. I love my house and the quietness of the fairly small development but people need to get over themselves.

Halloween is coming and I was thinking about setting up my DJ speakers and playing a Halloween themed playlist for a few hours during trick or treat but my luck I’ll be bashed on the community FB page.

————————————————
There’s only one way to find out.

jmonroe

stickguy

I got ambitious and set up the receiver and speakers that were in the old family room in our new basement rec room (no space for them upstairs). Now I just have to start pulling out the boxes of all the extra stereo equipment I had stored and that I packed up, and figure out which one has my subwoofer. and find the cable, so I can hook that up too. I even have a nice alcove in the wall behind the TV stand where it should fit to stay out of the way.

oldfarmer50

tjc78 said:

Before we had the home at the shore we had a park model trailer which is essentially a mobile home sized to fit where a 5th wheel or destination trailer could fit.

Ours we brought brand new and it was built by Skyline. The quality was decent. The doors and windows were comparable to stick built homes. The plumbing fixtures were just ok and walls and trim were ok as well. Exterior was standard vinyl siding with architectural shingles.

This was ours. Last pic was on delivery day before I installed the skirting

That’s nicer than my house.

When we first got married we considered manufactured homes but as was said depreciation was a negative. Once you took into consideration a lot, foundation and sewer/septic costs you weren’t really gaining much. Also with MH at the time there was a strong smell of formaldehyde from the glue they use on the interior.

stickguy

If we get a chance to build the next place, I would love to get a factory built place (where they build a bunch of boxes and truck them out and crane into place). I just find the whole process to be cool. and has to be better tollerances.

plus they are building up the road from me and I see plenty of houses partly finished and not watertight, getting rained on. so I know that the plywood subfloors have been saturated multiple times before the roof and windows are in.

jmonroe1

stickguy said:

If we get a chance to build the next place, I would love to get a factory built place (where they build a bunch of boxes and truck them out and crane into place). I just find the whole process to be cool. and has to be better tollerances.

plus they are building up the road from me and I see plenty of houses partly finished and not watertight, getting rained on. so I know that the plywood subfloors have been saturated multiple times before the roof and windows are in.

————————————————
I agree with you about a shop built house that is trucked to the job site. They are built in a controlled environment with no need to hurry if being built in the Winter.

As for not getting a home buttoned up before it rains, this has always been a problem with stick build construction. However, almost all homes that are built today don’t use plywood for the sub floor anymore. OSB (oriented stand board) is universally used because it has a lot of glue holding the wood slivers together which doesn’t absorb water like plywood does. It is also a good bit cheaper and the strength is more than enough for sub flooring and roof sheathing.

jmonroe

fintail

That reminds me of a story about my aunt, who is Filipino. She married my uncle when he was stationed there in the mid 70s - she's educated and had a firm grasp of English, but for years studied it more in quest of perfection. According to my cousins, her favorite English word was "diarrhea", as she thought it sounded pretty - this was very amusing when I was a kid.

On a related note, she's 77 now I think, and drives a staple of that demographic, a CRV. Her first car in the US was an AMC Pacer, which she chose, and was very enthusiastic about.

snakeweasel said:

fintail said:

I don't want to be mean to kids, but I will snark on the parents. This has been a laugh point for me for years. Of course, I was born in the 70s and grew up in the 80s, when half the girls I knew were named Jennifer or Rachel or Becky, and the boys I knew were usually named John or Rob or Steve, end of an era.

Several years ago a co-worker brought in a list of her kid's classmate names for me to peruse. Different for the sake of being different, not sure if I would name my devilspawn Kash or Jezebel.

sda said:

fintail said:

The overlanding gear is a weird virtue signal in Spokane. What's the point in being outdoorsy if you can't show it off?

Local gas price complainers are a couple with an overcompensator truck and a full sized leviathan SUV, live in a large questionable quality house miles from services or employment centers, drive Aiden, Brayden, Caiden, Draiden, Jaiden, Kayden, etc absolutely everywhere, and complain about fuel prices.

Michaell said:

kyfdx said:

Absolutely. Especially the Outback.

Ouch. I was 52 when we bought ours.

Surprising how many younger folks also buy them, and add lift kits and a bunch of "overlanding" gear to them. Then complain about the gas mileage.

I read this to my 20 yr old daughter, she laughed and said yep you nailed it! She says the current trend is to add lyn to the end of a traditional name, ex: Katy=Katylyn.

My nephew is married to a Mon lady who still has relatives in Asia. They had a relative back in Asia who had a child and were planning on moving to the U.S. so they look at western names to name their daughter. The one they liked and picked was Medusa. My nephew quickly explained who Medusa was.

fintail

HOAs seem pretty uncommon in the PNW, along with gated communities (which I am sure are all HOAs). They exist, but are certainly a small minority in housing stock. I've only dealt with one, in a condo - no crazy rules, it was all about keeping the books balanced and a healthy reserve. Dues were relatively low for this. My sister lives in an HOA, but it is like $7/month, with money going to maintain a park and some grassy areas (detached houses on owned and owner-maintained land). I'd never buy in one with wacko rules, even if I wasn't going to break the rules anyway, too much room for drama, and a neighborhood of beige and tan houses would be boring.

tjc78 said:

It’s not so much the HOA is hyper.. it’s that the people who live here are just so picky and snobbish. It’s not like this is a fancy pants town. I don’t get it. I love my house and the quietness of the fairly small development but people need to get over themselves.

Halloween is coming and I was thinking about setting up my DJ speakers and playing a Halloween themed playlist for a few hours during trick or treat but my luck I’ll be bashed on the community FB page.

ab348

jmonroe1 said:

As for not getting a home buttoned up before it rains, this has always been a problem with stick build construction. However, almost all homes that are built today don’t use plywood for the sub floor anymore. OSB (oriented stand board) is universally used because it has a lot of glue holding the wood slivers together which doesn’t absorb water like plywood does. It is also a good bit cheaper and the strength is more than enough for sub flooring and roof sheathing.

On the downside, if one of those ever catches fire, they go up like a book of matches because all that glue is very flammable. We’ve had a couple of situations here where the fire dept could only try to save neighbouring houses because the one burning was a lost cause.

jmonroe1

ab348 said:

jmonroe1 said:

As for not getting a home buttoned up before it rains, this has always been a problem with stick build construction. However, almost all homes that are built today don’t use plywood for the sub floor anymore. OSB (oriented stand board) is universally used because it has a lot of glue holding the wood slivers together which doesn’t absorb water like plywood does. It is also a good bit cheaper and the strength is more than enough for sub flooring and roof sheathing.

On the downside, if one of those ever catches fire, they go up like a book of matches because all that glue is very flammable. We’ve had a couple of situations here where the fire dept could only try to save neighbouring houses because the one burning was a lost cause.

————————————————
That sounds like a Canadian fire department problem. I’ve never heard a fire fighter here in the US mention that problem. If it was so bad it would be banned.

Sounds like you guys need wetter water. Then again if a fire department doesn’t get to a house fire soon enough, which is too often the case, the house is usually a gonner.

jmonroe

oldfarmer50

stickguy said:

If we get a chance to build the next place, I would love to get a factory built place (where they build a bunch of boxes and truck them out and crane into place). I just find the whole process to be cool. and has to be better tollerances.

plus they are building up the road from me and I see plenty of houses partly finished and not watertight, getting rained on. so I know that the plywood subfloors have been saturated multiple times before the roof and windows are in.

The house two doors down opposite built a house like that. Four flat beds and a crane and it was up in a couple of days.

explorerx4

As a Yankee fan, enjoyed going to the game last night.
Strange pitching decisions by Boone, as seems to be the norm, although it worked out.
It was much more civilized than I thought it was going to be, especially with the football/baseball doubleheader.
Rained is bit here and there and the midges stay up in the lights.
Daughter prepaid our parking, $22. Some lots were charging $100.
Did take us about an hour to get out of the garage after the game but we just listened to 4th Q of the Eagles/Cowboys game and did some texting while waiting to move.
One thing that was nice is that after we got out of the garage, 15 minutes to my daughter's house then another 25 to minutes to get home.

graphicguy

tjc78 said:

I need to do some better cable management, but pretty happy with this setup. Lights are on and projector is on ECO.

Looks good.

I've made an attempt at cable management. But, for a while, I kept swapping gear in and out, I gave up. I run all cables along the floor behind the equipment/stand with reusable cable ties. Not invisible, but not a rat's next, either. Every once in a while, I think I might want to dive back in to getting bigger subs. I currently have a HSU 12" and a PSA 15". I got them both dialed in. But, in all reality, it took me a while to get them to where I want them. Not sure adding something different would significantly be better.

My 2 channel rig? Different story. I love my Klipsch Heresy. Really want to try out some Magnepans. But, talk about finicky. My current hobby, refurbishing turntables, has me swapping the cartridges in and out, removing old and soldering new electrolytics, pulling cables in and out. So, that's always a work in progress. It's amazing the technology companies used back in the '60s-'70s on turntables. Magnets, pumps to vacuum the record down on the platter, beefy motors, etc.

Today, most motors in turntables are the servo types, with a controller constantly monitoring the correct speed. Most turntables today are belt drive, which isolates the motor from the platter. This, vs vintage turntables, which were direct drive (most, not all), where the motor was directly under the platter used mainly for pitch control (not necessary unless you're a DJ or power consistency might be an issue). Overall, not much has changed with turntables over the years, though.

Boy, did I go off on a tangent. LOL!

tjc78

Thanks! I’m thinking of just getting some white plastic channels to make it blend into the baseboard more.

I have to do a little more tweaking on the subs, adding the second one seems to have made it more even among the seven seating positions. Not sure it added all that much output, but it definitely didn’t hurt anything.

My 2 channel rig changes all the time. Right now running all early 90s JVC gear, but thinking about swapping the Marantz back in. I like the JVC because it’s all remote controlled. Sound wise output is the same but the Marantz is a little more warm sounding as is expected

If I recall aren’t the Mags super sensitive on placement and have to be pretty far away from the walls to sound their best?

jmonroe1

tjc78 said:

Thanks! I’m thinking of just getting some white plastic channels to make it blend into the baseboard more.

I have to do a little more tweaking on the subs, adding the second one seems to have made it more even among the seven seating positions. Not sure it added all that much output, but it definitely didn’t hurt anything.

My 2 channel rig changes all the time. Right now running all early 90s JVC gear, but thinking about swapping the Marantz back in. I like the JVC because it’s all remote controlled. Sound wise output is the same but the Marantz is a little more warm sounding as is expected

If I recall aren’t the Mags super sensitive on placement and have to be pretty far away from the walls to sound their best?

————————————————-
I have a better idea. Ask Mrs. @driver100 to come over and paint them.

jmonroe

henryn

I owned a pair of Magneplanar speakers back in the day. I liked them, they had a very different, very unique sound, but they were really lacking in the low frequencies, and I never succeeded in matching them with a subwoofer.

I also worked on turntables, back before the days of digital audio. The part I hated the most about working on turntables was the viscous damping fluid. Man, that stuff was sticky and messy. I got some of that on my fingers once, and it spread to the belt drive. It took quite a while to get that cleaned up and required a new belt.

Setting the tracking weight and angle was interesting too, but not nearly as tedious.

tjc78

@jmonroe1 said:
————————————————-
I have a better idea. Ask Mrs. @driver100 to come over and paint them.

jmonroe

I think the white channel will be better!

It’s a shame I didn’t build this place from scratch. They did some good prewiring for this room but I would have done it differently. There would have been an equipment nook on the right side of room (behind the screen the room gets wider). Then speaker jacks (and outlets) directly behind the speakers near the screen. This way no equipment would have been visible and much less wiring to hide.

sda

When we built our house in 2004 I had the patio, living room, and dining room hard wired for speakers, surround sound in the family room and included a volume control in each location. Typical of this area our house is built on a concrete slab so running speaker wire from room to room is not an easy task. I was shocked by how much the builder charged to do this yet glad I did. Today I think a wireless set up would work fine for general listening.

driver100

jmonroe1 said:

tjc78 said:

Thanks! I’m thinking of just getting some white plastic channels to make it blend into the baseboard more.

I have to do a little more tweaking on the subs, adding the second one seems to have made it more even among the seven seating positions. Not sure it added all that much output, but it definitely didn’t hurt anything.

My 2 channel rig changes all the time. Right now running all early 90s JVC gear, but thinking about swapping the Marantz back in. I like the JVC because it’s all remote controlled. Sound wise output is the same but the Marantz is a little more warm sounding as is expected

If I recall aren’t the Mags super sensitive on placement and have to be pretty far away from the walls to sound their best?

————————————————-
I have a better idea. Ask Mrs. @driver100 to come over and paint them.

jmonroe

She would paint those cables to match the wall and they would be invisible!

driver100

(I think I have this right, I didn't want him to repeat the details)
A friend of a friend drove his Tesla from Phoenix to Los Angeles and back, I think it is 800 miles total..
He had to recharge twice on the way, he said it was a pain.
It takes 30 minutes to recharge to 80%.
At the 2nd recharge station the charger wasn't working, he says that happens a lot......he had to find another one.
The good news was gas would have cost over $200, his recharges cost less than $30.
He also said the a/c really drains the mileage....and you need a/c there.
I am just reporting what I was told!

tjc78

@sda said:
When we built our house in 2004 I had the patio, living room, and dining room hard wired for speakers, surround sound in the family room and included a volume control in each location. Typical of this area our house is built on a concrete slab so running speaker wire from room to room is not an easy task. I was shocked by how much the builder charged to do this yet glad I did. Today I think a wireless set up would work fine for general listening.

We have in ceiling speakers covering the first floor and outside speakers too. There are three control pads and an input Jack for your phone (which I’ve converted with a Bluetooth adapter). It’s great for casual listening but for me would never replace a real system. There is a panel in the basement where it all connects.

andres3

oldfarmer50 said:

stickguy said:

The NJ shore town we vacation at (and sadly did not buy in 20 years ago!) has same issue with summer rents. It’s a snooty (expensive) town and for decades all the older rental bungalows have been bought up, razed, and replaced with huge private houses. The rental property supply just keeps shrinking. Especially anything normal people can afford. Supply and demand rules.

Every year we think they can’t sell all those 2.5mill new houses, but they do. And they mostly sit empty during the week.

Not sure what insurance they have in case another superstorm clears off the skinny barrier island the town is on. But I’m sure if not enough they will come crying to the government to buy them a new one.

Back in 2009 I was seriously considering getting a condo in Florida as prices had fallen 50%. I think I missed my opportunity.

Did you get in on the Game Stop bonanza? Really cool documentary on it on Netflix right now. They actually managed to take down a major hedge fund or two before the powers that be pulled the plug.

andres3

oldfarmer50 said:

ab348 said:

oldfarmer50 said:

Back in 2009 I was seriously considering getting a condo in Florida as prices had fallen 50%. I think I missed my opportunity.

Same with me, except I was looking at post-crash property in Arizona. Problem was, all the bank foreclosures were cheap for a reason. Mostly cheaply-built cookie-cutter houses in newish developments with zero character and zero charm. An acquaintance living there advised caution because many of them had been trashed by the former occupants which was clear from the listing pics. Plumbing and even some wiring torn out, holes in the walls, just awful.

Yeah, I remember looking at a listing where they were giving a discount on one unit because there was a hole in the roof that the HOA couldn’t afford to fix. Another was for a $500,000 luxury condo high rise where the HOA fee was $5,000 a month because so many of the tenants had defaulted and those left had to make up the difference.

The HOA is supposed to sell off the foreclosed units and the HOA should be first in line to be paid off. Somehow I think the banks and their lawyers took advantage of the HOA's.

andres3

driver100 said:

ab348 said:

I was out front yesterday trying to do some work on my front steps and in seeing people come and go around the neighborhood, I had a thought:

Subarus (esp the SUV varieties, but not exclusively) are the new Buicks for the older generations.

Discuss.

I read a little column in the newspaper and she said she just turned 60 and wanted a new car....and she was going to get a Suburu because all of her retired friends had one. I think the reliability, the large windows, and the all-wheel drive are big factors, and the reasonable cost. And, I heard a commercial on the radio that said;
"96% of Subaru vehicles sold in the last 10 years are still on the road today, more than Honda or Toyota brands."

We went to the rec center for pickleball this morning, and MrsD100 noticed there were 5 Hyundais parked in a row, and 7 of the 15 cars parked on that lot were Hyundai's. They are taking over the world.

All that means is that the Toyota drivers (bad) are targeting Honda's when they collide and total each other out. We had a Honda that was totaled out; probably would still be running today if not for that. Subaru's could just be lucky. I know Semi Truck drivers are lucky, as oblivious drivers might miss a bright red S4 but they don't miss a huge semi-truck pulling double trailers.

If I had a dollar for every time a truck driver told me "xx number of miles driven without a collision" I'd be able to buy something good. Long Haul trucker miles are not equivalent to car driving miles in a metropolitan area. it's like comparing the peewee league to the Big Leagues.

andres3

One more thing - Go Padres!

LA should stick to football, baseball isn't their sport.

qbrozen

@andres3 said:
One more thing - Go Padres!

LA should stick to football, baseball isn't their sport.

Uh-oh. We’re on opposite sides of this coming battle.

oldfarmer50

andres3 said:

oldfarmer50 said:

stickguy said:

The NJ shore town we vacation at (and sadly did not buy in 20 years ago!) has same issue with summer rents. It’s a snooty (expensive) town and for decades all the older rental bungalows have been bought up, razed, and replaced with huge private houses. The rental property supply just keeps shrinking. Especially anything normal people can afford. Supply and demand rules.

Every year we think they can’t sell all those 2.5mill new houses, but they do. And they mostly sit empty during the week.

Not sure what insurance they have in case another superstorm clears off the skinny barrier island the town is on. But I’m sure if not enough they will come crying to the government to buy them a new one.

Back in 2009 I was seriously considering getting a condo in Florida as prices had fallen 50%. I think I missed my opportunity.

Did you get in on the Game Stop bonanza? Really cool documentary on it on Netflix right now. They actually managed to take down a major hedge fund or two before the powers that be pulled the plug.

No but I followed that on the news. Good for the Reddit bandits for beating the big boys at their own game. The real villain, I think, was Robinhood which prevented the investors from selling at the best time.

driver100

A friend said he was told by someone who works in the automotive industry this;
Now is not a good time to buy a new car, chips are being made and rushed onto the market and they may not be up to the proper standards".
I don't know if that is true or not.....but it is something to think about.

qbrozen

driver100 said:

A friend said he was told by someone who works in the automotive industry this;
Now is not a good time to buy a new car, chips are being made and rushed onto the market and they may not be up to the proper standards".
I don't know if that is true or not.....but it is something to think about.

They may have to issue a .... what do you call it? It happens so rarely that I can't think of the term. Is it a "recall"? The car industry is usually so up-to-date and hell-bent on quality control, I'm surprised they would ever allow a vehicle out the door with a substandard part.

jmonroe1

@qbrozen said:
They may have to issue a .... what do you call it? It happens so rarely that I can't think of the term. Is it a "recall"? The car industry is usually so up-to-date and hell-bent on quality control, I'm surprised they would ever allow a vehicle out the door with a substandard part.

————————————————
I guess that explains why the guy at the service desk says, “sir, that’s not a problem, they all do that. They come from the factory like that”.

jmonroe