New house stuff recommendations

scardeal wrote: That's on the list. Unfortunately, clean clothes and a mown yard are sort of prerequisites.

Dude, get some priorities

I'm going to second the insulation comments. I grew up in Canada, and even though I live in a warm desert environment now I always work on insulating the house. The house is simply more comfortable and the energy savings are a nice bonus.

I reference to the Habitat Restore place, this is a list of new stuff at the one closest to me, just as a reference:

Another load of the thick, rigid sheets of fiberglass insulation new white molded kitchen sinks 7 sets new white shutters 2 white toilets boxes of new cabinet door hardware including door pulls and hinges Maytag washer and electric dryer electric dryer 13 sheets of 1/2" drywall 2 sliding door units Lots of gardening tools (shovels,rakes, hoes etc) 2 30" oak bath vanity cabinets seed spreader

Also we have lowered the price of our laminate flooring that we have in the store. We have 1640sq/ft remaining and we are now selling it for $1.25/sq/ft. This is the hand planed flooring that is of top quality and sells in stores for over $3/sqft.

And, for those of you who were waiting to buy one, we are now down to 20 of the new Whirlpool Cabrio washers remaining!!!!

+1 on the small engine repair shop for a mower. I worked with a lawn care company for several years and that's where we got all our stuff. Find a good name like a snapper or Honda, pick it up cheap and beat the hell out of it. We got a basic snapper nonpropelled for about a c-note. That thing was light weight and absolutely bulletproof. You could pick it up and throw it over a wall while running and it wouldn't miss a beat. Get something with a heavy duty deck and a Briggs or Honda mill.

As for washers and driers, we've always had great luck with Kenmores. Their fridges suck, though. We've been running a $100 used Kenmore washer for close to ten years with very few issues.

Funny. I just went to my local small engine repair dude on Monday - my $30 Craftsman lawnmower I bought from him 8 years ago finally crapped out, and as it's a 1981 model, no one's making parts for it anymore. He's putting 2 together right now, and I'm checking back on Monday.

FYI TO ALL - I asked him his thoughts on brands. He said Craftsman and a few others are still good, but mentioned there are really only a few companies that actually build the mowers, then they're branded under a bunch of different names. He flat out said he wouldn't use ANYTHING that came from Home Depot.

He was really busy, so I didn't pick his brain much more, but I'll try next week.

APPLIANCES: Buying used stuff off CL is hit or miss. When we built our house, mamma wanted all new stuff. We hit a Sears "scratch & dent" outlet, and got all our appliances, BRAND NEW, for 25 - 50% off, including free delivery! After all, do you really give two E36 M3s what your washer and dryer look like?

I, for one, am not willing to tell people how many or what type of appliances I have. Nancy P might be reading the boards here. HI NANCY!! Put Nanna Pelosi in a Home.

Seriously, though, they're trying to ban our washers and driers now too. Pretty soon, we'll only be able to buy "green" ones. Must be that 70's theme thing when all the appliances were avacado green. I guess the hippies did take over.

We bought our current drier as a scratch and dent at Best Buy. The washer is a Kenmore we got in 1986. I've had to replace the belt and the agitator solenoid, but that's about it.

After decades of using cheap of free lawnmowers, I shelled out the bucks to buy this one brand spanking new. http://www.craftsman.com/shc/s/p_10155_12602_07138906000P?vName=Lawn+%26+Garden&cName=Lawn+Mowers+%26+Tractors&sName=Lawn+Mowers

After decades of using cheap of free lawnmowers, I shelled out the bucks to buy this one brand spanking new. http://www.craftsman.com/shc/s/p_10155_12602_07138906000P?vName=Lawn+%26+Garden&cName=Lawn+Mowers+%26+Tractors&sName=Lawn+Mowers

I'd have to say it's been one of my best lawn mower ideas. Starts every time with the first pull of the string. Guaranteed in writing to do that! No time spend fussing and tuning and tweaking and such. I've got no time for such things on a lawn mower. I'll save that for cars and such.

I, for one, am not willing to tell people how many or what type of appliances I have. Nancy P might be reading the boards here. HI NANCY!! Put Nanna Pelosi in a Home.

You laugh...until Van Jones' replacement knocks on the door and says "Excuse me, Whitey, our ACORN conducted census sampling indicates that your appliances do not meet our new Green energy efficiency standards. We're going to need you to go ahead and buy these GE appliances, or simply pay the penalty in the amount of 8% of your gross annual income."

Am I wrong dude!? Am I berkeleying wrong?

<3, Walter Sobchak.

GE for Government Electric?

foxtrapper wrote: After decades of using cheap of free lawnmowers, I shelled out the bucks to buy this one brand spanking new.

I spent 15 years working on old Toro snowblowers that I bought for $20. I used to spend 15 minutes adjusting the carbs and I breathed enough blue oil smoke and decided that I was done.

I bought a new Toro on the clearance aisle for $299 and I enjoy it every winter. Same thing on those crappy gas trimmers.

I have done the hand me down mowers, I have done the new top of the line mowers. The best one I ever bought is the $100 one I got from Wal-Mart three years ago. It still cranks on the first pull every week. Maintenance done so far, none. When it craps out it will go in the trash and will be replaced with another cheap mower. Get the simplest machine you can find. It isn't the engines and decks that wear out, it's all the other crap they put on them. I'm past working on junk yard tools.

Washer and dryer: +1 on the scratch and dent sales. Ours are Maytag. Came from Circuit City I think, that was 14 years ago. Maintenance done, none. I have worked on the old passed down junk washers and dryers too. There are other things I would rather do with my time.

I bought my Craftsman mower from the second hand shop 15 years ago, $45.
Washer's only a few months old, bought it off Kijiji from people moving out west, they threw in a $400 leather office chair -- both for $200.

When my wife and I were looking for our washer/dryer, the problem we encountered was that few are marketed as mid-line products anymore. There are the small capacity bargain basement models, and the deluxe models, but little in between.

We tried the discount appliance places with ads in the Sunday paper, but found them to be very slimy. The advertised price was always a "misprint", or only applied to gas dryers, or if you bought the set, and they didn't have both in stock, etc.

With MUCH patience, we found a good deal on CL. After looking for a few weeks at some overpriced "few year old" sets that turned out to be 17 years old, or needed a "minor repair", we found a nice 9 year old Amana set for $250. They were part of an estate, and came with not only the manuals, but also the purchase receipt, which convinced us the PO probably did not abuse them. So far, we've had about 4 years of trouble free service from them.

Oh, and the seller accepted our willingness to show up on a Sat. night during a snowstorm to look at them in lieu of a deposit.

Thursday, bought a craftsman on closeout at Sears. It was a high-end doodad, with RWD and a 9 lb-ft engine. The works. Anyway, it came home and decided not to start. Everything on it looked great, it just wouldn't turn over. I brought it back and got a lower end one with a manual to tell me how to work it. (Yes, I actually read those.)

The washer/dryer went much better. I went in, made a deal with the guy and walked out in 20 minutes. List was 450 for the dryer, around 550 for the washer. I got him down to 400/450. They came in the next day and got everything working. It was great. (Right now my wife and I are down to one car: my 350Z... so... I couldn't deliver it myself.)

wayslow wrote: Right now I have a nice self propelled Honda that's about 3yrs old. My neighbour was throwing it away because he couldn't get it started this spring. A tank of fresh gas and away it went.

Sling Blade. Life imitating art.

As far as a mower is concerned... how big is the yard? If its a 1/4 acre lot or less, just get a free lawnmower from CL. If its a 1/4-1/2 acre lot, get a $200 riding lawnmower. If its 1 acre or bigger, invest in a good lawn and garden tractor.

For a washer and dryer you have a couple options; go cheap on CL, or invest in good ones that will pay for themselves over the next 5-6 years. Appliances have come a long way in the last 30 years. Most estimates say that on the average, replacing major appliances every 5-6 years is the cheapest route as far as purchase price/energy consumption is concerned.

Also (in the grassroots theme) invest in a good clothesline. $50 of cable and clothespins will pay for itself in one summer of drying your clothes on the line.

This thread turned out to be a jinx. My mower fell apart this weekend. Some of the sheet metal rusted loose under the mower deck, then shot out after the blade sent it flying. I'm lucky I still have my legs! Now the deck is so weakened, it's like I have some sort of suspension on the front of the mower from the flexing. This may be it's last mowing season....it's a shame because the motor is still good.

sachilles wrote: This thread turned out to be a jinx. My mower fell apart this weekend. Some of the sheet metal rusted loose under the mower deck, then shot out after the blade sent it flying. I'm lucky I still have my legs! Now the deck is so weakened, it's like I have some sort of suspension on the front of the mower from the flexing. This may be it's last mowing season....it's a shame because the motor is still good.

Start checking yard sales. Maybe you can find the same mower with a good deck and bad motor. Had a friend got lucky with his. On his the mower deck rusted out and he found the exact smae model mower in a yard sale with a bad motor. Swapped motors and is still running it after 4 years.

If you hurry, Sears might still have the one I returned...

poopshovel wrote: ...there are really only a few companies that actually build the mowers...

That's true. Modern Tool and Die (MTD) make most of the rebranded mowers sold.

+A billion on the Sears appliance outlet store. After nursing our 8 year old Kenmore fridge for a little too long we perused the inventory of the Sears Outlet online and ventured there on a Saturday.

There was a very swanky stainless steel side-by-side door/freezer in the bottom/ice and filtered water in the doors Kenmore Elite which was originally like $3200. It had 2 microscopic dings in the front and was unused but one of the upper door hinges was Berkeleyed. Turns out Whirlpool or Amana or someone has the exact same hinges, and the store had a big dump bin of cheap sale tools by the register.

I swapped on a hinge from another worse looking unit on the floor (no problem cause the "help" is no help at all) found someone to write it up and have a super nice grown-up fridge for like $1100 out the door.

And we sold the old Kenmore w/ full disclosure about the icemaker for $100 on Craigslist.

EDIT: And MTD mowers are the purest of crap. When we bought our house I was salivating at the thought of finally having my own Honda mower after 15 years of E36 M3ty dumpster-dived squalid motorcycle group house mowers. Then my parents brought a really nice thoughtful gift: A brand new MTD mower. It was used up in 2 years even with regular maintenance. I got a Craftsman/Honda on closeout and it's a friggin' champ.

+Buy a big bottle of Stabil and put it in all your power equipment over the winter unless you're anal and actually drain the fuel from everything. Particularly on the 2 stroke weedwackers and blowers with the delicate little Walbro carbs, 10% ethanol really F's 'em up.