I have recently purchased a home with solar panels. The previous owner didn't have a ton of information on them as she inherited the house from her mother who passed away. She has the purchase agreement, but the company that did the installation in 2014 has gone bankrupt (in 2020).

I'd like to somehow figure out how much energy I'm getting out of the panels. I got information from the previous owner on their electric bill, which shows me I won't be paying much. But that doesn't really answer my question about electricity generation.

Looks like I have 14 solar world Mono Black panels with model number 275.

Any advice on how I can go about figuring out exactly how much energy generation I'm getting?

Ancillary Information: the panels are owned outright. They were originally purchased with cash so no loan or lease on them.

Useful infographic design

What’s this thing inside my drip irrigation tube? 🤔

The center slab is pretty thrashed and has some failing previous repairs. A couple of other slabs have more minor damage. At the very least, I'm interested in removing and repouring the center slab, but a contractor recommended against doing anything less than a full demo/replacement of the whole patio based on foundation/structural reasons.

Beyond aesthetic reasons, is this advice legit or just an upsell? If I need to do the whole thing and not just one or two slabs, I might consider pavers instead of concrete, but any suggestions are welcome.

Thanks!

First off, if you aren't currently treating for termites with a soil treatment and/or bait system, start now. It will save you thousands in the long run, and you won't have constant fears of termites like I now do.

Anyway, about two years ago, I was sitting with my partner, watching TV in our basement. My partner got up to do something, and noticed that at the bottom of our basement bathroom door frame, there was what looked like dirt. A closer inspection revealed that it wasn't dirt, much worse. This was termite frass, further confirmed by the termites visible in the frass.

I quickly did research and bought termidor foam (It should be noted that Termidor foam only lasts 6ish weeks, and is meant to be applied directly to areas with active termite activity), dominon, and boracare off of domyown.com.

I applied the foam, dug trenches around the house to treat soil with dominion, and waited about three months before fully demoing the bathroom. Inside of the wall closest to where m

I'm unfortunately not there physically to help, but my mom has this light switch she needs to remove temporarily and replace the plate. Her "handyman" installed it 'brand new' within the past few years. I told her it looked like it was from the 80s haha. Anyways, she apparently cannot remove the knob for the life of her, shouldn't the knob be able to simply pull off without breaking?

Hurricane Helene crushed my 38" mower, and it just barely fit in the bed of my 93 Ranger. My options now are the dumpy looking disposable 30" riders, a 42" that won't fit in the truck, or a push mower that I'm too lazy to walk behind. I've decided that a single blade larger than 30" must be impractical because the spindles can't handle the Mandingo of a blade, and dual blades smaller than 42" total must be too many RPMs to hit target tip speed.

Insurance is paying for it, but I want something that fits in the truck. Any ideas?

I wrecked the ceiling/ wall bringing down a sofa. I’m a new home owner so not sure how to fix this. I have the paint since we repainted everything.

Not sure if I should use the pink stuff or something else. Any suggestions?

EDIT - Thanks all for the advice and suggestions. I was able to rebuild the corner using spackle and have sanded it. I put on the first coat of paint and am quite confident this will look as if there were no damage at all.

I'm in the middle of a whole house remodel. First half of the house (3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, hallway) is almost done and we hate the wall texture. It sounds so stupid, but the old and new look dramatically different. Part of the house was crows foot so i went with it thinking it would be cheaper and easier. How hard/expensive is it going to be to change it?

I've got creeky floors under carpet (relatively new building). I don't own the place but the creeks and squeaks bother the hell out of me at night when I'm trying to not wake up the pup.

Didn't see any particularly useful advice online so any thoughts are appreciated.

I'm moving into a house with a pool in a couple of months. I have a 20# dog who is blind and I'm trying to think of ways to keep her safe. The area from the back door/patio to the pool is all concrete, so installing fencing would require drilling holes. Looking for something temporary that could be removed during parties. I suggested wooden planters spaced every 8+10 feet with a bracket to hold a board. Husband didn't like that. I'm still leaning towards that, but looking for other ideas. Thoughts?

It's a long story, but I need the aluminum trim replaced around a garage door. Just basic white aluminum trim.

I don't want to do it myself...but I have no idea what kind of contractor I even need to call to do it. What kind of contractor would I call to do this? I'm in Maryland, US.

Google searches either lead me to garage door replacement or siding replacement, neither of which is what I'm actually looking for.

Is there a site where I can post a picture of the project and dimensions and get contractors to bid on it, or at least express interest on it? Angi (formerly Angie's List) seems to require me to figure out what kind of contractor I need, and this doesn't fall into the usual categories.

Thanks!

My wall oven went kaput - it had a good run (I think it's original with the house, from 1960. Or at least from the 80s. It has a mechanical timer!). But the heating element melted itself and I'm not really up for trying to find a replacement for that.

So I'm in the market for a new wall oven and seeking input. Key specs:

• It's a 24" single wall oven. Cutout is 22.5" wide, 28.5" high, and 25" deep.
• Electric power, 240V/30A circuit
• I only care about baking and broiling. Steam, air fry, wifi, rotisserie are all zero-to-negative for me.
• I would prefer physical dials and buttons but that seems uncommon these days
• I wouldn't want to go much more expensive than the options I've found (see below).

I've found two that seem like a native fit:

• GE JRS06SKSS
  • The installation manual shows that this needs a cabinet cutout below the unit, which I don't want to do because I have existi

I'm a dumbass and had someone come out and install a 240v outlet (and 120v). The reason I'm a dumbass is I didn't measure and had them install it in a place it wouldn't work for the appliance I am using.

I need to move the outlet a lot closer to the breaker box so I won't need additional wire or material, less actually.

I'm debating doing this myself. I technically have an EE degree but my day job is primarily coding, and any electronics I've worked on are usually the micro variety. I am aware of all the electrical safety requirements and in terms of technicality/connections, I think I just need to copy what has already been done but just remove a bunch of wire and place the outlet closer.

Do you think this is something I could take on myself with some research? My brother-in-law is also a proper electrician and I can facetime him.

Or do you think I should just ask the guys who installed it back and have them do it?

Hi!

What I have:

• a Raspberry Pi 3B
• a solar PV system with Modbus output
• a heat pump with Modbus output

What I want:

• energy stats of the PV and the heat pump, going back for a few years, without needing cloud access
• trigger the heat pump into overdrive when there's excess solar
• something that works well on a RPi 3B
• usable phone frontend (not necessarily an app, but kinda like it)

What I tried: Home Assistant -- which works but is very complicated and behaves rather funkily on the hardware. I suspect that putting a whole bunch of Docker containers on a lowly RPi is kind of a bad idea. But also, with Home Assistant, there appears to be a rather steep learning curve because there's just so much stuff.

What I've superficially considered but haven't tried: OpenHAB. Would be interested in learning if that's better.

( actually none of these are mine, but for the purposes of this post, let's assume I have control of all this stuff.)

Our town's water keeps failing to meet DEP standards, so I'm investing in a filtration system for our drinking water. What I think I'm looking for is:

• Has a tank, since there are 5 of us
• Filters out lead, PFAS, PFOA, etc. (Which is why I'm leaning towards RO)
• Good warranty and customer service, for when something inevitably goes wrong
• Remineralization (picky about water taste)
• UV (maybe?)

Does anyone have recommendations for a quality brand, or one that they've had for years that they like? I'm not sure where to even start.