So what is the best thing you have done to your house sense you bought it? Maybe you blew out a wall and put in a sweet master bath. Or it could be as simple as changed a plant in the front yard.


While mine was trashed when I bought it and was missing drywall flooring insulation and a bunch of other stuff, I would say the whole house fan is the best thing we did.

Crack the windows in the evening turn it on and the temp in the house comes way down. Best $200 i spent.

When it hits the upper 90's or 100's here the house can stay cool for most of the day without AC. There are a few hours in the afternoon that it gets a bit warm but that is tollerable. I think if we added duel pane windows as well as a cover over the southern windows would help a bunch as well.

I'm working on it:D My wife said, she loves the way bathroom is coming out. She says it's going to be her favorite room in the house.

But honestly, I think the $100 bucks I spent in the front of our place is the best. I put in a planter box, with geraniums next to the walkway. and put up one of theose fake wall boarders, which we be replased with a real wall later. I have to get a pic;)

Whole house fan? Like, a big fan mounted in the ceiling, that blows air through the house?

My grandmother's house had one of those. It was built in the early 60s, but the fan never worked in my lifetime. It apparently didn't work well and they had an air conditioner installed. The house was later destroyed in Katrina.

I had never seen anything like that anywhere else, except for some of the really old homes in the City with mounted box fans over doors. I thought a "whole house fan" was a relic of the past.

I bought my house 14 years ago as a handyman special. It's hard to pinpoint one single thing since every part of the house is an ongoing project. Here is a list of some things which were already done:
1. Replaced old light fixures with fluorescent light fixtures.
2. Installed a new steam boiler. The old one was about 82 years old, and cost more to run per heating season than buying a new boiler every year.
3. Replaced the regular hot water tank with a more efficient tankless hot water heater.
4. Replaced broken front brick steps that had to be cemented after every winter.
5. Replaced basement steps, and landing that collapsed when movers were going up & down on them.
6. Installed a bathroom on the first floor in a closet. There was a bathroom on the second floor, and a non functioning bathroom in the basement that were fixed.
There is still a list of ongoing projects that have to be done (hopefully in my lifetime).

Depends on alot of factors on how well they work. Size of house to the size of the fan. Amount of ventalation in the attic. Temp and humidity outside the house. Location of the fan.

I added extra attic vents when I roofed the house so I would have enough for the air to escape. I also was on the upper limit in volume on the smaller fan so I went up a size to it will pull more air. Then in the summer we have low humitity and it cools downs as soon as the sun goes down. A hgh of 100 and a low of 60 is not uncommon. Thus they work well. My AC doesn't even work yet I am still under the blackets at 10 when I go to bed. I put mine in the hall by the bedrooms so they will cool the fastest.

kicked the wife out.
my dog is cheaper to feed and is always happy to see me.

Solat pool heater.

Matt, what do you mean when you say whole house fan? My HVAC has a fan setting, never really use it though, sense it is not temp controlled like the heat and A/C. It's on or off:( We do have a attic fan that is on a switch in the hall (not really sure why:rolleyes:) that is temp controlled. I know it keeps the temps down in the summer:thumbsup:

We added a front porch.

Before:
http://www.explorerforum.com/photopost/data/3598/House1.jpg

After:
http://www.explorerforum.com/photopost/data/3598/P6260008.JPG

oh man the best mod?
hmmmm thats a tough one

I thought I was doing well with my house, I mean I had a house, carpet = nasty, needs paint and some furniture, etc, I had tile floors instead of vinyl like I had always had... then I met my wife

Julee moved in before we got married.
I think the last item of furniture I had was removed this weekend.
With her help (she flips houses as a hobby!) we have completely re-done the entire house, some parts we have re-done twice LOL

first it was rip out the bathroom, all new travertine floor and walls, texture, paint, granite, vanity, more paint, fixtures, etc...bathroom up to par
then it was the carpet, I am talking the entire house
all carpet on the main level, entries, has been removed
we installed all new laminate flooring

for all new laminate it cost us about $850, I learned how to do laminate real quick with the help of my brother in law (expert carpet layer, flooring dude)

I would say out of all the things we have done to the house the laminate floor was the best upgrade $ for $
I have a Shark brand steam mop and it keeps the whole house looking brand new in seconds

we have since done tile all over the house, granite in the kitchen, etc etc
this week we are putting purple carpet in our bedroom :) My wife has a carpet company, this stuff is wicked!
I spent the entire weekend cutting our main gas line and running a new line to a new gas stove (old was electric)

she keeps me SUPER busy and in tools, I used to be a truck mechanic, now I am also a mason, plumber, carpenter, carpet layer, laminate installer, electrician, and so much more! I love my wife!! I think I have spent about $400 at the dump in the last 2 years, LOL all that red quarry tile we had in the kitchen, that was the best....friggin jackhammer took me 2 weeks to get that tile out and floor prepped for laminate

Ill get some pics, we are starting on the back yard now.......weather permitting! LOL

Stranded bamboo flooring and cork flooring in the kitchen/dining room, followed by insulation in the walls and roof.

The floor is super easy to keep clean, and is just simply stunning!

When we bought ours, it was not able to be lived in. The cat piss smell, combined with stale cigs, meth lab junk, and general dumpster style filth made the house really cheap to buy. So the best house mod that we did was clean it up and spray about 40gal of kilz on every surface that could be found. It really made it smell better, sealed the stench from coming back, and gave us a clean pallet to work on.

pardon the mess in the "after" pictures- it was still in the "move in" phase....

Before...

http://i150.photobucket.com/albums/s97/justinb3325/house/STA70838Medium.jpg

After...

http://i150.photobucket.com/albums/s97/justinb3325/house/DSC00630Medium.jpg


Before...

http://i150.photobucket.com/albums/s97/justinb3325/house/STA70835Medium.jpg

After....

http://i150.photobucket.com/albums/s97/justinb3325/house/DSC00757Medium.jpg

Before...

http://i150.photobucket.com/albums/s97/justinb3325/house/STA70841Medium.jpg

After...

http://i150.photobucket.com/albums/s97/justinb3325/house/DSC00632Medium.jpg

Before...

http://i150.photobucket.com/albums/s97/justinb3325/house/STA70840Medium.jpg

After...

http://i150.photobucket.com/albums/s97/justinb3325/house/DSC00638Medium.jpg

1-Tankless water heater

http://www.explorerforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=148948&highlight=eemax

2-Whole house attic fan

http://www.grainger.com/Grainger/items/5M156

3-removal of all overhead lines

4-Detached Garage-shop-hiding place

5-Child removal process

Changing all the carpet in the house from a dark green to a neutral beige color.

Getting rid of the green speckle countertop in the kitchen.

Fencing in the back yard for the dogs.

Adding 20 amp circuit to the garage.

I guess the BEST upgrade I did would have to be taking out the old Fuel oil furnace and replacing it with a heat pump WITH central air. It had 1 window unit when I moved in 6 years ago.

Second, NONE of the three bedrooms had a ceiling light. Oh there was a light switch in each room alright, but they worked an outlet, so you had to keep a lamp plugged in and turned on, so you could turn it on and off with the light switch. A couple days pulling wires through walls and up into the attic, and all three rooms have properly switched ceiling lights w/fans.

There are pictures on the walls now too! The wife did that after we got married and she moved in.......it must be a woman thing, when she asked why I didn't have anything on the walls, I told her "Hell, I never look at the walls anyway!"