All Forum Posts by: Simon Daniels

Are these continuing into the fall?

In Baltimore City, you can pull a building permit as the owner of the property. You don't have to be licensed as a GC. You will need electrical, plumbing, gas, and/or HVAC pulled by Masters in those trades, if applicable, depending on the scope of the project .  This will be the case whether you are a GC or just the homeowner.

@Ben M. not to rehash the many Ikea kitchen discussions on here, but this is one of the pluses of replacing with Ikea kitchens. If you have an Ikea store near you and a door/drawer/anything is damaged, replacing parts is easy and inexpensive.

I've seen drones mentioned on here a few times in the context of looking at roofs pre purchase. I am looking into buying one to get eyes on rowhome roofs without dragging an extension ladder with me every time I look at a property. 

Any recommendations for brand/model? Looking for something at a low price point since I'll only be using a for a few minutes at a time, but something with sufficient image quality to get a good sense of a roof's condition. 

Looking for some insight from Batimore rehabbers that have completed CHAP tax credit renovations. What do you do with   millwork that is deemed historic but tests positive for lead? It seems the options are:

1. Remove historic pieces, have them "dipped and stripped" in acid bath to remove lead paint, and reattach

2. Replace with identical special order millwork

3. Paint over using lead encapsulation paint

Seems that option 3 is the most cost effective, but I'm wondering if you get dinged at sale time due to property not being classifiable as "lead free" with the encapsulation paint, and the trim looking dingy due to many layers of paint. Dip and Strip seems the second of the cheapest options material-wise, but creates additional labor expense for the demo.

What's considered best practice? 

Those types of statutes (Washington State included) are in place to prevent discrimination AGAINST veterans or active duty military by landlords.  

Thanks for sharing. I'm going to give EVP a whirl in my next project.  The Lumber Liquidators EVP product does seem like somewhat of a bargain relative to Allure Ultra, which seems to be the favorite on these forums. 

Long time lurker first time poster...

I've started noticing more and more varieties of a flooring product as of late called Engineered Vinyl Plank.  It seems to differ from your standard Luxury Vinyl Plank in that it has a thick core attached to the vinyl plank that gives it a more solid feel similar to laminate. 

It's sold at lumber liquidators under the corelux brand and floor & decor under the nucore brand.  I've also seen it at Home Depot and Lowe's but not in many varieties.

Product seems like the best of both worlds and at a comparable price point to standard LVP.  I am wondering "what's the catch?"

Has anyone had experience with one of these EVP products? How do you like it?