u/imelda_barkos

I've generally been a big fan of Menards' lumber offering, between domestic hardwoods, softwoods, plywood, and what is generally a well organized way to shop vs. a limited selection at Home Depot or Lowes. I am less wild about the often limited information about where things are manufactured and what's in them

I was reading some of the specification sheets attached to some of the plywood and it looks like even some of the domestic hardwood plywood has a core of some sort of tropical hardwood. One of them specifically says it's "made in Africa" (the, uh, country of Africa??? Like what??) and a couple of the softwood ones also appeared to have some sort of South American hardwood or soft wood core.

I don't feel too confident in forestry or environmental management practices in some of these place, which might explain why some of the prices are so low, but it also doesn't seem like they really have much information to offer. In other words, I have no clue if this is like literally rainforest wood or if it's something like rubber wood.

At the same time, if I'm comparing it to something like the birch or oak hardwood plywood sold by Columbia for hardwood plywood from Home Depot, a lot of that is just straight up trash material. Anybody know anything about this?

I grew up with the methods of the ancients-- played FFVII on a black CD-ROM in a PS2- and so this whole ATB setup is brand new to me. I'm kind of figuring it out (but it's extremely annoying because of how you can fight as much as you want but can't use items).

One thing I am not understanding is that I will frequently try to cast a spell, and it will use up my gauge, but then the spell... doesn't get cast. I am aware of how targeting works, but I just had a thing where I "lost" two consecutive cure spells and then my mans ... died. What's going on?

I live in an old house that has suffered a series of complicated architectural decisions in its century plus of existence. We have a newer FA furnace (gas, cold climate). I have gotten quotes to replace the furnace with an all-electric heat pump setup. Side-discharge (looks like a "regular" mini-split) and the more conventional-looking ones, both to tie into the existing ductwork via A-coil, coming in with comparable price, SEER, HSPF, & COP. Individual

Probably around $10-11k all-in. There's also a generous local rebate for electrification. That's great.

Less great: This will make my bills go through the roof, because electricity here is extremely expensive, gas is cheap, and winters are cold-- but more so, the bigger problem is that I can't really get people to quote a proper insulation retrofit. The house cannot be retrofitted from the outside without completely removing 100% of two layers of Well-Secured And Very Complicated And Weird Cladding Materials, which we simply cannot afford (would spend about 30-40% of the value of the whole house to do this). Can't cover it over, neither!

One quote for several thousand dollars to insulate from the inside, but the company insists that this won't affect the system sizing at all because they do not know what a Manual J calculation is (HVAC company that also does insulation). It could be done. I am just loath to hand over several grand to a company that offers no guarantees or estimates of performance.

Is it a disastrous idea to take an approach of "wait to see how the first winter goes" WITHOUT prioritizing the insulation retrofit? Anything anyone would suggest beyond what we've been quoted thus far?

I'm getting quotes for HVAC in a couple of houses and one that is a great candidate for some serious envelope retrofit work. I've had a couple of estimators explicitly tell me that "we don't take into account air leakage or insulation when sizing systems," so they say that a space that needs a 2.5t is gonna need 2.5t whether or not I spent $12k to flash-and-fill the walls or whether I keep the original leaky walls, where you can feel a nice breeze in the in any room.

I have written a LOT of checks to HVAC contractors over the years, and even for duly permitted, inspected, and professional work, I have rarely seen load calculations. But these are required, yes? And people just don't do them? I've only once seen an inspector balk at a system sizing and it was an extreme case, but I guess a lot of times people are just... not doing load calcs? What's going on here?