How much follow-up is it appropriate to expect/request from an answerer?

Question

I am a total newbie at DIY, and really grateful for this site as the high-quality resource that it is. I really appreciate that knowledgeable people take the time and effort to answer my questions.

How much follow-up is it appropriate to request from a question answerer? In my case, I asked this question a few weeks ago. Someone gave a great answer, but it didn't work because of some constraints. (Which I had not included in my original question; my mistake.) I added those constraints in the comments, and the original answerer expanded their answer to address those. This happened twice.

I now have yet more questions on the project. Since I'm a novice, I've called in some professionals to do some of the work that I don't have the skills or tools for, and they all disagree on what would be the best way. (So e.g. the company I tried to buy one of the parts from insisted that it would need to be installed completely differently than the original answerer suggested.) I would love to ask the original answerer for their opinion, but that seems like really imposing on them. (I did post a comment in response, but am considering deleting it.)

The standard SE answer is "post a new question on the new issue", but it's not really a new issue. It's an additional constraint on the same issue.

What should I do in a situation like this, and how much back-and-forth about specifics and difficulties that crop up is too much for the site?

Answer 1

Post another question

In a forum, it wouldn't be kosher, but SE isn't a forum. We prefer questions (even similar ones) be separate. Just make sure that

1. There's something truly new to add
2. You link to the previous question

Why not edit the old question? Because you might invalidate the answers. That's a problem, since your answerers might not check back to update.

Answer 2

This is a DIY site to help people complete actual projects. As you're working along, if you get stumped, ask a question. We'll try to answer it. You can update your question with additional info about your original question. When that portion is done, select the answer that helped you the most and proceed with your project. At the next bump, ask new question and we'll try to address that one. We encourage people to take pictures of electrical boxes and fixtures before they disconnect anything to assist solving the problem down the road. Hope this helps a bit.