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Well I've cleaned up a bunch of the yard and shoveled up more demolition debris. Also insulated some more of the copper I installed last fall and had the water company come and install the new remote radio readable water meter so they don't have to plug in anymore. And bought another 20 sheets of drywall, and the materials to vapor block and firestop the next bedroom... I intend to get that room sealed up properly, then begin the move upstairs and begin gutting the first floor.
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Aug 31, 2012 23:06
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Need pics! You are moving so quick that it's hard to visualize when the last pictures were from a month ago. Great work kastein, seriously doing some good stuff there.
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Sep 6, 2012 19:02
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I'm actually moving at a snails pace, I just don't take enough pictures so it seems faster 
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Sep 6, 2012 19:34
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A few examples of terrible mickey-moused disaster things Plumbing! This was the drain pipe for the basement sink. I use the term "pipe" rather loosely here.  Apparently it plugged up, so they cut it open, cleared it out, then used silicone, electrical tape, aluminum flashing, and hose clamps to fix it. Apparently they didn't do a very good job of unplugging it, either:  Electrical! Count the kinds of wire. Count the electrical boxes. Count the kinds of wire rated for in-wall 120V service. Count the splices.  knob and tube to romex (no junction box) to unrated speaker wire (no junction box) These are just a few examples... a lot of things are like this. At least till I chop them out and redo it properly.
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Sep 10, 2012 01:15
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kastein posted:Electrical! This makes me  I've seen some iffy wiring before but nothing -- nothing -- that compares with that. I'm just kind of amazed the whole thing didn't burn down.
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Sep 11, 2012 21:46
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All the spare bundles of new shingles (for if I need to repair the roof or decide to build a treehouse or garage) are moved into the basement and I've organized/restacked a significant amount of the scrap wood in preparation for the next Free Dump Day. Can't wait to have that mess out of my life. Also debating using the comanche bumper crane to haul several filled, but never picked up, bagsters to Free Dump Day. Bagster went from awesome to quite useless all at once, they suddenly decided their truck would not fit down the road behind my house and stopped calling ahead, then started sneaking in and putting tags on the bags saying they were unable to pick them up after 3 successful pickups. Screw them, I found a place that will give me dumpsters for cheaper per unit anyways and Free Dump Day is 3/4 of a mile from my house every 3 months. e: my table saw has decided that rather than cutting wood, it prefers to burn a slot through it, slowly and with much complaining. Looks like I'm off to buy a new blade for it. kastein fucked around with this message at 01:00 on Sep 13, 2012 |
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Sep 12, 2012 21:29
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Can you drag the bagster bags down your lane to get them to pick it up? e: With your truck, obviously. Or a team of oxen
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Sep 13, 2012 14:06
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I could but it would still cost me $150ish each to have them picked up, while waiting a few weeks and bringing them to free dump day costs maybe 1 dollar in gas. They have already been waiting for pickup for months so another few weeks won't kill anyone.
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Sep 13, 2012 14:27
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Saturday is the day I haul all this crap to the dump!  Probably 3-4 tons of plaster and rockwool, a massive stack of old wood I tore out (the stack of bundled lath is about 5 deet by 5 feet by 4 feet, the stack of floorboards, studs, and other large dimensional wood is about 10 feet by 7 feet by 6 feet and only getting bigger), and a few truckloads of random demolition debris and refuse. Also, just finished fireblocking the second bedroom. It is already wired, I am currently installing furring strips along the slanted section of the ceiling to straighten it out. Once that is done I will staple up vapor barrier, rent the insulation blowing machine again (tomorrow) and hopefully sheetrock it and tape it the day after that. Once that's done, I de-dust all my belongings, move them upstairs, and it's game on for the first floor demolition! Sidenote, guess where in this sequence I replaced the blade on the tablesaw:  Edit: also shoveled up more debris in the kitchen and I am preparing to plumb the bathroom sink. Measure 3x, drill holes in subfloor once. kastein fucked around with this message at 03:27 on Sep 26, 2012 |
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Sep 26, 2012 03:23
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Easily my favourite project thread in the forums so far. It's one thing to build a house from scratch, that's easy. But taking an older house and trying to get it to "make sense" and not be a huge heatsink is a real challenge. I've got an 84 year old house thats required a lot of work to make it look like someone actually cares, and I still have not tackled the outside. It's really cool how you can do so much demolition and really "mix things up", I wish I had that option, but it's a little different when you and your wife have to live in it at the same time. Keep the pics coming, and explain your custom title. . . it looks like an interesting story.
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Sep 26, 2012 13:34
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Well, I am a single bachelor with no kids, so no fucks have been given, I don't mind living in a construction zone to save 800/mon on rent. That's 800/mon I can put into drywall, lumber, and electrical supplies! My avatar - result of a goonmeet for local AI users I hosted this spring. We started out by melting holes in engine blocks and stuff with thermite, but then ran out of engine blocks, and everyone had had a bit to drink at that point, so my suggestion that we fill my old toilet with thermite, road flares, gasoline, and fireworks (one or two at a time) was taken a bit more seriously than I intended it to be. At least it was easier to As for "don't piss on my bricks" - the bricks smelled so strongly of rotten rodent urine when I carried them outside that I can never forget it. I mentioned this at said goonmeet. I don't even know who bought the avatar 
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Sep 26, 2012 14:47
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Vapor barrier and furring strips done in the second bedroom. I was planning on doing the blown in fiberglass tomorrow morning and starting the sheetrock in the afternoon, but have changed plans... will be building a custom wiring harness to convert an automatic 4.2L 87 YJ with an electronic carb to a manual 4.0L with EFI out of a 94 XJ in the morning and welding rock sliders onto a 91 hilux in the afternoon/evening instead. Fiberglass and sheetrock friday. Then demo debris disposal Saturday. This place is gonna look so much better... speaking of which, no pics as usual because it is 22:22 and thus dark. One of these days I will remember to take pics before nightfall, or install the ceiling lamp, not sure which.
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Sep 27, 2012 03:22
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Did about half the blown in insulation today, decided to switch gears and put the attic floorboards down, since I couldn't effectively blow the ceiling insulation without something to restrict it from above. Realized I had now put vapor barrier and/or sheetrock across all the rafters I usually climb through to get to the attic in both bedrooms, and had stacked a dozen sheets of 3/4 ply across the rafters in the hallway, so I ended up climbing up the chimneychase/utility corridor, I guess it's a good thing I'm fairly thin and not claustrophobic Had four sheets of attic floor down when I got a call from a friend who needed me to bring a new differential pinion yoke, ujoint, and driveshaft plus some tools to him on the side of the interstate near me, so that put a halt to house work for the day. Going to wake up early tomorrow (hahahahahahahaha BULLSHIT, that never works for me) and blow in some more insulation under the attic floor, return the insulation blowing machine, then haul demo debris to the dump. I think my arms might fall off tomorrow. No pictures because it's dark, also because I managed to give my cellphone a bath. Why is it that my friends cars always manage to break down when it's pouring rain, after weeks of beautiful dry sunny days?
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Sep 29, 2012 06:50
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 HOLY poo poo A PICTURE IN THIS POST I hauled probably 8 or 10 thousand pounds of demolition debris to the dump Saturday (I know I did 4 trips, think I may have done 5, and they were each well over a ton) but still didn't even touch the pile of scrap wood yet, I guess I'll bring that down in December. Sunday I was at a goonmeet, today I spent some more time putting down floorboards in the attic and handling random stuff I'd been putting off. Tomorrow I'll likely rent the insulation blowing machine again, finish the few sections I didn't do yet (might throw up the vapor barrier for a closet or two as well, just to get my money's worth out of the rental) and then start on sheetrock in the second bedroom. Attic floor going in (it's actually almost complete now)  I will try and remember to take more pics tomorrow... think I've said that before. I only nailed the ply down in the attic, figured it will barely see any traffic so there is no reason to spend a lot of time and money putting it down with liquid nails and decking screws.
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Oct 2, 2012 06:47
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Finally some god damned pictures, hah. I just bought some plywood for the first time this weekend, wanted to get something fairly thick as I'm similarly going to be using it in my garage rafter area as decking. Had no idea plywood was so loving expensive. I thought maybe it would be like $12/sheet or something but $25/sheet? poo poo sucks!
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Oct 2, 2012 16:09
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Depends. I pay around 24-25 a sheet for 3/4 CDX right now. I think I've spent over two thousand dollars on plywood, between the subflooring upstairs, attic flooring, and the roof decking two years ago... and probably need another thousand bucks to finish the place. Houses are expensive 
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Oct 2, 2012 16:33
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kastein posted:Houses are expensive House costs are ridiculous. I've spent close to $10,000 finishing my basement so far, and that's all materials cost. I've done everything myself. And that's trying to do things cheaply too. I got slate tiles as leftovers from a guy off Kijiji for $30 for about 45 sqft; my shower base and doors were bought from a wholesaler for $800, which is down from $1600 or some from HD or Lowes, and my wife and I use coupons for 20% off supplies whenever they come up. $2000 for flooring, $1000 for wood and drywall, $1000 for electrical, $4000 for the bathroom ($800 shower, $200 under floor heating, $500 plumbing, $700 vanity/sink, $200 toilet, $500 tiles for floor and shower, $250 electrical and lights, $200 decor, etc) Mind you, I've been buying nice things, and doing everything overkill, but it's still expensive.
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Oct 3, 2012 13:22
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On the other side of the spectrum, when my friend was finishing his "attic" space for his master bedroom (lives in an old schoolhouse) he bought his framing lumber from an amish run mill. He got actual-dimension 2"x4" boards for $1/board. Pretty freaking awesome, if it wasn't such a drive (and it wouldn't match up with the other framing I plan on adding to) I'd hit that up for sure. I wonder if he's going to run into warping problems or anything because they didn't have any when he showed up so they cut them on the spot for him, so I assume they weren't kiln dried unless they dry large 4"xwhatever sections first. But yes, poo poo is expensive  I'm so glad that when I took out the large bar and one "bedroom" in our basement I salvaged as much lumber as I could - I've gotten many a free projects out of that stuff 
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Oct 3, 2012 18:24
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I took more than one picture tonight! Sheetrocking more of the second bedroom. Lift sheet into place with drywall hoist...  Get it solidly pressed against the rafters...  Line the laser level up so it follows the center of the rafter all the way down...  Throw some screws in it!  No chalk lines or pencil markings. I love lasers. 
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Oct 8, 2012 02:28
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wow, those pics look even more horrible than usual on my desktop. I blame Facebook's abysmal mobile site, will upload better quality ones when I get my micro-USB cable back.
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Oct 8, 2012 05:45
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What laser level do you have? That's pretty freaking slick.
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Oct 9, 2012 20:34
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It's a dewalt DW087, I love it. Christmas present from my mom last year and possibly one of the best tools I own. It does chew up batteries at a horrifying rate but that's probably because I forget it on overnight pretty often, and it only uses 3 AAs so it isn't a big deal either way.
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Oct 9, 2012 20:43
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How do you forget to turn it off? It's really bright. Just how much are you drinking at night, buddy? 
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Oct 9, 2012 20:58
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It's more I do stuff, go downstairs to grab some food, end up surfing the net for an hour and then going to sleep. I wake up in the morning and the battery is half gone...
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Oct 9, 2012 21:08
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kastein posted:It's a dewalt DW087, I love it. Christmas present from my mom last year and possibly one of the best tools I own. Looks like I'll stick to chalklines. I don't think I can justify $150.
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Oct 9, 2012 21:07
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kastein posted:It's more I do stuff, go downstairs to grab some food, end up surfing the net for an hour and then going to sleep. I wake up in the morning and the battery is half gone... Say, 8 hours...that's really not bad at all.
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Oct 9, 2012 22:22
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It really isn't too bad, I'm probably even overstating the problem a bit. I certainly wouldn't buy a laser level this expensive myself but I love it! Just finished putting the ceiling lamp in the second bedroom. I have functioning, properly wired lights in two bedrooms, the bathroom, and half the basement now! Left to do: * drywall on one wall of second bedroom (doing that right now) * finish mudding and sanding both bedrooms * finish clearing demo debris out of master bedroom, rip up floor/subfloor, rip down wall between it and the hall, redo everything, wire, conduit, etc * replace ceiling rafters with 1/2" steel tie rods (I'm doing a cathedral ceiling in the master bedroom but don't want my walls ballooning out) * replace sill plates along at least 3 walls (it kept raining every time I intended to do them) - I have to do this before doing any reconstruction in the living room or master bedroom * move all my belongings upstairs (after cleaning dust off them) and into second bedroom, seal it off to prevent them getting dusted up again * gut living room, dining room, finish gutting kitchen * replace subfloor in dining room and kitchen * replace all windows (except bathroom window, already did that) * redo siding * heating system - radiant in dining room, kitchen, 3 bedrooms, upstairs hall, baseboard heaters in living room, new furnace * have asbestos and old steam boiler pipes removed from basement * remodel kitchen, install and plumb bathroom sink * tile bathroom floor (after finishing welding up the support beam for the bathroom floor joists) * install floating wood flooring in all 3 bedrooms, upstairs hall, and dining room. Refinish living room floor, tile kitchen floor * upgrade service panel, install ATS, build generator, install generator * repoint entire foundation * pour cement floor in basement * install wood stove * make and install kitchen cabinets * redo whole yard, clean up remaining demo debris and the junk the previous owners left piled in the woods around the property when they moved out pre-foreclosure * tear off porches, rebuild properly Holy hell. I've barely made a dent in this project! kastein fucked around with this message at 18:51 on Oct 10, 2012 |
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Oct 10, 2012 18:49
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Buy some rechargeable batteries - laser problems solved! I have a bunch of eneloops, which are basically the caviar of rechargeables, but I hear the amazon basic rechargeables are about 90% as good for a bit less.
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Oct 11, 2012 14:40
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I have a bunch of rechargeables and a charger for them, I just can't find the goddamn things because they're about ten feet deep in the pile of moving boxes in my living room I'll probably find them when I move my stuff upstairs soon. Also, the battery life really isn't that bad - as stevobob said, even if it's half dead after being on all night (it's probably more like 1/3 dead... not sure) that's 8 hours, so it lasts at least 16 hours or so on $2 (3 AAs) in batteries, which really is not too bad. Haven't done anything on the house in a while, but I feel the need to destroy things and toss debris out windows. Also, think I'll design my hydronic radiant heating system tomorrow if I get a chance. Need to measure another two rooms before I get started. A few days (2 or 3, iirc) I was busy last week welding rock sliders into a friend's 4-wheeling truck and welding up a custom transmission mount adapter for another friend's drivetrain-swapped wrangler, and the other days I was mostly job hunting and catching up on errands, so I made little house progress.
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Oct 21, 2012 05:55
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 Crummy photography as usual, and this pic is at least a week old, but I thought it was kinda neat. Found it going through my cellphone pic album.
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Oct 23, 2012 21:17
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I've started moving all my boxed up belongings out of the living room into the attic once that's done, I can start gutting the first floor a bit. A few other things - finally got tired of looking at the terrible CATV/POTS cabling on the outside of the house. So I installed the 2" conduit and weatherhead I've been meaning to put up. Didn't want to take the internet connection down... then the power went out due to Hurricane Sandy approaching, so I figured I might as well move everything over while it was already offline.  (thumb = cellphone camera exposure control. Don't tell the Dorkroom guys  ) The coax drip loop is only that long because the cable was already that length. If I get fancy when I redo the siding and fascia boards I'll shorten it to the proper length, else it will stay like that, it's not hurting anything. Also finally got around to sweating the hot/cold pipes for the bathroom sink:  (wish I'd realized the cold water pipe was at that funky angle. Now that's going to bother me forever *twitch*)  There is a reason for the cold water valve being turned slightly - that way the flex hose from it to the underside of the faucet will clear the hot water valve easily.
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Nov 2, 2012 05:53
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Well, apparently I didn't prep some of the fittings for the cold water line quite well enough yesterday, one of the elbows had a very slow leak. It passed my check when I turned the water on, no visible leaks, but this morning when I checked it there was a drop of water hanging on it. So I ended up replacing that elbow (mangled it getting it off), re-cleaning the ends of the pipes, and re-sweating it. I'll have to be more careful in the future, that was a pain in the rear end - and wouldn't have happened if I could find the steel brush I normally use on fittings, all I could find was my roll of emery cloth. Finished the DWV line for the bathroom sink today and moved more stuff upstairs again. Tomorrow I need to hit the junkyard with a friend to pick up parts for a motor swap, then I'll move more stuff into the attic again... I've got the living room (where I've had all my moving boxes stacked for a year and a half now) about half emptied, not much further to go.
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Nov 3, 2012 03:49
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So remember the hole in the wall where I eliminated the old flat metal roof over the back door? Apparently it took me a year to cover that up. Didn't really let any water or anything in (since it was directly under the eaves), just bugs and wind, and that area was a demolition/construction zone anyways, so I had my air compressor line running through it and didn't give a poo poo. Since I am nearly done with demolition and my air compressor can be plugged in inside now, and winter is fast approaching, I decided it was high time I covered that up. No pictures, because it's dark and freezing cold and I can't feel my fingers right now. Currently designing my radiant floor heating system and still moving stuff into the attic. I've slowed down significantly because I'm getting to the boxes that are most covered in horrible dust from demolition and have to vacuum most things off one at a time, and I'm not sure where much of the furniture is going shortly. Also, my tiny little space heater keeps the bathroom at a balmy 70-80 degrees (outside temp: 20, 25 degrees) even on the lowest setting. Apparently I did an OK job insulating the walls and ceiling.
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Nov 6, 2012 23:52
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Lookin' good.
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Nov 8, 2012 14:52
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Not really... I need to move faster. On the plus side, the yard looks awesome with 4" of snow in it.
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Nov 8, 2012 18:46
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Tore out some of the old wiring in the basement.  This box has several runs of 4-conductor BX, a few runs of 2-conductor regular BX, and some knob and tube just for good measure. Color codes are white, white-with-a-string-coiled-under-the-paint, black, and red. The white with the string was one of the hot wires! This fed the whole second floor (lights AND outlets), some of the lights and outlets in the first floor, and the basement lights. The red wires were used as switched power for the basement lights, while the black wire appeared to be for constant power for the outlets and the second floor. The only pleasant surprise was that the knob and tube was actually color coded, one of those wires was painted white under the outer loom. Never seen that before. Finally did the fireblock at the second floor level in the chimney chase.  Cardboard Aided Design  One side fits...  Other side fits pretty well too. I'll be putting in firestop grade expanding foam around every conduit/cable run. Once that was out of the way (had to do it before finishing the sheetrock, else I wouldn't be able to get the fireblock in through the access hatch) I finished sheetrocking the last section I can do before buying more blow-in insulation supplies. 
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Nov 11, 2012 23:57
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I'm glad that my home is not all that old (70s) and the previous owners seemed to do the right stuff electrically for the most part (aside from burying bare romex 100' back to the shed and again bare romex under the deck). At least I got a nice electrical map when I moved in, that's been quite helpful. Infrastructure stuff is nerdily entertaining to me for some reason.
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Nov 12, 2012 21:33
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Yeah, doing electrical/plumbing properly is something I really love. I wanted to be a mason until I was around 4-5, then decided I wanted to be a plumber. After that I wanted to be an electrician till I was around 8... ended up as an electrical and computer engineer. I've been labeling everything obsessively - every breaker I put in the second floor panel gets its spot marked with a label printer. The first floor is barely redone at all so far, and the main panel is getting replaced eventually, so I've just been sharpie-ing the circuit names on each NM-C run where it enters the box to make the cutover to the new service easier. So far I guess I've fulfilled 3 of my childhood professional dreams. Too bad I never wanted to be a roofer, framer, plasterer, taper, or any of the other jobs I'm going to end up doing on this place.
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Nov 15, 2012 04:57
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kastein posted:Yeah, doing electrical/plumbing properly is something I really love. I wanted to be a mason until I was around 4-5, then decided I wanted to be a plumber. After that I wanted to be an electrician till I was around 8... ended up as an electrical and computer engineer. I'm a database developer so I have a database for my electrical circuits. So I can search by room or type (baseboard heat, outlet, light, etc). It's ultra nerdy but actually pretty handy in a "well if I turn this off what else is going to flip off" kind of way. The reason why this is one of my favorite threads is because you have the time, patience, and ability to put up with living out of boxes to actually do the poo poo properly. Plus you bought your house for like $20 or something right?  e: Nerdy von nerdenstein 
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Nov 15, 2012 14:38
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dreesemonkey posted:[words] [picture] And I thought my stepdad was anal about his wiring! You should have archive-quality DVDs made of this file so that it can be stored in various cavities throughout the house for people to find hundreds of years from now. Seriously though, that is pure awesome. You should draw out a schematic and tie the two together with a web interface, similar to a PLC simulation program so that you can turn off breakers and have a visual of what would happen. Ahhhh, being a nerd is grand...
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Nov 15, 2012 20:07
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