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actually a soft material is less likely to break on an impact than a hard one. They are "soft" because they are more malleable, and will therefore dent, bend or otherwise deform when hit with a sharp impact. A hard material cannot deform and instead just breaks. I'm not sure if there was a terminology mismatch on this discussion, but I thought the clarification may be pertinent to the discussion.
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Aug 23, 2014 00:47
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| # ? Apr 20, 2024 00:32 |
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Well, granite is hard, but it's not so brittle as to be less effective as a foundation base than goddamn sandstone. Try hitting a granite rock with a hammer, then do the same with sandstone. Granite will shrug it off unless you get really lucky, but the sandstone will probably crumble easily. It's also much more resilient to water (if your water is acidic or really basic) and erosion. I get what you mean though. Usually a soft material = tougher than a hard material of the same type. But granite and sandstone are so far apart from each other that it doesn't apply. Slung Blade fucked around with this message at 05:58 on Aug 23, 2014 |
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Aug 23, 2014 05:55
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Yeah, get some good 'rebound quality' (IE a ball peen bounces right off) granite or basalt and it'll take something like that sawn off 8lb'er before it starts giving a poo poo.
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Aug 26, 2014 04:07
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I pooped in this house this weekend. Toilet flushes good.
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Sep 2, 2014 16:31
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I hope these things are connected, but it's kastein's, so...
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Sep 2, 2014 17:10
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Finished the next corner today, aside from stuff at the base where I need to break up the old sidewalk to get in and do a proper job. Then it started pouring ten minutes later so it is a good thing I finished up when I did!
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Sep 6, 2014 22:22
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Laid down a couple pounds of welding wire tonight working on the ledger brackets. Welder is now 100% functional and bullshit free, this thing is awesome. It just plain works and welds things I could barely touch with my last welder like they are nothing. ... I am drat near out of shielding gas at this point, but that's mostly because I had to turn the flow rate up a bit because I have a fan blowing from the open door so I can try to not get manganism at 35. Need to set up a fume extractor ASAP, this poo poo is for the birds. Will post pics of the brackets tomorrow when it gets light out. While all the welds are fine structurally, it is blatantly obvious which ones are from before I got the welder 100% fixed and dialed in 
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Sep 14, 2014 05:56
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Well I couldn't get good pics of the pieces before paint because my phone decided to go full android downs syndrome about focusing, but here the ledger brackets are painted.  And here's one installed!  (the other came out blurry as gently caress) Soon as I move the stack of new joists out of the way I can start hanging them. I put up enough brackets to get ~7-8 hung tomorrow if I get that far. GRK RSS fasteners rock and so does my new router, it made doing the slots for mounting the ledgers way easier the second time that the first time, when I tried doing it by hand with a chisel.
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Sep 15, 2014 02:41
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I was going to do all the joists tomorrow and go to sleep early tonight and then I got impatient. So I did half of them tonight.  I've had enough now as wrestling them into place (15'11" 2x12s in a room 15'4" wide... since they have to stick into the wall cavity on each end) alone is hard going, so time to pass the gently caress out and I will finish this up in the morning.
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Sep 15, 2014 05:52
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 Getting closer...    Even only screwed down with three or four GRK RSSes into the bottom of each joist, with absolutely no crossbracing installed yet, and the flooring being a sheet of 3/4 CDX thrown on the joists temporarily, it is stronger and less bouncy than the day I bought the place. Now that's what I call an improvement! I can't wait to see what it will be like when I am done with it.
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Sep 15, 2014 17:42
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After jumping up and down on the old floor.... I'm sure anything will be better.
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Sep 18, 2014 14:29
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Routers are the best. Set yourself up with a jig and you can do things amazingly quickly and accurately.
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Sep 19, 2014 09:21
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Hell yes they are! In this case I just needed "a notch the right depth with a flat bottom and sides within about 1/8 inch of where I intended them to be" so I just kinda went for it, plunging 1/8" at a time till I got a 1/2" notch. Working on the parents foundation again. Today was "remove old cast iron downspout sewer drains that haven't functioned or been legal in 30 years" day. So I went to town with the 8 pound hand sledge and angle grinder until they were gone and so were the giant runs of 3" cast iron pipe that connected them to the sewer. The basement seems much more… airy and open now. GOOD loving RIDDANCE,  Stuck it on the curb, listed on craigslist as free scrap metal, it was gone 30 minutes later and I keep seeing random ratty trucks (not as ratty as mine though!) drive by slowly even though I took the listing down the second the first scrapper showed up. Guess it's time to lock up tight for the night. Discovered some rot and insect damage in one of the sills (  ) where the drainpipe was damaged and plugged the worst so I'm awaiting my dad's decision on whether I just cover this up and pretend I saw nothing or dig in further and fix it all, risking cracking a bunch of plaster and drywall. Kinda hoping for the former to be perfectly honest...
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Sep 21, 2014 00:52
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Nothing of note on my house, but the parents foundation repairs are coming together nicely. Two of three problem spots are done except for minor non detailed pointing below ground level. The remaining one is still not touched... Time to get the structural steel and lally column ready to go for the issue with the cracked beam from the idiots knocking a hole in the foundation for heating system pipes.    Behold the worlds fanciest lally column baseplate.   We've been giving the hydro jack a couple pumps twice a day and it has already gone up about 3/4", 1/2-5/8" left to go. Some of the cracks in the wall of my old bedroom, the living room, and the front entryway are already closing up and the floor feels a hell of a lot more level and less bouncy. Funny how that happens when you actually support a wall 
kastein fucked around with this message at 14:04 on Sep 29, 2014 |
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Sep 29, 2014 13:59
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kastein posted:Some of the cracks in the wall of my old bedroom, the living room, and the front entryway are already closing up and the floor feels a hell of a lot more level and less bouncy. This is really cool and really terrifying in equal measure.
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Sep 29, 2014 19:28
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You would probably be horrified if you knew how your house is put together. I wouldn't be surprised if 50%+ of American homes have some significant structural deficiency caused by either idiot contractors repairing/upgrading the place, idiot contractors building it, or idiot homeowners repairing things.
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Sep 29, 2014 19:56
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Thanks to this thread and others like it, I frankly expect the worst at all times with regards to home construction/repair. It seems like anything done right is a sweet note in an otherwise rotten and festering symphony.
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Sep 29, 2014 20:06
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kastein posted:You would probably be horrified if you knew how your house is put together. I wouldn't be surprised if 50%+ of American homes have some significant structural deficiency caused by either idiot contractors repairing/upgrading the place, idiot contractors building it, or idiot homeowners repairing things. Previous owner of this house decided to move one of the support columns, so it would be better positioned for the bar he was building in the basement (out of unplaned lumber scraps). From the damage to the column I guess he hit at it with a hammer until it popped out, moved it over a foot and hammered it back in. Unsurprisingly the drywall in the corners of the doorways above has all cracked. It's on the list of things that really should get fixed.
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Sep 29, 2014 21:38
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Welp  The 12 ton bottle jack went through the cement floor in the basement today while we were pumping it up a little. Guess I was right when I said it sounded kinda hollow there Sunday after tapping it with a mallet... No loss, it is better that it broke through now rather than after cutting the lally column to length and putting it on top of the floor. Guess I am busting up a spot in the floor, compacting the soil, and putting down a support pad tomorrow. DAMMIT that is annoying. Guess it was too much to hope for.
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Sep 30, 2014 02:58
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Well. I busted up the cement floor and found two inches of air under the slab. Followed by very loose fill, a mix of clay and 3 to 8 inch stone. Every time I lifted a stone, I found another free air space under it. gently caress. A foot down I suddenly see a hole between two stones that I didn't create with my digging bar. Even worse.  Then I move a stone and...  (Dad inspecting the tunnel to China I've constructed in his basement.) loving... REALLY? Yeah there is a gap like that every foot. "Weeping tile" my rear end. Apparently in 1912 they didn't give a gently caress about erosion, proper compaction of fill, or structural air under basement floors. So they left a 1.5 inch gap and dumped a bigass rock over the top of each so the fill wouldn't (immediately) fall into the drat pipe. Oh well we are committed now, drat the torpedoes full speed ahead. Dug down 3 inches below the bottom of the clay pipe, removed one section. Found solid undisturbed soil, dug to a nice smooth bottom surface, compacted using the end of a 4x4.  Why so overboard? This has to hold and not sink. The drat clay pipe was directly under where the lally column would have landed. So we are making a roughly 16x20 footing with rebar in it below the pipe, a pvc pipe replacing the clay one, more rebar, then the top pad for the lally column and some spare space for the bottle jack to get it in place.  Forgot to get rebar chairs so I made the most blingin rebar chairs and tying of all time from 12ga copper wire that was lying around.  Tomorrow is concrete day. Got a couple bags of quikcrete 5000 for the actual footing and lovely yellow bag 4k psi concrete mix for repairing the floor around it.
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Oct 1, 2014 05:18
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After much discussion we decided how the footing was going to be done. Tic tac toe pattern of rebar an inch or so off the ground, PVC pipe through the footing instead of clay, 1 inch gap at each end to the clay pipe to drain water, another rebar set 4 inches below the floor, jammed as many big (washed) rocks from digging the hole in as possible to fill up volume. Took 3 bags of concrete. Leveled the top an inch or two below the floor, bedded a pair of bricks in it and leveled them to use as the base of the lally column support. Once it has cured tonight I will put another course of bricks down and redo the floor over the footing. Then it is back to jacking the house up again, I.e. where we were at Sunday night before the drat jack went through the floor. Shoddy construction pisses me off, but, welp, there's a chance the lally column would have cracked the floor without a huge load spreading plate anyways since I didn't realize the floor was only 2 inches thick. Better off this way. I am renting a rotary drum mixer if I ever have to mix concrete again. Would have taken 45 minutes less. 
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Oct 2, 2014 14:01
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Look upon my works, ye Finally got the lally column in and weight bearing. A little more floor patching to do where the bottle jack was in the way and it is DONE.  On to different and more rotten things. Yeah, this corner of the foundation is hosed too.  Alright, scratch that, this whole face of the foundation is hosed. Half those bricks are just sitting there, the other half are a mousefart from coming loose. Mortar? More like sand. And some of the bricks came from a bad batch and are turning to dust.  Where the gently caress did all this dirt come from?  Oh.  Time to get digging, I guess.  everyday I'm shovelin' Took about a yard of soil out before it was level again. Found that the two support posts to the small brick piers holding the outer side of the back entryway up are split, rotted, and OH YAY, THEY ARE CARPENTER ANT INFESTED. AND SO IS PART OF THE CORNER OF THE HOUSE. &%$=&$$%=$# We drove to a nearby construction site and they happily accepted our free yard of clean fill, since there was nowhere to put it and it wasn't going back down the holes. The brick piers need to be rebuilt (who knows how far down, they go well below ground and I am rather tempted to only fix them a few courses down) and the posts need to be replaced with pressure treated. Already bombed the ant nest and all entrances with permethrin, going to just let them die and pretend we saw nothing as this is NOT a project to dig into right now with winter fast approaching. Maybe next spring. Plan is to rent a concrete mixer, buy a dozen bags of quickcrete, and put 2-3 inches over the ground under the entryway so nothing can dig back up under there. After that, the entire foundation wall needs to be rebuilt. Then put new piers and pressure treated posts in, followed by pressure treated boards for skirting. This is why you should stay on top of repairs instead of waiting too long. If this had been tackled in say 2002 it would have been an afternoon repair job most likely.
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Oct 8, 2014 03:23
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Holy poo poo, Ken. I've helped my grandfather do stuff like this to his barn but never to an occupied house. Wizardry.
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Oct 8, 2014 03:35
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You are going to wind up doing a complete down-to-the-studs foundation-up resto of your parents house at the same time you are doing it to your own house, you know that right?
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Oct 8, 2014 07:32
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No loving way, they know exactly how long that takes and my mom would go insane if she was living in a gutted house for more than like a day  I've already done a ton of work on their house though, back when I was in college and high school. Rewired half the first floor since it was knob and tube and easily accessible, tore out plaster and put in drywall in the stairwell in college, did the whole wiring job on the garage in middle school, etc. They know I do not work on an accelerated schedule when it comes to house stuff as I prefer to think about each major step for a couple days to make sure I won't miss anything. Tonight assuming it isn't raining we will do the concrete pad under the entryway addition, now that it is leveled off and prepped.
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Oct 8, 2014 12:35
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Seriously, if we found our house with the issues that you or your parent's house had my wife would start weeping and I would be thinking about arson. You just roll up your sleeves and get stuff done, hats off to you.
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Oct 8, 2014 12:47
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tomapot posted:Seriously, if we found our house with the issues that you or your parent's house had my wife would start weeping and I would be thinking about arson. You just roll up your sleeves and get stuff done, hats off to you. I was thinking the same. Burn everything, buy a new house. I respect the amount of work you put in, man. I'd have no loving clue when it comes to this stuff.
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Oct 8, 2014 14:08
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I do wonder if an empty patch of land with utilities run to it would have been an easier proposition than your own personal DOOM HOUSE, reno/rebuild.
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Oct 8, 2014 15:36
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kastein posted:Maybe next spring. I am getting mixed messages. 
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Oct 8, 2014 15:47
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You are bloody amazing for taking this on while you have your own house to work on. I know, it is your parents place but it is still awesome of you. You are honestly an inspiration to keep going on the mildly annoying stuff to be done around our house. Thanks!
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Oct 8, 2014 15:51
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Apathy Inspired posted:You are bloody amazing for taking this on while you have your own house to work on. I know, it is your parents place but it is still awesome of you. Best Post / Forums Name combo.
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Oct 8, 2014 16:20
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Indolent Bastard posted:I do wonder if an empty patch of land with utilities run to it would have been an easier proposition than your own personal DOOM HOUSE, reno/rebuild. Can't live in it while (re)building it, need an architect, and it would have cost 10-30k more, even without foundation work done.
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Oct 8, 2014 16:22
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Alright time to get this poo poo moving  Came back from work and found that my dad had gone and bought 11 bags of quikcrete and rented a mixer at home depot. Well, I guess that means it is concretework time! Jammed a chunk of plywood in the only non-constrained edge of the pad hole, held it up with a few bricks jammed in place and a circus tent stake I found somewhere 20 years ago. Commenced mixing concrete and shoveling it under the entryway, then packing it down with the shovel. 10 bags later we were done and my arms were about to fall off. The remaining bag was already mixed, so it went in one of the holes I broke in a sidewalk while doing exterior foundation repairs. Figured it was better to use it up then waste it... This is no work of art, mostly because it was done with 2.5 feet of working room and the rest because it was done with a spade and a bricklayers trowel. gently caress it, it won't be visible anyways and it is certainly strong enough to keep vermin out.   That is all, more tomorrow I am sure.
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Oct 9, 2014 02:53
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Throw ten bags of river stone on it. That'll level it out.
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Oct 9, 2014 03:29
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Whoops  Tore down part of the outside wall, some of the bricks fell the gently caress apart, one broke in half when I punched it to knock the mortar loose. Probably going to recommend all new brick for this corner, it's toast. Washed the old mortar off and going to put some of it back up tonight. e: structural air and structural greatstuff are my dad's work NOT mine. He didn't realize the wall was in this bad condition and just wanted the draft to go away. kastein fucked around with this message at 16:38 on Oct 15, 2014 |
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Oct 15, 2014 16:34
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Same corner as of tonight. Didn't get much done as I seem to be coming down with a nasty respiratory infection or flu. More tomorrow (unless it's pouring rain) - especially now that I have that gap in the corner bridged over. I want to get the outer wall here all the way up to the sill beam before I dig into that because it may or may not cease to be structural in the process, so I propped the bricks up in the right spots instead of filling in under them.
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Oct 16, 2014 03:41
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What did you use to learn to mortar and point your brickwork? It looks really good.
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Oct 16, 2014 03:54
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Scroll back a couple pages to where I said I was starting to work on my parents place instead of mine. There, you're looking at my practicing e: this post right here http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3478212&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=13#post433611770 I'm incredibly OCD about design/construction and most of the last section actually looks butt ugly to me compared to the other portions I've posted pictures of. Fortunately, it's under the back entryway and will never be visible again after the skirting is put up once more, so it doesn't really matter. All it really comes down to is persistence and refusing to stop loving with it until it looks exactly how I want it to. kastein fucked around with this message at 04:22 on Oct 16, 2014 |
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Oct 16, 2014 04:05
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gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress GOD drat IT Tore out one of the support posts and discovered that the 6x8 sill beam it supported is 25% wood, 75% carpenter ants. GOD drat IT This is doing NOTHING to convince me that buying anything other than a fixer upper toilet-house is a wise financial decision. At least I only paid $38k for mine, and knew exactly what I was getting into. 
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Oct 17, 2014 22:06
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| # ? Apr 20, 2024 00:32 |
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Holy poo poo dude. You do realize you'd be better off living in the remnants and constructing a crazy zombie fort or hand built castle at this point with the sheer amount of sweat equity you've been putting in.
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Oct 17, 2014 22:23
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