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Someone feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe that in particular is a bit scarier looking than it really is. The ridge board (not a ridge beam) isn't structural and serves more as a thing to nail the rafters to keep them straight and aligned. What you worry about with rafters pulling from the ridge is if they are moving laterally outward due to the load of the roof pushing out on the walls. I don't think that's happening here as I don't have any of obvious signs that the walls are moving, but it's still possible. I need to get to look at the rafter to wall top plate joint to see what's really happening. As to how to fix it... I'm planning on sistering rafters that are damaged or crappy wood and adding collar ties. The joint should have done vertical support, but I don't know how to accomplish that yet. It needs to transfer the roof load to a load-bearing wall, the closest of which is about 6 or 7 feet away. The ceiling rafters are way undersized to carry any load like that. I may need to build a small wall that will span over the two loading bearing walls and then add some vertical support to transfer through that. Really the structural engineer should have told me, but he didn't, so that's why I want him to come back. I'm going to head to the city building department for permits and hopefully they can advise too.
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Nov 3, 2014 14:37
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How on earth did this house pass inspection?
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Nov 9, 2014 01:59
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lovely inspector and a lot of problems being in areas that are not easily accessible. I had to bring up some plywood to lay across the ceiling joists to get a look at the rafters, and a lot of the issues in the crawlspace are in areas far from the access door that take about 5 mins to crawl to. Not much new to report, I've been in and out of town for residency interviews. Working on getting some vapor barrier down on the dirt of the crawlspace and cleaning out more debris (about a full 32 gallon trash can of junk so far) so it's easier to work down there.
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Nov 9, 2014 03:26
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Laminator posted:Not much new to report, I've been in and out of town for residency interviews. You're supposed to buy the house after the match, dummy. Seriously, though, are you applying to a tight geographical area, or are you going to abandon the dream of home ownership on June 30?
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Nov 9, 2014 17:11
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Rockis Dukakis posted:You're supposed to buy the house after the match, dummy. Seriously, though, are you applying to a tight geographical area, or are you going to abandon the dream of home ownership on June 30? Not sure yet. I'm couples matching and we've applied all over the county, so it depends on how that all works out. Probably the most prohibitive area for real estate we've applied to is San Francisco, but that's not looking promising so far. I think I'll see how I feel in March after I find out where we match, and how frustrated I get with this house.
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Nov 9, 2014 21:16
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Laminator posted:Not sure yet. I'm couples matching and we've applied all over the county, so it depends on how that all works out. Probably the most prohibitive area for real estate we've applied to is San Francisco, but that's not looking promising so far. Good luck, man. The match is a stupid, stupid way to get a job. But, what can you but play the game. Anyway, I digress. Enjoy the house. I would have loved to have a house to gently caress around with in medical school. That framing looks scary as hell, but it sounds like you have the energy to tear that place apart.
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Nov 11, 2014 00:22
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Rockis Dukakis posted:Good luck, man. The match is a stupid, stupid way to get a job. But, what can you but play the game. Anyway, I digress. Enjoy the house. I would have loved to have a house to gently caress around with in medical school. That framing looks scary as hell, but it sounds like you have the energy to tear that place apart. Thanks, I appreciate it! What speciality are you in? Your name doesn't seem familiar to me from the med school/residency threads. Some progress made today. Finished clearing out the random pieces of broken concrete, scrap wood, old tiles, pipe, nails, screws, and god knows what else out of the crawlspace and then laid down lots of 6 mil vapor barrier. Thankfully part of the crawlspace had some vapor barrier down, so it saved me some time. It's SO much easier to get around now... I removed about 400-500 lbs of poo poo over the past few days plus all the old iron pipe, old gas furnace, and metal ducting. With the vapor barrier down it's now like a giant slip-n-slide, I can just get on my back and shimmy anywhere I need to go. Way easier than having to crawl through the dirt. Cold weather moving in this evening, got the crawlspace vents closed off with some foam board behind them, covered the exterior faucets. Tomorrow I'm going to finish insulating the pipes and Great Stuff lots of random holes and cracks around the place.
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Nov 11, 2014 05:05
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I'm in emergency medicine. I haven't posted in those forums since I was applying to medical school 7 years ago.
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Nov 12, 2014 00:41
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Laminator posted:lovely inspector and a lot of problems being in areas that are not easily accessible.
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Nov 13, 2014 04:17
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That's what I have come to find during this whole ordeal. While some home inspectors are really good, it appears a lot of them just take a weekend course and get a flashlight and go to town. The whole lack of accountability and ease with how contractors/construction people can get away with really terrible things has been a consistent theme when reading and trying to learn about houses. I mean the entire Holmes television series are based on that simple fact of contractors taking advantage of people, sometimes repeatedly, often with no repercussion whatsoever. Coming from the highly regulated and litigious-conscious profession of medicine I don't understand how something so universal as construction of residential structures isn't better regulated. It's cold here. I think it may be too cold currently for Great Stuff foam to expand and set, but I may bring a space heater down to the crawlspace to get some gaps filled up. I'm trying to make that area as comfortable as possible so working on the joists will be more pleasant/less terrible
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Nov 13, 2014 04:30
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Yep. The difference is, unfortunately, coming from medicine on the spectrum of "professionals" you are on the extreme end of it along with Professional Engineers, Lawyers and a few others. Serious requirements for admittance, serious regulation, serious ramifications if you gently caress up. People can die or at the very least lose poo poo ton of money/a way of life. Others don't play by those rules, which is bullshit when you are talking about making quite possibly the biggest financial decisions in your life based on what they say. When we bought our first house 15 years ago, I hired an inspector and their service contract basically exonerated them of anything except taking your money.
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Nov 13, 2014 05:23
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Yeah, it's a poo poo sandwich. I've known friends to have good luck with calling up the actual city/county code inspectors and asking them who they'd trust to actually inspect a building and find problems. They can generally give a couple recommendations.
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Nov 14, 2014 14:39
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I've been doing stuff, just busy and in and out of town. Today was a "learn the difference between lime mortar and Portland cement mortars" because of course I can't just repair one thing at a time...
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Nov 26, 2014 00:37
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Literally no place in town has lime mortar. I did manage to find a bag of hydrated lime and have sand so I may try and make my own.
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Nov 26, 2014 18:50
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 So I've been spending a lot of time in and around the crawlspace. I posted that I cleaned it out, laid 6 mil vapor barrier, and insulated the pipes (foam pipe insulation is the nastiest poo poo). I also got some pink foam board and a few cans of Great Stuff and sealed off the vents and filled in lots of assorted gaps in the floor.  Moving on to the crawlspace entrance, there were several issues. The crawlspace was below grade by about 2" meaning that with a good rain water would get into the crawlspace floor. It hadn't caused any water damage issues, but the soil near the door definitely was moister than elsewhere in the crawlspace. The "door" was also an old piece of PT plywood held on by 4 screws, making it a pain to open and close. The old linter/header was an old piece of non-PT wood and instead of the previous builders actually providing support to the bricks above, they just decided to fill that gap with mortar mixed with wood shim bits. It's not actually bowed, it just looks like that in the pic for some reason.  The crawlspace access door is, of course, under here meaning an awkward crawl in and out to get access, but that's an easy enough fix...  You can also see here that I removed the old studs around the crawlspace and dug out the soil to see what was underneath. There was 2 layers of bricks without mortar a few inches under the soil, and then under that was the old concrete foundation. I decided to pour a little concrete slab that would go about 2" above grade and serve as a threshold, so I laid a layer of pea gravel, compacted it with a board and hammer, and then put in some 2x6 forms. I of course decided to do this the day my car was getting its central differential replaced under warranty, so by the time I got my car back in the evening I ran to Lowe's and got a few bags of concrete, mixed them, and poured them in... only to find I needed more. Ran back and got a few more bags, mixed them, poured, screeded ,and troweled. Of course it rained that evening so I had to staple up some plastic sheeting to keep it covered. Let it cure for a few days as I went out of town. I was using some PT 2x6s for re-frame the crawlspace door, and after I put in some shims in to level out the header I noticed that there were some cracks in the mortar around entrance. Of course I can't just work on one thing at a time, so I got a masonry chisel and went to town. A few hours later lots of lovely mortar repair and old lime mortar had been scraped out. I've spent more than a few hours trying to figure out where I can get lime mortar, went to several brick/masonry and building supple places and they all just gave me blank stares. One guy said he had never seen it used and that no one knows how to make it anymore. Whatever. I grabbed a bag of hydrated lime and will make some new lime mortar, but it needs a week to create the lime putty and I'm going out of town on Saturday and want to get this drat thing covered up. I grabbed a bag of mortar that SAYS its lime, sand, and some Portland, but I'm not too concerned about these bricks spauling since they're pretty hard and a lot of the repairs have been done with Portland-based mortar. I can always replace this later, too.  Half-way through re-pointing. My first batch of mortar was too dry and clumpy because I was afraid to put too much water it in. My next two batches were better and easier to work with. Took me about 2 hours to repoint all of this, went nice and slow and built up layers of pointing since some of these gaps were quite deep.  As it looks now. Not quite kastein levels of masonry, but I'm pretty happy for my first time. Still lots to work on but it was getting dark and I need to rest for a bit. I'm driving for Uber and using the funds to help support my traveling and home improvement projects. Guaranteed rates of $25/hr tonight, so I'm hoping to pull at least  x10. Thankfully the weather has been cooperating and its been in the 50s. I set up a halogen lamp and tarp over the mortar just to be safe. Going to get up tomorrow and try to mortar some more joints and then hopefully get the crawlspace framed out and door installed. I've already got a piece of PT plywood primed and painted and painted some T hinges and latch hardware.
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Nov 27, 2014 01:35
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Did you use the tool to smooth those joints or a piece of copper or something? They look good.
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Nov 29, 2014 06:38
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Jared592 posted:Did you use the tool to smooth those joints or a piece of copper or something? They look good. I think a Latex or Nitrile glove borrowed from school. I also borrow things from work.
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Nov 29, 2014 07:52
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Jared592 posted:Did you use the tool to smooth those joints or a piece of copper or something? They look good. Yup, press the mortar in with a thin pointing trowel and pack the joint full or overfill. Then you wait for the mortar to become" thumbprint hard" and then tool the joint with a jointer, giving you nice concave mortar.  Crawlspace door in. Or at least a prototype... Forgive my sloppy cuts, that's what you get for rushing. Going to redo the plywood when I get a chance, but it's better than what was there before. Heading out of town for about 10 days. Bonus Francine stump tail lap cat 
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Nov 29, 2014 16:28
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I'm suddenly feeling both trepidation and pride that our 1920's kit house isn't having as many issues as yours is (and that we're missing them all because I have been avoiding doing things like staring too long at the mortar joints, lest I notice more things that cost too much to fix). You're doing a good thing, man. Even if you sell the house tomorrow and move across the country you've just made it easier for the next poor sap to properly fix the house.
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Dec 31, 2014 21:17
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Thanks for the kind words. I feel pretty useless on the home repair front right now, that whole 10 day travel plan turned into 20 days, and then when I got back home I was so exhausted (and 5 lbs heavier) that I had no motivation to do anything. Then of course it was the holidays and I spent a lot of time driving or spending time with family, so even more time away from the house. This is my first project thread and I really understand now when people say that "life gets in the way." Anyway, this month isn't looking much better - at least for the next 2 weeks. I was just gone for 3 days on an interview to Tucson, got home last night at 10pm, and now have to leave in a few hours to drive to Kansas City, and then spend a week in Boston/NH next week. And then have to go to Cleveland after that. And then go to Japan for a month in February. I am so god drat sick of driving and flying. Sylvia cat tax for your time 
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Jan 7, 2015 15:51
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Wow, you in sales or something? That's a ton of travel.
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Jan 11, 2015 20:40
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That actually looks pretty good, I like it. The rest of the house though... GOD drat, DUDE. Whoever did the framing carpentry for your roof ought to be hung, then shot. Then hung again.
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Jan 14, 2015 23:18
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Jared592 posted:Wow, you in sales or something? That's a ton of travel. Medical school. I guess you could say I'm trying to sell myself for residency. Kastein, your comment made me go back and look at my pictures of the roof again. I've been away for so long that I forgot how bad it actually is 
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Jan 15, 2015 08:48
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Having a blast back at home Fiancé mentioned that she heard a dripping noise when doing laundry. Hot water hose stripped the threading on the intake valve and was dripping for what looks like a good while, there's some blackening of the oak floors and some peeling paint on the baseboard.  Part costs $50 and the local places don't have it, so this is a new project on hold for the next few days. I vented some frustration by turning a small concrete slab into a pile of crushed gravel. Revealed some mortar work that needs to be done. Weather was in the 70s today so hopefully I'll be able to get to that later this week.  Please get me out of this state.  Out of town again for the night, will have a few days at home later this week to get some work done.
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Jan 19, 2015 00:39
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There's even a faded version spelled correctly!
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Jan 19, 2015 00:59
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Holy poo poo this thread is incredible, please keep updating. Also, it's really great that Motronic (and others) told you your garage was more or less burn-down bad and you about-faced immediately and went from talking about it in terms of restoration to talking about it in terms of propping it up until you can knock it over in one post. Humility is refreshing. I'm really excited about the direction this thread is going.
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Jan 21, 2015 00:12
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o hai thread a ha ha I'm still alive, got back to the US 3 days ago. Took over 72 hours to get in to the States from Toronto as DFW decided they couldn't manage the "snow storm" that hit their shithole of a city. After a mid-day flight delay with Air Canada lying to me about Delta making mistakes, I managed to hobble back to the Midwest (South? I dunno I think it's the Midwest), but our baggage didn't arrive until today. I was doing a load of clothes in the washer and before the spin cycle I heard a wonderful grinding noise - now the agitator won't spin even though I can hear the motor spinning. Probably a broken coupler. The house is still standing. My crawlspace work seems to have done some good, my fiancé's sister's pipes froze last week but our place had no issues.
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Mar 4, 2015 08:36
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oh hai denny Nice, it's always good to come home and find the place in the same condition you left it. I came home from work last week and one of the supply lines on my washer had frozen and sprung a leak (just walked in the door and heard *pssshhhhhhh*). What's lucky/dumb is that the washer/dryer are in this crappy, un-insulated, not-at-all-to-code add-on on the back of the house, so while it's good the actual house was never in danger of having any kind of serious water damage, it wouldn't have happened in the first place if it wasn't in a crappy un-insulated add-on. One of my uncles runs a fire and water damage remediation company and has said that people could avoid so much trouble/expense if they just got in the habit of turning off their main water supply line before going away on vacation/an extended amount of time. Not bad advice I think if you don't have pets/someone house-sitting.
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Mar 6, 2015 02:43
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Laminator posted:o hai thread Why you got to hate on DFW? Getting 6in in a place where there are no snow plows makes it hard to mange the "snow storm" They were clearing the runways with wheel loaders.
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Mar 6, 2015 19:56
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JEEVES420 posted:Why you got to hate on DFW? Getting 6in in a place where there are no snow plows makes it hard to mange the "snow storm" They were clearing the runways with wheel loaders. *Throws some sand down* We're good to go guys! source: grew up in dfw
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Mar 6, 2015 22:23
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 Hey there again, thread. It took over a week for one of my washer parts to come in, so I finally got that drat thing fixed. Washing machines are pretty drat easy to service, with the most complicated part replacement taking maybe an hour if you figure it out as you go. Last year the water pump developed a little aneurysm that popped and bled water out, $15 part replacement and good to go.  This time the coupler shred itself to pieces, which again is pretty common. The led to the motor not being coupled to the transmission, so no agitation or spin cycle causing some seriously wet pants. I was also concerned that the clutch may have broken so I ordered one of those too, but it looked fine and was more of a job than I wanted to tackle at 10:30 pm when I was doing this. So, in that image above you can see the electric motor on the right with the paper on the bottom, the transmission on the left, and the plastic and rubber coupler in the middle. If you're really interested, you can watch this cool dude service this washer in this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MYB5x-IqtIM I'm going over this because if your washer or dryer breaks, google the symptoms and you're bound to find what's wrong and how to fix it. As long as you're willing to fix it yourself you can save some $$$ on appliance repairs. It's easy!  Anyway, old and busted at the top, new hotness at the bottom. (yes, nitriles were necessary. washing machines are gross) I also replaced the intake valve unit because I cross threaded the hot water intake like a big dummy and it was leaking. Also upgraded the hoses to braided stainless because interestingly the rubber hoses are supposed to be replaced every few years. In other news, I found out on Monday that I successfully matched into residency, and since I didn't rank any programs in Oklahoma, I am definitely moving out of the state in the next few months. This kind of lit a fire with regards to working on the house because now it's REAL that I'm moving. I've been working on the deck since 1) the weather has been fantastic, and 2) myself and the fiancee would like to actually use the deck with the time we have left here. I've been pulling boards and trying to salvage what I can to reuse materials. It's been hard because the nails that were used to hold the boards down have been tearing the boards apart because they were driven so deeply. I've basically been only focusing on saving the longest boards, with the hope that I can flip them and they'll look acceptable.  Pulled lots of nails. Lots and lots of nails.  Got to the "ledger board" yesterday. No flashing, lots of debris between the board and wall. You can also see some booboos that the builders made  And some interesting leftovers (non-functioning spigot. They placed Pex in the crawlspace, too, but then never connected it to the water. And I guess just decided it was easier to leave in the wall and cut a big hole in the board. This is placed underneath a door)  Same area as the spigot, looking down. You can see a large lag right in the middle, sandwiching the brick veneer between two PT 2x8s, with the inner board not connected to the structure of the house. I think there are less than a dozen lags even holding the ledger to the wall. That gap closer to the door goes directly into the crawlspace, just atop the sill plate and edges of joists. Water has been free to get in this whole time with only a deck board covering this area. Thankfully the gutters have been keeping the area around the house dry.  Here's my trash pile. All that metal came out of the crawlspace and includes about 100' of steel gas pipe, an old gas heater that was left abandoned in the middle of the crawlspace (that was real fun to cut up with the sawzall), and random pieces of sheet metal, old wiring. There's also some old lead pipes, which are really cool to take and hit stuff with because it just make a dull thud and then bends. Trying to decide whether it's worth it to scrap or just put out on big trash day. Plan is to get the deck joists out and get post holes dug in the next few days, but it's currently raining. Guess that means I need to work in the crawlspace on joists... Laminator fucked around with this message at 14:28 on Mar 18, 2015 |
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Mar 18, 2015 14:25
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Found out where I matched yesterday, I'll be moving to Austin, TX in the next few months. Pretty excited to move to such an awesome city. Deck boards removed. Saved a decent number, hopefully I'll be able to reuse them. Removing these joists was a good stretch for the legs.  loving Oklahoma clay soil, this poo poo is like red-brown glue. It's pretty awful to walk around in.  gently caress that deck. So, some fine things. The rim band joists were lag screwed into the 4x4 posts, but some were driven below the surface of the wood so I had to pound my ratchet extension and socket into the wood to get a good grip and pull them out. The stairs also had a concrete "pad," which I was not aware of, mostly because it looks like someone just poured some concrete on the ground and then set the stair stringers on them. More concrete to remove. Hooray. The grading of the soil under the deck is pretty bad. It's angled toward the house nearly everywhere, helping to explain why it's such a mud pit. I think I want a professional to grade this for me (mostly because I don't want to deal with moving a bunch of awful clay by myself), so I'll have to find someone to take a look.  My own personal lumberyard.
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Mar 22, 2015 00:49
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Good luck re-grading any of that until it dries out... good luck with it drying out. You're doing great work though, man. What a job. I hope you get the value of your work back on this house when you move!
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Mar 22, 2015 05:54
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Sorry no updates as of late, I've been doing stuff but not taking as many pics. Pulled the ledger board off the house, which was hilarious as it was attached by 8 lag screws straight through the brick and 3 concrete anchors. As soon as I pulled the board off the wall, I was witness to about a billion ants scurrying for cover to no avail as I rained down pesticide on them. That's why flashing is important, I guess. Been doing a lot of repointing since the brickwork was exposed. Slow-going since a lot of it was covered up by lovely repairs, so it takes double time to chisel the old stuff out and then build the mortar back up. I'm a lot faster than when I started, though. I've discovered that all of the brick facade that was added by the flippers was completely half-assed. They only filled the joints in the first 1/3 of the brick so it appears that bricks are joined, but they really aren't! Fantastic!  For example, this is on the vertical soldiers that are under the french doors on the rear of the house. After I pulled the ledger board down, I saw that a lot of the mortar work was cracked and failing already. I chipped off the superficial mortar (i.e. all of the mortar) and there was nothing underneath it. You can see on the vertical joint that it's basically empty. All of that brickwork needs to be taken down and re-done, which shouldn't be too much work but is a pain given that I have other poo poo I need to do.
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Apr 8, 2015 04:18
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 here's what I have repointed to far (notice the giant blob of mortar in the middle, that's where a concrete anchor holding the ledger board was. it completely fractured the brick around it.)  decided to start on this tonight  old mortar mostly came out without even using the hammer, just the chisel. looking good so far  oh
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Apr 10, 2015 04:26
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 okay whatever (got to fiancee to help me, she chiseled out old mortar and I pointed sections behind her. nice and efficient)  uhhhhhhhhhhh this took about 5 minutes to do. So poorly constructed, less than 4 years old  Here's a great shot of how shoddily these bricks have been repointed over the years. You can see the thin band of newer mortar toward the face of the brick, and then all the old lime mortar that has completely turned to sand behind it. This is how the bricks are - poorly repaired, or shedding old mortar. This is turning out to take longer than I thought
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Apr 11, 2015 01:26
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drat man, nice job on the repoint though.
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Apr 11, 2015 21:34
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 ugh
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Apr 12, 2015 04:08
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God drat, man. At that point I would probably have given up and moved on to something more interesting and fruitful, like watching paint dry. You are a home-improvement HERO.
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Apr 13, 2015 01:28
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I am sick of bricks  Made an error, I was one brick short because my mortar joints were smaller than the original. Can you spot the extra brick?
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Apr 13, 2015 04:35
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