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Nov 23, 2008
You ever think about how it would have been quicker, simpler and maybe cheaper to tear it all down and rebuild?

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kastein
Aug 31, 2011

Moderator at http://www.ridgelineownersclub.com/forums/and soon to be mod of AI. MAKE AI GREAT AGAIN. Motronic for VP.
All the time. Especially when I find some new fuckery or get discouraged.

That being said -
- I've been living here since June of 2011. At about $800/mo average apartment rent here, I've saved ~$48k on rent. If I bulldozed it and started from scratch, I couldn't live in it while working on it easily.
- I didn't have to hire an architect. Unsure what that saved me, but probably high four figures to low five figures.
- I didn't have to demo the foundation ($$$ paying someone) and pour a new one. Probably high four figures to low five figures here, too. While I would love to have a modern poured concrete foundation, this one's reasonably serviceable.
- probably saved a few thousand dollars on framing lumber, too, but that's in the noise compared to the rest of these.

If I ever build again, I'll be building from scratch, no question about it. I'll also change some things. Next time, it'll be on at least 100 acres, there will be a garage/shop from the very beginning, it'll be earth sheltered to save on heating costs, and it'll be all concrete and structural steel, with a standing-seam metal roof on the exposed portion, super wide eaves to keep water off the walls, stone/brick exterior construction, and all vinyl windows/doors. I don't want to ever fix rotten things again. I've done quite enough of that for several lifetimes.

kastein
Aug 31, 2011

Moderator at http://www.ridgelineownersclub.com/forums/and soon to be mod of AI. MAKE AI GREAT AGAIN. Motronic for VP.
Slowly but surely I'm making my way across the kitchen, ripping up old flooring and subflooring and replacing it with new.

Third 4x8 glued and screwed:


Since some numbskull cut that joist, I trimmed it back till I had a square end to work with and then did this. 6" 5/16 diameter GRK RSS screws (3 of them) through each flanking joist into the ends of the cross-joist, then 3 into the end of the cut off joist and 3 into the extension for it. The extension's only sitting on top of the foundation since there is plumbing in the way of reaching the sill still, but it's better than it was and will be under cabinetry anyways.


Surprise! Turns out the kitchen and dining room floor joists are 2x8 true dimensional oak, not softwood. Yay!


Tore another 4x8 area of old flooring up last night and got the nails pulled, all I have to do tonight to replace it is vac the joists off, and install. Temporary piece of ply laid down so we don't have to levitate across the kitchen to get to the bathroom.


That's all till tonight when I get home probably.

MrYenko
Jun 18, 2012

#2 isn't ALWAYS bad...

As a Florida native accustomed to houses built directly on concrete slabs, essentially every picture of the inside of your house is a cross between a treehouse and a nightmare, to me.

TooMuchAbstraction
Oct 14, 2012

I spent four years making
Waves of Steel
Hell yes I'm going to turn my avatar into an ad for it.
Fun Shoe

MrYenko posted:

As a Florida native accustomed to houses built directly on concrete slabs, essentially every picture of the inside of your house is a cross between a treehouse and a nightmare, to me.

Are Florida homes all only one story as well? Or do you have an elevated slab for the second floor? :v:

Splizwarf
Jun 15, 2007
It's like there's a soup can in front of me!
Second floor? Oh, you mean a 'hurricane snack'.

MrYenko
Jun 18, 2012

#2 isn't ALWAYS bad...

2nd floors in single family homes are a bit rarer, but certainly not unheard of. Both the two-story townhouse I lived in for three years previously, and the weird apartment/townhouse hybrid I currently live in have solid concrete slab second floors.

The house I grew up in was 100% masonry block, with no non-load bearing walls. I still find northern wooden houses to be creepy as gently caress. Floors shouldn't move when you walk on them, and they sure as gently caress shouldn't make any noise.

TehRedWheelbarrow
Mar 16, 2011



Fan of Britches

TooMuchAbstraction posted:

Are Florida homes all only one story as well? Or do you have an elevated slab for the second floor? :v:

I have a 2 story in FL, pretty much everything above the first floor is usually wood, concrete or masonry on the first floor because swampy termiteland unless you have an old house like a friend of mine where its all wood and the land slowly begins to absorb it.

kastein
Aug 31, 2011

Moderator at http://www.ridgelineownersclub.com/forums/and soon to be mod of AI. MAKE AI GREAT AGAIN. Motronic for VP.
Stove is temporarily hooked up. Local fellow AI goon gave me his old electric range (it was about to be scrapped anyways) to use till the rest of the kitchen is ready. The oven element is burned out but a new one is on the way for $18.

Can't wait to cook like a real person again.

kastein
Aug 31, 2011

Moderator at http://www.ridgelineownersclub.com/forums/and soon to be mod of AI. MAKE AI GREAT AGAIN. Motronic for VP.
Found this in the debris outside the kitchen window while we were sorting the broken glass from the scrap wood and the debris that will go straight into the bagster.


The house has had a waterproof roof since spring 2011. STILL finding the occasional wet spot between pieces of timber. Replace your roof when it needs it or your house will end up like mine was when I bought it.


Six sheets of subflooring down in the kitchen. Four left to go, only one complete, the rest annoying little strips and sections to fill in around the edges.


Weekend before this one was shot to hell by me running my daily driver beatermobile out of oil and spinning a rod bearing, then having to do an emergency weekend engine replacement, so I haven't made anywhere near as much house progress as I wanted to. The replacement engine (from a junkyard) ALSO has a bad rod bearing, just not as bad as the one I wrote off, so I'll likely have to do it again sometime in the next few weeks to claim my engine warranty, or if the junkyard is reasonable about it, just get a new engine from them and put it in whenever this one gets bad. Damnit, I have poo poo to do, why do I have to make stupid mistakes like that?

kastein
Aug 31, 2011

Moderator at http://www.ridgelineownersclub.com/forums/and soon to be mod of AI. MAKE AI GREAT AGAIN. Motronic for VP.
Some jackass stole my wall! This is the first one I ever did. I framed it like the rest of the house, AKA wrong. Then we decided that since the living room is going to have a big patio door there is no reason to have a door here too, and we'd rather have more counter space and a window. So it was time to tear it back out and redo it properly... with 2x6 framing this time because why the hell not?


New wall going together. All 2x6 with 3.5" structural screws instead of nails


New wall ready, I won't put the window opening or jack/cripple studs (or the rest of the fabricated cornerpost) in till it is jacked into place, as I can get the window sill and header perfectly level that way.


My girlfriend got a rare action shot of the wall about to go into the house:


High Lift jacks are good for things other than jacking up jeeps:


Done! Window goes in today after a Home Depot run.

dreesemonkey
May 14, 2008
Pillbug

kastein posted:

My girlfriend got a rare action shot of the wall about to go into the house:



Haha, kastein beast mode. Nice!

Should you have built a header over that window, or is that somewhat negated being a 2x6 wall?

kastein
Aug 31, 2011

Moderator at http://www.ridgelineownersclub.com/forums/and soon to be mod of AI. MAKE AI GREAT AGAIN. Motronic for VP.
It's a non weight bearing wall, so really not needed unless I felt like it.

dreesemonkey
May 14, 2008
Pillbug

kastein posted:

It's a non weight bearing wall, so really not needed unless I felt like it.

Gotcha, I just assumed it was load bearing since it was an outside wall. I guess I could have seen that from the way the 2nd floor joists were running. Carry on :)

kastein
Aug 31, 2011

Moderator at http://www.ridgelineownersclub.com/forums/and soon to be mod of AI. MAKE AI GREAT AGAIN. Motronic for VP.

dreesemonkey posted:

Gotcha, I just assumed it was load bearing since it was an outside wall. I guess I could have seen that from the way the 2nd floor joists were running. Carry on :)

The walls parallel to the joists actually do carry weight - the weight of the roof! This particular wall is an odd case though. The big fat stud on the right in the interior shot is the end of the weight bearing wall, as are the studs near the yellow steel pipe on the left. There is a pair of 2x8s sistered together (sorta... loving PO) that carry the load over the kitchen. Originally there was a little flat metal roof sticking a few feet out from there at first floor ceiling level, and the second floor exterior wall stood over the sistered joists.

I decided little flat leaky metal roofs are horseshit, especially when the second floor is a half-floor (kneewalls) anyways, so I extended the main roof down and out and the outer wall (above the one just replaced) up to meet it. Simpler and less prone to leaks, requires less siding, and probably easier to insulate.

So this exterior wall is actually completely non load bearing.

Liquid Communism
Mar 9, 2004


Out here, everything hurts.




Seems like the perfect point to put in a real stove hood while you're at it, and vent it outside.

kastein
Aug 31, 2011

Moderator at http://www.ridgelineownersclub.com/forums/and soon to be mod of AI. MAKE AI GREAT AGAIN. Motronic for VP.
It's in the list of things we might do. I have selected a spot for the duct to exit the wall that will work well and marked it with orange paint so it won't be occupied by wiring, but we haven't done the final kitchen layout yet.

Splizwarf
Jun 15, 2007
It's like there's a soup can in front of me!
Oh jesus, he's moved into Round Two of tear out and replace.

Fifty years from now that house will be an enormous lumbering beast powered by old 4.0s that endlessly roams the New England hinterlands in search of a mate. Travelers will whisper tales of a moving lighthouse spotted out in the fogs, accompanied by vague impressions of metallic squeals and rhythmic crunching. Bits of RVs and twists of romex will sometimes be found at the center of inexplicable clearings in the deep woods, deposited in sticky caches beneath the loam.

SuperDucky
May 13, 2007

by exmarx
Ken, I just wanna be able to frame in the carport thats attached to the house I'm inheriting in a bit. I wish you'd quit making me look bad but I'm glad you're making progress!

Alarbus
Mar 31, 2010

Splizwarf posted:

Oh jesus, he's moved into Round Two of tear out and replace.

Fifty years from now that house will be an enormous lumbering beast powered by old 4.0s that endlessly roams the New England hinterlands in search of a mate. Travelers will whisper tales of a moving lighthouse spotted out in the fogs, accompanied by vague impressions of metallic squeals and rhythmic crunching. Bits of RVs and twists of romex will sometimes be found at the center of inexplicable clearings in the deep woods, deposited in sticky caches beneath the loam.

So basically the AI version of Baba Yaga's house. Sounds about right.

kastein
Aug 31, 2011

Moderator at http://www.ridgelineownersclub.com/forums/and soon to be mod of AI. MAKE AI GREAT AGAIN. Motronic for VP.

SuperDucky posted:

Ken, I just wanna be able to frame in the carport thats attached to the house I'm inheriting in a bit. I wish you'd quit making me look bad but I'm glad you're making progress!

A few things -
Measure thrice, cut twice
Get a laser level, worth their weight in gold
Use pressure treated for anything that touches the ground or concrete
Pressure treated sheathing also isn't the worst idea. Especially for the first course that can get some splashback from water hitting the ground, which leads me to:
Make sure you make an adequate foundation for your walls that is tall enough to keep rain splashback and snowmelt from snowbanks from soaking your handiwork regularly


Other than that it is pretty easy.

As for 4.0s, they are crummy for building but make great jackstands for parting out jeeps.

E: also this happened last night


Did a good enough job leveling the RO sill that my leveling shims were a pair of chunks of 1/4" plywood :smug:

kastein fucked around with this message at 13:37 on May 16, 2016

kastein
Aug 31, 2011

Moderator at http://www.ridgelineownersclub.com/forums/and soon to be mod of AI. MAKE AI GREAT AGAIN. Motronic for VP.
No serious house repairs done, just cleaned up a lot. The living room (long a dumping ground for stacks of tools, materials, and moving boxes, which get frantically shuffled out of the way every time I have to do some sort of horrible structural work adjacent to that room, and coated heavily with plaster and wood dust every time I do demolition or construction) got cleaned up a lot and organized some. You can walk across it now without being a telekinetic contortionist.

kastein
Aug 31, 2011

Moderator at http://www.ridgelineownersclub.com/forums/and soon to be mod of AI. MAKE AI GREAT AGAIN. Motronic for VP.
Made some actual progress this weekend, though 3/4 of my 4-day weekend was dedicated to fixing my stupid cars (again.)

Sunday morning I finally gave away the XJ auto trans I've had sitting in my kitchen since 2012. As such, there was no real reason not to finish tearing out the old flooring, since it was holding down the floor in the last un-gutted corner.

Tore up the flooring, next layer of flooring, and subflooring, and found... a rotted joist top! Yay.

This is after debriding the rotten wood with a knotted wire wheel on an angle grinder. The consensus among the many home improvement sorts who are on my facebook friends list was that it'll be loving fine and I should just sister another board on each side to give the new subflooring something straight to fasten to. I'm leaning that way as well, mostly because these are 2x8 true dimensional oak lumber and I can't even find that locally, nevermind the fact that 2x8 oak something like 12-16 feet long would cost me a kings ransom and be a monstrous pain in the rear end to install since it goes under about 5' of flooring I'm not removing and a weight bearing wall.

Scaffolding in place and shopvacing up all the random debris and dust before I start working on reattaching the joists to the sill.


As mentioned previously the idiot who replaced this sill didn't attach the joists to it properly and also dropped the rotten studs right back down on it and didn't attach them properly either, where they even touched it. So I'm using stair tread (almost 1/8" thick) brackets and 4x 2" 1/4 structural screws + 4x 3" 1/4 structural screws to attach them. These aren't going anywhere, not on my watch.


Adding an outdoor air tool chuck. Everything from the last elbow outward is brass because I don't like rust stains on my siding. This will be plumbed into the air tool supply lines spread around the basement ceiling and hooked to my huge 240V air compressor, which will be on a timer so it doesn't run at night. I don't ever want to have to leave a door or window open to run air tools outside again.


Air chuck sticking out the side of the house right over where a patio/deck will eventually be.



The rotten studs above the sill will be dealt with in a while. We need to decide what size window is going on that kitchen wall (the old window was a tall old style one, and went below/behind the countertop so if you dropped dishes back there they ended up underneath the cabinets, thanks idiot previous owners) and whether we're getting a big bay window or a wide side-slider or not, then I can reframe most of that wall all at once. I also have to cut off the bottom of the rotted 4x6 cornerpost seen in the third picture after jacking it up and then put a new piece under it and sister it with some 2x4s so it stays in place. gently caress you, jackass previous owners, this is a pain in the rear end.

cakesmith handyman
Jul 22, 2007

Pip-Pip old chap! Last one in is a rotten egg what what.

House air? I love it. That'll help you get fires and bbqs started too!

dreesemonkey
May 14, 2008
Pillbug
It made me chuckle thinking about someone buying your house down the road and thinking "What the gently caress is this? God damned PO?" Not in a shoddy workmanship kind of way, but just a headscratcher mystery.

Amstrad
Apr 4, 2007

To destroy evil you must become an even greater evil.

dreesemonkey posted:

It made me chuckle thinking about someone buying your house down the road and thinking "What the gently caress is this? God damned PO?" Not in a shoddy workmanship kind of way, but just a headscratcher mystery.

My thoughts exactly. Who ever heard of running compressed air service outside like a water faucet?

SuperDucky
May 13, 2007

by exmarx
That's goddamn genius.

The Locator
Sep 12, 2004

Out here, everything hurts.





Amstrad posted:

My thoughts exactly. Who ever heard of running compressed air service outside like a water faucet?

Almost anyone who has ever had to deal with running airlines outside to work on their cars in the driveway? Plumbing air to various spots in a garage is awesome, but if I didn't have a garage, something in the carport would still be pretty awesome.

I have both a cold and a hot water spigot on my patio. :v:

kastein
Aug 31, 2011

Moderator at http://www.ridgelineownersclub.com/forums/and soon to be mod of AI. MAKE AI GREAT AGAIN. Motronic for VP.
I almost permanently esconced my 2800lb bridgeport milling machine in the basement by chainfalling it through the kitchen wall and floor before rebuilding them, too, but had a rare moment of sanity and put it in a fellow goon's shop instead. That, the 30A 240V twistlok outlet on the back porch next to the air chuck, and the air chuck would have firmly cemented my target market as metalworkers/tinkerers who want to buy a house in my town.

kastein
Aug 31, 2011

Moderator at http://www.ridgelineownersclub.com/forums/and soon to be mod of AI. MAKE AI GREAT AGAIN. Motronic for VP.
I put down another 3 pieces of subflooring in the kitchen last weekend. Two big ones and a smallish one to fill in the remaining gap. Officially down to two half-sheets left before the kitchen is done.

This weekend and next are going to be rather low progress as the place is a mess and it's high time we did a major cleanup and reorg. Going to clean, vacuum, and reorg the living room, vacuum all demolition/construction dust from the bathroom, kitchen, master bedroom, and current bedroom, and maybe clean up the yard and porch+deck a bit. If time permits we'll also clean and reorg/evacuate the dining room in preparation for THE LAST INTERIOR ROOM DEMOLITION! :woop:

Planning on using poly sheet to fence off the dining room so the demolition won't fill the rest of the house with dust again.

New subflooring in kitchen:

(the gap on the left where you can see into the basement is now filled in)

angryrobots
Mar 31, 2005

Goddammit, next you'll be hanging curtains.

TooMuchAbstraction
Oct 14, 2012

I spent four years making
Waves of Steel
Hell yes I'm going to turn my avatar into an ad for it.
Fun Shoe

angryrobots posted:

Goddammit, next you'll be hanging curtains.

At least they'll be curtains made out of welded metal and old engine blocks.

Magnus Praeda
Jul 18, 2003
The largess in the land.

TooMuchAbstraction posted:

At least they'll be curtains made out of welded metal and old engine blocks.

Nah. They'll still be fabric curtains, but they'll be kevlar-reinforced and hung on steel curtain rods welded to brackets lag-bolted into stud.

Rectal Placenta
Feb 25, 2011

Magnus Praeda posted:

Nah. They'll still be fabric curtains, but they'll be kevlar-reinforced and hung on steel curtain rods welded to brackets lag-bolted into stud.

You mean bolted to the steel column that runs through the floor to a concrete pad in the basement. Also chain-mail somehow.

Spermy Smurf
Jul 2, 2004
Is it possible to hang a bunch of I-beams in front of a window like vertical blinds and then turn the little thing on one side to open and close them?

tetrapyloctomy
Feb 18, 2003

Okay -- you talk WAY too fast.
Nap Ghost

kastein posted:

I put down another 3 pieces of subflooring in the kitchen last weekend. Two big ones and a smallish one to fill in the remaining gap. Officially down to two half-sheets left before the kitchen is done.

This weekend and next are going to be rather low progress as the place is a mess and it's high time we did a major cleanup and reorg. Going to clean, vacuum, and reorg the living room, vacuum all demolition/construction dust from the bathroom, kitchen, master bedroom, and current bedroom, and maybe clean up the yard and porch+deck a bit. If time permits we'll also clean and reorg/evacuate the dining room in preparation for THE LAST INTERIOR ROOM DEMOLITION! :woop:

Planning on using poly sheet to fence off the dining room so the demolition won't fill the rest of the house with dust again.

New subflooring in kitchen:

(the gap on the left where you can see into the basement is now filled in)

What kind of flooring are you planning on putting in?

Magnus Praeda
Jul 18, 2003
The largess in the land.

Rectal Placenta posted:

You mean bolted to the steel column that runs through the floor to a concrete pad in the basement. Also chain-mail somehow.

Indeed. Incidentally, I love knitting chain mail. It's surprisingly relaxing and I can do it while binging on Netflix.

Spermy Smurf posted:

Is it possible to hang a bunch of I-beams in front of a window like vertical blinds and then turn the little thing on one side to open and close them?

I don't know about "little" thing on the side, but you could probably work something out using a few junkyard transfer cases and steering boxes or the like.

kastein
Aug 31, 2011

Moderator at http://www.ridgelineownersclub.com/forums/and soon to be mod of AI. MAKE AI GREAT AGAIN. Motronic for VP.

tetrapyloctomy posted:

What kind of flooring are you planning on putting in?

Strand woven bamboo or other similar laminates in most rooms, maybe tile in the kitchen but we're not sure yet.

tetrapyloctomy
Feb 18, 2003

Okay -- you talk WAY too fast.
Nap Ghost

kastein posted:

Strand woven bamboo or other similar laminates in most rooms, maybe tile in the kitchen but we're not sure yet.

We just had vinyl laminate tile (I hate even TYPING "luxury vinyl tile" because the word "luxury," like "classy," immediately makes me think the opposite) installed in our kitchen and I might like it more than the actual tile it replaced. The installers mitigated some of the waviness of the floor with compound and it was enough to let the pressure-sensitive glue to grab, though I think even more could have been done by sanding down the biggest hump. Anyway, sone of the LVT is actually really nice, but you HAVE to see it in person. Most of it looks, well, like cheap vinyl -- overly glossy and without texture. The Adura we got for the kitchen and the basement (wood-look floating plank, chosen over regular wood on case we get more water) both look suprisingly good.

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Darchangel
Feb 12, 2009

Tell him about the blower!


tetrapyloctomy posted:

We just had vinyl laminate tile (I hate even TYPING "luxury vinyl tile" because the word "luxury," like "classy," immediately makes me think the opposite) installed in our kitchen and I might like it more than the actual tile it replaced. The installers mitigated some of the waviness of the floor with compound and it was enough to let the pressure-sensitive glue to grab, though I think even more could have been done by sanding down the biggest hump. Anyway, sone of the LVT is actually really nice, but you HAVE to see it in person. Most of it looks, well, like cheap vinyl -- overly glossy and without texture. The Adura we got for the kitchen and the basement (wood-look floating plank, chosen over regular wood on case we get more water) both look suprisingly good.

Is that stuff OK with water, like in a bathroom? I'm hesitant to use vinyl in our bathroom for fear of it curling up at the seams.

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