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If you got a history as a computer toucher (like me) and doing heavy labour, it's liable to hurt a lot and it's easy to do things wrong. This is why some of the farm jobs literally cannot be done by local untrained labour sources (you often hear people say to hire teenagers instead) and they fly in people from eastern europe, in addition to being cheaper, they are used to heavy labour and do it professionally. It's really not fair to call it unskilled labour, takes years of training. Supposed to get near 30C today where I am, hope you like the AC. I don't own one.
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Jul 3, 2021 06:55
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His Divine Shadow posted:If you got a history as a computer toucher (like me) and doing heavy labour, it's liable to hurt a lot and it's easy to do things wrong. I got two AC's, one per floor 8-) but yeah, "unskilled" or not, physical labour is loving hard.
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Jul 3, 2021 10:50
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 Fiskars means fish rear end in a top hat in swedish. things are going slow but next week we're gonna start revealing the foundation
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Jul 24, 2021 19:41
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The boys I hired to fix the poo poo I don't want to gently caress up showed up, starting to dig up the foundation:  Old foundation is shallower than new foundation, since there's no basement under the old foundation.  They done cracked rock.  More rock!  This one proves more troublesome for the fellas... But let's check in on the basement, which is where I'm loving around!  Ceiling friends!  Back breaking labor!  Drilled so many holes but more holes will need to be drilled in the other basement room. All in all, my back hurts, my legs hurt, my arms hurt. I can't stand up in the basement even with the add-on floor removed :/ I also get sweaty as gently caress because there's high humidity down there. Who woulda thought?!?
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Jul 29, 2021 19:40
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I’m very confused . You filled all the small buckets with basement , so you hired some boys. Then to lure them into renovations further you began to mine peanut brittle?
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Jul 30, 2021 02:28
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Partycat posted:I’m very confused . You filled all the small buckets with basement , so you hired some boys. Then to lure them into renovations further you began to mine peanut brittle? I hired people to handle digging up the foundation, fixing and isolating it, make the drainage and set up the new drainage field. Because these are things I consider "too important for me to try to gently caress them up" But I can tear up a basement floor, that's no problem, hard to gently caress that up really.
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Jul 30, 2021 05:47
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They boys have been moving fast and I've been too tired to take pics regularly and updating this thread but have an update now instead! Behold the magic floating stairs!  We also got Finnfoam and gravel!  A well/pump installed at the lowest point for to where water can flow:  Inspection well, we might also install an external door into the basement here:  Some big rocks I've found while tearing up the floor:  I need to figure out what to do with these stairs as they are resting on the floor I'm tearing up.  Starting to make a hole to get into the inaccessible part of the basement, but it's like 2 layers of bricks and then a layer of concrete so it's not going fast.  And finally the rock is still there because it turns out it's a real fucker!  (someone photoshop it into loss) But man it's way drier now in the basement, gone from 80% humidity to 73%. Once all the drainage etc is fixed it will improve further and then I might need to set up some drying before I can get it down to normal room humidity. This poo poo is really taking its toll on my body though, holy poo poo. Got up out of bed today and almost fell down my legs hurt so much.
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Aug 7, 2021 09:10
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Get yourself a foam roller and a lacrosse ball and roll your legs and back out every day after a hot shower. I have a cheap Amazon basics one and it works fine. Make sure to hit the muscle running down the outside of your shins and the ones above/around your knees. Use the lacrosse ball stacked on top of the roller to get into the meat of your calves, it will hurt but feel so much better afterwards. I was skeptical when it was suggested to me, but wow, does it ever work. I only feel about 1/5 the fatigue the next day, plus instead of the muscles feeling all grippy and bunched up even while at rest they feel loose and flexible.
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Aug 7, 2021 16:14
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Hutla posted:Get yourself a foam roller and a lacrosse ball and roll your legs and back out every day after a hot shower. I have a cheap Amazon basics one and it works fine. Make sure to hit the muscle running down the outside of your shins and the ones above/around your knees. Use the lacrosse ball stacked on top of the roller to get into the meat of your calves, it will hurt but feel so much better afterwards. Oh yeah foam rollers are great. Don't think I could find a lacrosse ball over here though but I might be surprised. I just keep forgetting to use the foam roller after loving about in the basement because everything hurts and I just wanna sit down. Took a few days off now though so maybe I'll get better.
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Aug 9, 2021 04:30
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  Electrician gonna hook this pump up today or tomorrow so we can pump out the drainage ditch  Meanwhile, I got a new toy for basement shenanigans:   My hands hurt quite a bit now. Need to take a few days break.
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Aug 11, 2021 08:12
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Is that like a roto-zip?
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Aug 12, 2021 23:34
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Partycat posted:Is that like a roto-zip? It's a Hilti TE-15 Rotary hammer drill. I'm not sure what a roto-zip is though. In other news, we thought the poo poo smell in the basement was due to the sewage tank leaking into the corner of the house. And this was part of the problem, but the bigger problem is that the sewage lines from my bathroom is leaking. My bathroom is over the part of the basement I myself currently can't get to so I haven't seen it myself nor do I have any pictures of this. According to reports though it's leaking into the sand under the bathroom (no floor was made there thank god) and then going out into what is now drainage so now the ditch by my house smells like poo poo  A plumber is coming tomorrow to inspect it. I had to cancel some other projects I wanted to do (external door into basement and floor under the bathroom) due to this. Money is no.
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Aug 15, 2021 10:51
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organburner posted:Oh yeah foam rollers are great. Don't think I could find a lacrosse ball over here though but I might be surprised. I just keep forgetting to use the foam roller after loving about in the basement because everything hurts and I just wanna sit down. Took a few days off now though so maybe I'll get better. Lax.com Honest to God, you won’t regret it
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Aug 15, 2021 22:13
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It's been rainy so the workers and digger crew hosed off but let's check in anyway: Got a table so the cats could look outside  Got an apple picker thing so I could pick some of the fallen apples, there are way more where that came from but rain is keeping me inside for now.  Workers tore down the stairs to the basement as they were rotten as gently caress.  They also finished my doorhole to the new basement.  Lots of debris.  Some more floor needs to be removed but the support beam rests on the floor, so we will need to get a new beam done before removing that piece of floor.  Pic from new basement. It's about 208 cm from "floor" to ceiling so potentially I could make a proper floor and still have enough room to stand here. Thinking about maybe making a heated floor here, since the heat would go up to the rest of the house anyway.
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Aug 25, 2021 16:33
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'tis done! My dad had been bugging me about my apple trees so I decided to trim them down a bit:  Of course then he says "you idiot, you don't trim apple trees in the fall, you do that during winter!" so maybe they'll die? :/ Anyway, new poo poo container:   It's in! Old poo poo containers:  The top rings concrete rings were removed, the bottom ones were so damaged there was no point so just filled them.  Finishing up the corner. We put some finnfoam in the basement windows so the basement wouldn't be too cold, and now I also have a portable AC unit down there in drying mode.    Looks neat imo.  Drainage field ends at the two ventilation pipes. I was thinking about making them into some sort of feature or something. One idea was to paint them green and then make some round kind of construction they stick out of so it looks like there's a giant alien head with two antennas sticking out? Highly technical diagram of what I mean:  Things what remain to be done: I was recommended to empty out the basement under the bathroom and fill the floor with Foam Glass Aggregate to insulate it, but I will need to see if I can get that done before winter. I need to replace the old gutters and also install gutters where they are missing. I also need to build myself a box for storing fire wood inside the house. The entire kitchen renovation is still what it is. And what it is is not done. Landscaping I guess? I need to put these in order of priority and I'm not sure where to start to be honest. Probably the firewood box is the easiest and would give me a lot of use in the coming months.
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Sep 10, 2021 08:08
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Gutters and sloping the ground by the house next, the trenching and draintile in my basement took care of the water problem almost but with heavy rain there was still a spot that water got on the floor. Replacing all the gutters made the difference, the 6-8inches I got in one hour last summer didn't do anything to the basement. The dehumidifier can keep up now and the basement sits at about 50% rh.
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Sep 10, 2021 14:13
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SpeedFreek posted:Gutters and sloping the ground by the house next, the trenching and draintile in my basement took care of the water problem almost but with heavy rain there was still a spot that water got on the floor. Replacing all the gutters made the difference, the 6-8inches I got in one hour last summer didn't do anything to the basement. The dehumidifier can keep up now and the basement sits at about 50% rh. The ground is sloped, they dealt with that. Unfortunately I'm about 2k further in the red than I had expected as the sewage lines were leaking in the basement and needed to be replaced and the giant rear end rock also cost me a lot of extra money in labor. But yeah, if nothing else having gutters would save the pump in the drainage well some work since there's now a separate, gravity only runoff for rain water.
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Sep 10, 2021 18:09
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Mini update: I built a box for storing firewood:  I need to repaint the planks, I hosed up the mixing of the paint because there was no instructions and I diluted it way too much and next time I'm just gonna buy a loving bucket of ready to use paint instead because I'm dumb. Also this thing is wobbly because on leg is too short and there's a ton of other small issues and look I'm not a carpenter alright? Issues with wood box: needs painted the lid needs a handle A mechanism to keep the lid up would be nice because the lid is a chunk of solid wood and weighs a gently caress ton.
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Sep 18, 2021 10:46
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Hello. Winter is now here. The fire wood box holds about 3 ish days of firewood which tells me I'm going through fire wood too fast for comfort so time to look at alternatives: Electric heating: gently caress off expensive. Installing new heating systems: gently caress off expensive Installing a better fire stove: gently caress off expensive So time to take a look at this boy:  This here is a masonry heater. They are massive tubes of tiles enclosed in tile or, in this case, metal. So why don't I just use this? Well you see the cables?   It's been modified and electrified, back when electricity was cheap. It is no longer cheap.   So what would I need to do to get this working with firewood again? Remove the heating element and the cables, patch up the giant rear end holes left by the cables and also figure out what the gently caress they did with the flue. I'm pretty sure there is supposed to be an adjustable flue here, but I can see no way to control it at all.
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Dec 3, 2021 14:18
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gently caress yes a pönttuuni. One of the best types of heaters in the world IMO. Agree with your assesment, remove the electric crap and fill up the holes with mortar as best you can. Just use mortar of the right kind (no cement, use clay based mortar). You can also apply it on the inside walls of the fireplace and fill up cracks and the like. The adjustable flue in my experience is on the wall, often above the heater and part of the chimney. I hope they didn't just wall it over. Also make sure it's swept.
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Dec 3, 2021 14:35
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Based on past sauna discussion is there a way you can also retrofit this to heat and keep warm sausages?
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Dec 3, 2021 15:25
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Partycat posted:Based on past sauna discussion is there a way you can also retrofit this to heat and keep warm sausages? Probably! His Divine Shadow posted:gently caress yes a pönttuuni. One of the best types of heaters in the world IMO. Took some more pics, this might be a non starter but I need to get a ladder to check a bit more:  Where it goes to the chimney I assume  Same spot zoomed out  This is on the other side so I don't know if it's just attached to the wall here? Or does it have two chimney hookups?  What the bottom now looks like.  Tried to get a picture of where it leads out to the chimney but manhandling my flashlight and my phone in that small space was not easy. Might need one of those bendy optical cameras for this.
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Dec 3, 2021 15:37
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I'm having a hard time telling, what's the last photo, is it the bottom, under the fireplace?
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Dec 3, 2021 18:11
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His Divine Shadow posted:I'm having a hard time telling, what's the last photo, is it the bottom, under the fireplace? Tried too see where the chimney connects, so it's me looking up inside the heater basically.
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Dec 4, 2021 13:57
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Ok very clean looking, if it's the fireplace looking up then you can't see the chimney connection. Up there the flue gasses make a U-turn and go back down. If the chimney connection is at the bottom then the flue gasses exit there. If it's at the top there's another channel, usually at the back, that the gasses go up that and exit there. So you would have difficulties trying to see the exit up there.
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Dec 4, 2021 15:46
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The only connections to the wall are up there. I need to read up on the construction of these, if they managed to somehow block off the chimney the whole thing is kind of hosed.
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Dec 4, 2021 16:16
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I'm on the phone so writing is a pita. But it's normal design for a pönttöuuni or masonry heater with contra flow. So you will not be able to see the chimney exit from there but it doesn't mean it's blocked. Discovering where it's blocked might be difficult, gotta look for where the flue regulator might have been. If it's On the wall they might just have cut off the control with it shut and filled the hole. If the regulator is on the heater then you should be able to find a hole or a patch or something. A lot of ways to block the chimney i guess.
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Dec 4, 2021 16:26
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So I tried a genius idea that wasn't mine: Set a small fire inside there. Started with just a match, seemed to burn clean and well enough to indicate working airflow. So then I took a bit of my kindling of choice (paper shreddings) and set it on fire inside with the hatch shut. It did not go as well, got a face full of smoke when I opened the hatch. If I recall correctly though, some of these were set up with some kind of system that opened the flue automatically at certain temperatures or something, I can't quite recall how it worked though. I just might need to borrow my dads fiber optic camera so I can get a better look at these because if I could just repair this with some brick and mortar at the bottom (after ripping out all the electrics, natch) I'd be a very happy camper. I'm gonna send my renovation guy an email, see if he knows someone local with expertise who could help out.
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Dec 4, 2021 17:24
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There ought to be hatches for sweeping that should give chimney access. Getting a bit drunk ATM, Christmas party
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Dec 4, 2021 18:39
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Turns out this model might not have an adjustable flue at all. My dad came by and we inspected the thing a bit more thoroughly, there are some bricks at the back that appear to not be mortared in (I don't know if this is the right term) and there's isolation wool(?) peaking out from the seams. Theory is that behind those bricks is the channel that leads to the chimney and they just took out those bricks, blocked the channel with wool and then put the bricks back. I'm gonna try to remove the heating element tomorrow after pulling the fuses for it and see if I can get at them bricks.
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Dec 4, 2021 19:06
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IMO most pönttöuunis don't have a built in flue of any kind, it's usually on the chimney itself, sometimes it is not even in the same room. The Bailey's is too sweet.
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Dec 4, 2021 19:36
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-18 here today, sure is nice to be able to have a fire going. Does your house have a sauna heater? My parents have a harvia from 1993 and it puts out some hella heat, they can get the whole house warm by firing it and leaving the doors open. They still use it despite also having a modern contura in the living room. Considering replacing my own (a lot more expensive IKI Mini kiuas) with a Harvia M3 heater because by comparison the IKI sucks rear end in actually heating the room. I looked at your photos again for signs of a flue regulator on the heater itself but I cannot see one. I would probably look on the wall above the heater for signs of a patch, or look in the rooms on the other side of the heater. That's how it is in my parents summer cottage, the flue control is in another room. I would definitely expect there to be a flue control on the chimney wall somewhere or you will be loosing a lot of heat. It's more likely to be there IMO. They do use rockwool or similar wool (careful with it, might be asbestos, even if it's not, none of them are good for you) in these designs from time to time. Though if they just stuffed it there to block something up it's probably just regular rockwool or fibreglass. Still I'd be careful with it. It still seems a complicated way to block it to me, if I did it, I would just shut the flue and leave it shut, if I was chanelling my inner PO I would cut off the handle and patch it over so it wouldn't be seen.
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Dec 5, 2021 08:32
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Seems the flue is the same as for the kitchen stove, that is the only possibility really.    Removed the element, came out pretty easy.  Couldn't get this brick to budge though. Poking around in the bottom hatch led to some discoveries: 1: The hatch was pretty cold, definitely a draft there. 2: My god, it's full of wool!  SO MUCH WOOL  Test fire #2 went better than the first one, the way it works is, near as I can figure, the smoke goes up in the heater, then there are channels that go back down to the bottom of the heater where there is a channel to the chimney.  Trash bag full of debris  My arm is all sooty and irritated after trying to get the wool out of that bottom hatch. I'm pretty fat and even after removing my shirt and poking around with a fire iron I couldn't get too deep inside her, but I couldn't feel any more wool in there. Might just need a good sweeping and a new grill plate? I don't know what they're called, those iron plate things you put the wood on with holes for the ashes to fall through. I'm gonna use my (electric) sauna tonight. Also a fun thing, when my dad came by he noticed that the clock the electric element was supposed to be hooked up to was gone. In Finland you can get these power contracts where the power is cheaper during the night, so they had a clock controlling the heater element but at some point someone had removed it so the element wasn't functional anyway. Electricity is so expensive now that even that isn't a good option for heating houses anymore. Oh well, now I got three more fuses to play with. Probably gonna be used whenever I get an oven.
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Dec 5, 2021 15:38
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Rockwool is supposedly less irritating than Fiberglass but I found it to be much more friable and only mildly less itchy. Bag that trash and I wouldn’t try to vacuum it without a filtered vacuum. Looks like you’re making progress in restoring your eternal heat cylinder
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Dec 5, 2021 18:44
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Only irritation right now is from scraping my arm on the metal ): But yeah I need to do a trip to a hardware store to get some supplies and I think I'll be golden.
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Dec 5, 2021 20:45
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organburner posted:Test fire #2 went better than the first one, the way it works is, near as I can figure, the smoke goes up in the heater, then there are channels that go back down to the bottom of the heater where there is a channel to the chimney. That's exactly how these things work indeed. Most of them has the smoke do a 180 and it exits the heater at the bottom. Others are designed so the channel on the back is isolated and leads to the chimney. Reason for the smoke leaving o nthe bottom is because the whole heater moves as it expands and contracts with the heat of firing. That puts continued stress on the chimney connection, the chimney at the base allows it to be freestanding. It is a bit more efficient though since it keeps the smoke in the heater for longer. Come summer you might want to re-mortar the inside of the fireplace, basically cover the seams with special mortar, helps the heaters efficiency. You can probably get a fire grate (arina but you probably know that) at K-rauta or similar, or even your local small village shop might have them.
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Dec 6, 2021 11:35
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His Divine Shadow posted:That's exactly how these things work indeed. Most of them has the smoke do a 180 and it exits the heater at the bottom. Others are designed so the channel on the back is isolated and leads to the chimney. Reason for the smoke leaving o nthe bottom is because the whole heater moves as it expands and contracts with the heat of firing. That puts continued stress on the chimney connection, the chimney at the base allows it to be freestanding. It is a bit more efficient though since it keeps the smoke in the heater for longer. Yeah, I found some at the local tokmanni but I still need the cement so I'm gonna look for that later in the week. Can't really use it in its current state anyway.
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Dec 6, 2021 15:52
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I would wait with the mortar (clay mortar, never cement) until summer because you must let it dry for a week or longer afterwards. And then only tiny fires to drive out the last moisture. So it's a job best done in summer. In modern pönttöuunis the actual firebox is made with high temp firebricks and does not need the clay lining.
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Dec 10, 2021 12:40
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His Divine Shadow posted:I would wait with the mortar (clay mortar, never cement) until summer because you must let it dry for a week or longer afterwards. And then only tiny fires to drive out the last moisture. So it's a job best done in summer. But I need warm now! Though it's no longer -20c so it's a bit better now.
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Dec 10, 2021 20:04
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Yeah if I was gonna do it I'd do it now when the weather is gonna be warmer
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Dec 10, 2021 21:26
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