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Boogalo posted:Train horn too small. Get a ship's horn. Ship's horn too small. Get one of these: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chrysler_Air-raid_Siren
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Apr 13, 2015 16:51
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KillHour posted:No, he thought "I'm getting paid to run these wires. I'm not getting paid to tell my supervisor he's wrong." As opposed to the US, where that pretty much never happens. 
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Apr 13, 2015 21:31
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Holy poo poo, I really want to know if that was a contractor's wise idea, or if it's the result of some dimwit building his own place.
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Apr 13, 2015 21:36
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Man, that is a throwback to one of the stories from the OP, but residential construction instead of commercial.
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Apr 13, 2015 21:45
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Zhentar posted:As opposed to the US, where that pretty much never happens. What's wrong? Nothing. edit: oh, you mean that... Neutrino fucked around with this message at 21:48 on Apr 13, 2015 |
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Apr 13, 2015 21:46
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KillHour posted:No, he thought "I'm getting paid to run these wires. I'm not getting paid to tell my supervisor he's wrong." We have some offices out in Asia-land. And it's less "not getting paid to tell..." and more "I better keep my head down and not say anything or I'll get reprimanded or fired". This seems to be more of a management philosophy than anything. I mean, *we* don't do that. But a lot of our employees over there have an employment history like that, so it can take a year before they believe us when we say, "Seriously, you can tell us when you think we're doing something wrong. If that's not the case, we're not going to fire you or even discipline you, we'll just explain how you're mistaken. And if you're right, you might save the company a lot of time and money, and get some sort of recognition of a monetary variety".
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Apr 13, 2015 22:55
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flosofl posted:We have some offices out in Asia-land. And it's less "not getting paid to tell..." and more "I better keep my head down and not say anything or I'll get reprimanded or fired". This seems to be more of a management philosophy than anything.
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Apr 13, 2015 22:59
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Neutrino posted:What's wrong? Nothing. Ignoring "that" I don't think you're supposed to punch out every pre scored hole in that OSB.
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Apr 13, 2015 23:07
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Collateral Damage posted:That's the impression I've gotten as well. (East) asian workplaces appear to have a very distinct career pyramid and questioning your superior in any way is a huge faux pas. In a different context, I have had a similar experience with my colleagues in India. In my line of work (documentation) we have to get stuff reviewed by project management and development managment. Sometimes managers give good suggestions and sometimes they want you do do something that would be bad. You have to be willing to push back a little or at least defend a decision when you know it's the right decision. It can take years to convince (otherwise highly competent and excellent) writers to be less deferential towards management during doc review. Also during doc scoping, such as "should we doc this, and how much." There's an acute awareness of title and seniority and level, and all of the people in our india offices know how much eachother make. Anyone making more than you is to be deferred to, and anyone making less, you are free to be a tyrant towards.
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Apr 13, 2015 23:14
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Blue Footed Booby posted:
The first ones look like phone/cable (likely under 50 volts). The sets of three on the other side? Likely 240 on the horizontal ones, likely 1400 volts or higher on those vertical ones above though. The best part is those cables will likely rub against the concrete and wear out the insulation. Oh wait, they did insert a PVC pipe as a sleeve to protect it. They weren't completely incompetent. I think cable/phone line installations will often have the most creative installations. Golluk fucked around with this message at 05:03 on Apr 14, 2015 |
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Apr 14, 2015 04:56
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Zhentar posted:As opposed to the US, where that pretty much never happens. Good god, I used IPI joists when I built my garage and I was apprehensive about popping the knockouts to run wire through...and they were designed to come out. Good luck using finger-joined 1x3s as load-bearing members...
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Apr 14, 2015 05:35
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Load bearing fireplace.  (Not really, but a corner fireplace looks ugly as gently caress to me and seems like it belongs here)
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Apr 14, 2015 14:37
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Manslaughter posted:Load bearing fireplace. I love the chair under the ac to take advantage of the only side view of that fireplace. That is either a peninsula unit with one side blocked or the side cut off a trad box.
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Apr 14, 2015 14:50
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Wow. That installation is incredibly ugly for a number of reasons, the corner-ness of it being just one of many. 
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Apr 14, 2015 14:54
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Also I hope you like stubbed toes.
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Apr 14, 2015 14:58
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I'm the decorative diet coke can.
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Apr 14, 2015 15:02
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This weekend has been a cavalcade of remembering my house deserves to be here. We've been redoing all the wood floors in the main level of the house, since the flipper who we got the place off of just threw cheap carpet over ~80 year old wood to sell it, and the old varnish was trashed. This is his normal mode of operation. Things we've discovered in that time : One of the outlets he added, which has been behind the couch for five years, isn't actually attached to anything. Discovered when a plugin was pulled sideways on the way out, and the outlet body grounded to the metal outlet box and arc'd. I removed the outlet, capped the wires, and put a blanking plate on it until we get to tearing it out. Our house used to have the old-style 2'x2' floor grate cold air returns. These were removed, patched with decently similar wood flooring... and then chunks of baseboard and plaster walls behind it at the ends of the runs were chopped out and cheap tin vent covers were wood screwed in to cover the holes. I don't have the time to fix this right at the moment because it's going to entail tearing apart the whole ductwork, so it's staying for now. Additionally, every phone line in the house is run through the heating ducts, as well as one run of coax to the front room. The rest of the coax is stapled to the outside of the house and just drilled through walls wherever it needs to be.  That's all coming off when we re-side this year and we'll be fixing that properly. Bonus picture content, before, during, and after shots of the dining room :    
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Apr 14, 2015 18:22
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Didn't your inspector test every outlet? I know a couple inspectors and that's like one of the most 101 level poo poo they do.
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Apr 14, 2015 18:30
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Liquid Communism posted:
How much work was that?
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Apr 14, 2015 18:53
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Wouldn't putting carpet down take more work and lower the value of the house? Those floors are beautiful and hiding them was a loving sin.
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Apr 14, 2015 19:02
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Anorexic Sea Turtle posted:Wouldn't putting carpet down take more work and lower the value of the house? Those floors are beautiful and hiding them was a loving sin. Since you basically just roll it out, cut it and tack it down, no. Carpet install on a room like that is under and hour.
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Apr 14, 2015 19:12
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DNova posted:How much work was that? You don't even want to know. Four people, one day to strip , fill and sand even with the power rotary sander. 3 people 20 straight hours to stain and put down four coats of urethane. Can't move the furniture back in for two more days, and I'm still doing the little bits like quarter-round trim at floor level the previous owner never loving put back on when he threw down carpet and painting the corroded old vents with a coat or two of anti-rust to preserve and touch them up. But it looks 110% better. Here's a couple finish shots of the other 2/3 of that room.   You can see one of the patches from the old floor vents in that, and some dark spots. We tested and those weren't coming out without sanding a significant dent in the floor, so they're staying as character. Next up we have to strip the carpet going up the stairs, and redo a space exactly the same size only broken into 3 bedrooms and a hallway.  Anorexic Sea Turtle posted:Wouldn't putting carpet down take more work and lower the value of the house? Those floors are beautiful and hiding them was a loving sin. That's what we decided. Even worse, it was cheap-rear end contractor grade white carpet. Impossible to keep looking good. Liquid Communism fucked around with this message at 19:23 on Apr 14, 2015 |
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Apr 14, 2015 19:16
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FCKGW posted:Since you basically just roll it out, cut it and tack it down, no. Carpet install on a room like that is under and hour. Carpet's still an abomination.
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Apr 14, 2015 19:23
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Four coats of urethane is kind of overkill. My wife and I did our entire house - about 1000 square feet of flooring - by ourselves in the middle of December when we bought. We found that the big square and round sanders were poo poo slow and horrible, once we switched to a drum sander everything went a lot faster. Although there are a couple of "dents" in the floor because if you stop moving with the drum, at all, ever, it instantly chews down into the floor. Definitely not for the faint of heart. We had to use a handheld belt sander along the edges, though, and a little "mouse" orbital sander with a pointy face to do corners and all of the trim. We did the whole house in one brutal week, while both of us were working full time during the day. Just every evening, 7 or 8 pm until at least midnight. Sand everything, go back and fix a few spots, stain, and three coats of Varethane. The varethane went down during a rainy day and stayed tacky for longer than it should have, so the last coat went on at like 9 PM. Oh, did I mention there is NO installed lighting in most of the house? We had light in the dining room, and one light at one end of the hallway... everything else we had to illuminate with a shop light and extension cord, which we had to keep out of the varethane of course. God drat that week sucked. But the results were very pretty, and between all the rental equipment, tools, sandpaper, stain, and varethane, the whole thing cost us under $900. A professional job would have been at least $2500+. If I had to do it again, I'd happily pay four grand not to have to do it again myself. I've done a lot of DIY and I've never done something so relentlessly painful. All of the sandign had to be done with dust masks at a minimum. All of the stain and varethane work had to be done with NIOSH masks and goggles and gloves, and everything we wore while doing the staining was ruined. Our bodies ached for a week afterwards, my wife's wrists were in agony from all the handheld sanding, and we made a number of small mistakes that aren't really visible unless you know where to look, but they stand out to my eye because I know they're there. Divots with the drum sander, spots where we slopped down a little too much varethane and it pooled, poo poo like that. Our floors are lovely and the varethane is going to last forever. You can spill anything on it and it won't stain or soak in, even left for hours. The surface is impervious to our cats' claws, too. I've scratched it once or twice with furniture feet that didn't have proper pads on them, but it's easy to repair. And the color we went with is very similar to LIquid Communism's photo, a nice mid-tone. The fashion these days seems to be really dark, but I like the more natural look of the mid-tone brown, and I think it's easier to match whatever furniture and paint colors you go with.
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Apr 14, 2015 19:37
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Liquid Communism posted:You don't even want to know. Four people, one day to strip , fill and sand even with the power rotary sander. 3 people 20 straight hours to stain and put down four coats of urethane. Can't move the furniture back in for two more days, and I'm still doing the little bits like quarter-round trim at floor level the previous owner never loving put back on when he threw down carpet and painting the corroded old vents with a coat or two of anti-rust to preserve and touch them up. But it looks 110% better. Damnit. I was really hoping for something more like "Much easier than expected! 6 hours of work at most!"
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Apr 14, 2015 19:44
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Leperflesh posted:Four coats of urethane is kind of overkill. We used varethane brand as well, gloss because there's no overhead lights in that part of the house so they wanted a bit more reflection. The four coats what what they recommended, and that floor is the highest traffic point in the house. Roommates (who own the house) have two good sized dogs as well, so that was a consideration. As was never, ever having to do this again before they sell it. We were really happy with the stain, we've got old original woodwork with the reddish-orange of amber varnish, and the floor comes pretty close to matching it. DNova posted:Damnit. I was really hoping for something more like "Much easier than expected! 6 hours of work at most!" Yours might be easier, a lot of that time was the carpet glue and old varnish clogging the sander, and hand-sanding the spots it couldn't reach. We also had a minor brush fire, when someone discarded a cigarette butt too close to the sawdust pile... which then caught some dried leaves... which then caught my garden's winter coat of straw. Luckily I already had the hose hooked up for the year!
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Apr 14, 2015 20:22
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DNova posted:Damnit. I was really hoping for something more like "Much easier than expected! 6 hours of work at most!" Haha same. I'm looking at buying a house right now and I keep shrugging off the floor work. I'm very thankful the pain of this repair was translated to me through this post.
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Apr 14, 2015 20:27
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Blue Footed Booby posted:
The ones going through the steps are telecom wires, so they're probably low voltage. The lines that he had to duck under on the other side of the overpass though, those lines are high voltage.
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Apr 14, 2015 21:11
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Liquid Communism posted:My cousins house That turned out really well man! I look forward to testing how well you guys did the next time im over. How well did you guys do at keeping the dog hair off of it? I know that was a worry. TyrsHTML fucked around with this message at 22:41 on Apr 14, 2015 |
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Apr 14, 2015 22:31
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Liquid Communism posted:You can see one of the patches from the old floor vents in that, and some dark spots. We tested and those weren't coming out without sanding a significant dent in the floor, so they're staying as character. Did you try oxalic acid on the dark stains?
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Apr 15, 2015 00:21
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Yeah, they appear to be old water or oil stains that are deeply into the wood. Doesn't look bad with them there, so I'm not going to worry about it too much.TyrsHTML posted:That turned out really well man! I look forward to testing how well you guys did the next time im over. How well did you guys do at keeping the dog hair off of it? I know that was a worry. So far so good. Dogs are confined to the upstairs and we have the stairwell masked off with sheeting until the furniture goes back in.
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Apr 15, 2015 01:07
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Four coats look great though. That's a fantastic floor. (hope there's nothing horrible hidden underneath like an indoor swamp from a few pages back)
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Apr 15, 2015 02:47
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Anorexic Sea Turtle posted:Haha same. I'm looking at buying a house right now and I keep shrugging off the floor work. I'm very thankful the pain of this repair was translated to me through this post.
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Apr 15, 2015 03:05
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What have you guys been putting down to keep the hair and dust out of the room? Just put heavy sheets in the doorways and keep the animals out?
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Apr 15, 2015 03:13
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We masked off all the doors and all the vents with plastic tarp and painters' tape. Necessary anyway, as I am repainting the vents, so they're wide open and more than big enough for one of the animals to get into so they needed covered just in case.
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Apr 15, 2015 04:55
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Liquid Communism posted:You don't even want to know. Four people, one day to strip , fill and sand even with the power rotary sander. 3 people 20 straight hours to stain and put down four coats of urethane. Can't move the furniture back in for two more days, and I'm still doing the little bits like quarter-round trim at floor level the previous owner never loving put back on when he threw down carpet and painting the corroded old vents with a coat or two of anti-rust to preserve and touch them up. But it looks 110% better. More like Happy Construction Tales. That's beautiful man. Congrats on the fruits of your labor.
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Apr 15, 2015 09:15
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This is up to code, right? Seen on a coffee plantation in the middle of nowhere, Cambodia.
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Apr 16, 2015 06:37
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Laminator posted:I was looking at houses down in Austin and one of them was an old lady special, ugly as hell but looked like it was well-maintained. Thanks to this thread I remembered that some breaker panels were bad, but I couldn't remember which, so I snapped a picture... FWIW, I've lived in multiple apartments with Stab-Lok panels. Came home after a nasty storm to find a light haze in my late 80s apartment, and most of the breakers tripped (including the main  ). Resetting any of them beyond the main resulted in a loud buzzing and an immediate trip (along with a puff of smoke from whatever surge protector had shorted).Not ALL Stab Lok panels are bad. Just most. The only damage was to every surge protector in the place (which shorted to ground, as designed - melting themselves and burning the carpet a bit), my DSL modem (which took a hit over the phone line I think, as my landline phone, router, and network port on my PC were also fried), and my microwave (not on a surge protector). The modem could still be plugged in, but would start smoking. I'd say Zinscos are far, far more dangerous, if nothing else, because the day I moved into an apartment with a Zinsco panel, the kitchen light caught on fire and the switch also melted and wouldn't turn off, and the breaker for that circuit melted as well. Fire inspector said the light fixture had had 100+ watt bulbs run in a 40 watt fixture, there was no insulation on any of the wires - they shorted against the fixture when I turned it on.
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Apr 16, 2015 09:46
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Malpenix Blonia posted:This is up to code, right? So uh, why does this tree need electricity?
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Apr 16, 2015 13:06
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Its a power plant.
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Apr 16, 2015 13:11
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