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Collateral Damage posted:Make floating houses that aren't firmly attached to their foundation, but tethered to them. So when it floods the house just floats up above the foundation, then settles back down when the water receeds. https://youtu.be/mKazCBp7QZc Like so?
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Dec 29, 2016 16:19
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ohgodwhat posted:So I have to get an $80kish house for the cost of a $200k house, and even when I pay it off I still have massive insurance premiums and the pleasures of rebuilding a house and my possessions. Yeah you're right, totally workable. Splicer posted:This is indeed the root cause of the issue, but I really get the impression you don't actually know what insurance is.
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Dec 29, 2016 17:20
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Collateral Damage posted:Make floating houses that aren't firmly attached to their foundation, but tethered to them. So when it floods the house just floats up above the foundation, then settles back down when the water receeds. The Brit TV show 'Grand Designs' showed one being built - Some pictures, https://www.dezeen.com/2014/10/15/baca-architects-amphibious-house-floating-floodwater/
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Dec 29, 2016 17:40
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random question: I was visiting my cousins over Christmas this year, and they were complaining about their deadbeat landlord and the crappy construction around their house. one of the things they showed me was their fuse box, which was literally a fuse box with the screw-in glass fuses. I'd never seen one of those in the wall before. Is that still legal and up to code?
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Dec 29, 2016 17:44
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Sagebrush posted:random question: I was visiting my cousins over Christmas this year, and they were complaining about their deadbeat landlord and the crappy construction around their house. one of the things they showed me was their fuse box, which was literally a fuse box with the screw-in glass fuses. I'd never seen one of those in the wall before. Is that still legal and up to code? Generally if it's always been that way, they can leave it that way. Once they start making certain improvements to it, they need to bring the whole thing up to modern code, but the why and the how are fairly specific.
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Dec 29, 2016 17:49
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Dylan16807 posted:People pay that price for a $30k house in some areas, so I'd call it workable. Most flood plains should be abandoned, but some people are willing to pay a lot for downtown/near-town land. No, it isn't. Insurance companies make their money on the float. Berkshire Hathaway is a classic example: you take people's money, make wise investment choices, and then when you have claims you keep the money you made on the investment.
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Dec 29, 2016 18:29
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Flood chat reminds me of a house I saw go up in Florida. I lived in a town with lakes, and a development went up near a lake on some "reclaimed" swamp land. This always goes well. The final house was built with an ample margin between it and the lake, including the 2 lane road and over a house sized margin on the other side of the road. I think you can see where this is going. The road often needed repairs, and the safety margin land was often wet and soggy and generally unsafe to walk on during hurricane season. A few dryer (all things relative) years later the developer got the permits to build just one more house in the development on the margin land. They dug it out, back filled it, the whole bit, and I think even got some sucker to buy the thing. Sure enough hurricane season comes along and it is a doozy that year, adding multiple feet to most of the lakes. This far exceeded the limits of most floating docks causing peoples boats to become flooded, and this house was condemned as the land beneath it was simply melting away into the lake. The road flooded for a good portion of the summer and the people on the other side of the road worried about their house flooding. Money can buy anything, especially building permits in Florida. Similar thing happened to a mall but in a way more dangerous fashion. Brand new mall, stood for a few years, then one heavy rain summer the childs play area fell into a cavernous sinkhole overnight. Had it been during the day everyone in the play area would have died. Turned out they bribed their way to a passing environmental impact report. They pumped in shitloads of cement and it took them at least a year to get it back up to snuff. I forget if they put the play area back. One thing I do recall about it is they put up these big walls around the area with the hole with windows in them, and one day we peaked in the windows and there was a spray of cement all over the ceiling and walls. http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/1998-06-17/news/9806170460_1_ridge-mall-sinkhole-lake-wales https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eagle_Ridge_Mall http://article.thesislog.net/?seq=664553 H110Hawk fucked around with this message at 18:59 on Dec 29, 2016 |
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Dec 29, 2016 18:51
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kid sinister posted:Both locations need GFCI protection. Back when GFCIs were expensive and cable was cheap, they'd run circuits like that. Part of that is still in the book too. All bathrooms and no other rooms are allowed to share one circuit for outlets only. That way, the first outlet on that circuit branch can be a GFCI and protect all the others. If that GFCI trips for the first time and this house has several bathrooms, you might have to do a bit of searching around the house to find the GFCI. So, along these lines, my house is otherwise pretty free from wtf construction bits, but when I bought it the downstairs den had a patch cable running from one outlet to another (blue wire in image). If you unplug it, the remaining outlets in the room go dead, the bathroom next door goes dead, and an outlet in the bathroom upstairs goes out as well. I have no idea what the original wiring was supposed to be, which direction the original electric supply went, or where to even begin fixing it. 
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Dec 29, 2016 19:03
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ManlyWeevil posted:So, along these lines, my house is otherwise pretty free from wtf construction bits, but when I bought it the downstairs den had a patch cable running from one outlet to another (blue wire in image). If you unplug it, the remaining outlets in the room go dead, the bathroom next door goes dead, and an outlet in the bathroom upstairs goes out as well. I have no idea what the original wiring was supposed to be, which direction the original electric supply went, or where to even begin fixing it. That is really quite something!
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Dec 29, 2016 19:39
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Psycho Donut Killer posted:Dallas has decided to develop a floodway. Mostly as trails, but they are surely going to have bathroom buildings and lighting.
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Dec 29, 2016 19:48
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Sagebrush posted:random question: I was visiting my cousins over Christmas this year, and they were complaining about their deadbeat landlord and the crappy construction around their house. one of the things they showed me was their fuse box, which was literally a fuse box with the screw-in glass fuses. I'd never seen one of those in the wall before. Is that still legal and up to code? Ah, that magic of grandfathering! As long as it was up to code when it was installed, then it will be okay from then on. The only thing that could make it not legal is if it causes a fire bad enough to condemn the building. ManlyWeevil posted:So, along these lines, my house is otherwise pretty free from wtf construction bits, but when I bought it the downstairs den had a patch cable running from one outlet to another (blue wire in image). If you unplug it, the remaining outlets in the room go dead, the bathroom next door goes dead, and an outlet in the bathroom upstairs goes out as well. I have no idea what the original wiring was supposed to be, which direction the original electric supply went, or where to even begin fixing it. Male to male cords are a no no. Do you have a multimeter or circuit tester? Turn off the power, unplug both ends of that cord, then turn the power back on and see which of those 2 outlets is still hot. Once you do that, turn the power off and pull that outlet of of its box. How many cables are inside? If you're lucky, all you will need to do is reconnect some of the cables inside to pass power to the other outlet box. If the cables look OK in the origin box but you still don't get power at the other box, then turn the power off again and pull the other outlet out. Do any cables there need repair? Use your tester there to see if power is making it that far. Also at both outlets, if there's only two cables going into each box and they used the outlet screws to make the connection instead of wire nuts, check to make sure that the metal tabs that connect the two screw pads on either side of the outlet haven't been broken off. That's a tiny yet easily overlooked way to break a circuit. If those tabs are gone, replace the outlets, with tamper proof ones since that's code now.
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Dec 29, 2016 20:20
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Earthquake insurance is a great scam tho. Either there are no major earthquakes, and you take in payments for doing essentially nothing, or there is a huge earthquake, all your customers file a claim, you declare bankruptcy and pay nothing. Win/win.
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Dec 29, 2016 21:20
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kid sinister posted:Male to male cords are a no no.
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Dec 29, 2016 21:38
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Tunicate posted:Earthquake insurance is a great scam tho. This is why California does its own earthquake insurance.
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Dec 29, 2016 21:40
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Tunicate posted:Earthquake insurance is a great scam tho. This has actually happened, I take it?
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Dec 29, 2016 21:40
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D34THROW posted:This has actually happened, I take it? In 1994 all the CA insurers got killed after the Northridge earthquakes (damage was more than 30 years of premiums, so they all went broke). http://www.insurancejournal.com/news/west/2014/01/17/317586.htm
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Dec 29, 2016 22:02
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kid sinister posted:Male to male cords are a no no. Do you have a multimeter or circuit tester? Turn off the power, unplug both ends of that cord, then turn the power back on and see which of those 2 outlets is still hot. Once you do that, turn the power off and pull that outlet of of its box. How many cables are inside? If you're lucky, all you will need to do is reconnect some of the cables inside to pass power to the other outlet box. If the cables look OK in the origin box but you still don't get power at the other box, then turn the power off again and pull the other outlet out. Do any cables there need repair? Use your tester there to see if power is making it that far. Oh, I know they're awful, that's why we're in this thread and not the wiring thread.  All the receptacles need to be replaced. The house is wired with (something)-2 Romex, but the ground is terminated on the box itself. The older plugs are 2 prong, but maybe half of them have been replaced with self-grounding plugs. I've checked both ends of the jumper cord in the past: the one on the right has power but terminates a circuit (only one wire in) while the other has 2 in but no power without the jumper. I'll pull what I think is the other end (upstairs bathroom) and check that as well. kid sinister posted:Also at both outlets, if there's only two cables going into each box and they used the outlet screws to make the connection instead of wire nuts, check to make sure that the metal tabs that connect the two screw pads on either side of the outlet haven't been broken off. That's a tiny yet easily overlooked way to break a circuit. If those tabs are gone, replace the outlets, with tamper proof ones since that's code now. I'll check this out and let you know, or should I move this to the non horrors thread? One thing worth mentioning, the house is wired with one of those low voltage systems from the 50s/60s, that is, except the upstairs bathroom which has a normal line voltage switch. It's possible that something was broken when that was converted. My worst fear is that there's a wire somewhere that isn't connected on both ends so I'm sitting on a time bomb of electrical fires.
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Dec 30, 2016 01:25
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The insurance companies just hope the disaster is so big no one will still be alive to make claims.
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Dec 30, 2016 03:29
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Did we do this one yet?
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Dec 30, 2016 03:36
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That string allows operation from an adjacent room, doesn't it. I like it.
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Dec 30, 2016 03:46
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I used to do stuff like that in my bedroom when I was a kid, so I could turn the lights on/off without getting out of bed. Granted this didn't involve penetrating the drywall.
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Dec 30, 2016 03:50
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That's a great idea for the next person that subdivides their college apartment by building a box in the living room.
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Dec 30, 2016 04:49
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Man I looked at that for about thirty seconds trying to figure out what the gently caress I was looking at then suddenly 
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Dec 30, 2016 05:18
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ManlyWeevil posted:Oh, I know they're awful, that's why we're in this thread and not the wiring thread. You could move it if you want. I actually wrote up a 3 prong upgrade post. The link is in the electrical OP. Grounding to the box is OK as long as you use self grounding devices like you mentioned and the ground wires attached to those boxes are attached all the way back to panel. Test for a circuit between hot and ground. It sounds like you got the right idea as far as tracking down the break in that circuit on the left. Somewhere the power isn't flowing to this detached portion. Once you found the break, it should be as simple as reattaching it. Keep in mind that the bathroom sink outlet needs GFCI protection, while the rest of the circuit probably doesn't. Edit: now that I think about it, that bathroom outlet box is a good candidate for having that break. GFCI outlets can protect stuff down branch. You generally don't want to put stuff on a GFCI's protected terminals because of their own breaker, because people don't realize that they have their own breakers. If it trips, people are going to go down to their breaker panel and say "what the hell, the circuit is still on?!?" It's possible that someone upgraded that bathroom to a GFCI, but didn't put the rest of that branch on the protected terminals for that reason, then didn't have wire nuts or a pigtail to attach that down branch in front of the GFCI. kid sinister fucked around with this message at 05:56 on Dec 30, 2016 |
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Dec 30, 2016 05:38
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StormDrain posted:Did we do this one yet? That better be labelled as non-potable...
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Dec 30, 2016 05:51
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Ashcans posted:I feel like I have seen a picture like this with the house basically anchored to corner posts that it can ride up and down on with the water without drifting.  
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Dec 30, 2016 07:23
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Bad Angus! Bad!
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Dec 30, 2016 17:13
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 Half crappy construction / half question: Crappy construction: We have an ancient sump pit in our basement that had sewage back flowing into it that's finally been disconnected from the sewer line and had a proper sump pump retrofitted into the pit. Since I didn't want a burmese pit trap in my basement, I asked for a hatch of some kind over it to replace the half rotted plywood sheet that was previously there. So, the contractor decided on a half inch thick steel plate. It weighs about 100 lbs. At least I can drive a car over it if I ever need to. Question: The pipe connected to the pump is set into the floor so it's not a tripping hazard, but I didn't think about where the power cord would go other than plugged into a GFCI outlet on the wall near the pump. I think the correct solution here is to bust out some more concrete parallel to the pump outlet pipe, fit another PVC pipe in there there, and fish the power cord through that?
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Dec 30, 2016 17:25
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funkatron3000 posted:I didn't want a burmese pit trap in my basement Whoa, slow down, you lost me here.
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Dec 30, 2016 17:49
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I thought it was two pictures 
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Dec 30, 2016 18:07
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funkatron3000 posted:Question: Or just put it in some rubber cord protector not over your pipe and call it a day? That's like  , double it for fancy.
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Dec 30, 2016 18:41
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Here's the view from outside my dining room window - the rear of my neighbor's house. I have no idea where the gently caress to start with this one. Initially there was just the decks with the doors...with no railing. That top deck looks extra special with no support besides whatever nails or screws are in it, they probably used a whole contractor box of wood screws. Then they added what I'm guessing are 3 AC units for a house the size of mine, and I've only got 1. And you can bet your rear end there was no permit involved here, I highly doubt that meets code in my city. I'm just waiting for that top deck to collapse one day when that wood starts coming apart from the house. 
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Dec 30, 2016 21:27
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The rest of my office just looked to see why I was screaming in horror
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Dec 30, 2016 21:35
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Is that upper one a swamp cooler or an AC? It looks a lot like a swamp cooler that I had on my old place. Those are really light so it probably won't collapse the deck any faster than it otherwise would collapse.
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Dec 30, 2016 21:38
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Atticus_1354 posted:Is that upper one a swamp cooler or an AC? It looks a lot like a swamp cooler that I had on my old place. Those are really light so it probably won't collapse the deck any faster than it otherwise would collapse. So it'll collapse in 5 years instead of 3, fantastic!  My guess is that they didn't account for the window and door below. You'd expect there to be supports on the bottom at an angle going into the frame of the house.
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Dec 30, 2016 21:49
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Rynn posted:So it'll collapse in 5 years instead of 3, fantastic! Actually it will probably collapse in 2 when they go out to service that piece of poo poo after letting it sit uncovered all winter. So the bonus is that it will take someone with it.
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Dec 30, 2016 21:57
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Can we get a zoomed out pic? It looks like their roof is almost horizontal on top and I wanna know how they handle the snow that builds up.
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Dec 30, 2016 22:10
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It's a barn-style roof, I think. Old Dutch houses are built in the same way. So it provides enough of an angle to shrug snow without sacrificing as much attic space as a more steeply angled roof.
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Dec 30, 2016 22:14
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Polio Vax Scene posted:Can we get a zoomed out pic? It looks like their roof is almost horizontal on top and I wanna know how they handle the snow that builds up. Here's a pic from the city assessment website from 2014. I'm pretty shocked they took a pic and haven't done poo poo about it. 
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Dec 30, 2016 22:20
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Maybe each floor has been converted into a separate apartment. I would still at least expect support beams connecting to the lower deck...
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Dec 30, 2016 23:16
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