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Basically the only way to fix our house properly at this point is to get a bunch of dumpsters and a bulldozer and start over. Apologies in advance since every time I talk about or work on this place I get all  towards the previous owners.This being western PA, our house was previously owned by some of the most broke-rear end and not-that-smart people in existence. It was also owned by a machinist at one point so sometimes I'll find a cardboard top from a box of capscrews wedged somewhere to stop a squeak or other sorts of Wile E. Coyote engineering or evidence of odd equipment, compressors, cisterns, or boilers being installed at one point. Generally when it was remodeled previously it was done using recycled freebies or things that people would find at the dump. The basement sink was one such item. It was an old enameled cast iron kitchen sink with 'sample' written underneath, which in itself is awesome except someone went through the effort of drilling many, many 5/16" holes going across to snap off the backsplash.  Somebody worked very hard and probably ruined a lot of drills in the process. It seems it would've been easier to change something else instead.But, like I said, this area isn't exactly known for 'smart'... Even more stupid are the people that actually bought this place without testing the faucets, the furnace, opening closets and cabinets, and actually thought they could easily fix this place up, but that's another story. All the 2x4 studs on the second floor walls are turned the wrong way, so the walls are only 2" thick instead of 4". I've seen this done in other houses, too, but it's just weak, stupid and acoustically horrible. The previous owner also said the walls were lath and plaster. They're actually recycled plasterboard that was full of holes that were just covered up with wallpaper. Electrical: I've managed to fix most of the electrical stuff with my dad already. As best as I can tell the house originally started out with a 120V 30A service and knob-and-tube wiring, which had been spliced into over the years using just about ever other method in existence. Some of it was done properly using cloth-covered NM, other sections in the attic were either clothes iron or heater cord (the really old cloth-wrapped stuff) to run a pullchain light outside the second floor hall closet, crudely spliced into the original K&T. The outlets on the front porch are run with that metal armored (BX?) rubber insluated stuff that's just twisted together and left floating in space; no box. One outlet is installed in what would've been surface mount conduit at some point except it's behind a wall with the porcelain face exposed. Strange. There was a similar pair of porcelain conduit receptacles with an obsolete NEMA type in the basement on a backer board that was connected to two separate 120V circuits on opposite phases to get the 240. Oh and of course nothing was grounded properly so if there's any metal conduit or armor for any significant length connected to a switch or outlet box you'll get a nice tingle if you touch the plate screws since it's floating electrically. As it is, there's a couple other unfuck-previous-work projects that we're working on, then we can cut the power to and pull all the old wiring out for good. it's the last circuit left which still runs lights and outlets on both floors of the front half of the house. Windows: Almost all the original vertical double-hung windows were removed and replaced with homemade windows that swing in.  I don't get that. You can't open them without hitting stuff or moving the curtains out of the way. The trim for the windows is also the framing for the windows, so that when you replace them with proper windows, the framing needs fixed, which is royally screwed up from when they hosed with it before and requires removing entire sections of wall to fix properly. Most of them are also painted shut (why is this a common theme?) Plumbing: Galvanized steel sucks. Nearly all the valves were siezed, the pipes were rusted on the inside to the point of being nearly clogged solid. Basement loo is neat, but not if you have a septic tank. The plumbing was installed under an addition outside the main foundation, so flush toilets were added afterwards. There is a weird cistern of sorts under a section of the basement floor, so I'm assuming a spring ran through and pooled there. I'm fascinated of the possibilities of where the drain line for that would end up. Kitchen sink on the other side of the house just exited through the wall and ran down the hillside where it emerged near the drainage ditch. Kind of normal for stuff like that to be done where septic tanks are involved on old houses, but not normal for it to be done with automotive exhaust pipe, which is incidentally what was used for the bathtub drain on the second floor. As far as the basement drainage, the aforementioned basement sink went underneath and across to a floor drain, then diagonally three feet over past a metal plate that was covered over with some sort of skim layer of concrete, then about four feet to a floor drain in the corner. There may even be a floor drain further up a couple feet from the first one I mentioned. I pulled up the metal plate to take a peek and it looks like the drain was built up on the original floor by 2" of bricks on either side, with the floor higher than that. I don't know what they were trying to do.  There's also another drain across the basement that looks like what would've been the original one but there's an exhaust pipe stuffed into that one at the wall and the original basin (if it had one) cemented over.Weird.
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Oct 21, 2011 05:43
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Others posted:Post pics. I went around and got a few this morning. Unfortunately our basement is absolutely full of junk so a lot of things that I need to back off from to get a wider field of view for context mean the only thing that's visible is junk. Since my dad finally retired and I've recently been laid off we have more time to work on these things so I might be able to get some pictures of things later that I just can't get now. First set is the floor drain mayhem. One of the drains is under the corner of the workbench. I don't know why my dad didn't just put the bench over to the left another four inches when he put it down there... There's some sort of cleanout or drain cap that used to be cemented in the floor before I broke it loose just in front of the dehumidifier (white).  Back in the corner (inconveniently under the propped-up table base) is another actual floor drain with the furnace condensate discharge running to it.  Unsurprisingly, this whole corner of the basement is higher in elevation than most of the rest of it, so water's not going to run to any of them on its own. I pulled up the cover and I realized immediately I'm not looking into legitimate plumbing. Mouse nest aside, the straight walls are of the pipe itself which looks more like either brick or else a small version of chimney flue pipe with a hole knocked in the side. It's just beneath the surface of the floor, so I don't know how it connects to the other drains considering they're the standard bell trap design which goes down a few inches. I also realized when looking closely at the cover that some poor, innocent antique cast iron kitchen stove had to die to make this.   I don't know which way the water flows (if it doesn't just puddle under there some place and back up), but I do know the workbench corner drain is connected somehow to an old sink drain that was about 6-10 feet north of the bench toward the center of the house, which is immediately adjacent to the cistern under the floor (the picture makes it look square, but it goes further up and down past the junk).  I can't get a good picture of the relationship of anything to anything else though. So I'm not sure if they tried to tap into the cistern overflow (if that's even what's under there) or if it's separate, as the floor drains could conceivably exit on three out of four sides of the house to a hillside. Edit: coroner isn't corner. Godzilla525 fucked around with this message at 01:34 on Nov 3, 2011 |
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Oct 30, 2011 15:24
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Jonny 290 posted:Pics of the Duggar house. The cellphone holster, polo shirt and khaki pants uniform. I can tell all I need to know from that, making the inside of the house completely unsurprising as I scrolled down. I can't imagine what the lack of sound damping in that vaulted kitchen/living area is like when it's full of screaming children.  The joke's on them.If there's one thing I can't stand the most amongst the bad 'budget' subdivision development cliches present it's that ugly fake plated stamped steel and plastic crap that ends up as a horrible attempt at polished brass. Ugh. Especially those domed light fixtures pictured on the left. If I ever end up in a house with those I'm going to make a nice YouTube video of me destroying them.
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Oct 31, 2011 12:11
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