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oh boy do I ever have stories for this thread. I just bought a fixer upper last year and I'm still going through it. This is what happens when you put 6-10 layers of asphalt shingles over a layer of cedar shingles, over the course of ~80 years, and then allow it to simmer.  The top layers were peeling off and sliding down the roof because the nails were no longer reaching the roof decking, so it was more like thumb tacks on a corkboard made out of ancient decomposing shingles. It had the appearance of a very bad sunburn. The valleys in the roof had something like 3-4 layers of flashing in them. I ended up throwing my hands up in disgust and simply ripped the whole roof off, decking and all, and dropped an extra thousand bucks on enough 3/4" plywood to redo the whole thing. It was worth it. Remodeling the kitchen? gently caress gutting that place, just slap another layer on top! moldy decomposed lath and horsehair plaster with moldy decomposed fiberboard acoustic tile over it, with veneer plywood over that. It looked fairly decent but I knew there was some sort of horrible sin hiding behind it, so down it came. Take a close look at that recessed lighting fixture, we'll be revisiting it.  The bathroom. Two layers of lath and plaster, a layer of drywall, a few layers of 3/4" boards and wainscotting, and some masonite wainscotting as well. The room went from 7.5 feet square to 8 feet square when I gutted it. That's ~13% floor area increase.  Maxwell House electrical box for the recessed lighting fixture. Holes for the romex were created using a screwdriver and a hammer from the look of it. One of the romex runs was chafed and it appeared the insulation was somewhat melted and burned. I am REALLY glad I pulled that ceiling down. There were four like this in the room.  adding a bathroom? Knock the foundation wall down, extend the foundation, add an addition over it, and then cut a floor joist in the kitchen and cut about 2/3 of the way through the sill plate (right where it goes out over open space in the basement addition) for the vent stack and sewer lines. The only reason the kitchen floor isn't bouncy as hell right here is because it's 3" thick (multiple layers of boards, plywood, and flooring...) and this joist is somewhat cantilevered out over another support beam in the middle of the basement.  Why use one properly sized joist in the bathroom when you can use two or three a bit too short, nailed together side by side, and still get them the wrong length? Ahh, gently caress it, just shim it up on top of the foundation wall with random bits of stone and wood. Also pay no attention to those strangely spliced wall studs.  More electrical cleverness. This one looks pretty OK, right?  Hmm, what the hell is that? I feel like I have seen these somewhere before.  Uh. I'm not sure if paper plates are UL listed for use as electrical box covers.  That's about it for fuckups I have found and documented with my camera so far. The plumbing was horrible when I bought it, I didn't take any pictures but here is some of what I found: * cold water pipe patched using two hose clamps and a piece of garden hose * cold water pipe patched using tightly wrapped electrical tape and a hose clamp * hot water pipe 'patched' using a tightly wrapped sock. Water would evaporate off the sock faster than it could drip out through the pinhole * cast iron drain pipe in the bathroom 'patched' using ABS DWV jammed inside the ends of the cast iron and slathered with silicone caulking * cast iron drain pipe under the basement sink 'patched' using aluminum flashing, big hose clamps, and lots of silicone caulking * ABS DWV tee inserted into vertical run of cast iron drain pipe using... surprise surprise... electrical tape and lots of silicone caulking (and it was supporting the cast iron pipe above it, too) * the aforementioned tee was for the washing machine drain, which came up into the back entryway. No trap was used. I always wondered why the kitchen and back entryway smelled so ripe. Glad I was planning on ripping this all out anyhow. * MANY valves 'replaced' by simply soldering a second valve in line with the first. I found one section of pipe that had 4 broken and leaking valves in a row with a single working valve at the end. kastein fucked around with this message at 20:21 on Nov 1, 2011 |
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Nov 1, 2011 19:57
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daggerdragon posted:You sound like me with my house, right down to the lasagna-roof and daisy-chained leaky valves on pipes. Also, the pictures aren't showing up for me... I jacked em from facebook, that's probably against the rules. Will fix it up with some tinypic love now just in case.
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Nov 1, 2011 20:15
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Aggressive pricing posted:My utility sink and washing machine are connected to the same drain that runs through a wall to underneath the bathroom sink. A while ago I was getting a towel and noticed something curling off the PVC. I looked closer and couldn't believe it, instead of being glued together every single connection had been wrapped in layers of electrical tape. I tell my mom/landlord, her response "Well at least it matches." oh wow. That's pretty horrible  If it matches (assuming black electrical tape) it's actually ABS, not PVC. You use a different kind of adhesive on it. Laminator posted:I have this exact problem and it's drat impossible to cook anything on my stove above medium high because the smoke makes my alarm go off and makes me ANGRY If it's on an outside wall, it's even simpler, you just put the vent through that wall. Make sure you appropriately water seal the vent cover on the outside - water and gravity go well together, so the top edge and sides of the vent flange should go under the siding while the bottom edge should go over the siding. You can stretch the rules a bit on the sides and bottom if caulked properly, usually I see them attached to the outside of the clapboard that the bottom is over and then the next few are overlapped over the flange.
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Feb 13, 2012 21:36
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and it said a good hood is like 3-500. Is the install as simple as running piping up to the attic and venting it out?
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There's a conduit coming up out of the ground to support the box right? I would get more conduit, dig the trench the rest of the way to the fence, and have a box with dual ports on the bottom as a splice box between the old cable and the new cable, both conduits coming out of the ground parallel and into the bottom of the splice box. Then continue the cable and conduit to the fence, mount it at a proper height, and do whatever you want. Not sure I'm explaining this well, I can mspaint if I'm not.
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Jul 16, 2012 02:21
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kastein posted:The plumbing was horrible when I bought it, I didn't take any pictures but here is some of what I found: Found these (apparently I'd actually cut them out and set them aside... forgot about that)   At least I was wrong and they used FOUR hose clamps to fix the cold water line!  A few more gems I've found since then:  coffee cans and some spackling compound make great woodstove-to-chimney ducting. This was hidden behind wood paneling with the end wide open, i.e. a piece of 1/8" wood paneling was acting as the side of my chimney. I'm so glad I never got the furnace working and tore that chimney down...  by our powers combined... we are captain ELECTRICAL FIRE! knob and tube to romex to unrated speaker wire. No junction boxes (except coffee cans I've previously posted), just wire nuts and e-tape. kastein fucked around with this message at 03:46 on Oct 17, 2012 |
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Oct 17, 2012 03:40
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They are hosted on facebook, which I've been told is kosher, so I am betting something in your network is blocking facebook or facebook's CDN is down... again...
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Oct 18, 2012 15:21
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A friend of mine from AI just sent me this link. It's pretty horrifying. http://imgur.com/a/K7Xef
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Nov 13, 2012 18:44
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daggerdragon posted:
yeah, if I miscut something, it goes on the stack to be used for fireblocking and/or anywhere I need a smaller piece. At $2 each it really isn't worth doing things wrong.
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Nov 13, 2012 19:38
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If I wanted walls to be flexible and bouncy I would specify grade-z lumber and ask the builder to haphazardly chop slots in studs and not cut fireblocks and stuff to the right length. There is no excuse for that kind of crap in construction IMO.
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Nov 14, 2012 06:23
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Things I've found in my walls: * silver spoon * combs. Lots of combs * coffee cans. I would think this was bad, but they were being used as electrical boxes and chimney pipes, so I think it was horrible. * an aluminum pie tin under a leaky pipe * an old water damaged cardboard box full of newspapers with 2-3 cans of expanding foam spread over the top, seemingly to block the draft from a giant rotting hole in the floor behind the clawfoot tub in the bathroom. I only found this after stripping a few layers of flooring and subflooring off. * a large pile of rags and worn out clothing that had been stuffed into a hole from a dryer vent, then fell into the wall cavity. * multiple areas lacking chunks of studs where previous owners installed in-wall bathroom cabinets, removing whatever studs stood in their way. * old coins, disposable razors, medicine bottle, random junk.
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Nov 16, 2012 05:04
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I had the same random stud spacing... 120 year old houses are awesome that way. I will have to find my pic of a kitchen floor joist cut out to make way for the sewer vent pipes when I get home.
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Nov 17, 2012 02:55
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Normal especially in renovating old construction. I was scratching my head wondering why I had to cut drywall 3" or so shorter at one end of a room than the other since I'd installed the new ceiling rafters laser leveled. Then I thought to check the floor level and sure enough, the floor was higher by 3.5" at one end of a 15' wall than the other. I think his main point was that the cement floor was horribly uneven and the laminate was hanging in space over the dips until someone stood on it, though.
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Jan 17, 2013 04:41
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My local yard is a good deal better than that. I went there for like 40 2x4s at one point and was expecting to pick through forever, but only found like 5-6 that were even sketchy at all while picking my lumber. And even those 5-6 were worlds better than the average 2x4 off the stack at Home Depot.
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Jan 17, 2013 20:49
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iForge posted:Someone decided to ground the bathroom outlet, so they ran a wire from behind the wall plate and down the wall to the cold water pipe. I wish I got a pic of this one! The first one - maybe that was done in the 40s/50s/60s? Hell, I think that was above code back then. poo poo was scary, yeah, but functional and legal at the time. On the second, I hate that! Idiots shouldn't be allowed to touch plumbing. I found a few places in my house like that when I tore into it, for instance the grey water drain the previous owner installed for the washing machine in the back entryway/pantry. Black ABS pipe straight through the floor, elbow, straight across the basement ceiling, then they hacked into a cast iron vent riser and "spliced" (putting it nicely) a large radius ABS T-junction into it by gobbing silicone everywhere and jamming them together. The whole run of ABS was supported using prayers, luck, and in a spot or two, it was tied to a nail in a joist using chunks of old zipcord off wall wart transformers and telephone cable. I said the same thing when I discovered that - "so that's why the back entryway always smells like poo poo..."
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Apr 5, 2013 02:26
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Eggplant Wizard posted:Holy hell I have no idea. I do all my own work and have actually read the building codes and have some concept of what's a good idea and what's a bad idea, but I really don't know how people who aren't good at building things can get stuff done without getting taken for a ride.
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Apr 6, 2013 19:34
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I dunno man, those are only low voltage/telco lines and I have seen them hold up some pretty big trees.
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May 12, 2013 17:41
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If I had to guess, perhaps that breaker ended up being in tandem with another due to someone crossing circuits. For instance sometimes people will go to put a regular outlet and a switched outlet (for floor lamps, etc) on separate circuits, but forget to break off the little jumper tabs that joins the two outlets together electrically. So then either breaker powers the whole circuit.
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May 13, 2013 01:08
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At least it was bees, not wasps or hornets.
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May 19, 2013 19:18
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My lesson was 1. buy laser level (though I actually got mine for christmas. Probably one of the most useful gifts I've ever received.) It draws nice vertical and horizontal lines for me, on anything, at the same time, so I can see just how un-level and un-plumb all my walls and floors are at the push of a button.
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May 22, 2013 02:28
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They are very commonly used in AC powered equipment, but not for building wiring systems for some reason. Do you guys use stranded conductor wire for in-wall? Because we mostly use solid conductor, and I'm honestly not sure I'd trust those (called "euro style barrier strips" here) with solid conductor wires of that gauge.
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Jun 12, 2013 01:19
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Looks pretty solid to me, as long as none of the connections are loose (particularly the grounds and neutrals in that bar along the bottom) - it's quite sparse/underpowered for modern construction, but looks like it would have been sufficient probably 40 years ago or so. e: I don't even see any charring/overheated conductors, and it appears you have another two slots for breakers in the top row if you end up needing to expand slightly. Make sure your service can handle it.
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Jun 12, 2013 01:50
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Wait,  Why are there red and black conductors going to single gang breakers next to each other? Two options here: 1. 240 volt circuit using single gang breakers. Not legal, not safe. 2. two 120 volt circuits using the same neutral. WTF? I counted and there are 6 logical "pairs" (some singles): left upper single breaker double gang breaker for AC on left lower two single breakers on left right upper single breaker middle two single breakers on right lower two single breakers on right And 6 neutral wires going into the neutral/ground bonding bar. So I guess it's option 2, two 120 volt circuits using the same neutral (in 3 cases.) WTF is going on there? Is that even legal? I honestly don't know. I guess it'd make sense, since they're shared neutrals between the two phases, so the neutral still sees a maximum of one breaker worth of current (since it only handles the imbalance between the loads on the two hot legs) but that's loving strange. It appears all the "paired" single breakers are matched in current rating, so that's good at least. It looks like 3 of the cables (two of the #12 or #14 gauge wires and the heavy cable for the AC, going by appearance - I can't quite trace them in that tangle) have their ground conductors hooked up, so assuming they haven't been cut back too short at the other end, you can do grounding outlets on those branches simply by properly grounding the outlets to the boxes and cables. The other 3 circuits appear to have had the ground conductor clipped back, but I may be missing them. e: make that 4 of the cables, I missed the green coded ground on the first run through. kastein fucked around with this message at 02:04 on Jun 12, 2013 |
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Jun 12, 2013 02:01
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god damnit man I had just managed to erase that from my memory. FUUUUUUCK. 
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Jun 12, 2013 18:32
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It's basically just plumbing for nerds, if you can do basic math and do a bit of reading on how it all works, it starts making a lot of sense. Current: volume of water passing by a point Voltage: pressure Resistance: friction/turbulence in the flow due to small pipes, turns, etc Capacitor: storage tank Inductor: flywheel connected to an impeller in the pipe. Hell, even just a long pipe. Don't believe me? What's water hammer then? etc etc. This is somewhat of a simplification, but it makes more sense than you'd think at first.
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Jun 19, 2013 17:37
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That's probably a valid point, I didn't think that one through much.
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Jun 20, 2013 02:29
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I think that would be if it was a water tower with a check valve and a long vertical pipe full of water with a volume of compressed air in it, also connected to another water tower with a check valve facing the other way  (buck/boost or charge pump circuits are awesome ok)
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Jun 20, 2013 02:37
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Wow, that sure is some poo poo. This is why it pisses me off that I have to get building permits when I build everything bombproof/way above spec even without being watched, yet these chucklefucks don't, get away with it, and somehow don't die.
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Jun 23, 2013 19:43
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Can I recommend that you gut the basement before you redo anything supported by it? No telling what dumbfuckery the PO got up to down there, you could have squeaky floors because he decided that cutting notches 60% of the way through half the joists would be a great way to add a sewer drain line. And it's much nicer to be able to jack things and repair structure at will because you don't care if the sheetrock upstairs gets a little cracked. If you redo the whole first floor and then discover you have to jack things up and crack all your newly done drywall, it's a little more annoying.
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Jun 23, 2013 19:46
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I had to get a couch off the third floor balcony of my first apartment by chopping it in half with a splitting maul and dragging it down the stairs. It was great  It was a goodwill $75 couch and took 4 roommates and an hour of shenanigans to get it up 3 flights of front stairs, and I was the last one to move out and had to deal with it, so there was no loving way it was getting out in one piece.
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Jun 24, 2013 04:44
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Cakefool posted:I take it there was a good reason it didn't just get pushed off the balcony? Landlord lived on the first floor and their decrepit (almost falling in half) lawn chairs and rusty grill were directly under it, else I would have. I considered building a crane of some sort to lower it off the balcony, too, but realized it would cost me more in materials than the couch was worth.
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Jun 24, 2013 17:21
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Heh. Crappy paint jobs. HEH. My house was... "unique" when I bought it. Kids bedroom 1: pine board floor, very lumpy and damaged, painted a bilious green. Ceiling painted white. Walls painted with fake stone-wall pattern, giant mural of an ocean and a castle on a hill on one wall. Kids bedroom 2: pine board floor, very lumpy and damaged, painted to look like sandstone blocks. Ceiling painted dark blue with glitter mixed in and white spots everywhere (I believe it was supposed to look like the night sky.) Walls painted similar to the floor but darker, with Egyptian murals everywhere and random nonsensical chemistry equations that weren't stoichiometrically (is that a word? it is now) correct. Kitchen: straight out of the 70s, all old wood veneer walls with vertical slats, except it had all been painted over with baby-poo poo brown (I'm sorry, "harvest gold") at some point. Living room: I would have to say the walls are somewhere between mauve and puce. Not really sure exactly. The dining room wasn't horrendous, the bathroom was stucco and painted a sickening cotton-candy pink. Everything was moldy and falling apart from water damage anyways, so it all met the sledgehammer, or rather, most of it has by now. Oh, several walls in the stairwell were painted a violent purple, only slightly less purple than Barney, but they couldn't figure out where to stop painting to make it look nice so it just sorta petered out with a few straggler brush marks on the wall over the dining room entry downstairs and sorta kinda half assedly stopped at the corner at the top of the stairs.
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Jun 27, 2013 21:52
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I'd say that plus absolutely no diagonal bracing on the legs.
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Jun 28, 2013 13:42
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I'd use 6x6s, but I've seen plenty of porches built with 4x4s in that configuration that had no problems... as long as they were properly diagonally braced.
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Jun 28, 2013 14:02
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I figured it was that - or alternatively, an access panel into a wiring raceway.
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Jul 11, 2013 19:26
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Sounds like my house! I'm gutting it a little bit at a time and living in a bombed out hellhole while I rebuild it. (Mine was built in 1890 in central mass, and then lived in by 120 years worth of idiots.)
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Jul 14, 2013 04:26
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I don't need a stud finder, I know exactly where I am  Seriously though, I find all the studs in my house with a wrecking bar because everything is getting gutted anyways. I was always annoyed when trying to use my dad's while helping him do home renovation projects so that's probably a good thing. My walls are all hosed up from a century of idiots owning the house, mold, water damage, there's no insulation behind them, and drywall is $10 for a 4x8 1/2" ultralight panel. For the ~280 bucks in drywall it costs me per room (assuming 8 foot ceilings, 16 foot long walls) it is totally worth the expense.
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Jul 17, 2013 23:51
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Reggie Died posted:The best method is to find an electrical box, determine which side of the stud it's mounted, than measure 16" OC. hahahahahahhaahahahahahahahahahahaha  I don't believe I have found a single pair of studs in my house that is 1. 16" OC 2. left stud is vertical and 3. right stud is vertical. Not a single time. I basically just give up and mark the center of the top and bottom of each stud before placing drywall, then use a laser level (if it's actually vertical, some are) or a chalk line to mark things off. e: aside from the walls I've built in the second floor that is, all my second floor interior walls are within 1/16" of plumb 
kastein fucked around with this message at 01:04 on Jul 18, 2013 |
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Jul 18, 2013 01:02
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Yeah, it does work pretty well for drywall, you have a point there. Picture shows a collection of studs in my (gutted) bathroom, none of them 16 inches from anything.
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Jul 18, 2013 01:08
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All of the above. In fact it had 2 layers of lath and plaster with another couple inches of other poo poo layered over it. The room went from 7.5 feet square to 8 feet square when I gutted it and put up half inch sheetrock. It used to have a much larger window (right where the smaller window is now) and I'm reasonably certain it had a door or another large window between those two doubled up studs as well. It's a rather large and lovely hammer and yes, a very large broom. In the end all I kept from that room was the foundation (and it needs repointing), the wall framing and sheathing, and the ridge beam. Had to replace the ceiling rafters and roof rafters. The roof rafters were fine, but it was an addition and whoever built it decided no eaves was great, which left water running down the siding constantly in any storm. Plus it didn't match the rest of the house, which has large Victorian style eaves. Mildew coated siding isn't my thing so I tore the rafters off, then put new ones on including eaves overhanging proportionate to the rest of the house. Even had to redo the floor joists, there are more pics in either my current thread or the old one that got archived. Basically they were hosed - not attached to the sill plates, just propped up on stacks of flat stone on the foundation walls, and they cut them too short so they just sistered them up with 1-2 others and nailed them together. Everything was rotten.
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Jul 18, 2013 01:30
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Motronic posted:A floor drain is not intended to be a sump drain. That's not what the sanitary sewer system is for. It's a drain for washing your floor and cleaning up spills. Seat Safety Switch posted:I wonder what kind of crappy construction tales houseboat repair types have to deal with. None of them ever get reported because people who live on a houseboat probably built by some nutter redneck are a special breed of insane and very tolerant of strange housing issues.   
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Aug 27, 2013 01:56
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