|
thespaceinvader posted:It's this. I assume most brickies are that sort of skilled, but they're not often filmed and most people don't hang out on building sites to watch them. Same with basically any skilled manual trade, I have a feeling it's why videos of woodturners working get good amounts of hits. Seconding. I was early for an appointment at a rowhome in South Philadelphia and as I sat waiting in my car, the world's oldest brick-mason was building a monolithic exterior stair set & landing. I was so mesmerized by this master's economy of motion that I ran ten minutes over my time. The video clip has the same effect. I've done this work, and, while having a competent result, I made an entire hash of it. Content:  This was in a basement in West Philadelphia, and had been like this for at least 20-years. I have no idea where they went or what they powered. I need to take more photos of homes in my territory...in one home, the owner laid laminate floor directly over carpet & pad. Walking on that required sea legs. I was amazed that I didn't break through. PainterofCrap fucked around with this message at 02:13 on May 27, 2014 |
#
¿
May 27, 2014 02:06
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 14, 2024 16:15 |
|
|
kastein posted:It is not really that bad when it is in good shape, but it usually all looks fine up till the moment when every key has fallen off and the whole wall falls apart at once. The amount of debris and dust that plaster demo produces exceeds the original quantity by a factor of 2 or 3. It is awesome to behold, and the dust is impossible to eliminate. Do it. Just demo one small, closet-sized bathroom. Then prepare for a lifetime of dust. I rewired my entire house. The ceiling fixtures were done using strategically-placed 3" hole-saw cuts through the floor of the attic, and feeding line down to the switches inside the walls. Insulated from outside, cutting through asbestos and a solid inch of fir to to so.  gently caress disturbing 90-year-old plaster. PainterofCrap fucked around with this message at 01:09 on Jun 2, 2014 |
|
#
¿
Jun 2, 2014 01:00
|
|
|
The Werle posted:I need to have blow-in insulation installed in a similar manner, because in my case "gently caress disturbing 75-year-old plaster". Presumably you're re-siding the house and therefor comfortable drilling holes like this? You doing it yourself or hiring a contractor? I did it myself four years ago, and kept the siding. Including all of the saw blades, blower rental & insulation, it was about $500. I used 2-sizes of hole saws. I had to use (about six) diamond-tipped for the asbestos shingle; this was with a 2" dia. blade. Once I was through that, I saved the asbestos disc, then cut through the fir Dutch lap and the fir sheathing with a regular 1-1/2" blade. This left a 1/4" shoulder to glue the siding back on. Once the chases were filled. I used adhesive silicone to glue the wood plug back in the hole, then a paintable adhesive caulk to secure the asbestos discs back in place. After a couple follow-ups with caulk, I touched up the paint (I had painted the house about 5-years previous). I love asbestos shingle. This stuff was installed around 1950. It's incredibly durable - it'll outlast me, the house, the current geologic era...it just has to have the right shade of paint on it. When we bought the house in 1992, it was...  ...blech. (prepping to paint in 2005) PainterofCrap fucked around with this message at 23:44 on Jun 2, 2014 |
|
#
¿
Jun 2, 2014 23:36
|
|
|
This was forwarded to me by my wife. Her employer is testing the idea of issuing everyone iPads to write on-site / on scene. One of the reasons that it's a lovely idea is summed up in the photo:   One of the types of claims her employer handles: workplace injuries. Presumably, they're fairly well-versed in OSHA regs with respect to ladders, scaffolding, height access issues, etc.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 4, 2014 00:29
|
|
|
Zhentar posted:A proper shower scours you clean with the sheer force of the water I have been saving this showerhead for when money is no object and I have a 100-gallon water heater.  Weighing in at a gooseneck-bending 3.5-pounds: The solid brass Speakman shower head. From the days before water saving! I set it up once; it emptied my 40-gal heater in about fifteen glorious minutes.  when America made Great Things. 
|
|
#
¿
Jun 10, 2014 02:12
|
|
|
My Lovely Horse posted:Found on German local news, where they like to be protective of their images so I had to manually screenshot these, apologies for the quality: a houseowner has a damp basement, wants to put in an external moisture barrier and hires the dwarves of Moria to dig up around the foundation. They dig too greedily and too deep and an entire corner of the house just sags. I handled a claim for this the next town over (Mantua NJ) a number of years ago. 100-YO house, rubble & mortar foundation walls - and no footing (my house was built in 1930 with a cinderblock basement and also, no footing). Contractor with a Bobcat kept digging below the wall, looking for the footer. The entire rear wall fell over in a piece, leaving the very large, 3-story frame house hanging in the air at the rear wall, popping & creaking away. Fortunately some crazy gently caress got into the basement and set up a shitload of tiger posts to keep a bad day from getting worse. The engineer figured that it was 8,000 pieces of oak lath behind the plaster walls that kept the whole thing together just long enough.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 21, 2014 02:30
|
|
|
kastein posted:I believe everything except this It was like a loving Warner Bros cartoon. The whole wall was laying there flat, except the part that hit the Bobcat. He'd been moving along, probing under that wall for quite a while, probably wondering when he'd hit monolith. djhaloeight posted:So I'm not trying to burst your shower nirvana bubble, because trust me I love a good high flow shower, but if that thing emptied your 40 gallon water heater in 15 minutes, that's about 2.6 gallons per minute give or take...which is pretty much still considered low flow, but just at the high end of the scale. (2.5 gpm is max "low flow") What SkunKDuster said: I wasn't steaming lobster: that was mixed with cold water at least 3:1
|
|
#
¿
Jun 23, 2014 00:47
|
|
|
Motronic posted:It's not clear where any of that comes from or goes to, it doesn't look like service entrance cable, and the paint on it suggest it used to be attached to the house. It looks more like a telecommunications run of some kind - wire + strain wire but inside the meter pan... 
|
|
#
¿
Jun 27, 2014 02:24
|
|
|
W H Y Even if that's some kind of powered water shutoff from hell, it's making my nutsack shrink up into my abdomen.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 4, 2014 03:41
|
|
|
A bit late, sorry. I built my garage with a bare interior, like you are planning. To get the 1-hour burn rating, I put up (on the outside); 5/8 plywood, then 5/8 sheetrock; then, T1-11, also 5/8. It's a thick-rear end wall, but it passed the code inspection. You could bypass a couple of steps & put up 3/4" fire-rated plywood(about $60/sheet!), then maybe T1-11 or Hardiebacker clapboard siding (which I used on all other walls). I had to use the fire-rated poo poo as my roof sheathing for the rear four feet of the roof run (because I built within 2' of the property line) Yes, I overbuild. I sheathed the roof in 3/4" plywood.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 21, 2014 02:43
|
|
|
OSI bean dip posted:
 Back steps to three different apartments, my sister's in-law's house, Beach Haven. NJ 1984
|
|
#
¿
Jul 22, 2014 03:47
|
|
|
PuTTY riot posted:What the gently caress? Breakers are like what, $5-10 a pop (for the regular ones)? Ahahahaaa. Someone who's never had to buy Wadsworth!
|
|
#
¿
Jul 24, 2014 04:50
|
|
|
Rocko Bonaparte posted:Is there any concise way to test for anything wrong? Go to any hardware store, and get one of these :  http://www.galco.com/buy/Michigan-I...HgCQaAlsC8P8HAQ
|
|
#
¿
Jul 24, 2014 05:25
|
|
|
Rocko Bonaparte posted:My only solace for the modern HOA and McMansions is that when it comes time for them to do dramatic work to keep the houses from collapsing ftfy. HOAs and home construction methods since the mid 1970s are a holocaust of idiocy waiting to happen. The best part is that it doesn't matter whether it's a $55-grand shotgun shack or a million-dollar mansion: onsite stickbuilding is a travesty of shoddy workmanship, materials shortcuts, and paid-off code inspectors. These generalisations are based on my 30-years as a property adjuster. There are, of course, good builders and conscientious people building top-notch stuff, but they seem more the exception these days. Take OSB. Used properly, good oriented strandboard meets or exceeds plywood in many applicatons. I do not think it is wise to use it for either roof decking or exterior sheathing, as it doesn't seem to hold roofing and siding (particularly siding) nails very well, although that could be the type of fastener. Mainly, though, it doesn't tolerate repeated wetting as well as plywood - it will turn to oatmeal fast...and this is where lovely construction comes in, since the most grievous sins I see regularly are in weather finishes. Everyone seems to have forgotten principles of water flow & travel, and how to properly flash and overlap at valleys and openings. My house was built by the lowest WPA/NRA builder in 1930, and the wood windows have never leaked. Meanwhile, crap built in 1995 has rotted windows, trims, siding & stucco falling off & sheathing rot under & around every wall & roof opening & behind chimney structures. A hailstorm exposed $45,000 worth of this in my sister's $400K cardboard McMansion a few years ago. The house was eleven years old. The worst use of OSB is in kitchen subfloors. You get one good seeping leak, and you can remove the damage with a soup spoon. Then you wind up tearing out the entire kitchen floor - which means base cabinets, counters, all appliances...whereas with plywood, it's usually a cut & patch the area...if it's bad enough. When I was building my garage, it rained 10-15 times on my exposed 3/4" plywood decking, on the second floor. At times, it collected like a shallow pool. I thought I'd lose it from this repeated soaking. Ten years on, it's still there; - a bit grayer, and with a little grain showing, but solid as the day I laid it. PainterofCrap fucked around with this message at 15:00 on Jul 26, 2014 |
|
#
¿
Jul 26, 2014 14:54
|
|
|
One acid trip away from being a 2nd-floor recluse
|
|
#
¿
Sep 6, 2014 02:20
|
|
|
wolrah posted:If you want to see how high voltage "low voltage" actually goes, try stripping phone wire with your teeth when someone calls the line. 90V AC @ 20 Hz is a great substitute for coffee in the morning... True. Had a kitten that loved chewing on the telephone wire...until the last time, which was when the phone rang mid-chew. Never did it again.
|
|
#
¿
Sep 8, 2014 01:45
|
|
|
vFISHMANPET posted:That reminds me of a book someone was telling me about, where humans find a bunch of alien craft basically in tact, but no aliens. They have no idea what the aliens look like, the only thing they can figure out about their appearance is that their butts are different than ours because none of the seats work for humans. The Heechee Saga https://www.goodreads.com/series/49899-heechee-saga Yeah this is an excellent series by Pohl. I have to pick it up & read it again, it's been 20-years.
|
|
#
¿
Sep 17, 2014 03:07
|
|
|
Leperflesh posted:What's the rate for fires originating from fireplaces? Like sparks, or burning pieces of wood rolling out of the fireplace, or chimney fires, or sparks from the chimney setting the roof on fire. The issue is with worn, non-maintained, or poorly-installed chimneys/liners.They'll light up the framing in the wall, and those fuckers are a bitch to put out before the house is fully involved. Dryer fires are another I see a lot. You'd be amazed at how much flammable crap & lint escapes into the innards of a dryer. The worst house fire I did involving a dryer, though, was one where someone vented it inside the wall between the kitchen & the family room. It was like that for years, and chose to light up the house 15-minutes before the family sat down to Thanksgiving dinner. That black-burnt turkey sitting amongst the devastation was the saddest thing I saw that weekend.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 4, 2014 04:12
|
|
|
kastein posted:A good sized overhang does a lot for a house in both appearance and durability, it keeps the rain from running down the siding/trim/windows/doors and also directs it away from the foundation somewhat. If I ever make good on my dream of buying land somewhere and building a house from scratch, it's going to be drat near impervious to the elements. Livin' the dream (completed ten years ago this month!)  
|
|
#
¿
Oct 16, 2014 02:31
|
|
|
Dick Trauma posted:You built a two-story garage!?! yeah, garage with loft  and sunroom with woodstove  & bar 
|
|
#
¿
Oct 18, 2014 02:06
|
|
|
NancyPants posted:Lol I don't get it do you just really like carbon monoxide? The garage is for cars & fixing stuff. The sunroom was a concession to my wife.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 18, 2014 06:39
|
|
|
ScottyWired posted:It's likely to become heritage listed soon, meaning it will never, ever be renovated again unless you pay out the nose for some dark paperwork magick. We have houses like that here in Philadelphia. You'd better get cracking on replacing everything you think might wear out before then. Including wallpaper & paint. It's a stone bitch once your domicile is declared an (a) historic site.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 19, 2014 23:45
|
|
|
Tried that. I was really tempted to do this when I installed my opener, after I found put the door absolutely would not function without them, nor would it work if wire was used to bridge that fail-safe circuit. I was pissed...but eventually just settled down & installed them as configured/required. They have been less of a pain in the rear end than expected. Usually a random cobwebbed leaf gets hung up on one, or they're knocked askew by something. (content): Juuust a small delay in completion...  Should drive by there tomorrow & see if it's changed in the past two years since I shot this pic. Nitrox posted:In Philly, PainterofCrap fucked around with this message at 05:38 on Nov 19, 2014 |
|
#
¿
Nov 19, 2014 04:32
|
|
|
I'm sticking with copper. Don't mind PVC for drain lines, though.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 2, 2014 03:37
|
|
|
Copper is more labor-intensive, from prepping & cutting to shining the joints afterwards. The leaks I've dealt with, both personally & in a professional capacity, are usually due to corrosion related to failure to clean before soldering, or to remove acid flux later. Most of the 'mystery leaks' I've found in homes is due to flux. It may take years or decades, but it'll eat through... In some areas, acidity is an issue, where pinhole leaks develop all over the place. Sometimes it's thinner 'M' pipe. Properly installed, though, I've seen it 60-years on and quite robust, even though it's life expectancy averages about 40. PEX (may it truly hold up over time; polybutylene was a disaster) does offer two distinct advantages: it's flexible, so you can sneak it through and around areas that would require tear-out otherwise; and it requires no heat to install. My neighbor is sorta beta-testing it in his unheated garage...it seems to resist bursting when frozen. PainterofCrap fucked around with this message at 06:11 on Dec 2, 2014 |
|
#
¿
Dec 2, 2014 06:05
|
|
|
If the unit moves more air / tonnage than the installed ductwork can handle, the A-coil (the evaporator, which the air passes over to chill & dry it) can freeze up. Which is Not Good. Even if the airflow is good; if the overall system is too large for the home, it (as noted) can lead to short-cycling, which is inefficient & causes premature wear.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 20, 2015 06:17
|
|
|
TooMuchAbstraction posted:Spoke with the concrete contractor I'm hiring today, and we worked out scheduling. Everything should be all set for inspection on Thursday and the pour on Friday. Called up the city office to schedule an inspection, "your permit expires this Tuesday because it's been 180 days since you got it and construction hasn't started yet" Reminds me of when I had the slab poured for my garage. Contractor set up the delivery. The concrete place was only fifteen minutes from my house, so they brought 4-yards in a hot load. Truck showed up; township code inspector showed up. Said the grading wasn't 4" deep, no go. Turned the load back. Concrete contractor was pissed. A week later: same thing happened. This close to a fistfight between the code guy & the concrete contractor. Fun times.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 23, 2015 05:54
|
|
|
Sloppy posted:Things you don't like to see in your 50' bow truss: It's tiger post time!
|
|
#
¿
Feb 16, 2015 02:40
|
|
|
Travesty of the week: We've been seeing a lot of weather-related issues in the Philadelphia area recently. Nothing like New England, but enough to keep us hopping. Homeowner reported that the floor in the family room was soft; that the hardwood was starting to discolor, and that the fireplace apron brickwork appeared to be settling and cracking. Then, a shelf unit was found tilting over. Removing the shelf unit revealed a really soft spot in the floor:  Thus was revealed the unvented, unaccessible crawlspace, built out of cinderblock and with (hopefully) some sort of concrete slab. No way to know, as there was over a foot of groundwater in there.  Judging by the water marks, this crawl has been filled up to the floorboards many times over the years, and as recently as this past week:   There's rotted floor timbers, submerged (live!) Romex, and the first rotted fiberglass insulation I've ever seen. Plus, pipes going god knows where. Not sure what that big galv pipe is for, though I suspect it drains the kitchen. The owners have been in the place less than two years. And they had an inspection done. And why yes, the inspector was recommended by the realtor. What a shock he missed this feature.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 25, 2015 06:17
|
|
|
It was a real joy. These folks may have really dodged a bullet; most of the house is built out of block/CMU and that entire crawlspace area, including all four walls - may be poured concrete. The joists were resting on masonry. There was no wall settlement at all. The floors were, in fact, remarkably solid. Which means that the entire floor structure can be torn out without disturbing the walls. I explained to the owner that once that was done, and excepting reworking whatever electric & plumbing is running down there where it puts the lotion on it's skin, that the first order of business would be installing a sump pump / french drain system. Either that, or one hell of a built-in hot tub. PainterofCrap fucked around with this message at 08:04 on Feb 25, 2015 |
|
#
¿
Feb 25, 2015 07:59
|
|
|
Gounads posted:That is terrifying. It was surprisingly odor-free. Slightly dank, but I'd been in worse basements that day (many, many pipe freeze/bursts). Probably due to it being juuust above freezing down there. If it was summer, I would've been sporting protective gear & a respirator. The family room was quit cozy, actually. No idea this lurked below.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 25, 2015 16:59
|
|
|
I was really tempted to bypass the beam sensor. In fact, when I installed mine, I left them off; was kinda bummed out that the door would not work without them (grew up with a '60s-vintage Aladdin Genie, which wouldn't even reverse if it dropped on an obstruction. In the Sixties, we just had the common sense to not gently caress with the door). I finally just installed them per instructions, about 18" off the floor. Learned to sorta lean back & hit the button after my legs had cleared the beam. Cats, of course, will always find a way. (cat was OK, according to the owner) 
|
|
#
¿
Mar 18, 2015 05:01
|
|
|
Another fun day at work. No idea how or why this car wound up down a dead-end alleyway behind some South Phila rowhomes, ending up at my insured's house.  Car's been sitting there, stuck in the house, since early February. The 2-tons of deck on the roof might be a reason.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 26, 2015 05:12
|
|
|
babyeatingpsychopath posted:As a professional electrician, I can't NOT look at the mechanical execution of others's work. Seconding this, as a property insurance adjuster. I have annoyed many & many a friend & family member. Spend a lot of time gazing at roofs while in stop&go traffic. There are a lot of really, really unskilled people out there who like to call themselves, "contractors." poo poo. I took pictures of buildings under construction while on vacation in Switzerland:  Then again, Roman construction techniques are fascinating.  PainterofCrap fucked around with this message at 17:15 on Apr 5, 2015 |
|
#
¿
Apr 5, 2015 17:07
|
|
|
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...
|
|
#
¿
Apr 14, 2015 05:35
|
|
|
Motronic posted:Looking at that first picture again, it looks suspiciously like a washer drain hose. Also voting washer drain hose. You can see the top of the short water heater; there's another 4' to the floor...though sump pump can't be ruled out I have personally witnessed the washing machine setup several times in rural areas, complete with bubble pond at the terminus 
PainterofCrap fucked around with this message at 20:30 on May 6, 2015 |
|
#
¿
May 6, 2015 20:28
|
|
|
Folks, don't exceed the wattage limits on your light fixtures. This is from a 60-YO 2-headed desk lamp. I had rewired it when my wife bought it nine years ago. To be fair, they aren't marked, but I had put in a 40-W and a 5-W. She had 2- sixty-watt bulbs. She had been complaining that the bulbs burnt out quickly. Today one of the bulbs parted from it's base when she tried to change it & kept using it with the globe dangling loose from the bare leads  Like most people, my wife is not home-maintenance smart. I explained that she needs to look at the wattage on the bulb before replacing them. Now it's off for new ceramic sockets... (edit) stuck a 4w/40W LED in one side & a 40W chandelier bulb in the other. When she's not looking I'll change that one to an LED as well  The 40W easily throws as much light as the 60W incandescent. Directed beam helps. PainterofCrap fucked around with this message at 02:12 on May 8, 2015 |
|
#
¿
May 7, 2015 13:48
|
|
|
Nitrox posted:Sup guys, I hear PEX is hard whateverIhadinthetruck.jpg
|
|
#
¿
May 30, 2015 22:42
|
|
|
GotLag posted:Australia. We don't do vinyl siding or those nasty-looking roof shingles either. Window fixtures I've seen are generally (powder-coated) metal, with wooden trim. Wooden frames tend to be on older houses. What's the roofing material of choice down your way? Clay tile? Here in the Northeast US, in most areas code will permit you to layer once/two layers max. As noted, it depends on the condition of the shingles you want to go over as well as the fitness of the framing & the deck. I do not typically write to layer when I write to replace a roof, although if it's a repair, and it's mechanically possible to restore it, then I'll do it. I still run into a lot of (pre-code) older roofs with three or more layers, or the really fun ones, which are multiple layers over cedar shakes - which are installed on furring; there's no decking at all. I do not walk those slopes. When those fuckers get damaged I wind up having to write to take it all the way down & start over. Those folks really hit the insurance lottery. A note on warranty: The biggest problem with roofing is proper installation of the asphalt shingle: proper placement of the nails and the proper number of nails, as well as the use of adhesive on laminated shingle installed on pitches beyond 12/12 (or 45-degrees). Many roofers like to work really fast, and throw three nails in the tape line. Wrong number & wrong location. Meanwhile, in Philadelphia, some people inadvertently get dumber a little more each day. 
PainterofCrap fucked around with this message at 05:19 on Oct 21, 2015 |
|
#
¿
Oct 21, 2015 04:57
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 14, 2024 16:15 |
|
|
Sorry I'm late.TooMuchAbstraction posted:Speaking as someone who's going to be installing asphalt shingles soon, got any advice for me? I've yet to start reading tutorials / watching videos, but it'd be good to know some basics about what not to do at least. Either is good. But use roofing nails. Yes, a 1"-1-1/4" nail will go through the decking if it's 5/8" or less, unless you're using, like 50-year shingles...but that's OK: For asphalt or fiberglass shingles, you want at least four nails, just above the slots. That way, you also hit the top edge of the shingle on the row below, so you get eight nails per shingle.  Javid posted:Well, we're not doing that, at least. I'm curious how the one we're installing would stack up. DO NOT USE STAPLES. I believe you when you say the original roof had them, but they got lucky. Stick with the nails. After a good wind event, we could always tell the roofs that were stapled down: most of the shingles would come off in huge swathes, while the houses all around it had like maybe a half-dozen individual shingles off here & there. Looks like you have laminate shingles there. Yes, that;s the tape line, and make sure you hit both layers on each shingle. That roof has a low enough pitch that you don't need to add additional adhesive to your laminates, For laminate shingles:  By that way, every bundle of shingles should have that instruction printed on the wrapper. PainterofCrap fucked around with this message at 05:34 on Oct 28, 2015 |
|
#
¿
Oct 28, 2015 05:26
|
|
