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The first thread I started went into the archives due to my work schedule getting even worse right after I posted my last update. I basically spent 5 days a week in NYC from then until the end of February... and finally walked off the job when they tried to sneakily sign me up for a weekend shift on top of the constant weekday absence from home. The original thread is here, if you have archives: http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3446681 Since I left my job I have mostly been recuperating from total burnout by working on my jeeps and clearing up demolition waste and junk around the house in preparation for... more demolition and junk removal! I spent several days shoveling old shingles into the back of my pickup and driving them up the hill out of the back yard to the private road behind the house, then shoveling them into Bagsters. What's a Bagster you say? Well, it's a cross between a bag and a dumpster... fits 3 yards or 3300lbs of "whatever" (no hazmat, no asbestos, C&D waste is OK, etc) and is made out of extremely heavy poly tarp material. Buy the bag for 30 bucks, unfold it wherever you want as long as the crane truck can reach it, fill it with your junk, schedule pickup, pay $140, bag goes away. After getting quotes from multiple dumpster companies it became clear that it would be easier and cheaper to use Bagster than an actual dumpster, and I can work at my own pace instead of having a week to fill the dumpster, which would result in a frantic rush to put as much as possible in it. Anyways, enough advertising for Bagster (I swear I'm not affiliated with them, they're just awesome for the DIYer) - progress! EDIT: gently caress bagster, after the third pickup or so getting them to show up has been impossible, getting them to call ahead like they claim they will is worse, and they basically have wasted my time. Never using them again, getting a 15 yard rolloff dumpster in a month or so when I've got enough debris ready to fill it quickly. EDIT2: did not get a rolloff dumpster. Building inspector told me about Free Dump Day, which my town holds every 3 months and (until a month or two ago) accepted demolition debris. I took full advantage of this until C&D waste was no longer accepted and am now looking at dumpsters again; only 3 rooms worth of debris to dispose of still so a single 15 yard dumpster will likely suffice. I had the old shingles piled on the back porch to keep them from sinking into the dirt while I waited to figure out how to dispose of them. So I spent a while doing this:  Last load, the porch is usable again! Decking is in crummy shape, but I was going to tear it off in a while anyways...  Today I spent hauling the bagged mixed plaster and blown in rockwool from the second floor demolition up the hill:  Way easier to drag the bags across the floor upstairs, lower them out the window, then slide them down a sheet of plywood than it is to carry them down the stairs:  I should say here that those bags I'm using are straight up badass for demolition work. They're basically made out of poly tarp - they cost a lot (something like a dollar each) but are well worth it. I haven't burst one yet, and I've put 150-200lbs of poo poo in each one, dragged them across dirty splinter filled floors, then slid them 5' down a sheet of plywood straight into the bed of a truck. By the end of the week I hope to have at least one whole room demolished upstairs so I can start wiring it, put the new subfloor in, and then start drywalling it. The sooner I have one room done upstairs the sooner I can move up there and gut the first floor as well. kastein fucked around with this message at 15:44 on Nov 27, 2013 |
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Apr 12, 2012 05:05
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Mine's a 91 that has been through hell and is still kicking. I wouldn't be anywhere near as far along in this project without it, it hauls all my plywood, mortar, drywall, framing timber, demo waste... you name it. There is some moldy plaster with my wrecking bar's name all over it upstairs (picture this dude with a big fuckoff wrecking bar in one hand  )edit: it would help if I had any replacement filters for my respirator on hand 
kastein fucked around with this message at 15:11 on Apr 13, 2012 |
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Apr 13, 2012 14:59
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I have come to kick rear end and tear down walls. And I'm all of walls      Soon as I shovel/bundle all that up and toss it out the window into the truck, I can start spraying mold killer and Zinsser everywhere, rip the subfloor up, put down new subflooring, put up new interior wall framing, do the electrical, insulate, then sheetrock the place. I'll be installing 1/2" PEX tubing on 8" centers for radiant heating. I looked into using Blue Ridge's pre-routed radiant layout panels for the turns but realized I can make my own with my router, a 5/8" round nose bit, and a 4" radius jig (easily made) for a fraction of the cost - $214 plus shipping for a 4x8 worth of premade vs a $20 router bit, $20 in random metal stock and hardware, a router I already have, and $25 per 4x8 of regular 3/4 ply. Since I'm doing at least 5 rooms and a hallway with radiant, I think I should definitely break even.
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Apr 13, 2012 20:38
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Well, yesterday and the day before I decided to do some more demolition. there was a wall here. I'll be rebuilding it, but it was attached at the ceiling OVER the plaster and lath, so it had to go. Starting to tear up the floorboards. They used old wide pine for the actual floor covering... if it wasn't in such horrible shape, partially rotten with mold under it and badly worn with paint over it, I'd probably try and save it. I'll be tearing up the subflooring boards too and replacing with 3/4" plywood held down with liquid nails and screws (to avoid squeaking.)  This is about where another wall and a doorway stood.  The third picture from the last post shows what used to be in these pics before I tore it down.  I'm pretty drat sore this morning, mostly because I took those walls down with a grand total of one tool, a 36" wrecking bar, used as a combination prybar, sledgehammer, and battering ram... and shoveled up around 600lbs of old plaster and insulation. Time to warm back up with another few hundred pounds and some more walls. Then I need to start taking down the chimney, which means finding my masons hammer, since I want to salvage as many bricks as possible to build a walkway and perhaps an outdoor campfire/grilling pit in the future.
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Apr 20, 2012 15:40
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Well, as usual I have torn more things down. I even put some things up today though. a little impromptu modern art  Chimney's coming down (it's now torn down to about 2 feet below floor level, so when I start ripping out the kitchen walls downstairs I can reach the top and continue to tear it out)  I've been trying my best to not break the bricks, since I want to use them to build something else when I'm done. Not sure what yet, I have a few ideas.  Most of the wood from this pile has been defenestrated now... I'll be burning it over the course of the next few months. One of the ideas I have for the old chimney brick is building a fire pit in the yard.  Before, you would have been trying to look through two separate walls in this picture. Now only half a wall remains...  When I gutted the corner in the last picture, under the valley of the roof (this is the corner under that really horrible section of asphalt roofing from the last thread) I discovered some pretty badly rotted framing. I was hoping I'd be able to just pretend it wasn't a problem and cover it back up, but the more I thought about it, and the more I poked the rotted out wood, the more I realized I needed to replace it. It was holding the weight fine, but I feel like it'd be cheating to completely gut the house around it, rip the entire roof off above it, and yet not replace it. So I bought some rough sawn true-dimension 2x4s at the local lumber yard and started cutting:  I did have to use a bottle jack and a scrap piece of lumber to support the valley rafter while I removed everything from underneath it. I'm really glad I decided to repair this because the wood in there was so rotted out it came out as small chunks and piles of dust when I started digging into it with a screwdriver. And all fixed up:  That's where it stands now. I'm probably going to shovel up some more demolition waste today, haul the old bricks outside, and start ripping more floorboards up, since I just bought ten sheets of 3/4" plywood to put the new subflooring in. Also need to take out the two remaining radiators upstairs and remove the piping. Fortunately it's not insulated with asbestos past the basement, so I can simply use my monkey wrench to unscrew most of it. EDIT: looking at my own pictures, I realized I have three radiators up there! Score!
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Apr 27, 2012 22:25
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tworavens posted:See if I started a project like this I would probably get as far as you did, then just set my computer up and chill for ten or fifteen years. What do you think I'm doing right now?  I'm partway through ordering the supplies I need for the gooney hacker den part of this to become more of a reality. Partial parts list (the rest I can get at Home Depot or Tractor Supply pretty easily) - * 2x 10' length of 1.5" 1/8" angle iron (east/west travel rails) * 2x 12' length of 1.5" 1/8" angle iron (north/south travel rails) * 8x 4" dia 1.5" wide cast iron V-groove wheels, mcmaster 2310T51 * 8x ~8" length of 1/2" solid steel round stock (axles) * 8x 1/2" e-clips * assorted nuts, bolts, angle iron, 1/8" wall box tubing, etc * about 24' of flexible cable track large enough to contain 1x 12ga extension cord and 8x DVI cables * 1x 1991-1999 Jeep Cherokee front wheel bearing assembly (azimuth bearing) * 1x 1987-1994 Jeep Cherokee front right axle shaft & stub shaft assembly w/ ujoint (vertical support and elevation bearing) * 1x grade 8 1/2-20 nut & washer (elevation actuator support arm) * 3x ISO PC 10.9 M12x1.75 bolts, 70mm long (azimuth bearing mount bolts) * 8x VESA mounts  (I will probably just make these myself, since they're just 4 holes drilled in a piece of plate steel)The great part is that almost all of the Jeep parts (the expensive stuff) is stuff I have on hand already. Once I've got the brackets for mounting this contraption in place I need to tear up the floorboards completely, put down new subflooring, then run conduit for comms cabling, all electrical, put up the new interior wall framing, then insulate, drywall, and mud it.
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Apr 28, 2012 13:54
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I'll check around for others on that site (I forgot completely about them... need to order a roll of cat6 for the house soon, thanks!) but what I need is the 100mm and 75mm square VESA mounts for computer monitors, not the big ones for TVs. SUPER simple to make, in fact last time I made them out of square steel electrical box covers since they were the perfect size.
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Apr 30, 2012 18:48
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Well, the chimney is completely torn down. About 1/3 of it (the part that went from the attic to the second floor) I've hauled outside. The pile of bricks sitting in the kitchen and the one in the basement both need to be hauled out still. All the mortar is so old and spongy (yay sand+lime mortar) that almost all the brick should be reusable. No pics because it is midnight and thus dark, I'll have to take some tomorrow.
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May 2, 2012 05:19
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Still no pics of recent progress, I've been slacking on taking any. Fellow goon Aceofsnett dropped by a while ago and helped me demolish another room upstairs though (thanks!), and I have shoveled much of the resulting debris into another pile. Also bought the plywood for the new subfloor in the first room I'll be finishing. Going to spend tomorrow cleaning up the yard a bit and shoveling as much of the remaining plaster/insulation as I can into bags to be dragged away, then vacuum up the dust so I can start tearing the floor up. Also, all the bricks from the chimney are outside now. It's a pretty big pile... Some pics of the horror of a chimney I found behind the kitchen wall when I tore it down:   That is a coffee can used as a chimney pipe, secured with haphazardly stacked bricks and gobs of... spackling paste. Not mortar. I am so glad I decided to tear this down too.
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May 10, 2012 06:27
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Around here they don't seem to care how heavy it is as long as the crane can lift it, so when it's a full load of plaster and shingles, I definitely get my moneys worth. I am getting a dumpster soon for the remaining waste though, as they quoted me 350 bucks for a 15yd, with the long term daily fee waived and 2 tons limit (I'm sure I willl go way over that.) No insulation in the walls, except where it fell down from the attic, which is full of super moldy, dusty, bat/squirrel/raccoon waste laden rockwool. Fortunately only a little more of that to go, most of it is torn down and bagged up already. I just got back from home depot with 7 12' 2x8s and 16 8' 2x4s. Once I vacuum up the dust and remaining junk in the future office/lab, it's time to get out the saw and get to work...
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May 11, 2012 19:55
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More progress! This morning I shoveled up a lot of demolition debris and moved it into another room, as well as dragging all the remaining bagged debris to the room I can load it into the truck from. I'm halfway through installing a lift kit on a friend's YJ on my porch, so I can't really load it into the truck yet, but it's out of the way for now. Then I vacuumed up all the remaining dust and grime on the floor in the first room I'll be rebuilding. 5 sheets of subflooring down today... first step, tear up subflooring a 4x8 foot area at a time:  Random old gas line that used to go to a gas lamp on the kitchen ceiling, before the house had electricity. I already disconnected this spur of the gas lines in the basement when I redid the gas pipes, so I simply sawzalled this in half to get it out of my way.  A while later:   That's all for now... probably another update on Monday.
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May 12, 2012 05:40
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Generally it's done with either metal strapping or blocks of lumber these days, but that style of cross bracing was common back when this house was built. No pics again, because I stopped working on it at around 1AM, but I have one more sheet of plywood to install before I can start replacing the roof tie beams (which also serve as ceiling supports) one at a time, then put up the new wall framing. Already got the RO measurements for the prehung doors I'll be using at Home Depot so I can start framing the second I'm ready to. As soon as the wall framing is up I can do the electrical, comms, and radiant heat tubing, then put in insulation, vapor barrier, and drywall/flooring/trim. PS: for those considering a project like this, I strongly suggest getting a 28/29oz caulking gun. The little 10oz ones are only good for about one 4x8 worth of subflooring if you are running a decent bead of liquid nails on each joist. I ran the numbers tonight while buying more supplies and at least around here, a 12pack of 28oz tubes of liquid nails subflooring adhesive costs $50.change, so about 15c/oz, while the same amount of adhesive in 10oz tubes worked out to around 35c/oz. I knew I would save a lot of money buying in bulk but I wasn't expecting that kind of a difference. Each 28oz tube is good for around 3 sheets of subflooring, and each room in my house is approx. 8-10 sheets, so the 12pack should do 3.5 to 4.5 rooms. I had already done most of a room using 10oz tubes, leaving 4 rooms to go (the living room floor is not being touched as it's a beautiful solid oak floor that just needs a good refinishing), so hopefully that 50 bucks covers it. Rough estimate for subflooring plywood (3/4" CDX) I still need to buy is approx. 30-40 sheets, @ 25$/sheet that's around 900 dollars more on just subflooring plywood. Goddamn. Houses are expensive. I could probably get away without redoing the subflooring in the dining room, but there is no way I am gutting out an entire room and tearing up the flooring, then stopping and saying "I am going to save $250 when it is the perfect time to replace it properly and never hear a squeaky floor again". edit: note to self: call Home Depot and local lumber yards tomorrow and find out what kind of a discount I can get on a whole pallet of 3/4 CDX... since a pallet is about what I'll end up needing. kastein fucked around with this message at 08:03 on May 16, 2012 |
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May 16, 2012 07:56
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Thanks! Definitely will do that. I determined after some youtube surfing that I am going about this demolition project all wrong. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ln92EPDCHVA
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May 16, 2012 16:54
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Wasn't worth the time and effort... they were in fact moldy and rotten, also had lead paint all over them, and most of them are split and/or cut in haphazard ways from 100 years of previous owners cutting through the floor to get at gas lines, electrical, etc then slapping the boards back in and trying to nail them down. Would have taken me days to take them up without splitting them, especially with the old style nails that were used. It took me ~8 hours spread over two days to take them all up and replace them with 3/4" plywood subflooring. Most of them also have a very strong urine odor from the squirrel nests that were under them. EDIT: oh yeah... I'd have to deal with Craigslist "buyers" (scammers, flakes, and jokers is more like it, at least from my sale experiences on CL) for at least two weeks before they went away, too. After my last craigslist sale I've basically sworn off dealing with that kind of bullshit ever again, I'd rather set it on fire than go through that kind of hassle.
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May 17, 2012 22:42
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Well! I had to spend a while working on my jeeps instead of the house, so not much progress was made. Today, however, I tore down the remaining ceiling that was keeping me from continuing the second floor rebuild. Once the dust has settled a bit more, it's time to get out the laser level, framing nailer, and chop saw again  Hopefully by tonight I should have enough framing up to begin wiring and insulating the future gooney hacker den room. Once it's wired, insulated, sheetrocked, and floored I can hang a hammock up there and stop sleeping on a couch in my dining room.
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Jun 5, 2012 21:41
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All the framing for the first room is up and I wired about half the outlets for it and installed the second floor subpanel today. Need to go to home depot for 4 20A AFCI breakers, a big stack of commercial grade receptacles, and probably another roll of romex if I keep this up. Oh, a prehung door and some 50 or 60 amp service entrance cable, too, I forget if that is 4 or 6 gauge. Guess I'll look it up when I get downstairs. No pics again as it is dark. I keep doing that...
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Jun 7, 2012 06:09
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Pics! I cleaned up more demo debris and put up a closet wall frame today but haven't taken pics of that yet. But here's some progress: Weeks ago: The rest of a room worth of subflooring is down:   Walls are going back up:  Wall back up and subpanel for the second floor is in:  Bedroom/lab/office/gooney hacker den door RO is done:  Bedroom/lab/office/gooney hacker den closet wall is started:  (that's just the top plate and one end stud in place there, when it cools down a bit more I'm going to finish framing it in and maybe hit Home Depot to pick up the prehung door for that closet...) Free dump day is tomorrow. So I'm going to spend the whole morning trucking demolition debris up there about a ton at a time. My bumpstops are gonna hate me. I've also put in outlets along three walls of that room - two walls got an outlet every 3-4 feet, alternating between two 20 amp circuits, and one of the circuits also covers an outlet every 6 feet along the third wall. The fourth wall will be getting more 6 foot spaced outlets on that same circuit. I'm only doubling up along two walls because those are the walls my workbench and desk will be along, and I'll probably have plenty of power hungry equipment over there. kastein fucked around with this message at 23:40 on Jun 29, 2012 |
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Jun 29, 2012 23:37
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Half the bagged demo debris I have is gone already and it's not even 11 yet (dump opened at 9.) I'm going to have some left afterwards but I can always wait for another free dump day in 3 months for that, or just get a dumpster. Now that I've parted out some more of the parts cars I was sitting on I have the space to actually have a dumpster delivered again. Can't wait till I have this place cleared out enough to truly begin construction. ... and my arms are gonna fall off by tomorrow. Those bags are loving heavy, the last load was 11 bags at nearly 200lbs each. It's a good thing the dump is only a mile away because I was riding the bumpstops the whole way.
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Jun 30, 2012 15:51
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All the plaster's gone! Good thing, I brought the last load up 15min before they closed the gate. Thanks for the tip - definitely gonna be a big dinner tonight, I could eat a cow. Actually heading to a fellow goon's place for a bbq... Pretty sure that was AT LEAST 2-3 tons of plaster. A $1000 truck (well... $800 with $1700 of upgrades and maintenance...) is the best thing a new homeowner / fixer upper owner can buy, it would have cost me a few hundred in bagsters or dumpster fees to get rid of that much crap and it just cost me maybe 2 bucks in gas and a few gallons of sweat.
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Jun 30, 2012 18:09
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dwoloz posted:I hate to the "that guy" but.....why the sole plate in the doorway? And it doesn't look like there is any weight bearing on that giant double 2x header I thought about the sole plate for quite a while, wasn't sure if it was right. After checking the flooring I will be using (3/4" click-lock floating wood of some sort) and the thickness of the radiant heating spacer panels (routed 3/4" ply) I realized that the flooring will end up parallel with the top of the sole plate anyways, which makes a standard thickness premilled threshold fit under the prehung door quite nicely. As for the header - I've always seen them do it that way, and I figured it wouldn't hurt. Definitely no worries about being "that guy" - in fact, thanks a lot. The more dumb stuff I do that you guys catch, the less will be left for the building inspector to catch!
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Jul 1, 2012 15:05
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I am not sure if noggings/dwangs/firebreaks are required in my town but will definitely put them in. There aren't any in the old construction I'm tearing out but that's not saying much... All the walls in the second floor are completely non weight bearing. How do I know that? Because they put them up *after* they put up the lath & plaster for all the outer walls and ceilings, which made tearing everything out an awesome experience, I can tell you. If they hadn't done that I would have left all the original wall framing standing and simply reinsulated, wired, and drywalled it.
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Jul 3, 2012 03:01
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no way... lath won't do anything close to that. Hell, I could take two studs with all the lath still attached and either rip the studs off 4 feet worth of lath at a time just by twisting them, or scissor fold it to the point that it'd fit through a window.
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Jul 3, 2012 03:28
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daggerdragon posted:After spending many days tearing out an entire house full of plaster and lathe bit by bit (attached to studs, which did not come out), may I just say I hate you so much right now? it took that long? It took me like one day to demolish each room (and that's a bit of an overstatement - I generally had most of it done by around lunchtime, but ran out of energy after that), the only real time consuming part is shoveling the debris up. Holy hell I hate shoveling plaster. If it takes that long - you're either being way more careful than you need to be, or your plaster is a lot more tenacious. Mine was old horsehair, so all I had to do was use a wrecking bar. Punch one hole to start, then just sorta peel it away from the studs working from top to bottom and let the plaster fall off as you go. Some of my kitchen was redone at some point with more modern plaster that I suspect contained plaster of paris, it was fairly hard and I had to smack the debris with the wrecking bar to make the plaster actually break free from the lath. I don't waste any time with detail till I'm done - usually spend a few hours knocking most of the lath down with the plaster on it, then put down the wrecking bar, grab the cats paw and go back around removing any remnants, fragments, lath tacks that didn't come out, etc. Then I shovel it all up and go back over it again with a shopvac to pick up any piles of debris stuck in corners. kastein fucked around with this message at 04:36 on Jul 3, 2012 |
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Jul 3, 2012 04:32
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Today finished all the electrical for the gooney hacker den, aside from one remaining romex run for the light fixture (don't know where I'm putting it yet.) Ran dual 2" PVC conduit from the basement to the attic for comms/data cabling with a friend/goon yesterday, currently bending 1" EMT and installing boxes on each wall for the hacker den's comms/data ports. My setup is - a duplex box (extra large size, with reducing plaster ring) on each wall, with a 1" EMT run up into the attic. This way I'll be able to easily change the cables and sockets I have installed without doing any plastering in the future. Anything that needs to be run to the basement can be pulled in through the two 2" conduit runs, also without doing any plastering. I'm going to install the same duplex box and conduit setup on each wall of each downstairs room as well, just routed to the basement instead.
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Jul 3, 2012 21:39
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Coasterphreak posted:e: and yes, you can totally do stuff off the books and hope nobody notices, but you're probably gonna get hosed by the home inspector if you try to sell down the road correct. I can only get away with a little here, especially because I have permits for the roof and some of the interior work I've done now, and will be pulling one for asbestos siding removal as well. If I had simply not pulled any permits and just done everything quickly I probably could get away with drat near anything. The previous owners sure as poo poo never got permits for half this crap. They'd have had the place condemned if they did! Every time I open a wall I find another horror.
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Jul 4, 2012 23:40
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hahahaha nope, but I did find 4 coffee cans of (marginally crispy) electrical wiring and one extra large coffee can of chimney smoke.
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Jul 5, 2012 01:58
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There is a reason for everything I do... you're approximately person #9005 to suggest leaving it there. It looks like poo poo, some of it is cracked (but none of it is flaking/friable), it's already the second layer (they left the original wood clapboards on when they put the asbestos up) and I've had to remove some of it* to do the roof already, since the flashing had to go under the siding. All the layers of siding have already made the walls about an inch thicker than they're supposed to be, which is making finding prehung doors and windows to fit impossible, and custom ones are expensive as hell. It's going to make doing exterior trim and new window frames a nightmare, too. Oh, I have to remove some of it to jack up a wall and replace the sill plates anyways, and more to redo the front porch, back porch, and put in a new chimney. Basically, there isn't a single wall I won't have to partially remove the asbestos siding from at some point, so I see absolutely no reason to leave it when I'm going to have to go through almost all the steps anyways. I asked the building inspector who he would recommend for asbestos siding removal last time he was out here to take a look around, and he said gently caress that, he could write me a permit for that no problem if I jumped through the right hoops. I've read the paperwork he gave me and it really doesn't look too bad - I obviously have to wear protection, put down a dropcloth, soak the work area, and double bag all debris, avoiding breakage. Then I have to deal with some paperwork and have a licensed disposal firm haul it away. It looks like it will cost well under 200 a ton (most I've seen cost 60-150 a ton, in fact) to dispose of the waste, the permit will cost me a few hundred, and the tyvek suits and respirator filter packs shouldn't cost more than a few hundred either. I'm having the experts remove the asbestos pipe insulation in the basement as it's partially damaged, extremely friable when touched, and illegal for me to do it, plus it'd be retarded to even try to do it myself, but the siding should not be a problem and I am doing it myself. kastein fucked around with this message at 03:40 on Jul 5, 2012 |
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Jul 5, 2012 03:38
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yikes! I had it easy compared to that. Most of it was 1/2" thick over the lath (maximum) and heavily water damaged so it came down easy. No wallpaper, either. I gained 16% square footage in my bathroom when I took down the walls  they were 3-4" thick from 120 years of owners simply throwing another layer of whatever they wanted over the previous walls. It took me a long time to gut that room.
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Jul 5, 2012 17:57
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Cleared the demolition debris out of the stairs so I can actually walk up and down them again, and put in some more of the new rafters. Old ones were 1x8, very old, not level, etc so I removed one at a time and replaced with 2x8s. Stairwell cleared (mostly) and scaffolding/work platform in place:  You can see the new rafters through the wall I put in a while ago:  And a slightly better view:  Next I need to shovel up another few hundred pounds of debris and then tear up more floorboards. I have 7 sheets of 3/4 ply waiting to go in in this room. e: wow, the stairs in my house are really blurry. Cellphones take horrible pictures when presented with bright light as well as darkness... kastein fucked around with this message at 19:13 on Jul 7, 2012 |
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Jul 7, 2012 19:07
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oops protip: unless you are Jesus, standing on the joists instead of the lath and plaster ceiling is a wise choice. Fortunately did not injure myself much and was able to keep working.
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Jul 8, 2012 03:27
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Here's hoping I never do that. gently caress that, my nailgun's got 16d framing nails in it! I have already shocked the poo poo out of myself with 120VAC though, years ago. And hit my thumbs with my 22oz framing hammer. And burned myself with the propane torch sweating pipe... ... so I think I can probably skip cutting myself with the circ saw and shooting myself with the nailgun. I'm also glad that the ceiling I put my foot through is getting ripped out in a few weeks anyways. No real loss there.
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Jul 8, 2012 05:09
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No worries on the derail - I derail my own threads sometimes... I have to say, I'm gonna keep my claw hammer on hand from now on just in case I put a nail through something I didn't want to, at least I can reach it and try to free myself then. Also, on the liquid nails - thanks, an ex builder friend of mine from Intel told me I should use adhesive under the subflooring to avoid squeaks in the future, so I've been using it everywhere. Another ex builder friend of mine (one of my neighbors) was over a few days ago and suggested that I buy the loctite subflooring adhesive next time since he thinks it's better, but I still have most of a case of liquid nails before I even have to think about that. Looks like everyone else bitched out of the 4 wheeling run I was going on, and I don't want to end up broken and stuck in the middle of an unfamiliar trail far from home, so I'm going to spend the day building, and maybe hit a local trail or two in the evening if I still feel like it.
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Jul 8, 2012 15:37
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Good point - I have a fairly high tolerance for pain, but don't feel like pushing it that much. I have a set of end nippers I use for cutting nails that are too long, will have to keep those in the toolbelt too... I use plastic-stripped nails instead of metal wire stripped/coil nails, so hopefully it wouldn't hurt too much to pull through if this ever happened to me. Obviously, going to aim for it not happening at all. Not bothering to patch the ceiling. I'll be hitting it with a crowbar in a few weeks anyways, so the most I'll do is throw some cardboard and duct tape over it to keep the dust down.
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Jul 8, 2012 16:13
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Just used up 20 2x4s in record time. This laser level really has me moving fast, never using a plumb line again. Another room is nearly framed in (the one that was behind the chimney in most of the pictures so far) and ready for the electrical crew to start... *switches hats* A few people are gonna be by for a short notice BBQ + campfire tonight, anyone who wants to is welcome to come. email at username at w1kas.net for address/phone number.
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Jul 9, 2012 19:52
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Some old stuff I did last week that I don't think I took pics of or posted: lab/office/gooney hacker den closet wall is framed in, so is the door frame. Didn't go with such overkill on the header this time.   And what I did yesterday: Threw down a few more sheets of plywood. Didn't take pics, it looks just like every other sheet of plywood I've glued/screwed into this place. Then I got down to business and framed in another door RO and wall.   Then I ran out of 2x4s.
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Jul 10, 2012 16:48
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it is quite literally 110+ degrees in my attic. I need to bring a fan up there or some poo poo, this is making wiring very tiring.
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Jul 11, 2012 18:16
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No pictures since it basically looks the same, but I've installed the ceiling boxes for the linked smoke alarms, more comms/network port outlet boxes and conduit, and boxes+conduit for the thermostats. Why boxes and conduit for the comms stuff? I never want to open the walls again, for any reason. So I've installed a pair of 2" conduit runs from the attic to the basement, as well as a 4-11/16" square box w/ dual gang plaster ring on each wall of each bedroom and a 1" EMT run to the attic. The first floor rooms will receive the same treatment, just with the EMT running to the basement instead. This way, whenever I need to update the network cabling, add a CATV drop, run audio cables, or anything else, I can simply fish it in from point to point and add a proper socket on each end. Why for the thermostats? I haven't decided if I'm doing just radiant heat, or if I may add central air conditioning in the future. Adding air requires another conductor or two depending on the system, adding a heat pump or multistate heating/cooling requires even more, so I figured while the walls are down I may as well spend an extra $20 and have boxes and conduit so if I upgrade past the number of conductors in the thermostat cable, I can add more as required.
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Jul 14, 2012 22:37
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Thanks! Hopefully I'll get some pics today after I finish up the second bedroom closet walls and subflooring. The pics are probably going to be very boring to you - each 2" run is simply two 10-footer PVC sections cemented end to end with a right angle pull box at the top and nothing at the bottom. I'll probably put an elbow and/or a pull box on the bottom, but not really sure I need to, they're really only in there to make pulling cable easy, since it'll all be comms stuff. I had it easy, since there was the old chimney chase - I just mounted the conduit in that since the chimney is moving to a different location. If I'd had to find a way to snake it through a 2x4 wall I may not have bothered, since cutting out the top/bottom plates for 2" conduit would weaken the structure a lot. The conduit to each wall box is only 1" like I said - also very boring runs, maybe 6 feet long on each, except for a few that are 10 feet. Maybe two bends, most are straight or have a single bend. I wish I'd been able to run 1.5" or 2" for each of them, but honestly I don't expect to need it and I couldn't find boxes with knockouts for anything over 1" unless I went completely overboard, so 4-11/16" square boxes and 1" EMT it is.
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Jul 17, 2012 16:51
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More progress. Did some demolition, some wiring, some floorboards, and some framing today. Tore up the old floorboards around the second bedroom's closet door / the top of the stairwell and found this:  I'm not sure why this was done this way. Judging by the level of oxidation on the upper ends of the 2x6s there, it appears they were cut off level with the framing 50+ years ago and boarded over. I couldn't find anything they would have been attached to at the upper end, no nail holes in the rafters, nothing. The walls around that area were all plaster and lath just like the rest of the room, so it didn't seem to have been modified. Oh well, seems structural enough, so I left it alone and threw the new floorboards down. More floorboards done:  (the screwy framing shown in the first pic is approximately behind the studs the wrecking bar is leaning on, and continue across the end of the stairwell parallel to the old wall with the windows in it) A really crummy picture of the old chimney chase, which is now "that convenient utility passageway to mount conduit and pipes in":  You can actually see all the way to the basement floor here, it's just really blurry. The large 2" PVC conduit is for comms cable from basement to attic, the 1" EMT runs each lead to a duplex box on the wall of a bedroom, and the 1/2" EMT is for thermostats. I ran one 1/2" EMT from each thermostat box on the second floor to the attic and another 1/2" EMT straight down to the basement. When I choose a location for the new furnace I'll continue that run to whatever box the furnace controller / zone control valve stuff is installed in or around. All that remains of the old floorboards in the second bedroom:  First order of business tomorrow is to cut the steam pipe for the old radiator out of the way, tear that flooring up, toss the new subflooring in, then hit Home Depot for a roll of 6mil clear poly sheeting, more commercial grade 20A receptacles, a few more 20A AFCI breakers (holy hell these are expensive, hope they're worth it), some more 2" PVC conduit and 45 degree elbows, and maybe another 32x80 preframed door or three and a truckload of blow-in insulation. e: I ran the numbers and the flooring I want to use is going to run me around $800-900 per room, unless I overestimated. Holy hell, I guess I'm walking on 3/4 CDX for a while. e2: as of 2016 still walking on subflooring  and fixed the images.
kastein fucked around with this message at 20:49 on Nov 7, 2016 |
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Jul 18, 2012 05:43
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I don't think I ever will again  I've found more dropped screws with my heel than I ever wanted to. I tend to do a fairly clean sweep now Here's some more softcore conduit porn:  (west wall of the second bedroom)  (north wall)  (east wall) It takes some real getting used to bending conduit, especially 1". It might help if I measured, but I've only screwed up irreparably twice so far, usually I do fine with eyeballing and careful tweaking. Each drop is approx. 6-7 feet of conduit (except the ones on the west walls) so I haven't wasted anything yet, if I screw up on a bend I just flip the 10 footer of conduit around and try again on the other end, then the screwed up bends end up in the drop section that I really can't use anyways. I'm thinking I may continue all the second floor comms/network conduit drops through the ceiling all the way to the top of the chimney chase I put all the other conduit in, since I've decided to put down 3/4 ply in the attic so I can use it for storage. If I don't, I'll end up with much longer cable runs to each drop, or damaged cables from stepping on / dragging things over them on the floor. Decisions, decisions. It shouldn't cost me more than around 50 bucks in materials to do it, it's more a matter of figuring out how to do it neatly without compromising the structure at all. In other news, I read up on firestopping and it turns out I've already done approx. 90% of my firestopping simply due to my OCD framing style. At every opportunity I add extra framing at the top of walls to attach the drywall to so I can avoid cracking and flexing and many of the extra bits I've added also serve as firestops. e: fixed images kastein fucked around with this message at 20:53 on Nov 7, 2016 |
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Jul 19, 2012 06:32
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