Replies

1. 
   Joe_Hennesey | May 20, 2000 05:11pm | #16

   *
   You dummies, it's a drain for the ridge vent. They all leak, and the gutter is the secret part of the system that never gets mentioned in the "Vent or No Vent" wars. Think I better duck now, Joe H

1. 
   Bill_Richardson | May 20, 2000 05:43pm | #17

   *Reading some of these drain and vent finds reminds of when I went to apply for a job as a younger man. Got to the kennel and the owner asked me in and told me I was now "her handyman", huh? No other applicants that day should have warned me. Anyhow, middle of winter and she points to the kitchen sink and says that she has plumbing trouble. Took a look under the sink and there was no plumbing at all, she had been draining water, cleaning dishes, old food and all into a 12 x 12 x 6 inch pan for months-who knows how long. I mentioned that this will need a lot of work, parts, and I would need some cleaner conditions to work in. She owned more than ten dogs and cats and the place was a mess, I excused myself and never went back.

2. 
   Guest_ | May 20, 2000 08:14pm | #18

   *
   Puttying the
   i inside
   of the window & door glass.

   The house I own was built in 1950...the one previous owner had it "custom" built. Shingle & clap 1 1/2 storey "cottage style", very nice lines, but wierd shit inside, everywhere. The windows are all custom made wood double hungs with good storms, but no provision in the
   i design
   for screens or weatherstripping. When I gutted the interior, I found NO insulation in the walls, and rough framing around doors & windows suggest that the place was framed and sheathed, then doors and windows were cut in after. The windows and doors were "hung" by nailing through the exterior 6/4 case into the t&g pine sheathing, no shims or trimmers for that crew... . just the odd 2x4 nailer added for interior use. Very solid though.. . makes ya wonder about all the effort
   i we
   go to.

   With no insul, and no weatherstripping the drafts were serious
   i around
   the windows. ..the fix? Putty the inside of the glazing.

   I've removed my share of exterior window putty, usually pretty painless,but interior putty has had no weathering and is like frikken concrete.. . tears up the muntins somethin awful and tends to crack panes. Worst was on a nice 3/4 French door with wood glazing stop on both sides. ..and both sides puttied, thick!! Broke two panes on that one.

   I don't know whose advice the owner operated upon, but I can just imagine the conversation... undoubtedlyone of the many local yahoo experts!!

   Still chippin away after all these years

   -pm

1. 
   Guest_ | May 20, 2000 08:50pm | #19

   *In a one hundred year old building that housed a "club". The upstairs bath used to have a shower, a tub, two toilets, and a couple of sinks. When I saw it for the first time a couple of weeks ago, the sinks were completely missing. To compensate, one toilet had been removed. A sink had been hung on the wall. The drain came out of the sink and into the trap. After the trap the pipe was horizontal facing the left. That wouldn't do, soi another trapwas stuck on running to the left, down and around, and back to the right. Now again under the middle of the sink but running to the right, that plastic flexible drain pipe was stuck on and run down into the closet flange! The excess room around the pipe was filled in with something or other (I didn't get close enough to determine what). Wanted to get a picture, but it was already torm out my next visit.Rich Beckman

1. 
   Guest_ | May 21, 2000 01:11am | #20

   *I always wondered what they meant by 'attic stock' ...b Been there, done that, can't remember

1. 
   Guest_ | May 23, 2000 12:12am | #21

   *We were shown a rehab house with an addition built right on the ground...well, almost, every once and a while one of those round concrete sample cylinders was stood up on end, used 2X6 floor "joists" spaced every 19, 20, 21 inches or so.Previous house had the lamp cord wiring mentioned above to a back porch BUT being a "craftsman" the would be electrician slipped the cord through a few pieces of soft copper pipe...sorta looked like something he had seen somewhere...like conduit maybe?? The insulation had disintegrated on the lamp cord so hows come this here fuse keeps ablowing??Course up in the mountains you just drill a hole in the wall and run the clothes washer discharge hose out the back...no venting problems but at 9,000 feet there is a required winter modification...heat tape!Then there's the way lawyers hang all those book shelve units.....ah, fugetaboutit!

3. 
   ave_d | May 23, 2000 06:04am | #22

   *
   My best was three pairs of underwear -- elastic bands and all -- torn into strips and used as caulk backer to fill a huge gap between brick mould and brick.

   Hope it was the owner and not a three man crew -- "O.K. we need something to fill in this gap. Hmmm..."

   Dave

4. 
   Guest_ | May 23, 2000 07:31am | #23

   *
   Hey Ave d ... Actually there were four of us on the crew. The other guy told us he was a "swinger" but we were welcome to one of his socks if we needed it...

1. 
   Guest_ | May 23, 2000 03:45pm | #24

   *Friend of mine told me a good one last night. The next door neighbor was in the process of losing his house due to forgetting to pay for his mortgage, and since he was apparently financially challenged, couldn't afford to get his broken toilet fixed. He did lose the house, and the lucky bidders at the auction found what he had used in lieu of the toilet: about 75 one gallon milk jugs, full of mixed excrement.Until he opened and actually sniffed one, the new owner thought that the guy had been making cider, just didn't want to hassle with moving all those jugs...

1. 
   Guest_ | May 23, 2000 03:55pm | #25

   *Patrick, that sounds like my house! Yeah, also had the kitchen sink discharge out the wall into the backyard, had to add heat tape to it the first winter! Did I mention the "composting toilet"? Those days are over, we flush like all good Americans now. My wife's sainthood papers have been filed.Best find: The "trim work". On a back door, the 1x6 used as trim is made up of several small cutoffs, about a dozen! The header trim is one piece, half of a 1x6 that cracked down the middle! A kitchen window had trim that was all 1 inch too short. Cure? Add 1 inch pieces! 24 inches is only a average in this house. 16 is an unknown number.

1. 
   Guest_ | May 23, 2000 04:06pm | #26

   *MD -ROFBMGO!

1. 
   Guest_ | May 23, 2000 10:10pm | #27

   *Rollin On Floor Barfin My Guts Out too.But the question asking kid in me wonders... did he use a wide mouth funnel, or did he just cram the open jug up his... well you know...AAAAACCKKK!!!!!!

2. 
   Guest_ | May 24, 2000 03:59am | #28

   *I helped a friend once rebuild the family room add-on that he inherited when he bought the house. The neighbors kept saying that the former owner was 'real handy'! The 18' ledger board holding the whole floor on was attached with 3 12d's, nothing else. But the clamshell trim was held on with 2 12f's every 8".Go figure!

3. 
   Guest_ | May 24, 2000 04:03am | #29

   *I wondered the same thing, Luka. Let's not let this happen too much, wouldn't be good. "Don't cross the streams"

4. 
   Guest_ | May 24, 2000 04:42am | #30

   *Just remembered: once tore down a shed. The shed roof (actually was a shed roof) rafters were butted against the house rafter tails. To keep these rafter extensions in place, a single nail held each joint. Take a 16d nail, cut off the head, file the blunt end to a point and you have a two pointed nail. Drive half of it into the existing rafter tail and drive the new rafter onto the other half of the nail.

5. 
   Guest_ | May 24, 2000 05:40am | #31

   *KenAll the door case here had one short leg with a piece scabbed on. Every single ceiling fixture box was cut into the d/wall wrong. Besidei everyfixture (12)is a utility box sized patch about 3" to the side... .silly bastard never quite figured it out.-pm

6. 
   Guest_ | May 24, 2000 11:31am | #32

   *Saw a good one yesterday: old water heater with (i) the shutoff valve on the hot water side and (ii) the pressure relief valve (not p/t valve, it was old) downstream of the shutoff valve!?!Every now and again I see water heaters with the cold and hot lines reversed. Usually, they have the temp setting at "nuclear" Bob

7. 
   Guest_ | May 24, 2000 03:20pm | #33

   *good one bob.....hah, hah, hah...nuclear!

5. 
   Bill_Richardson | May 24, 2000 09:52pm | #34

   *
   He, he, speaking of hot and cold lines reversed. A month doesn't go by where I/we don't see hot and cold faucets reversed for hooking up the washer water lines. Frustrating getting cold water for 5 minutes testing out the washer for hot water only. Trying to make hook ups to faucets and then having a joint start to leak and being blamed for "breaking my pipes" and "it never leaked before". Its also fun trying to figure out the reasoning for why some of the waste water hook ups or evacuation pipes are up so high or force you to hook up to something that forces water up hill. A fact, that used water you used to wash those clothes just runs back into the washer. One home owner gave the best answer yet, high water table and high leech beds for his septic system. Hmmm, O.K., off to the next "favorite find". Have a nice day.

6. 
   Guest_ | May 24, 2000 10:39pm | #35

   *
   I didn't see this, but had a friend look at a house near here when they were in the market to buy. He went down in the crawl space to check it out. There were floor joists from both sides of the house tying into a center beam. The center beam sat on the foundation on both ends, and sat on an old stump in the center.

1. 
   Guest_ | May 24, 2000 11:40pm | #36

   *I've had a few ...... the Gates radiator hose -trap, the standard wall outlet that had 220 wired to it(was told later the Hover ran very fast for about 20 seconds), the romex nailed through the center to the fascia with roofing nails to an exterior light, the sagging 3 tab shingles ...... hole rotted through the roof, shingled right over the hole ....

1. 
   Guest_ | May 24, 2000 11:49pm | #37

   *Years ago, I was a mechanic at a BMW/Saab dealer. Then I switched jobs and had to fix a "clunk" coming from the front end of a Saab Turbo. I lifted it up and spotted a pair of vice grips latched on to one of the front springs. Voila' , problem fixed.I announced to everyone what some idiot had done. Later that day I cleaned up the vice grips and saw my initials on them. I had lost them at my previous job several years before!

1. 
   Guest_ | May 24, 2000 11:58pm | #38

   *Doesn't mean that you stuck them to the spring. I have lost plenty of tools to fellow mechanics who 'borrowed' them and 'forgot' to return them. Usualy to use on a job they didn't want to use thier own perfectly good tools on for one reason or another. Maybe someone 'borrowed' your vice-grips and stuck them on the spring, to hang the brake line over while working on the calipers ?

1. 
   Guest_ | May 25, 2000 04:27pm | #39

   *Bob-Was down in a well pit the other day to shut the water off. The pump was running due to a leak. After shutting the water off, I realized the pump was still running. I looked at at the gauge to see the tank rounding 90psi. I quickly threw the breaker for the pump. Closer examination showed that the pressure switch was about 4 feet away from the tank, on the down stream side of the shut off....yikes!

2. 
   Guest_ | May 25, 2000 04:32pm | #40

   *Jim-I too had a former life working on European cars. I guy brought a VW bus in he bought for his son. This thing was wasted...really unsafe. Anyhow, the previous owner had broken the exhause studs, and had the manifold held in place by wrapping a chain around the number 1 cylinder, and the manifold, and putting a bolt in the chain. I leaked a little, but you couldn't hear it too badly over the chain rattling

3. 
   Guest_ | May 25, 2000 04:42pm | #41

   *.....The spell checker in Breaktime .....

4. 
   Guest_ | May 26, 2000 05:12am | #42

   *My mother who is familiar with my love for innovations related that on a recent trip to her doctors office she used the facilities and told the receptionist that they had the most comfortable toilet she had ever had the pleasure to use.Seems the plumber fed the supply line off the hot water side....got me thinking. Skip

5. 
   Guest_ | May 26, 2000 06:11am | #43

   *I have found my share of surprises in my house: live wires dangling inside a wall with exposed leads; completely cut floor joists in the middle for a chimney (subfloor nails basically suspending the joist); dryer vented into the crawlspace; bath fan vented into the attic; heat-source for a semi-finished attic's bathroom was a hole in the floor with a grate right over the boiler room; kitchen sink draining outside thru the wall; loadbearing wall with stud cut & no header for med cabinet; etc etc.Strangest I found is this singlepole switch, mounted on the endwall of one side attic, 28 feet from the hatch. Solidly nailed, romex stapled firmly. Shuts off all of finished attic and some lights downstairs. I don't know WHY.

6. 
   Guest_ | May 26, 2000 06:25am | #44

   *Years ago I was in charge of a million-dollar hotel renovation. When doing the field work for existing conditions drawings, we found a large chase area on the plans with no logical reason for it. Found an access panel, got up on a ladder with a flashlight and looked in expecting to find pipes, conduit, etc.Inside the chase were four or five folding chairs sitting around a piece of plywood (table) and trash cans full of brown bags and bottles. Good thing no one fell asleep after lunch break that day ...(PS - We didn't disturb it - still there)b Been there, done that, couldn't believe it

7. 
   Guest_ | May 26, 2000 06:54pm | #45

   *When we bought our house more then half our plumbing was done in garden hose. Amazingly it didn't leak. The laundry out take went into the ground under the house. We did some digging but I couldn't find the other end.The floor joist run to the middle of the house and they just but a beam under the joint in order to stop it from sagging.In order to garden the nice women put her flower bed right next to the house. Unfortunatly the foundation was just untreated logs and they were rotten when we bought the house.Her idea of a vapor barrier was to use dog food bags.I will add that the house was built in 1902 and the last owner (30 years) was single, a waiters, and 83 when she died.

7. 
   John_Hunter | Jun 01, 2000 11:04pm | #46

   *
   Some years ago in Oklahoma, a plumber friend was called out to a ranch-style house outside of town. The woman owner was smelling sewer gas and wanted the problem fixed. After checking drains, etc. inside the house, he went into the crawl space. I presume he expected to find a leaking joint in the waste line to the public sewer. Instead he found that the drain lines from the fixtures simply emptied into the crawl space. He said the crawl space held about a foot of s**t and other crud. He had to go into it, install a proper drain line, and tie it into the sewer. I don't recall if he also cleaned up the mess or charged extra, but he did burn his clothes afterwards. Apart from wondering how the house passed inspection, I've always wondered why the owner had not smelled the problem sooner; the house was over a year old.

8. 
   Guest_ | Jun 02, 2000 04:53am | #47

   *
   Here's one I found on a job last week. I've seen this before, but didn't understand why it was done then either. I took out a wall section that contained 3 windows to put in an oversized sliding patio door. The studs had no plate under them, but were cemented into the slab in place. 1/2" out of level over 8 feet, with an up and down irregularity-the slab is not really finish floated or level. What was surprising to me was that they were in excellent condition-no rot at the slab even under those windows (nw side of house) for probably 40 years.

   What do you guys think?

1. 
   Guest_ | Jun 02, 2000 04:58am | #48

   *for some reason there was no moisture wicking into the slab... maybe it was poured on very granular base or crushed stone... anyways... no moisture...no rotso the builder got away with it.. lucky him.. and lucky ownercould it be that the slab was poured over another slab.. and there really was a plate that was buried at a lower level?

9. 
   Roger_Martini | Jun 02, 2000 03:51pm | #49

   *
   Last rental place I lived in, the owner put a second bathroom in the basement (never mind that the ceiling was less than 6'). Just used regular drywall for the tub surround, and these plastic 4" tiles. After the first couple of feet, they got tired of spreading all that mastic and just started putting a blob on the back of each plastic tile before smooshing it in place. No grout.

   Wasn't in there a couple of months before the things started coming off in sheets, with the crumbling remains of the drywall.

10. 
    Guest_ | Jun 02, 2000 08:46pm | #50

    *
    In one of the "finer upscale ;-)" motels on the coast of Oregon, we found a most interesting shower stall. It basically looked like a converted closet. The drywall and wooden baseboards had been painted with what looked to be an elastomeric paint. They had caulked the corners and floor before painting, but there was no evidence of anykind of liner just drywall. I don't know how recent the "remodel" had been, but surprisingly, it seemed to be holding up okay. As to how long it will last...

1. 
   Guest_ | Jun 03, 2000 12:07am | #51

   *I thought about that too Mike. Crazy thing. Before I opened up the wall, I put a deck on the other side, using a ledger board. Before I put the ledger on, I took a few nails and pounded them into the siding, and each time I hit wood. So, I figured I'd through bolt the ledger and work from inside the basement. Bought the bolts, went to the basement, and well, there wasn't a basement at this location. Returned the bolts and got lag screws. Drilled a couple holes, hit cement. Got out the hammer drill, drilled a bunch of holes, about half hit cement, half wood. At different elevations. Getting confused now.Of course, when I opened up the wall and found the studs disappearing into the slab, it all made sense, since they were flush to the outside.Possibly they did pour over the top of an existing slab. I will probably never know. But it wasn't to bring floors up to match levels, since you have two steps up from this room to the main part of the house. Maybe the first slab cracked badly. Whatever.

1. 
   Guest_ | Jun 03, 2000 03:06am | #52

   *My Wife's Aunt heard a faint whistling sound that she couldn't find the source of. She called a friend over, and they found the source of the problem behind her gas stove. Whomever installed the gas line for the stove apparently didn't have all the fittings they needed. Where there should have been a 90 degree elbow, they used a "T" instead. They apparently didn't have a plug for the open end of the "T" so they just filled it with plumber's putty. The gas line had been in place for 20+ years when the putty dried out enough to start letting gas leak by.

1. 
   Guest_ | Jun 03, 2000 03:39pm | #53

   *Man that's scarier than "The Blair Witch Project". Skip

1. 
   Guest_ | Jun 03, 2000 09:23pm | #54

   *John's post reminded me of a couple calls I went on while working for a HVAC outfit.One was in a basement where a plumbing remodel had not been finished. There was a foot and a half of raw sewage on the floor. Enough to cover the pilot light of the furnace. They had boxes and boards stacked about to walk on without getting into the sewage. Their plumber had walked out on them because he had given instructions not to use the toilet and they had done so anyway, giving him a 'messy workplace'. They had not been successful in getting any other plumber to come in and finish, and had gone right on using the toilet. They expected us to fix the plumbing problem, and clean up their mess for them since we would have to do so to be able to fix the furnace, right ?? They had two bathrooms, and the other one was hooked up just fine, wasn't like they had no choice....The second was to replace a furnace in a very small crawlspace that was being used as a chicken coop. Chickens, dead chickens, feathers and chickenshit everywhere. Couldn't get anywhere near the crawlspace and still be able to see because of the smell making your eyes water.Thankfully we had an understanding boss. In both cases he told them to clean up their own messes before we would be allowed to go back.

2. 
   Guest_ | Jun 04, 2000 09:39pm | #55

   *was covering badly weathered/cracked wood siding with the vinyl variety when my nails started bending and richocheting in a location about 12 feet up,in the center of the wall. The paint and weathering pattern indicated that the side of a porch roof used to reside there. The "flashing must have been diverting water directly into the wall, rotting out four feet of horizontal beam supporting floor joists. The fix? Concrete. About 250 pounds of it, mid air, using the old siding as part of the form work. Wound up splicing in new wood. Guess tap-cons would've worked ,but I'm not that kinda guy. murph

11. 
    brisketbean_ | Jun 05, 2000 12:59am | #56

    *
    oops

12. 
    Guest_ | Jun 05, 2000 01:40am | #57

    *
    Not exactly a find but here's a little story from my younger days:

    Visited some guys living in a fraternity house. No, not one of those classic semi mansion styles where the rich kids live - more like an old country farm house complete with junk cars and 55 gal drums full of beer cans. OK, so it wasn't a university frat, actually, some the guys were in the local community college Automotive Maintenance Technologies curriculum. Anyway, originally, the house did not have indoor plumbing, but had the kitchen retrofitted and a bathroom added on. In one of the upstairs bedrooms, I gazed at a white porcelain sink bolted to the wall, flex radiator hose/trap below (as someone mentioned previously), and a piece of black ABS drain going straight out the sidewall - pretty standard white-trash kinda stuff. What caught my attention though was the garden hose hanging out of the wall above and pointed at the sink (which had no faucets). So, I says to the guy, "Cool sink, but how do ya turn on the water?" He says "Switches on the wall." Giving me that "what are you stupid" kind of look. Sure enough, there is a 2-gang switch above and to one side of the sink. So I flick on the right switch, and sure enough, voila, the water comes on. I look at my buddy and he says in kinda a proud tone "
    b Electric Water!
    . Turn 'em both on for warm"

    Seems this guy was really good at using whatever was lying around to get something done. What he had done was taken some solenoid valves out of an old washing machine, hooked some hose up to the hot & cold supply, fed them into a tee, and then up to the second floor "lav"!

    True story. The house was bulldosed several years later for an
    i underpass.

1. 
   Guest_ | Jun 05, 2000 02:13am | #58

   *We purchased a house about eight years ago from my wife's late Uncle. He was notoriously cheap. While fixing it up to rent we found a lot of freeze broken copper water lines repared with water hose and clamps. One "repare" ran from the crawl space to the kitchen sink. The bathtub drained into the crawl space. It looked like the trap filled with hair and the slip joint opened up under plunger pressure. One joist was pretty much rotted away. There was a hell of a stink. At some point fiberglass batts were put up between the floor joists. Friction fit, no staples or wire. Of course, it had all fallen down and become soaked with water from the tub. There was a 60 foot underground electrical run to a storage shed. Two strands of #14 stranded wire burried 3" down. The house had four security lights, one at each corner. He used 14-2-w/g Romex and made the splices with friction tape. No boxes, no wire nuts. Worked for years in Flint assembling cars. May have something to do with the popularity of imports.

1. 
   Guest_ | Jun 05, 2000 05:25am | #59

   *Just finished a bare studs kitchen remodel in a twenty five year old house. during demo of the ceilings and walls, we found mummified baby birds in one of the stud bays. In tracking this down noticed the dryer vent (upstairs Laundry room) that ran through the cabinet sofit along one wall had seperated. also noted the cap on the outside wall was missing. Birds evidently found this a convienent but not so secure nesting location.But it just another misteryBob

1. 
   Guest_ | Jun 05, 2000 12:30pm | #60

   *bb - Good one, a picture is worth 1,000 words. I assume that you re-plumbed the garage end wall, not cut the scaffold support ...Jeff

13. 
    brisketbean_ | Jun 07, 2000 04:39am | #61

    *
    Jeff;

    That beam was 1200 pounds, put in place by raw manpower, no machine, we cut the scaffold and rewelded the pieces back together.

14. 
    Guest_ | Jun 07, 2000 06:06am | #62

    *
    Um, what is it? When I try to open it, I get an error message that:

    "The protocol specified in this address is not valid. Make sure the address is correct, and try again."

    Hmmmmmmm?

    Sean

1. 
   Guest_ | Jun 07, 2000 06:57am | #63

   *Yeah, BB, how about it, wanna give us a .tif .gif or .jpg again ??I can do .tif's. And I can convert them to .jpg's for the masses.Thanks !!: )

1. 
   Guest_ | Jun 07, 2000 07:04am | #64

   *Here you go, folks:

1. 
   Guest_ | Jun 07, 2000 07:42am | #65

   *Thank ya kindly, stranger.: )Hey, BB... You own that scaffold or rent it ? Does this house sit in a bowl, or is that just the camera lens ??

1. 
   Guest_ | Jun 07, 2000 11:32am | #66

   *Sean,FWIW, the original pic posted opened fine in netscape. I'd guess where you wanted to go with MS Explorer wasn't on Mr. Bill's itineraryBob

2. 
   Guest_ | Jun 07, 2000 11:41am | #67

   *IE vs Netscape had nothing to do with it. I use netscape and was unable to see the pic as an .eml file as well. I don't know what format .eml is, but I apparently don't have the program to view those. It opens just fine as a .jpg .gif .tif or one of about a hundred other file formats.: )

3. 
   Guest_ | Jun 07, 2000 12:17pm | #68

   *Hopefully our union ironworker 'friend' won't catch onto that one ...

4. 
   Guest_ | Jun 07, 2000 06:48pm | #69

   *how the heck are you supposed to open your image?no one I know has ever seen a .eml before and my computer won't open it.can your re-post it as a .gif or .jpeg .vmp file?

5. 
   Guest_ | Jun 08, 2000 03:15am | #70

   *It showed up on my browser as a bitmap (*.bmp)

6. 
   Guest_ | Jun 08, 2000 03:35am | #71

   *It opened fine in IE for me.Jeff

7. 
   Guest_ | Jun 08, 2000 03:50am | #72

   *Couldn't open it with IE5.0 but Netscape had no problem.

8. 
   Guest_ | Jun 08, 2000 04:38am | #73

   *Norm, check post 40.3.2. I'd never heard of an .eml (Electronic Mail) file before either, but the original opened for me (Netscape Communicator 4.7).

15. 
    brisketbean_ | Jun 09, 2000 06:16am | #74

    *
    Luka;

    we own the scaffold, and there was a matching one on the other end of the beam. A sawzall and a welder and it is all fixed as good as old. The house sets on a hillside overlooking a finger of Palo Duro Canyons, just a normal digital lens.

1. 
   bay_area_sparky | Jun 09, 2000 07:22am | #75

   *once found the most intresting old can lights in an office, was called to remove the old lights and install smaller more directionaly adjustable can lights and trim, turned out these can lights were just that......... paint cans with keyless fixtures inside, strange thing is that the previous installer had apparently sprung for the pricy baffels and trim rings, the things looked like the real deal. anyone seen anything like this. always on the lookout for somehting faster or easier

16. 
    Guest_ | Jun 09, 2000 02:10pm | #76

    *
    BB-

    Any thought to keeping the scaffold in place, and using it as a load bearing member?

    pm

1. 
   Guest_ | Jun 11, 2000 07:06pm | #77

   *hey Mad Dog....your story reminded my of my old outfit up in Saratoga NY. We had a cheap boss...no porta-johns on any of our jobs. For the guys, the woods were good enough. We had in our employ, four ladies, preapplying stain, paint and, poly to all our trim and doors. Thier solution was to park an empty one gallon paint bucket inside a closet and post a guard. One fine summer afternoon one of our summer help college kids who I told to second coat a deck with stain informed me that he had done half the deck, but the stain was the wrong color, too watery, and furthermore stunk to high heaven. Turned out that our lasses were to lady-like to actually dump the bucket contents. They were hammering the lids back on, marking them in thier own "code" , and putting them in with the rest of thier supplies.

1. 
   Guest_ | Jun 14, 2000 06:09am | #78

   *I had just demo'd my upstairs bathroom and the copper piping was standing free but seemed stable. Walked away ten feet and it burst. Ran downstairs to shut it off at the main, and had to remove a cabinet the previous owner had installed to hide the ugly pipe. Once the cabinet was off I discovered he had cut off the handle so his damn cabinet would fit. Aaaarrrggh.

1. 
   Guest_ | Jun 14, 2000 06:19am | #79

   *This is also a 'breaking in the new guy' story...We sent him down to clean the crap out from under an old 1900's farmhouse and crap is what he got! By the time he got back to the bathroom, he found that there was a baseball-sized hole in the lead flange under the toilet with the expected puddle underneath. Keep in mind this was just 4 feet away from the dead, rotting cat. Poor guy had a claustrophobic fugue, froze up completely, and had to be coaxed out by the foreman 20 minutes later. Needless to say, he quit.

1. 
   Guest_ | Jun 21, 2000 06:32am | #80

   *One that I'd heard of from time to time, but never saw until today, was the chimney, still venting the water heater, dismantled to just below the new roof. I guess they figured the roof vents they added would do the job.I'm still trying to figure out whether it was the roofers who filled the hole from the old furnace (left when the 90+ was installed at about the same time as the roof was put on) with a styrofoam plug, right around the corner from the water heater flue into the chimney. Of course, the flue gases from the water heater were mostly coming out below the bonnet, so the strofoam wasn't damaged, so, what the heck.Bob

2. 
   Guest_ | Jun 27, 2000 03:59am | #81

   *bb, Okay, maybe I'm a little dense, but I can't figure out why that happened. A little explanation?Jon

3. 
   Guest_ | Jun 27, 2000 04:16am | #82

   *Favorite find: An octagonal barrel, seven shot colt revolver that fell behind the top plate of a basement wall into an inaccessible crawl space. Sure beats finding an unsprung mousetrap! Glad it wasn't loaded.MD

4. 
   Guest_ | Jun 28, 2000 04:37am | #83

   *Yeah those octagonal bullets can really tear up yer gut sumpthin awful.-pm

5. 
   Guest_ | Jun 28, 2000 04:42am | #84

   *sparky.. a lot of model railroad layouts use a light similar to what u describe.. except they arn't recessed.. by cutting the sides of the can in various vees.. u can alter the lighting effect and the direction of the light...

6. 
   Guest_ | Jul 01, 2000 03:11am | #85

   *Hired to put a plywood attic floor and pulldown ladder in the trapdoor accessed attic of a 2 story farmhouse built in 1865. The 2nd floor ceilings were made of some painted wainscoating affixed to joists which were not quite 2x6's, 24"oc and up to 14' long. The interior walls that the joists rested upon were not bearing walls. The rafters were oak, about 16' long at a steep angle, maybe 45-50*, a full 2x6, maybe 7". GENIUS IDEA! Since I can't trust the floor to bear any weight, I got some 1/8" x 1" steel bar strap to tie the joists to the rafters, thus transferring the load. When I started, I rigged enough lights to work by (inspection was by flashlight) and then saw that each rafter on the north side of the house had a cut out of it, about 6' from the bottom, and that there was only about 2" or wood supporting the roof. The original framers had cut all the rafters on that side about 1/2" too short, so they made a 4" cut in each rafter and then bent out the rafter so it would meet the top plate. My solution was to lag screw a 3/4" plywood plate on each side of each cut and then hang the floor. But now I'm not so impressed by the legendary craftsmanship of our forefathers. P.S.: The joists were made of walnut.

7. 
   Guest_ | Jul 01, 2000 05:33am | #86

   *b TVMDCElectrician's tape for repairing a hole in a BUR roof. Probably works better than a BUR, though.But that's not all: electrician's tape plus shims to repair a rusty downspout elbow (see attached)!

8. 
   Guest_ | Jul 01, 2000 08:04am | #88

   *Rob, just think, they cut all those oak 2x6's too short with a HANDSAW!! It's a hell of a lot quicker to make mistakes like that with power tools, don't know if I could do it by hand. Now, the cut and bend to fit idea, that's some quality booggering! Must have built it green, oak's hard to bend? Joe H

17. 
    Guest_ | Jul 01, 2000 08:04am | #87

    *
    I was curious to see what some of the more interesting fixes/techniques you've come across.

    The other day I had the pleasure of entering an attic of a c.1740 carriage house someone was interested in restoring. As I panned the area w/ my flashlight, I saw some dark stains from leakage in the roof sheathing, with some white stuff running along the seams of the boards. I assumed this was my friend fungus. Upon closer examination, someone had caulked the joints on the inside to stop the leakage....

1. 
   Guest_ | May 19, 2000 07:21pm | #1

   *Using hot glue to glue down popped bathroom tiles. Using hot glue to put up moulding on walls. Using contact paper instead of wall paper on lath and plaster walls. Those are just a few of the many "fixes" I encountered in my old hut. Hot glue seemed to be the "fix" of choice for most everything.

1. 
   Guest_ | May 19, 2000 07:45pm | #2

   *Have you looked into the history...perhaps Martha Stewart was a previous owner.Just a thought

1. 
   Guest_ | May 19, 2000 09:58pm | #3

   *Close. A little 87 year old lady. BTW, do you know what hot glue does to a wall when you glue things like floral arrangements to it? Not pretty, and not fun to repair.

1. 
   Guest_ | May 19, 2000 10:37pm | #4

   *One of my favorites is finding carefully painted-to-match 50-year-old sheet metal tacked over rotten wood. Kind of like dirt swept under a carpet. Most of the time it actually worked, though.b Been there, done that, can't remember ...

2. 
   Guest_ | May 19, 2000 10:49pm | #5

   *A ceiling light, that someone had spliced an extension cord into, then run the cord across the ceiling, down through the wall, through a heating duct, to the power box where it was spliced in to something else. Our electrician almost had a heart attack...

3. 
   Guest_ | May 19, 2000 10:57pm | #6

   *My Brother-in-law does appliance repair, and often does warranty work for manufacturers. He once got called out on a new electric dryer that wasn't working. When he got there, he found that the owner had cut off the 220V plug, spliced in an extension cord, and plugged the thing into a 110V outlet.

4. 
   Guest_ | May 20, 2000 02:32am | #7

   *Not So Funny but I took over a hotel when the 20,000 square foot EPDM roof was only six month old. To make sure the roof wouldn't leak, the guy before me mopped tar on every seam.For the non construction crew: tar disolves EPDM roofing. I don't know how much that roof cost and we couldn't figure out how to get the tar off so we just left it alone. We just decided the roof was a gonner and kept tarring it whenever it leaked.

5. 
   Bill_Richardson | May 20, 2000 02:47am | #8

   *I deliver appliances and do basic installation, our tech guys have seen it all of course, but what has been interesting to me to see has been: cardboard and duct tape dryer vent hose connections, flex hose for gas stove hookups that has been extended to two extensions, and two inches of water in the cellar with the old washer/dryer on blocks and a handwritten note to place the newly purchased washer/dryer on the same blocks. We never did plug the washer/dryer in, left that up to the owner. Dryer vent in the corner of a room of home and the dryer vent on the dryer is on the wrong side, customer-"hey just use my sawz-all and make it fit". If the gas shut off for the stove isn't above the kitchen floor, we do not connect-our policy (and a law in NY I'm told), sorry call a plumber, which has brought some customers to tears/fist-a-cuffs. How about getting some of these new side by side refrigerators or stackable all in one washer/dryer units into some trailer homes? Sorry its an inch or two too wide, we can't cut the trailer home nor the appliance to get it in, when the salesman says "it'll fit", then he needs to go on the delivery to make sure. Ha, ha, all in a days work.

6. 
   Guest_ | May 20, 2000 02:58am | #9

   *A hose spigot in place of a rusted off tub spout, a 40 gallon trash can (1/2 full) in basement under a 1st floor bathroom toilet w/leaking wax ring. Was "fixing" up old plaster walls once, decided to sand those gawdy high spots in corners of wall, come to find out somebody added some plugs to room and "trenched" through plaster leaving romex partially exposed then just mudded over. Expanding foam insulation as wood restoration product, wood rots away? just fill it back in!

7. 
   Guest_ | May 20, 2000 03:38am | #10

   *Favorite fixes? One of mine, and apparently a widely popular fix because I see it so often is water heater flue pipe held together with duct tape.Another favorite: I found a house with significant termite damage to three contiguous joists running off of the main beam, damage extending out 4 - 5 '. The fix? Nail a 2 x 4 on flat to the next, sound joist, extending across the 3 damaged joists about 3' out from (and parallel to) the main beam, and wedge a 2 x 6 "post" under the nailing point. He didn't even leave any overhang on the left to attach a sky hookBob

8. 
   Guest_ | May 20, 2000 04:56am | #11

   *When tearing out the old plaster down to the studs in my old house, we found insulbrick on the wet wall and side wall of the tub/shower area. Both these walls are and have always been interrior! Maybe it was used as sound insulation between the shower and the bedroom next door, or a primative vapor barrior? Jeff

9. 
   Guest_ | May 20, 2000 05:06am | #12

   *Your trailer home tale reminded me of my mother-in-law's new house. Her house is different from the rest of the development, hers has a 1st floor has a powder room/laundry combo. So the builder frames the room wide enough for side by side units. Um, FRAMED wide enough, that is. Add drywall and trim, and you need to saw a couple of inches off one of the units. At least the builder was nice enough to buy stacking machines for her. (For those of you who remember, yes same builder as the 3 way switch thread)Sean

10. 
    Guest_ | May 20, 2000 02:53pm | #13

    *Several times, I've seen the bath sink vent stack cut off below and above the medicine cabinet, just hanging there.Once saw a section of rain gutter runnin the length of the attic right below the ridge, the leader on one end poked out through the gable vent. I didn't ask.

11. 
    Guest_ | May 20, 2000 03:19pm | #14

    *Primitive cystern? For bats, maybe?

12. 
    Guest_ | May 20, 2000 03:45pm | #15

    *Mad Dog,You dope, it's a trough for attic horses. Some people!Ryan,How could you not ask. That's one of those things, had I seen while driving by, I would have stopped and knocked on the door to ask. I've done that on occassion you know.Pete "attic rancher" Draganic