This is really just a rant. Wanting to express a huge pet peeve of mine that no one else cares about.
It seems like on every TV show featuring amateur remodeling projects features some big scene where the participants demolish a kitchen or bathroom with a sledge hammer. They just go in and start whanging away at everything in sight.
I know it probably makes for good TV, but it just seems so stupid to me. For one thing, in many cases it would have to be easier to just disassemble and remove everything than to knock it to shreds. For another, I’m always waiting for some dumazz to whack right into a 220V line or a gas line or something (talk about good TV).
Plus, if they just disassembled as much as possible and set it out by the curb instead of turning it into dumpster rubble, most of the pieces would probably disappear overnight. Old kitchen cabinets may not be stylish, but that hardly matters to a neighbor who’d be thrilled to use them for storage in their basement or garage.
Okay. I’m done.
Replies
that, plus the fact that a sawzall would probably make the process quicker and less tiresome!
Sawzall was my first purchase when we bought the 300 year old house...there was no way to get from the east side, where the usable kitchen was, to the weast side, where the usable bathroom was, without going outside...
For one thing, in many cases it would have to be easier to just disassemble and remove everything than to knock it to shreds.
I'd take it a step further, and say in almost EVERY case. We don't see those 220V mishaps or busted water mains on "flip that house", but you better believe that some poor slob stumbled onto them 'cause he saw 'em doing it that way on the boob tube.
Anybody who earns their paycheck in the remodeling arena knows that demo is more often a finesse job than that bull-in-a-china-shop garbage on TV. I can count on one hand the number of times I've found it nessecary to wield a sledgehammer (for something other that driving a stake), in over 20 years in the trades.
Yea, my pet peeve too.
Such a gooood rant. I also own a Sawsall. When we bought our 30's house, it had a kitchen nook with curved ceiling that had to go in order for us to both cook and sit in in the kitchen reading the Sunday paper over coffee, one of later life's greatest ways to spend time. Also to not be banging butts and cursing each other at meal time. Nails and wood must have been plentiful at that time, for there was plenty of each making up that area. To have banged them out would probably have fractured the good plaster on the adjacent walls and ceiling. To gracefully cut it out with my dynamic Sawzall with bimetal blades meant that I didn't have to wear a mask. I could do it methodically, I could stack the remains in a neat pile, there was usable surplus, and my wife didn't have to look like the TV bimbo not knowing how to swing a sledge (totally wrist action -- you know what I mean). And it could be done in less than a day. My retirement dream is to combine my Sawzall with a Honda generator on a wagon and go around the neighborhood cutting off errant pipes sticking above railroad tie garden enclosures, trimming monster violets to the ground, and dropping a garage when asked.
There's plenty of bad DIY TV on these days. I imagine some of you guys in the remodeling biz are gonna start running into folks who think you should be able to demo the living room and dining room, install new drywall, light fiztures, hardwood and tile, install new windows, paint the exterior and add-ona new master bath and walk-in closet for $8,000. After all, they did it on "[insert name of bad tv show here].""If the trout are lost, smash the state."
Yeah, for $8000 and it only took them three days on TV!
David,
You are right on the money about finesse. Floor protection and dust conrol are so important. Most of those shows are mindless but the viewers must love them. I get a kick out of the makeover shows that complete a 30 day job in one week. You know something was over looked or shortcuts were taken.
How's your kitchen job coming?
Chuck S
live, work, build, ...better with wood
It's the way they deal with floors on those shows that makes me giggle the most. Even a competent DIY'er knows that preparation is critical if a floor is to look and perform well.
The remodel jobs on those shows always include a variety of new flooring being installed. Yet, I don't recall ever seeing anyone in the crawlspace under a house contending with a rotted joist or sill. I don't recall ever hearing of an entire subfloor needing to be replaced, from even one small bathroom. And it's utterly amazing what can be accomplished with just a little floor leveling compound...and a good eye.
Sure hope it works for me.
MichaelNew knowledge is priceless.
Used knowledge is even more valuable.
Nothing like a good swing of the sledge in an old house to bring down a shower of rat #### on your head. And yes, I'm stupid enough to have done it.
... and don't forget the soot! There's nothing like opening up a ceiling in a house that used to have a coal burning boiler and getting a faceful of soot.
A few eyars ago I took down 1100 sqr ft of plaster and lath that had more than 2" of coal soot on top of it. Talk about nasty!
"Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd."
~ Voltaire
I stood by and watched as a laborer pulled down a piece of paneling and had a live rat jump out ONTO HIS CHEST! Talk about a spooked kid! No, it didn't bite him.
"Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd."
~ Voltaire
I know it probably makes for good TV,
Well thats a matter of opinion! <G>
Your preaching to the choir brother!
Doug
As for the rat remains, yeah, I've been there...a few times. I've spent a fair amount of time doing demo work for remodels(did a bathroom over the weekend), and a fair bit trying to salvage or not damage various parts of the house or project. All said and done, though, it can feel real good to swing that sledge and watch that thing disintegrate. Not always a good idea, but when possible, it's a nice release. My brother is around for a little while, and is desperate for money, so I had him helping me over the weekend. He is still giddy over getting to punch through the sheetrock. It's the little things in life that bring such joy! ;)
sledge hammer to drywall.......I've often wondered about that myself
I know! They're killing flies. Yeah, yeah, that's it, they're killing flies.
...The unspoken word is capital. We can invest it or we can squander it. -Mark Twain...
Be kind to your children....they will choose your nursing home.
i wondered bout that too, I have never started swinging a sledge into a wall with out knowing whats in it, but then again i never flliped houses and made 80 grand in a 4 week deadline either with big chested real estate agents swooning over my house
I looked at one last night. The previous owners were one stud away from dropping the header that supports the ceilings in the living and dining room because they wanted to open things up a bit. Floors are all scratched up from crap thrown down on them, boards with nails everywhere and random holes busted into every room.
Excellent rant. Excellent.
Best solution: don't watch!
"Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd."
~ Voltaire
Tuffy-
We (wife and I) always say the say the same thing when we watch those shows. She, in particular, abhors waste, and allows me : ) to discard very little when remodeling (she actually rinses and re-uses paper plates, but that's another story). We've gone so far as to MOVE an 8' section of interior wall (plaster and lath, no less!) by sawsalling the nails top and bottom and sliding the whole section over a few feet. No plaster cracks- just taped the seams, painted, etc. - still beautiful after 18 years.
Not sure if some of the stuff we do would be cost-effective for a well-paid crew who can work fast doing what they know (tearing down and rebuilding), but we do save a lot of material from going to the landfill.
There are several places locally that accept and re-sell used materials and components that we regularly utilize. If we can't use the old cabinets, someone else almost always can.
Bill
Edited 1/30/2007 5:16 pm ET by PGproject
Swinging wildly and blindly with a sledge is a bit more entertaining than watching someone make a few exploratory holes, then going at the wall methodically with a sawzall.
Sort of like when the movie Top Gun came out. If I or anyone else ever flew air-to-air like those bozos did for Hollywood, we would have been shot down within the first 10 seconds in a real-world engagement.
I do like watching the sledge swingers swing 10 times with gusto, then 10 half-hearted swings, then watching them give up when they are tuckered out.
"I'll finish that tomorrow."