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grover
Jan 22, 2002

PEW PEW PEW







MrBlandAverage posted:

What school did you go to? How did you get your job? Is there any way you could hook me up with an EE internship?
I went to Penn State; the Navy came up recruiting and I interviewed with them as well as about a dozen other companies. The whole resume/interview thing was highly automated; one place I talked to at the job fair and really wanted to inverview with but wasn't selected was NRL- Navy Research Labs- whom I later sent a letter. Apparently, they were impressed enough to fly me to DC for an on-site interview and a tour of the satellite production floor where I'd be working on part of the ISS until my clearance came through and they could move me to black ops. Unfortunately, they took a funding hit and wanted me to wait 6 months... I had bills to pay, though, and had already been offered another job, coincidentally with another agency in the navy down in Hampton Roads, VA. Always regretted not waiting for the job with NRL!

The summer intern program is even easier, as it's all a lottery. Sumbit your resume and hope you get it! It's kinda impersonal, though. You don't so much apply for a specific position as you apply for "Electrical Engineer in southeast virginia", etc.

http://jobsearch.usajobs.opm.gov/jo...d=&zip=&x=0&y=0

max4me posted:

Very impressive. But after all the loving work would you ever move?
It would have to be an absolutely fucking kick-ass job for me to move! Like if NASA selected me to be an astronaut or something

BABY COME BACK! posted:

Grover, do you plan on making some kind of "this is how much I saved doing all this back breaking work myself" comparison chart?

I'm sure you saved thousands upon thousands of dollars. Hell, back when I was living in Florida a flooring guy wanted $600.00 to do some floor tiling that I ended up doing myself for about $75.00 in materials and a days work.
This will end up costing about $85k until it's all said and done. Of that, I figure we spent about $10k in labor. Rule of thumb is that labor and materials cost about the same, though your tiling shows that's not always true... And the general contractor usually tacks 30% onto the top. If we'd done this the traditional way, this $80k addition would have cost about $195k, which I can't say for certain, but I'm pretty sure we'll see that or more in equity when we're done

grover fucked around with this message at Jan 22, 2007 around 16:41

PainterofCrap
Oct 16, 2002

Hey bebe



PeaceFrog posted:

I'm not afraid of the toilet. I am afraid of the pregnant woman who will be forced to use the basement bathroom.

HA! I fear mine as well, although she's 14-years post-partum. Don't know if I'm ever going to get the bathroom remodeled. All we have is a throne in the unfinished baseent, partitioned with a sheet.

grover
Jan 22, 2002

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Bad news on the funding front- I'd projected my tax return would be *just* enough to fund the rest of the addition, but neglected to consider that I filled out the correct # of deductions on my W-4 this time. So, I ended up with about $3k less than what I expected This could be very slow going...

Got almost all the furnishings up in the bathroom, and making slow progress on the kitchen pulls. I bought the steel angle and strap I need to hang the air handler; it's bitchin cold in the garage right now, but I'll be working on the HVAC in there once it warms up a bit.

Edit: we just filled the garage with a truck packed FULL of track from my in-law's storage unit so they can stop paying $500/month on it. Makes a lot of sense, but is going to hamper my putting up ductwork, lol

grover fucked around with this message at Jan 27, 2007 around 17:21

Elendil004
Mar 22, 2003

The prognosis
is not good.



Knock over a bank dude

grover
Jan 22, 2002

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I haven't posted back lately, as we've been pretty lazy the past 3 weeks! It's been cold enough that I haven't wanted to do any HVAC work in the garage, and my wife hasn't wanted to do any painting. We did get the guest bedroom cleaned out and set up for guests, as my grandparents are coming to visit for easter, but only if we had the addition ready for them. Still need to put up a door and blinds, but that's just $100 and an evening's work.




Our living room still looks like heavy construction, heh. Maybe one of these days we'll finish painting and clearn it up and prep for carpet and a permanent railing!

grover fucked around with this message at Feb 18, 2007 around 13:46

Elendil004
Mar 22, 2003

The prognosis
is not good.



I knew you naval engineers never had it in you to finish what you started!

what are those holes in the ceiling?

Elendil004 fucked around with this message at Feb 18, 2007 around 14:01

Error 404 NpH
Nov 26, 2000



Few questions

grover posted:



What are those blue things on the floor?

grover posted:



Did you buy special laminate flooring made for bathrooms? I was under the impression most laminates aren't made for wet environments. Ive only ever used tile myself, and its especially easy when working on a nice new level floor.

ps: have you noticed those prehung doors from homedepot/lowes never have the damn hinge screws in all the way. I ran into that problem a year or so ago when i hung a bunch.

Error 404 NpH fucked around with this message at Feb 18, 2007 around 14:00

grover
Jan 22, 2002

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Error 404 NpH posted:

What are those blue things on the floor?

Did you buy special laminate flooring made for bathrooms?
Those are battery powered bumper cars the kids got for christmas Yes, they do work! One broke within minutes, though- I think a few teeth got ripped off one of the gears. It still works, but sounds terrible and sometimes gets stuck and you have to push it.

I didn't use special laminate for the bathroom or kitchen, just cheap laminate from home emporium, who specialize in overstock/closeout/cheap shit. I did some tests before I bought it, as I was worried that it was going to be really shitty stuff because it was so cheap (like 20% the cost of Pergo). So, I soaked the samples in a tray of water for a week, splashed them and even bought a box for $15 and set it up in the hallway right inside the door for 2 months. The surface is plastic and impervious to water. The seams are tight enough that the surface tension of water inhibits much absorbtion into the crack. If water DOES penetrate (as in the soaking test), it expands a bit but contracts back as it dries with no permanant damage. So, I'm content that it should last long enough to be worthwhile. Only cost me about $25 to do the whole bathroom floor, so it's not like we'd be out much money

I haven't noticed any problems like that with the prehung doors. They may be cheap, but they seem to do that job OK. Once they're in place, it's hard to tell the difference.

grover fucked around with this message at Feb 18, 2007 around 14:29

Error 404 NpH
Nov 26, 2000



LOL, should have known you would put them through stress testing. I expected the seams to be shitty but if they held up to your tests they must be ok.

As for the doors, I wasnt saying they were bad, just that the screws holding the hinge to the casing were always loose when we unpacked them. Unstrapping them and tightening the screws before attempting to hang them made the job alot easier. Its possible I may have just gotten stuck with a shitty batch that had been knocked around during shipping.

Also I envy kids today, they get bad ass toys.

grover
Jan 22, 2002

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lol... I even took photos, AND managed to find them. Here's the expansion after soaking the joint end in water for 12 hours. You can tell it expanded, but not a whole lot, and there was no puckering or blistering or delaminating, which was what I was mostly worried about.

I Brake For MILFs
Jan 8, 2007



Wow grover, that is amazing work. My family just took 6 months to get our house ready to sell and it was a huge hassle, I couldn't imagine building a new addition from scratch. Good job!

Rhyno
Mar 21, 2003

sorry doesn't bring
me back to life, Hal.


grover posted:

lol... I even took photos, AND managed to find them. Here's the expansion after soaking the joint end in water for 12 hours. You can tell it expanded, but not a whole lot, and there was no puckering or blistering or delaminating, which was what I was mostly worried about.

I love that stuff. I did a large room at my parents house and made a ton of mistakes along the way. When I did the second room I was ready for any obstacles and I did a great job I if do say so. So good that I want to rip up the big room and start over.

ChaosKitty
Oct 21, 2005
Holy Cats!

Wow, I'm very impressed. Especially after my husband and I undertook the huge task of reflooring our living room, hallway and secnod bathroom this past week. We just took up carpet and laid down vinyl tile, which seems like no big deal after reading this thread. Now I feel quite lazy, in fact. We've been thinking of building on addition (single room) and reading this is quite inspiring. I love that cathedral ceiling.

Good luck with the rest of your building, grover.

grover
Jan 22, 2002

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Elendil004 posted:

what are those holes in the ceiling?


Circles are recessed lights and rectangles are HVAC ducts.

BOrangeFury
Feb 18, 2005

by T. Fine


grover posted:

I didn't use special laminate for the bathroom or kitchen, just cheap laminate from home emporium, who specialize in overstock/closeout/cheap shit. I did some tests before I bought it, as I was worried that it was going to be really shitty stuff because it was so cheap (like 20% the cost of Pergo). So, I soaked the samples in a tray of water for a week, splashed them and even bought a box for $15 and set it up in the hallway right inside the door for 2 months. The surface is plastic and impervious to water. The seams are tight enough that the surface tension of water inhibits much absorbtion into the crack. If water DOES penetrate (as in the soaking test), it expands a bit but contracts back as it dries with no permanant damage. So, I'm content that it should last long enough to be worthwhile. Only cost me about $25 to do the whole bathroom floor, so it's not like we'd be out much money

I was about to ask the same thing. Never seen 'wood' floors in a bathroom. But 25 bucks for some decent looking floor? Fuck me, I'm sold. What's the stuff called?

My dad and I are going to be tearing up carpets in about two months. Then the entire downstairs will be wood laminate, except for the tile in the bathroom and the lino in the laundry room. It used to be almost entirely carpet. Big difference, and a good one.

Also, nice choice on the quartz! Stone countertops make all the difference nowadays. We got granite, and we got 'em crazy cheap because my dad knows a guy who knows a guy sort of thing.

Awesome work, man.

grover
Jan 22, 2002

PEW PEW PEW







BOrangeFury posted:

I was about to ask the same thing. Never seen 'wood' floors in a bathroom. But 25 bucks for some decent looking floor? Fuck me, I'm sold. What's the stuff called?
This was called "Fast-clic" which I can't find referenced anywhere else on the internet. It's 8.3mm thick (thinner than Pergo and the others) and made out of some cardboard/fiberboard that seems pretty durable and looks good, even next to real wood. It was 88 cents a square foot at Home Emporium. Pergo is about 4x that price, and the next cheapest I found at Lowes or Home Depot was $1.50 for what looked like similar quality to the stuff we bought, but you might get lucky. It has a 15-year garuntee, but it's so restricte to be worthless. You have to put down underlayment (I used Armstrong) which acts as both a cushion and vapor barrier. It was easy to cut and easy to install. Doesn't require any nailing or gluing, the pieces snap together and "float" on the floor, held down by gravity in the middle and shoe molding at the edges.

BaronVonBigmeat
Sep 4, 2003

Edison's Medicine

Also Lumber Liquidators has some laminates starting just under $1.00/sq.ft.

One thing about laminates, you aren't putting glue or mortar underneath them, so you don't have the fudge factor to absorb gaps that you would for tile or vinyl flooring. If you have a low spot in your slab and put laminate over it, you'll have a spongy spot, like you're walking on a trampoline. Get the biggest, straightest, longest 2x4 you can, and make sure there's no significant low or high spots on your floor. Knock down the high spots and use floor leveling compound for the low spots.

Trust me, I know from experience!

grover
Jan 22, 2002

PEW PEW PEW







Alright, progress today!! After months of worrying about this, pondering how the hell we were going to mount it, and how the hell we were going to lift this 100lb Air Handler 8' in the air, we finally did it. I carefully measured the stud locations in CAD and double-checked with the stud-finder to make sure the lag bolts were solid into wood, and meshed the locations of the supports against the placement of the air handler in relation to where we'd put in the duct and cables, as the cables are going to have to line up exactly with the holes in the air handler. We decided to fab up metal brackets instead of building something out of 2x4s. Last night, I whipped out the angle grinder and cut up some #14 1 1/4" angle and 1 1/4" flatbar and bent up flanges and then this morning I bolted it all up and leveled it out. I put a piece of plywood between them- not because we need any supports (the angle should be fine) but because I worry about the air handler slipping off the one if it vibrates over time- the plywood is insurance against that.

In the end, no fancy rigging or jigs, we just set up the old portable workbench (first project ever when we lived in an apartment and all we had was a 4" trim saw) and used that to heft it up. As you can see, it's not really in there right, but it's UP and my wife cut her hands up pretty bad on the sheet metal as we lifted, SO, we treated her hands and I grabbed a beer and we'll worry about straighening it all out and getting it into place another day. PHEW, it's up, w00t!! Next, I have to start working on all the ductboard up there though, which is another new skill for me to learn...



Prior to this, the kids and I put in 5 more receptacles in the kitchen in a sort of rube goldberg roundabount way to get the air handler in. See, in order to get the air handler up, we needed to set up the workbench. Which means we had to move the radial arm saw. Which means we have to move the coffee table that's sitting in the garage. Which means we have to move the sideboard that's also sitting in the garage. Which means we have to clear out space in the kitchen under the stairs for the sideboard. Which means moving the portable scaffolding with the tile saw, and finishing up the receptacles in the corner which I hadn't had a chance to get to since they'd been blocked and a low priority.

The kids put up all the cover plates on and did a very good job, I think

ANYHOW, been dreading this for a very long time, and I'm glad it's up and done!

grover fucked around with this message at Feb 23, 2007 around 21:09

grover
Jan 22, 2002

PEW PEW PEW







OK, first significant update in a while, as my wife and I have actually both been motivated to do stuff again

My wife finished tiling the kitchen and is about 1/3 of the way through grouting it- I think she's doing a damned good job, too! I'm looking forward to being able to tear the plastic off our counters and clean some of this mess up:


Kitchen, with tile all up and about 30% of it grouted.

I've been working on the HVAC some more, too. First step was to connect the wiring- I got the #6 cable connected to the breaker and used a bit of smurf tube (plastic conduit) for protection. That part was clear enough- problem was the mess of control wires was daunting and I was confused as hell on how exactly I was supposed to hook up the two units, and where to connect the thermostat wires too, as the instructions for the air handler were completely silent, and there was no manual whatsoever to be found with the outside unit. Turns out, the instructions were inside the wiring compartment for the outside unit when I disassembled it to try to puzzle the connections together, and THEY had a complete wiring diagram, phew! Of course none of the colors matched between either unit and the thermostat. I'm pretty sure I worked it all out, though:


Mess of wires in the air handler


Mess of wires in the thermostat- none of the wire colors match the wiring diagram, and the termostat instructions aren't exactly clear and have some contradictions. I guess I'll see when we get everything done and fire it up...


The outside unit at least came with instructions!

Actually... I COULD fire it up right now, I suppose- the emergency heating element and blower fan are connected. Hmmm... might have to test that



The return grill/filter is mounted here (temporarily at this point, it's not screwed in) and the termostat.

I decided to go with fiberglass ductboard in the garage. I confirmed with the inspectors that the code requires only that penetrations through the garage fire walls be sheet metal, and allows ductboard to be used. And the nice thing about ductboard is that it's self insulating- even if I do everything perfectly with sheet metal, I still have to come back and wrap it all with duct insulation which costs about exactly what ductboard does. So, I ordered a $70 shiplap tool off ebay (I'll be selling it as soon as I'm done if anyone is interested!) and bought a $150 box of duct-board with 4x 4x10' sheets, and I'm off to the races!


Fabricating 4x10' sheeds fiberglass ductboard into ducts. You can see the "shiplap" tool (gold with the black handle) that's used to make special L-shaped cuts in the fiberglass to fold up into strong and efficient joints. Leaning against the wall are two completed duct sections- one is folded into a completed 4' section of duct and one is unfolded.


This photo shows the 12" takeoffs mounted to the 12" duct I roughed in 6 months ago, the air handler in its final position, and the ductboard fastened to the air handler unit. Ideally, I'd be screwing the distribution box into the flange from all 4 sides, but unfortunately, I'm not going to be able to. (You can see light through the grill in the wall, too, I haven't worked on the intake portion yet.)

grover fucked around with this message at Mar 3, 2007 around 11:46

grover
Jan 22, 2002

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Fuck. Just got a letter informing me that my real estate assessment was increased 31% and they're going to charge me another $421/year now One of the BAD things about a better house, I guess. That, and my electric bills are probably going to double.

I should just be glad that's all it raised, since the value of my house has probably doubled, and they only raised the assessment 31%.

grover fucked around with this message at Mar 3, 2007 around 12:33

Agent019
Jun 27, 2002
LOL, ONLY DUMB PEOPLE WORK AT MCDONALD'S
Get over yourself, douchebag.

Great job. I am impressed by the amount of time and effort you ad your wife did. IT probably would have been done in a month if you hired a Home Depot crew still.

But... YOu can come over and build an add on to my house any day.

clockworx
Oct 15, 2005
The Internet Whore made me buy this account

I think you bought the exact same laminate I did for my living room. It was occasionally a pain getting the joints together, but in general it worked out OK. About what was expected for it being so cheap.

grover
Jan 22, 2002

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Well, I hooked up the air handler and the fan works I wasn't able to test the emergency heat, though; I think it's an internal feature of the air handler.

Agent019 posted:

Great job. I am impressed by the amount of time and effort you ad your wife did. IT probably would have been done in a month if you hired a Home Depot crew still.
I'm not so sure- it certainly would have gone faster, but I think it still would have taken at least 6 months for pros.

grover
Jan 22, 2002

PEW PEW PEW







My wife finished grouting the tile in the kitchen and we have all the receptacles up and energized- we're both very happy with the way it turned out I posted a wider shot earlier, before we had the grout or electrical stuff back up, but here's the tilework around the kitchen window:





And I am officially a sheet metal worker! Code says it's illegal to penetrate garage walls with ductboard, and requires I use sheet metal for all penetrations. For $6 at Lowes, I bought a 24x36" sheet of #26 steel and formed it with some tin snipes, a pair of pliers and a scrap board into the adapter you see. It turned out well, I'm quite proud of my handiwork, as this was the first time I'd ever done sheet metal bending, and I didn't have any of the proper tools!

Air handler with sheet metal intake shroud and ductboard distribution box. The next piece of duct is in the foreground.


View from the house looking through what will be the filter/grille, through the sheet metal shroud and into the inside of the air handler. Notice my fine handiwork!

After I took this photo, I sealed all seams and joints with UL181 tape, cut out a ductboard liner to insulate it (nailed it into place so it won't shift when the unit is turned on), and screwed on the grille.

Edit: also today, I found out the sheet metal distributor near me doesn't stock the ductboard hangers (1.5" C-channel), so it was off to the big box. I thought I'd try Home Depot this time, since they rent tools and might have a brake- turns out they have a 10' brake, and charge $42 for 4 hours. There's no way I could fit that monster in the back of my camaro, so I asked the guy how much it would cost to just use it there in the store for a half hour and he said "knock yourself out!" and so I did Turns out Home Depot only had thinner #30 sheets for $1 more than Lowes' #26 sheets, and code requires I make the channels out of #26, but eh, fuck it, I used the #30. I'd never used the brake before and the guy there seemed to only have the vaguest idea of how to use it, but I figured it out pretty quickly and slammed out 8 professional-looking brackets whilst having a conversation with the rental guy. I'll post more pics when I get them hung up.

grover fucked around with this message at Mar 8, 2007 around 21:23

Dainan
Dec 24, 2004
I <3 Walmart

Not a bad job with the air handler at all! I didnt see anything wrong with anything you did, cept maybe the sheet metal wasnt as pretty as it could be. If you need any help with the wiring or anything else, hit me up on AIM. I do HVAC for a living and generally use Rheem, which I see you've got. HVAC is not nearly as hard as you think, its just nobody knows how to do it.

grover
Jan 22, 2002

PEW PEW PEW







Dainan posted:

Not a bad job with the air handler at all! I didnt see anything wrong with anything you did, cept maybe the sheet metal wasnt as pretty as it could be. If you need any help with the wiring or anything else, hit me up on AIM. I do HVAC for a living and generally use Rheem, which I see you've got. HVAC is not nearly as hard as you think, its just nobody knows how to do it.
Thanks I think my problem was that I used channel locks instead of a brake. I think it would have turned out better, had my bends been a little crisper... I know I definitely wanted crisp bends on the ductboard hangers, else they'd hold no weight at all, and worse- look terrible!

I do have a question- I have a Rheem split unit and a honeywell thermostat. Do I connect AH:W1 to Thermo:E, and AH:W2 to Thermo:W? It seems like it aught to be the other way around, but that's how the wiring diagram was showing it, so that's how I hooked it up.

Also, there's a terminaled marked "O/B" on the thermostat- does that correlate to B (1st stage heat) on the air handler, which mine doesn't have?

grover fucked around with this message at Mar 8, 2007 around 21:19

nicad
Feb 21, 2004


need any help? I live in virginia beach

grover
Jan 22, 2002

PEW PEW PEW







I've done more work this morning than I have in months, and it wasn't even on my own house, but my neighbor's! lol... Got him all hooked up for sewer! He's a plasterer and has a contractors' liscense; now that he's seen how easy it is to do this, he's talking about maybe hooking up other people in the neighborhood for some extra cash, and wanted me to help. I dunno if I really want to do that, but I'm thinking about it, I could sure use some extra money right now, gotta raise $4000 to finish the addition!


My neighbor helping me dig my pipe out a few months ago; I returned the favor this morning!


Another plumber had put the cleanout in a few months ago- we smashed out the old cast iron pipe to the septic tank with a sledge hammer and hooked up.


long run out to the street


Closeup of the street cleanout. Look familiar

Poor guy had his tank pumped about 2 days too soon- they are SOOO happy to finally be able to shit in their toilet again, lol...

grover fucked around with this message at Mar 17, 2007 around 14:48

grover
Jan 22, 2002

PEW PEW PEW









I poured concrete! Mixed it up real ghetto, too, everything was either free or wastage- I had an old ripped up 94lb bag of portland cement I couldn't return, got a half bucket full of pea gravel from the front walk and a half bucket of sand from a 3-year old sand mount across the street and mixed it up in my wheelbarrow with a pickaxe. Even cut up some leftover rebar and put that in there, too. Turned our pretty good! The evaporator is about 200lbs, we'll probably move it tomorrow, and hopefully I can get someone with an EPA license to hook up the refrigerant lines and charge the system!

The holes in the siding are for the condensate drain, the two copper refrigerant lines and the thermostat wire. The gray box is the electrical disconnect- I'll run watertight conduit from it to the evaporator.

Condensation will drip from the air handler when the A/C is on; the condensate drain will just stick out about 2" from the siding and drip.

robo puppy
Oct 2, 2004
flood the metro

grover posted:

I had an old ripped up 94lb bag of portland cement I couldn't return

AHA! So you're the guy that brings me a cart full of 4 month-old, water-logged building materials to the Home Depot return desk and makes me sort it all out! Just kidding, for you I'd return that bag of concrete and keep it on the down low. If you happen to have any questions about Home Depot policies, credit services, special orders or the like, just let me know. I work service desk and know a lot about Home Depot policy (although by now you probably feel like you live at HD/Lowes and might know it all already) so just shoot me a PM.

Really a tremendous job grover! I bet you can't wait until it's all done and you can sit back and have a beer looking at your job well done.

grover
Jan 22, 2002

PEW PEW PEW







Really cool 3D flash animation of wind loading at this link, it explains the concepts very well:
http://www.pbcgov.com/pubsafety/eoc/HowTos/walls.htm

We moved the condensor to the pad last night, but I ran into a problem with the whip- it's got 3/4" liquidtight fittings, but the condensor has 1 1/4" knock-outs! So, off to the big box to get ANOTHER adapter It's a beautiful day today, and now that it's out of the garage, we've got room to clean the garage! Maybe this week we'll be parking both cars in it

robo puppy posted:

AHA! So you're the guy that brings me a cart full of 4 month-old, water-logged building materials to the Home Depot return desk and makes me sort it all out!
LOL, yeah, that's me! At the time they weren't water-logged and were still very resellable. I tried returning them to the HD and 3 different Lowes I'd bought stuff from by that point, but they all said they didn't carry it and wouldn't take it back without a reciept I'm pretty sure I'd bought them from Home Depot, and what I *think* happened is that they stopped carrying the 94lb bag in the 3 month interim because it's bitching heavy, and stuck with 50lb bags. I've since seen identical 94lb bags at one of the other Lowes that refused to exchange it, but it's too late now. Bastards! I've since tried to buy everything exclusively at one particular Lowes to ease the problem of recieptless returns. I mean, I save the reciepts, but I'm not about to filter through the 200-odd reciepts I've got stuffed into my satchel to find each $1 plumbing fitting I have left over, heh

Hey, I've got 3 pieces of rebar that have been sitting outside for 18 months, can I still return them without a reciept?

grover fucked around with this message at Mar 23, 2007 around 13:40

grover
Jan 22, 2002

PEW PEW PEW







I have air conditioning!!



I don't have an EPA license to do R-22, so I couldn't legally finish the install. SO, being not very good at sweating copper anyhow, I decided to contract out this last little bit, though I did the electric and thermostat and condensate drain and pretty much everything else I could. At the last minute (as he was about ready to sweat in the last bit of 3/4" pipe), we realized the unit had to be raised about the FEMA flood plane level, which is even with the top of the concrete blocks... we were talking about building a wooden platform, but decided instead to heft it up on concrete blocks for the time being, and to come back later and brick around the block, which should look pretty nice

Had some difficulties with the thermostat, though- namely, I lost the instruction manual! It's a complicated programmable one and has all these arcane codes to set up. It finally turned on right after the HVAC guy left, and I found the manual online about 5 minutes after that and got the programming set up. Cooled the addition from 82F to 72F in half an hour! Feels soooo nice

grover fucked around with this message at Apr 6, 2007 around 16:06

grover
Jan 22, 2002

PEW PEW PEW







Finally got around to doing the trim & weather seal around the garage doors! Since I'm a tad inexperienced, I had made the mistake of framing the door actually 7' high and 9' wide like the garage door instructions said, when I should REALLY have framed them 3" wider, to nail 2x6 pressure treat boards up inside it, so I wasn't able to do it the "normal" way. The siding guys refused to touch it and just put up trim flush around it. Here's how the door looked before, with just the bare studs and housewrap exposed:


"Before", with just bare exposed studs and housewrap."


"Before", with just bare exposed studs and housewrap."


I was going to just wrap them in white flashing for trim, when I happened upon hardiplank in the siding section- hardiplank is high-end concrete siding; it's quite literally concrete molded into a board, and ended up being absolutely PERFECT for this. So, instead of using green-treat 2x6s, I have my garage doors wrapped in concrete I probably ruined my best circular saw blade cutting it, but it turned out pretty well. I still have to go back and seal the joints (they'll disappear) and paint it gloss white to match the trim, but I'm extremely happy with it!


Garage door, with hardiplank trim & weather stripping.

The weather stripping is plastic/rubbery stuff, and the doors came with 2x7' section and one 9' section. The side pieces are designed to slide, and the top is a little different. The door is designed to pull away from the top as it opens- the top piece is adjustable and sticks out a little further to make the seal. I couldn't just wrap the little triangular cutouts, and had to get fancy, which ended up being a real pain-in-the-ass:

Detail, showing how I did the weather stripping around the triangular pieces. I haven't caulked or painted the hardiplank, yet- silicone will hide the joints.

grover fucked around with this message at Apr 6, 2007 around 13:03

blixa
Jan 9, 2006

Kein bestandteil sein

Yay, I was waiting for an update of this thread. It's looking great!

Man, I wish I could build an addition to my place...too bad it's a small apartment :P

grover
Jan 22, 2002

PEW PEW PEW







blixa posted:

Yay, I was waiting for an update of this thread. It's looking great!

Man, I wish I could build an addition to my place...too bad it's a small apartment :P
Thanks I was starting to worry GBS was getting bored with me, since views have gone way down on these latest intermittant updates! Because, really, the sad truth is that projects like this progress very very slowly- time-lapse of a year into half a page like I did on Page 1 is interesting, but weekly updates of barely perceptible progress on my AC isn't very spectator-friendly. I've been trying to bump it at least every 2 weeks with whatever progress I've made, lest the archives eat this thread.

Here's the next project, new fence in the backyard. I've got the holes dug, but the quick-crete hasn't hardened up properly. I'm not sure what the problem is, I'm hoping I just didn't add enough water and the strength will slowly come over the next few weeks:

grover fucked around with this message at Apr 6, 2007 around 15:36

Vander
Aug 15, 2004

I am my own hero.


grover posted:

Here's the next project, new fence in the backyard. I've got the holes dug, but the quick-crete hasn't hardened up properly. I'm not sure what the problem is, I'm hoping I just didn't add enough water and the strength will slowly come over the next few weeks:



What do you plan on doing with that tree/bush monstrosity that's creeping its way onto your house?

grover
Jan 22, 2002

PEW PEW PEW







Vander posted:

What do you plan on doing with that tree/bush monstrosity that's creeping its way onto your house?
But we LIKE that! It's giving our backyard some semblance of privacy from the road It's actually rather nice in person, it makes pretty much an archway. The monstrosity is a mix of a long dead pear tree, honeysuckle and a monstrous overgrown privit hedge (the tree-looking parts). The backhoe smashed it up pretty bad, but it's a privit hedge and therefore indestructible and I know it will recover despite losing half its bark.


Pear tree & future site of the addition, circa 2001, with the "ugly monstrisity" directly behind it.

We had to cut down the pear tree to make room for the garage- was one of the hardest things I had to do. I console myself that some of the branches were rotting into the heartwood and it wasn't goign to last more than a few years anyhow, but was still heartbreaking It gave some awesome pears!

grover fucked around with this message at Apr 6, 2007 around 15:38

LittleBallOfHate
May 19, 2004

Sneaky Russian Defenseman

Good work on the house. I've helped my Dad build a seperate 3 car garage when I was younger so I can sort of appreciate the work and your pride. There's nothing like being able to stand back and say "We did that!"

Lakedaimon
Jan 10, 2007



absolutely fantastic stuff... I cant begin to imagine the pride (and probably some soreness too) you must feel when you look upon the fruits of your careful planning and hard work

time life books should hire you for their next edition of their home improvement guides

grover
Jan 22, 2002

PEW PEW PEW







Thanks guys


Got the new fence and gate up!

We're going to get metal fence to go around the outside of the honeysuckle and connect back to the other fence- the honeysuckle will grow up into it, and should hide it and look pretty good

grover fucked around with this message at Apr 6, 2007 around 20:06

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