Category: House

Jun 19 2012

Hoods Away

Today was spent mostly helping Gerhart out with his car. I had to haul it with my truck to the shop to be fixed.

While on the way we took the hood and fender from Sherman to the scrap metal yard.
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The hood is made of pure Aluminum and a new replacement hood would have been $1800. I loved the hood. It would get dings in it and NEVER rust. Very light weight too. I had to replace mine with a steel hood as the junk yard Al ones are hard to find. Woo hoo…. I got all of $17 for it

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I also started building parts for the pool enclosure. I needed to make a 16.5 foot header beam for for the rafters, but also needed it as a work surface to build the roof joists. The easiest way I found of making a PERFECTLY straight beam is to put it on the walk board, put a level string on it, and using wood stir stick, I could then shim it up for a nice straight beam (+/- 1/16”).

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Sometimes I think a am a bit too anal (engineering wise).

Jun 18 2012

Painting the Upper Deck

Today was spent mainly painting the upper deck on the house
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I decided to cut the openings between the deck boards since they had warped and swelled over time. Now they have a consistent look and the gaps will let more dirt and water through them.

I also had to move the hot tube to paint below it. I used the old trick of lifting the tub up, and putting pipe below it to roll it on some wood rails.

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I have already painted everything except for the deck. Tomorrow I’ll start the screened enclosure around the exercise pool.

May 02 2012

Blondie’s Accident

Tonight I had another accident just about 2 weeks after Sherman’s accident. Fortunately, I was NOT at fault. I was stopped at a red light and heard a screech of tires and boom, I was hit in the back end. It is such a weird feeling to have back to back accidents. Next I’ll have to have a crash in my truck to complete the trio.

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The only damage was to the rear bumper of my car. There was virtually no visible damage to the car of the other driver. My insurance company took car of everything and it is now going to the shop for repairs.

Apr 22 2012

The look of the brick

The final brick work. I just have to cast caps on the bricks and this phase will be done. Lastly it will be installing the trim around the columns.

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Apr 17 2012

Bricking is finally done!

Today my nephew and his wife (Bob and Marie) are visiting me. He might possibly move to Charleston which would be great!

I finished up the bricking in a desperate attempt to get it done.

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They finally showed up just as I got done.

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Play time now.

Apr 13 2012

Pouring concrete footers again….

Started work on the front porch, by pouring concrete footer for the 1/2 walls and the flower planter.

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I finished the pour on Saturday morning. Since I had some old rebar around it was included in the footer as the wall is only going to be one brick wide and I want to be sure the wall doesn’t crack over the years.

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Apr 12 2012

Front porch lighting wired

Today was spent wiring the “night lights” on the front porch.

Sometime I amaze myself… I was DREADING wiring up the lights because I knew I would have to be crawling though the small spaces and insolation of the attic…make me itch and I have wear a respirator or i’ll cough like crazy.

When I started this morning I found that a year ago, when I wired it I had left enough extra wire on the install to reach a power box in the attic… the wiring was SOoooo easy to do. Wow, it was crazy that I didn’t remember it. I do a lot of strange things like that. I find wiring in places I had totally forgotten about to hook up a light or outlet. Got read to do the job, opened up the siding and found a wire, exactly where it was needed.

Anyway, tonight will see exactly how it came out. Instead of wiring a switch, I wired it directly to the house power system. No shut off….

I thought about installing a light sensor to turn them on/off, but I just wanted a very low…dim light source so I am using LED bulbs which draw 1 watt each (2 watts total). LED lights are rated for up to 100,000 hrs , but lets say these cheap ass Walmart bulbs last 50,000 hrs. That is 5.7 years of lighting. Hell, I might have sold the house by then. So it made no sense to install a switch box, switch, photo sensor, etc. This the easiest and best way in my opinion.
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Well, the back deck is stopped… and I am back on the front porch. Crazy eh? The reason is I have Tony’s trailer loaded with bricks and his cement mixer and need to get it back to him I can’t get the panels for the back (12 ft long) until I unload the trailer. There is also 1/4 yd of sand in the back of my truck. After the front bricking is done, then the trailer can be off loaded and be ready to return the scaffolding when I finish the back….

Apr 11 2012

Wiring day

Today was mostly spent on wiring.

I finished installing the lights for the pool area and replaced all the 8 bulbs with florescent ones (9 watts) which had the equivalent output to my 60 watt incandescent bulbs. I now am using 72 watts instead of 240 watts. That is a nice savings!

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I also installed a timer for the whole house fan. If you have never heard of one they are fantastic!! This fan draws 3200 cubic feet of air a minute and can cause a significant draft in the house sucking out the hot air and replacing it with cool outside air. It reduces the electric bill by allowing me to delay using my air conditioning by up to 2 month in the summer. I needed a timer because when I use it at night the house gets too cold. This way it will shut after a few hours instead of running all night.

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I also rewired my attic fans which were not working after I re-roofed the house last Dec.

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The cover of one of the fans was also damaged last year. It was repaired with with some West epoxy and fiberglass. You can fix just about anything with epoxy!

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A very long, but productive day!

Apr 10 2012

First day of Pool Remodel

What a difference a day makes…. Cant believe boxing in the soffits was so easy and quick….should have done it a long time ago.

I didn’t even put in many hours (about 6) as my buddy Bob stopped by for lunch and a look at what I have been up to. Bob is working on an SQ-2000 (Speed Queen). A very cool looking canard. I am going to fly over to see his project in a few days

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This is what the back of the house looked like this morning,

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The gutter was removed (I’ll recycle it)

This is by COB.

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One day while working at the computer 6 months ago, I kept hearing strange noises from my ceiling. I had seen a squirrel climbing around my screen and window (peaking in at me) and thought how cute. Later I found out the noises came from that squirrel climbing into my soffit. He was REALLY persistent and had to be chased out 4 or 5 times before a temporary closure was made to keep that pesky critter out … Tree Rats thats all they are in my book.

Now the soffit have been closed off and they look really good.
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Tomorrow it is time to finish off the siding trim, and install the lighting system….. can’t wait!

Apr 07 2012

Pool has been re-started

Today I decided to start to get the pool back into operation. We had some days already this season where the temperature got up to 91F . This is crazy hot for this time of year. …foretelling the summer?

I had taken the cover off all winter to allow it to dry so I could upgrade it. It had deteriorated over the years, developed a set and the insolation was water logged.

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I wrapped it in plastic, tilted it so the sun would heat it up and forced air into the bag to hold it open. Sort of like a solar collector of heat to back out the water.

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It has worked great and the cover now weighs MUCH less due to the release of all the water that was in the foam. Tony is going to come over in a few weeks and we are going to reglass it.

The pool was a nice green color when I started treating it. A buddy (expert engineer in water systems) taught me a great trick to start the pool out for a season. Shock the heck out of the water to kill everything in the water, the use flocculate (a alumn clarifier) to gather up all the particles in the pool which then settle to the bottom at which time you vacuum out the crud. You are left with nice clear water….

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Guess what, that is EXACTLY what your local water treatment company does for the water you drink everyday. Sand filter your river water, floc it, let it settle and ship it off to you to use. This is the next day. It will settle for 48 hrs and I vacuum out the crud.

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Next the back of the house work!