Author Topic: House remodel  (Read 16649 times)

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Offline Chuck Nukem

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Re: House remodel
« Reply #45 on: Thursday,July 06, 2017, 08:04:08 AM »
More progress. My deforestation is almost complete! Should be coating it soon. Also my bathroom is finished....and by finished I mean it is not finished at all....but it is closer!

Offline BDA

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Re: House remodel
« Reply #46 on: Thursday,July 06, 2017, 05:09:06 PM »
Very nice, Chuck! When does it start to look like a Lotus? :FUNNY:

Offline andy harwood

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Re: House remodel
« Reply #47 on: Thursday,July 06, 2017, 05:17:26 PM »
That looks great! You are doing a great job!

Offline Chuck Nukem

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Re: House remodel
« Reply #48 on: Saturday,July 08, 2017, 12:01:52 AM »
Thanks guys! Only a few more months left I hope....

Offline Chuck Nukem

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Re: House remodel
« Reply #49 on: Wednesday,August 02, 2017, 04:41:43 PM »
First coat of sanding sealer down! Another coat, then 3 coats of Poly....
« Last Edit: Wednesday,August 02, 2017, 04:45:11 PM by Chuck Nukem »

Offline BDA

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Re: House remodel
« Reply #50 on: Wednesday,August 02, 2017, 04:51:50 PM »
Very nice! But it still doesn't look like a Lotus!  :FUNNY:

Offline Chuck Nukem

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Re: House remodel
« Reply #51 on: Wednesday,August 02, 2017, 04:54:26 PM »
Very nice! But it still doesn't look like a Lotus!  :FUNNY:

Damn it Jim this is off topic!  :help:

Offline BDA

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Re: House remodel
« Reply #52 on: Wednesday,August 02, 2017, 05:13:20 PM »
Seriously Chuck, that really is one pretty floor! I hope you finish that house soon so you can get back to your baby!

Offline Chuck Nukem

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Re: House remodel
« Reply #53 on: Wednesday,November 08, 2017, 09:17:14 PM »
Figured I would give an update to everybody!

House is moving along. I have 1 room left to tile an then all the floors will be finished. I bought 10 solid pine doors to replace everything in the house. They were unfinished so I painted them. I realize now that I should have bought an airless sprayer when I bought the house....On the doors alone I spent 20 hours doing 15 min/coat per side. I bought 1000 ft of poplar trim. By the time you do 2 primer and 2 color coats with a sand in between that is 5000 ft of being bent over painting....A FREAKING MILE!

I am wrapping up the master bed/bath this weekend so that will finally be something I can call "done". It will be nice to finally have a space where I can get away from the mess....Right now it is looking like I will be done in December. But look I just lied to you! I am planning to pour about 150 yards of concrete to do a circular drive, a paved section by the side of the house for covered car parking, and a slab in the back yard for a nice shop! More pain! Right now I am thinking about doing a metal 30x40 with a ceiling tall enough for a 2 post lift. Can anyone give me any shop recommendations? I would love to pick you guys' brains about this before I starting putting up forms.


Offline BDA

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Re: House remodel
« Reply #54 on: Wednesday,November 08, 2017, 09:30:56 PM »
It's looking great, Chuck! 30x40 is a nice size for a shop. I'm really envious even though you haven't gotten to the shop yet!

Offline Certified Lotus

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Re: House remodel
« Reply #55 on: Thursday,November 09, 2017, 06:16:15 AM »
My garage workshop is 30’ X 25’ and I would have liked more space for a vented paint booth for small parts and some extra parts storage areas for projects I’m working on. I do have storage above the garage that is half the size which is a life saver for parts not needed right away. Make sure you pour a 6” (minimum) concrete floor for 4000 lbs so you can install a lift and use rebar along with wire mesh. I also recessed all my lighting (install more than you need) and have 440 volt service box in the garage.

A friend of mine installed a heated floor which I did not do. I’m regretting it as I work on weekend during the winter and use a propane heater to warm it up. Works fine but it smells and can get expensive.

Your doing a great job on renovating/building your house! My last house renovation was 10 years ago (my third) and it’s always a bigger project than you plan.

Offline dakazman

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Re: House remodel
« Reply #56 on: Thursday,November 09, 2017, 01:50:16 PM »
Congrats chuck , that is one beautiful floor you’ll be proud of for years to come.

From one builder to another it is worth all the backache.
Dakazman

Offline Chuck Nukem

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Re: House remodel
« Reply #57 on: Friday,November 10, 2017, 06:21:37 PM »
Thanks guys! I keep pedaling with the thought of a europa in my head!

Offline Chuck Nukem

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Re: House remodel
« Reply #58 on: Wednesday,January 24, 2018, 05:10:50 PM »
Alright guys get ready for a doozy

 :BBQ:

Everything was trucking along fine. I painted all my doors and trim. 10 doors at 15 min per coat per side = 20 hours of painting...For a math major I really struggle with extrapolating the temporal consequences of tasks....Should have bought a paint sprayer and been done with it. 1000 ft of trim meant over a mile of painting and sanding hunched over...I painted it before I put it on the wall but still....my god....I should have bought that sprayer....I had installed 8/10 of the doors and 70% of the trim.

Around new years I noticed that my heater had trouble keeping up with a cold snap. I have a heat pump so they are naturally not very efficient when it is 9 degrees. I call somebody out and it turned out I forgot to program the emergency coils to kick on when I installed my new digital thermostat. Silly me! So he gets them to kick on and everything seems good. We check the refrigerant pressures and the high side was a little low. He goes out to the truck to write up an invoice, comes back and tells me to give him a call in the spring time so we can take a closer look at the reversing valve and compressor. As he is leaving my cat starts meowing like crazy. All of a sudden I see him running toward the house screaming "YOUR HOUSE IS ON FIRE!!!"

Naturally I did not want to believe him, but he sounded very sincere...I went out to the courtyard and indeed, much to my dismay, there was a 10 foot column of smoke pouring out of one of the turbine vents. To the tech's credit he grabbed a fire extinguisher out of his truck, leapt back in the attic, and put the fire out. I had managed to get an extinguisher from a neighbor and got in to the attic right about when he put it out. PSA TIME...IF YOU DON'T HAVE A FIRE EXTINGUISHER...GET ONE!!! OR TWO!! I have never felt so powerless as when I was staring at all that smoke with no means to stop it immediately. I got very very very VERY VERY very lucky. The only damage was to my plenum...

It turned out that when I had sanded my wood floors the dust had settled on the coils. A mouse had chewed its way in to the plenum and that was the first thing to smolder when the embered dust blew on it. Because the fan was blowing, it managed to ignite my fiberboard plenum (I hated that plenum the moment I laid eyes on it). So I have spent the last few weeks tearing out the plenums and the near by duct work. It turns out that half my metal ductwork by the plenums had been trampled by previous attic goers and was split wide open unbeknownst to me as it was all covered in insulation. I also found several copper to aluminum splices that were wrapped in electrical tape.... One particularly egregious run was a 30 amp breaker > Al wire > Cu wire > lights....Hopefully my house will more resistant to spontaneous combustion in the future. I am making new metal plenums and I got enough fiberglass to re insulate the entire house. This has to be a record as it is the first time I spent $1000 on fiberglass that did not look like a Lotus!

I have a fear that upon driving the last nail in the house, it will explode like something from a nuclear test site movie. It almost came true.....

« Last Edit: Wednesday,January 24, 2018, 05:12:54 PM by Chuck Nukem »

Offline BDA

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Re: House remodel
« Reply #59 on: Wednesday,January 24, 2018, 06:00:43 PM »
Yikes, Chuck! I'm glad that tech saw the smoke. Those Al/Cu connections sound bad. I know they would be bad in New Orleans where I used to live since the air is so damp it acts like an electrolyte! It's good you caught them, too!

I'm just anxious for you to finish your house and shop so you can get to work on your car!