Steps Toward Steps

the old carport stairs

I haven't posted in a while, but I have been doing work on the house, the steps in particular. But I've been slowed by frequent rains (those of you who are getting buried under snowstorms have no sympathy for me, I know -- but avoiding that kind of weather is one of the reasons I moved here in the first place).

I tore the old steps down pretty quickly. Once I got one board loose, I could use leverage to loosen others. The fact parts were rotted helped a lot, too. Note to those building exterior structures from wood: water will find its way in, so be sure to treat all sides of the wood, not just the parts you can see after assembly. That goes double for any place with a horizontal surface where water can sit. The rotted ledger also lead to some rot and termites in one of the joists of the carport, so it took me a while to get a clean slate to start from.

After a lot of thinking, measuring, re-thinking, re-measuring, and consulting various stair stringer calculators, I laid out the stringers for the stairs. I managed to screw up somewhere, so one stringer was re-purposed for other uses. After more measuring, thinking and consulting stair stringer calculators, I tried again. This time I was successful, so I spent a couple days cutting the 3 stringers. The bottoms of rest on concrete and/or the ground, and it's a generally wet area (under trees that catch the fog in summer, north of the

new stairs rising

house), so I used pressure-treated 2x12s for them. The added density of the wood from the PT process almost burned out my little skilsaw, even with a fresh blade part way through the process.

I don't have a picture of the current status, but I cut, stained and installed boards up to the landing, as well as the rectangular part of it, so with the addition of a temporary piece of plywood, and the top railing on one side, we now have functional stairs. They're a long ways from finished, as I still have to do the trickier triangular part of the landing, and the rest of the railings, but given all the rain we've been having, it's nice to have functioning steps. That way we can avoid using our neighbor's steps, and tromping through the mud around the corner of the house.

One other note: I said in my original post that "I'm sore, stiff, and with bruises aplenty, but no broken bones." So about that... I've been having some minor but lingering pains here and there after almost two months, so yesterday I went to the doctor. He said if I was 80, he'd worry I had compression fractures of my vertebrae, but at 44, I was probably OK. But he ordered up some x-rays to be sure. I heard from him a little while ago: the x-ray tech failed to do any useful x-rays of my lower back, but my mid back looked OK. However, the odd pain in my ribs in my side is because I have...a broken rib, with a mild displacement. There's nothing to do (except stop doing anything that makes it hurt), but I can expect some pain from it for the next 2-3 months. Sigh. At least it isn't too painful, but 2-3 months more?

rotted post where landing was

Watch That First Step...

gaping hole...

I've been planning for some time to rebuild the steps to the carport, at least since January. When I had concrete delivered, I put in the footings for the new stairs, but mentally the task has been on the "nice to have" list, not the "do sooner rather than later" or "do immediately" lists.

Last night, it took a big leap forward in priority. K and I took a walk around the block after dinner, and when we returned I stepped on to the landing at the top of the stairs...and kept going. I knew some parts were starting to get a little rotten, but it seems that was considerably further along than I thought. The ledger board that holds up one end of the boards for the landing was completely rotted. I dropped the 7 or 8 feet to the ground and landed on my back.

Today I'm sore, stiff, and with bruises aplenty, but no broken bones. Once I'm feeling a little more limber (and I'm past the current work deadline), I'll build a new set of stairs. Fortunately we have our neighbor's steps to use, but I have to admit I was a bit nervous walking on them at first after last night's excitement.

Berkeley zoning board member admits flouting city building rules

Getting drawings and permits for your home improvement too expensive and onerous a process? Then just do what a zoning board member in Berkeley (just north of Oakland) did: don't. Ryan Lau, assistant to Berkeley City Councilman Darryl Moore, recently admitted breaking the law by tearing down his garage and building a new one without getting zoning clearance (from the board he sits on!) and pulling the required permits. Hopefully he'll have to pay the requisite increased fees that are normally charged when someone gets a permit after the fact, and face some other punishment, because of all the people who should have known better, someone sitting on the zoning board ranks right up near the top.

The story was first reported in The Berkeley Daily Planet.

Huh?

I shouldn't be surprised anymore by the way I find stuff done in this house anymore, but I am. Yesterday I worked on one of the few remaining "should be done before the kitchen demolition and remodel" projects, namely updating the electrical in the original bathroom. The kitchen (i.e., former front hall and porch) shares a wall with the bathroom, so with the back side open, it's a fine time to get the electrical up to date.

So yesterday I turned off the power to that circuit, went into the attic space, and started pulling out the old wire. Based on previous experience, I figured something important (like the kitchen) might be downstream of it, like when disconnecting some of the wiring in the hall lead to no power in the old outlets in K's office. But after pulling the old stuff, I restored power, then flipped on the kitchen light, et voila! So I didn't think any more about it.

Then K made coffee this morning, and when I got up, I asked where it was, and she said it was brewing in the living room. Uh-oh. Seems the kitchen lights were not downstream of the bathroom lights, but the outlets are. Well, it's all going to be redone anyway, but that accelerates the steps towards demolition. It kind of gives me the impression they wired the rooms and outlets in alphabetical order. Maybe organized in a non-Latin based language. Like Klingon.

Today I went over to the building department and got updated permits, as well as trying to do my part to support Oakland businesses that were vandalized by some yahoos in the wake of the Oscar Grant killing. I ran into an old friend I used to work with, who was in downtown Oakland to...go to the building department. He and his wife are considering buying a house here in Oakland, but it's had a fair amount of unpermitted work done, including a garage to family room conversion, major kitchen work, and more. They're nervous enough because it's their first house, but this might be enough to kill the deal.

Spaghettiful Electrical

me fighting with the 1 1/4" conduit

One more quick trip to Home Depot (the nearest hardware stores don't carry the larger size conduit or fittings), and then with K's help I pulled the fat wire from the main panel to the new sub-panel. I hadn't done much with conduit before, metal or PVC, and I learned why people love the flexible armored cable so much. Working with conduit is more difficult than working with cable, and the PITA factor goes up with the diameter of the conduit because there's less give when lining things up. Because I was running 4-3 wire (which doesn't bend very easily) to the sub-panel, I needed a larger conduit. For comparison, the Romex you normally pull is at most 12-3 for two 20 amp circuits; 4-3 is quite a bit larger and less flexible. But with both of us pushing and pulling and temporarily undoing a few things to get a bit more flex, we managed to get it pulled. Then I fed the end up to the main panel outside the house, hooked it up, and it was time to test!

I was mostly replacing existing circuits, but the one for the water heater had failed a while ago with a bad neutral. Circuit for the water heater (it's a gas-fired tankless, but requires electricity for its brains and to ignite) -- check. Circuit for the furnace (it's gas-fired, but we have an electrostatic filter) -- check. 240V circuit for the dryer -- check. New outlet for the washer -- hmm. OK, I mis-wired the GFCI. Hey, it was dark in the basement! A quick re-wire -- check. I still need to pull armored cable for a new circuit for the lights and some outlets along my work bench, but we're back to having a working laundry room, and heat when we need it.

a lovely sunset over the bay viewed
from our chairs on the hillside

Lately it's been much warmer than than normal. So fortunately it wasn't a big deal to not have heat for a day. Unfortunately we need a lot of rain (and snow in the mountains) to make up for the last two drought years.

In any event, I was pleased to get that work done. I then proceeded to start removing some of the old wiring. The water heater and furnace circuits are just a few years old, so mostly what I did was shorten the runs to go to the sub-panel instead of the main panel. But the washer had never had its own circuit, and it wasn't GFCI protected although it was right next to the laundry tub, so I was pleased to fix that.

scare!

The real scare was with the old dryer outlet. I'd always known it was a bit funky, i.e., right next to the laundry tub, outlet a bit loose, runs from the panel, through a fuse box(!), then behind the laundry sink. When I started removing it, I realized just how bad it was. There was no clamp on the box to hold the flex cable in, so it was relying on the wire and screws to hold it. No clamp also meant that any movement of the cable would rub at the wires themselves. But the crowning glory was when I went to remove the plug. There were no slots in the screws! Closer inspection revealed that they weren't screws, but a pair of 16p nails (galvanized, thankyouverymuch) holding the outlet and the box in place. No wonder the thing was a bit loose! I was very pleased to get rid of that.

Star was again unimpressed.

Enough Already!

Every election seems to have some mud-slinging, but the McCain campaign, both directly and through the GOP has reached new depths in mud-slinging and out-right lies as it comes down to the wire. Even if I were interested in voting for McCain (I'm not; what little he's said about what he would do between the mud-slinging suggests 4 more years of W's policies), I'm so put off by this sickening behavior I'd cast my vote elsewhere. What happened to the 'respectful campaign' he promised?

Add to it the (unfortunately) usual mud-slinging over some of the California propositions, and I'm ready for this election to be over. The fear and outright hatred espoused by Prop 8 supporters is decidedly un-Christian no matter how you look at it. I thought churches were supposed to be separate from politics by law, but the LDS, Catholic churches, and various mega-churches are pouring money and energy in to support 8. I guess it's "love your neighbor" unless they're not like you.

Enough already. Get out there and vote for Obama, and vote no on California's Prop 8.

Mayhem Managed

Today was a not particularly productive but very exciting day. I dropped my neighbor off at BART, then came back and worked on cleaning up the debris from building the last wall (not much) and tearing out the old front door (quite a bit, despite the fact I salvaged the longer 2x4s and most of the glass block). That in preparation for using a jackhammer on the part of the front walk that's going to come out. Which needs to happen before I pour the new, higher (and sloped away from the door) front walk. Which needs to happen before I put the siding on the new wall bit of wall (and bottom of the existing wall where it was rotted).

After cleaning up, I considered: Should I work on running new electrical under the house for the carport light? (the existing switch is on a kitchen wall that's going away, and the new switch is now by the new front door.) Or should I dig up the conduit for the carport light? (because it needs to be replaced, being badly rusted, and I want to have an always on outlet in the carport, too, for eventual plugging of an electric car or plug-in hybrid.) Since it was a lovely day (70-something and sunny), I decided on the digging since it was outdoors. I began by moving some rocks we'd piled nearby, and scraping away the pine needles and such that had accumulated. Scrape. Scrape. Scrape. Pssssh! Ruh-oh, Shaggy!

Water was now spurting into the air, quite energetically. The water supply comes in near the conduit, so I figured I must have hit that. I noted that the leak was before the old shut off valve (which is before the new shut off valve I'd added inside the basement), so turning that off would be futile. Damp, but still thinking quite calmly after the initial, secondary, and tertiary panic, I ran in and grabbed a wrench and some pliers, then up to the street where the meter is. I pulled off the cover, and stared at some dirt. I hurried down to the basement and returned with a trowel, and scraped out dirt until I could see the meter and something that must be the valve. But there was no obvious handle. So I ran back in, found the number for EBMUD, and called and explained the problem. They said they'd someone out.

While I was waiting, I looked at the meter some more, then looked around on the web, but I couldn't find anything quite like it. So I made sure the water from the leak was flowing away from the house as best I could, and looked at the leak some more.

Then it starting occurring to me. That pipe seemed too small for the main water line. And as messed up as many things are about this house, would they really have put the water line that close to the surface? So I scraped away dirt (well, now mud) and pine needles, and realized that I had nicked the line to the faucet near the carport, not the main water line. And that it was (surprisingly, given the general state of other stuff) after the old shut off valve. So I tentatively turned off the old shut off valve as best I could by hand, and lo, the water shooting out under the rocks and flower pot began to slow. I was just about to call EBMUD and cancel the service call when an EBMUD truck drove by, turned around, and came back. I told him I was just about to call and cancel, but he took a look at the meter anyways, and said, "Well, that's good, because I couldn't have done anything anyways. The shut-off valve here is broken." He put in an order to get that fixed, so his trip was not a total waste.

I went back and stared at the mud pit, scraped away some more dirt, and figured out what was OK and what was not so good. Fortunately I had a galvanized cap from when the water was off to the hot side of the old bathroom. So I cut off the line down with a sawzall, removed a connector with some pipe wrenches, and put the cap on. And was able to restore our water supply before Katarina got home from work.

Dear Mr. Bildrong

Dear Mr. Bildrong,
First let me say how much I love your column. Now for my question: I'm building a house, and I want to make sure that rot sets in to the whole thing. I'm working on the foundation now -- how should I proceed?
- DAB, Oakland, California

Dear DAB,
You don't need to make the whole house rot, just the framing -- the rest will follow. The easiest way to make sure the framing rots is to put some of the wood below grade. That is, make the top of the foundation below where there can be water when it rains, lower than the ground level. It doesn't need to be much, even 1/2" will do. That way the sill plate will get wet every time it rains or you hose off your front walk!
- Mr. Bildrong

Dear Mr. Bildrong,
Great suggestion! However, I live in California where it only rains in winter. It's pretty dry the rest of the year. My neighbors look at me funny if I hose off the walk -- something about wasting water. I really want to make sure the house rots, and I'd like to make it as friendly to termites as I can. They're so cute!
- DAB, Oakland, California

P.S. I read in one of your older columns about stuffing a rag into a pipe instead of bothering with one of those pesky caps. It's a great idea -- I'll be sure to use it when I get to the plumbing.

Dear DAB,
This is getting pretty advanced, but if simply having the top of the foundation below grade isn't enough, I'd suggest having a small depression for the sill plate to sit in. That way any water that gets in will be kept there for the wood to soak up. Be sure not to use pressure treated wood.
- Mr. Bildrong

Dear Mr. Bildrong,
The only non-pressure treated wood I have is some redwood 3x8, and some scraps of redwood siding. Will that do? I plan to wedge the scraps in between the sill plate and the floor joists instead of building the foundation the right height.
- DAB, Oakland, California


Dear DAB,
Redwood is OK for this, but it will definitely slow things down. Some Douglas Fir would be better, but sometimes you have to make do with the materials you've got. The termites won't like the redwood at first. But if you're patient and let the water start to rot the wood, it will leach the natural protection out of the wood and your little termite friends will soon be happy as proverbial bivalves. Once they begin tunneling, the water will be able to spread more easily, and things will really get rolling.
- Mr. Bildrong

P.S. Be sure to buy my new book, available at bookstores next month! It includes advanced framing techniques, like putting floor and ceiling joists at irregular intervals. And I devote a whole chapter to great ideas like wooden gutters!

Dead Bear Walking

Katarina and I just returned from 5 days of camping at Emerald Bay SP. Despite smoke from hundreds of fires around northern California, we had a great time. By Tuesday we couldn't even see the near side of Tahoe, never mind the far shore. But we had a good time taking short hikes, reading, or just enjoying the view from the hammock. We went to nearby Eagle Falls several times, and had a couple trips over to South Lake Tahoe for ice (gotta keep the beer cold) and other necessities.

The only downer of the trip (besides the omnipresent smoke) were bears. While it was fun to see a bear close up and not in a zoo, this young bear and its mother are rapidly becoming 'problem bears' at the campground. They always give reminders and warnings about bears at campgrounds in California, but these bears had already been around for a bit, so the warnings and reminder about the $1,000 fine for leaving food out were more emphatic than usual. Alas, as you can see in the picture, not everyone heeded those warnings carefully. These folks left their cooking gear and trash out, and the bear found it in short order after they left. I snapped the picture and then we scared the bear off by shouting and clapping; the guy a couple campsites over used an airhorn to keep the bear running up the hill. The bear's mother was around that night, and the night after that as well. That's our bear box with the scratches on it, left Wednesday night according to our neighbors. It doesn't bode well for the bears, though. If they can't be scared off, the rangers will try rubber bullets, and if that doesn't work, they'll be destroyed. I hope the folks who left the garbage got the $1,000 fine, but it may be too late for these bears.

D'oh!

My friend Jim taught me these important truths about plumbing as well as various techniques. Sadly, while it flows downhill, if it can't, it backs up. In this case, the lowest drain is the laundry sink. I removed the trap and discovered the blockage wasn't there. (OK, technically I broke the existing trap because one of the nuts was frozen tight, and replaced it.)

So I bought a nifty 25' x 1/4" snake that attaches to a drill to ease the twisting that's necessary. However, there's no cleanout at the laundry sink. D'oh! (It goes from 1.5" or 2" galvanized pipe into a 4" clay pipe with cement to seal the junction.) Fortunately, I was able to get the snake in through the T at the basement wall. With some low speed turns from the drill, it snake went in fairly easily -- loosen the thumbscrew, push the snake in gently until it meets resistance, tighten the thumbscrew, turn with the drill, repeat. Unbeknownst to me, I'd reached about 23.5' on the snake. I loosened the thumbscrew to repeat, then watched in horror as the end of snake came out of the reel and whizzed down the pipe. D'oh!

I bought a 35' x 3/8" snake. This one has no reel, so I know how near the end I am, but it's harder to twist. I ran it as far as I could into the laundry drain pipe, but to no effect. Hmm. I did spend a perfectly lovely afternoon carrying buckets of, well, you know, from the drain over to the sewer. Fortunately there's a small manhole into the sewer on our property so I could dump it there; dumping it into a toilet would have (a) been smelly and potentially messy (b) futile, since it would just come back down to the laundry sink anyways.

So today I called a rooter company. I described the problem, the lack of a cleanout at the laundry sink, the access to the main cleanout under the house. They could come in the afternoon, but wasn't sure if they could do anything because their big rooter probably wouldn't fit. Then they called back later and said their small rooter wasn't working, so there was no point in coming. D'oh! So I tried running the 35' x 3/8" snake into the main cleanout. No joy, but the telling thing was that I pulled up a few small roots. Hmm. (Needless to say, none of this was particularly good for the tendinitis in my shoulder. Physical therapy starts next week.)

So I called Roto Rooter, and they said they could be there within 2 hours. Yay! But since I was just talking to a dispatcher, there was no one to describe the access issues to. So about 1.5 hours later a friendly plumber named Martin showed up. I took him into the basement and showed him the layout, and he immediately realized it would be a two man job (and told me it would cost more.) But we had to wait for another plumber to show up first. In the mean time I took down the saw horses and table I had set up for the tile saw, and moved other things out of the way to clear the access.

45 minutes later, the other plumber showed up. They looked things over, debated about going down through the roof vent stack (I warned them the roof was not good to work on), but they ultimately decided they'd have to lug the machine down the hill after all. Then they tried to get the cleanout cover off. They borrowed some WD40 and my beater framing hammer, but no luck. I got my 5lb. sledge, but no luck. They tried both of them pushing and pulling, but no luck. D'oh! Fortunately I'd added a cleanout where I tied the DWV line for the addition into the existing line, and they could work from there.

So they started the water running into the laundry sink, and fed the snake in. After about 85' of snake went out (which should have been most of the way to the sewer), the sink started draining. Yay! They kept pushing it in, and I watched from the manhole. We could hear the snake (and all that water running), but still saw nothing even when they got out to the end of the 125' snake. Hmm. They pulled it back, and what should they find? The 25' x 1/4" snake, now nicely wrapped around their 3/4" snake. It appears to have come out completely, though they took some bolt cutters to it to get it off.

It turns out that although the main DWV line angles towards the uphill side when it leaves the house and goes under the addition, it must bend around and tie into the main sewer line below the manhole. Where exactly the laundry drain ties in to it, I don't know. But it's all draining again. Yay!

25' x 1/4" snake? $14. 35' x 3/8" snake? $19. Two plumbers from Roto Rooter for an hour? $321. Being able to flush the toilets again? Priceless.

Zappity-do-don't

I put a second coat of paint on the bathroom ceiling and walls this morning, and figured out the layout for the tile floor. While the paint was drying, I rolled out the grid for the radiant heat, and started hooking it up. I was listening to music ("Master of the House" from Les Misérables) and happily working away. (*cue the suspenseful music as the protagonist realizes something may be amiss*). When I went to strip the end of a wire, I got that little tingle that reminded me that this junction box is not switched, just the ones for the lights and fan are. But the it's now safely installed, and I'm ready to start tiling the bathroom floor. And yes, I'm generally more careful with electrical stuff, and doubly so with 240V circuits.

Happy All Hallows' Eve

I came across these gory but excellent costumes via houseblogs.net that some DIY's put together for a party. What's really scary is the article in the Wall Street Journal that inspired the costumes. In fairness to the people referenced in the article, not all of them were at alcohol-involved events. This blogger, for example, had her picture used out of context and was lied to by the WSJ reporter.

I would never want to use a Sawzall, for example, after drinking. They're dangerous enough sober, because of the "all" part combined with the "sawz" part. And heaven help you if you've got an inexperienced and tipsy friend wielding one at a demolition party. Beer is good ("Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy." - Benjamin Franklin), but alcohol plus power tools or house demolition sounds like a plain ol' bad idea.

How Not to Design A House

Most of yesterday was spent at a Thrivent training session. It was mostly for regular Thrivent board members, not ne'er-do-wells like me who are just there in advisory roles. (I'm the 'chapter specialist' for coordinating between Habitat for Humanity, Thrivent, and Lutheran churches in a project called Thrivent Builds. Thrivent is giving over $100 million to Habitat around the country, the catch being that Lutherans and Thrivent members in particular need to volunteer and donate some money, too.)

The fun part was that we met at the Winchester Mystery House in San Jose. There were Thrivent chapters from around the SF Bay Area and as far away as Santa Cruz, so it was a reasonably central place to meet. Not having grown up in the Bay Area, I had never been to it, though I'd certainly heard of it. With ticket prices over $20 for the tour, I wasn't likely to go on my own anytime soon, either. So I took advantage of the meeting to go on the tour. It's a well-built house, incorporated a variety of state-of-the-art building materials and features, and has some gorgeous leaded glass windows, tile, wood floors, and other features that modern home builders could never match without spending a small fortune.

Well, Sarah Pardee married into the Winchester family, and became heir to a large fortune. Her income was something like $1,000 a day, and she poured large amounts of it into building and rebuilding parts of her house.

But while well-built, it's beyond poorly designed. It's not designed. It's like a Halloween funhouse or drug-induced hallucination. Doorways that open on nothing. Stairways that stop at the ceiling. Other stairs that were modified to 2-inch risers, and twisted around multiple times, to accomodate Mrs. Winchester's short stature and arthritis. Rooms rebuilt multiple times. Before the 1906 earthquake, it had reached 7 stories tall. The earthquake brought the tower crashing down, trapped Mrs. Winchester alone in her bedroom for an extended period, and caused her to have the entire front of the house boarded up so she could concentrate on construction in the apparently neglected rear areas.

There are different theories about why she felt called to have builders working 24 hours a day for 38 years, but they all boil down to JPN -- she was just plain nuts.

And So It Goes

I began work on moving the doorway into the center of the house from the entryway (which will be part of the kitchen) to the living room, a grand total of about 3'. I knew there was electrical there (a switch for the hall light that can stay, and an outlet that's where the door will be), and based on work in the dining room (where cutting power to the dining room light ended up cutting power to the basement and the carport), I knew there were likely to be, um, complications.

So this time I checked which side the power was coming from, disconnected it, and tested everything that seemed like it might be down circuit from there. Expected casualties: an old outlet in my office (no big deal since I added multiple outlets on a new 20A circuit for my computer gear), an outlet in the living room on the other side of the wall from that, but no major losses. So I turned off the power, removed the outlet, covered the end of the wire with power (it'll eventually get pulled up into the attic and removed), and Bob's your uncle, right? Well...after turning the power back on we noticed that the phone which plugs into an outlet in Katarina's office was off, and a floor lamp was, too. Oops. Seems this particular circuit ran down from the attic to the hall outlet, around my entire office, then around Katarina's entire office. Fortunately the lights still work, but I kind of wonder about the outlet in the bathroom...

I also noticed that the people doing the framing again had a limited understanding of what holds a house up. As I've previous blogged about, the doorway between the dining room and living room had a couple of 2x4s stacked (not on edge) for a header. That's a large doorway, almost 6' wide, and a load-bearing wall that holds up the ceiling joists and the roof. So in a little 32" doorway in a non-load bearing wall, what do we find? A proper 4x4 header. And so it goes.

How Not to Build a Deck

In removing the old doors to the deck the other week, I noticed some spongy spots in the siding at the level of the deck. So I removed one of the boards of the deck, and started scraping at the ledger board. I scraped, then dug, then stopped when I couldn't reach any more with a putty knife and still hadn't found the bottom. Not surprisingly, I decided the ledger board and that piece of siding had to be replaced.

It's not the first repair I've made to the deck. Even with my limited building skills back then, when I bought the house I knew that the deck hadn't been built quite right; for one thing the boards were a little too close together, which meant pine needles and other cruft were going to get stuck. Since then I've replaced one of the joists and a couple of the posts because of rot. So finding this wasn't any big surprise.

I removed the ledger board and a piece of siding, and let things dry out overnight. The ledger board was attached well enough with lag screws, but unfortunately they weren't galvanized, so they'd begun rusting. That's the kind of thing that leads to news stories about 'deck collapses during party, injuring dozens'. The screws let loose, the deck isn't attached to the house, things rack, and off it goes. These screws weren't too bad, but not great, either.

Inspecting things in better light and after it'd dried, I discovered that the rot had spread into the rim joist, too. And then I looked more carefully, and realized some of the missing wood was due to termites, because there were little tunnels and pellets, even into the redwood siding. No live termites, fortunately.

Time to break out the sawzall (actually I used it for removing some of the siding, too) and attack the rotted bits. I finished removing stuff this afternoon, replaced the part of the rim joist, and got part way into re-applying siding.

All this could have been prevented for less than $10, using galvanized lag screws and a little bit of flashing. These days with pressure-treated (PT) wood, you have to be careful about what sort of metal you put next to PT wood, so rather than replace all the joist hangers as well as the ledger board I replaced the it with more redwood.

Supposedly the deck was built by a brother or brother-in-law of one of the former owners, and he built decks, etc. as a profession. (And the materials were paid for using the insurance money from when one of the neighbor's cars rolled down the hill and dented the corner of the house. No, really.) Given the problems I've seen with the deck, I'm really hoping this guy has either learned more or isn't building decks for a living any more. Because this is how not to build a deck.

P.S. Go Bears! Cal beat Texas A&M yesterday quite handily in the Holiday Bowl. Another 10 win season, and co-champs of the Pac-10. I'm sorry you weren't here to see it, Dave. Though I'm sure you watched it from a blue and gold cloud somewhere.

Back to Work

Yesterday I finally got back to work on the house. I removed the rest of the paneling in the dining room, working carefully so I can reuse the paneling as needed in other parts of the house. It revealed a few more interesting things in the construction of the house.

The complete and utter lack of insulation no longer surprises me, but I found some other reasons why the dining room was always cold before. One was the nice cold well next to the chimney. I'd seen the space before from up in the attic, but I hadn't realized there was just a layer of paneling between it and the living space. The attic is open to the outdoors via roof vents, so that meant a whopping 1/4" of paneling for insulation. What's that, R 0.25 or less? There's a similar little space open to the attic in one of the other corners. Couple those with the general lack of insulation, the mirror butted against the outside wall, the leaky French doors, and it's no wonder the room was cold.

And here, boys and girls, we have a lesson in why you put a header above doors and windows, and why if you use two 2-by pieces, you put them vertically, not stacked. It's harder to see in the photo, but there's a nice downward bow to the 2x4s and the trim below it, about 1/2" or more. This lesson goes double if it's a load-bearing wall (which this is, as the ceiling joists rest on that wall, and indirectly, the roof does as well). Given the span and it being load-bearing, this header really ought to be 4x6 (and will be when I'm done).

The construction of this house is puzzling. Some things like the diagonal bracing show great care and craftsmanship. And other things leave you scratching your head. Of course, I'm sure someone in 50 or 100 years working on the house will wonder some of those same things about my work. Of course, I'm building to current building codes or better, so it will all be solidly built and well-insulated, so probably not so many.

Yrch!

The next goal I've been working towards is clearing out the old bedroom so I can move my office into it out of the dining room. That will allow me to take out the cabinets and take down the wall into the addition.

I knew that we had a mold problem in the old bedroom, but I figured I could deal with that later. However, as I discovered previously, the existing walls are completely uninsulated and lack a proper vapor barrier. Couple that with inadequate heating (there used to be just a floor furnace in the middle of the house, which meant the extremeties got pretty cold), the fact the bedroom is on the north side of the house and shaded partly on the west side, and a large dresser against the wall that kept air from circulating, and well, yrch! The mold problem was worse than I thought -- much worse. More than a quick coat of Kilz would take care of, and more than I wanted to continue breathing.

So this week I've stripped the drywall off, run some new wiring for a nice, properly grounded 20 amp circuit for my computer equipment, and insulated the outside walls. And because there's diagonal bracing inset between the studs, the insulation and attached vapor barrier are more cut up than I'd like so I added a separate vapor barrier, too. Today I'm hanging new drywall and can hopefully have everything taped and mudded by next week. It all goes much more quickly with a simple rectangular wall and not so many windows.

Vanity, Thy Name is *&$%@#!!

The other day I noticed the bathroom faucet was dripping, so I changed the washer, but it didn't help. I took a closer look at the valve, and it was pretty worn. So rather than just replace the valve, I decided it was time to replace the whole fixture. I talked to Kat about what to get, deciding on something to match the light fixtures and towel bars (brushed nickel) and picked up a new faucet at Home Depot.

I figured I'd work on it after working on the addition, after it was too dark to work outside. But this morning Kat and I woke up early, and rather than annoy my neighbors with some 7AM hammering and sawing, I decided to work on the new faucet. Well, as frequently happens, the project got bigger.

My first discovery was that the shut off valves under the sink didn't completely shut off the water. So I added those to the "to be replaced" list and turned off the water to the house. While I had the water off, I took the opportunity to drain the supply lines to the addition, and the DWV pipes as well. I don't know when I'll be working on the plumbing next, so there's no need for the water to sit there.

The new faucet came with a new tailpiece (the pipe immediately below the sink), so I disassembled the trap to start, because it makes getting to the other stuff easier. The trap had a fair amount of corrosion (not to mention some really unpleasant gunk), so it got added to the "to be replaced" list, too.

I then moved on to disconnecting the water supply lines, and quickly discovered why they wouldn't shut off completely -- the valves were full of corroded crud, courtesy of the old galvanized pipes. Back when I redid the shower, I replaced the water supply lines for that with copper, but didn't touch the ones for the sink or toilet. That day will come...the supply lines going into the wall are galvanized, and were full of more crud.

Then I went to remove the old faucet and tailpiece. The faucet wasn't too bad to remove, thanks to having a basin wrench from installing a new faucet in the kitchen some years back. The tailpiece shouldn't have been too bad, but I struggled and struggled with it, unable to get the two pieces of it separated. I eventually gave up, got my sawzall, and made short work of it. I then discovered why I'd struggled so much -- they'd soldered the pieces togther when they installed it. D'oh!

All of this was increasingly difficult, because the vanity in the bathroom is pretty small, and has an edge at the front of the cabinet that makes leaning into it awkward. So I set up some wood to support my back over that, and put a stadium cushion in the vanity for my head, and then it was at least possible to stick my head under. But oy! I've never had a problem with claustrophobia before, but I had to come out for a break several times, because I just got freaked. But I eventually got the old stuff out, and the new stuff in, which just left the trap.

After a couple of trips to the local hardware store to get a chrome trap, I decided I'd just replace the trap and other drain pipes with plastic. The new tailpiece is plastic, so why not? Plastic is a lot easier to get leak-free, and is more forgiving of pipes not quite aligned. Well, one why not is that the connection into the wall, instead of being a normal compression fitting for chrome pipes is a threaded 2" cast iron pipe. Huh. Finding anything to connect to that is going to be a challenge. I temporarily put the old trap back in, but with a tub to catch the inevitable leaks...and discovered that the hot water supply line is 99.99% plugged with corrosion.

I wanted to get back to work on the addition! So I cleaned up my plumbing tools, and I got out my compressor, the nail gun my brother-in-law loaned me, and was ready to roll. Or not. The nail gun has a different kind of connector than my compressor and air hose. Hmmph. So back into the basement went the compressor, and out came the ol' framing hammer.

I installed more of the subflooring today, getting almost all of it done, including the tricky parts in the bathroom that had to fit over various pipes. YAHDT was necessary for more adhesive, a new connector for the nail gun, and of course some bits and pieces of ABS piping for the bathroom sink. I found everything I needed for the bathroom, except of course the 2" threaded connector. 2" ABS isn't the same size as 2" cast iron, of course.

But despite getting side-tracked with the new faucet and dealing with the compressor, I got a fair amount done today. The addition really looks like part of a house now since it has a floor and plumbing stubs. Tomorrow I'll finish up the subfloor, and build the steps up to the bedroom level. That shouldn't be too bad since it's only 3 steps, so maybe tomorrow I'll start on walls. And it was better than yesterday afternoon, which was filled with a trip to Camron-Stanford House to finally finish updating the artifact database so they can update their insurance. Of course, now they want membership lists and other stuff...