Home Ownership And You!

VR3

Im not going to argue anything you are saying. My experience is the Southeast where termites are a real problem. If you feel secure with it then it's cool.

Jstas

Alright, back to story time.

One of the things that wasn't part of the room initially but I ended up noticing after we tore the walls down was how poor the condition was of the door frame. It was the original front door to the house and it looked like someone had really butchered it a couple times. Additionally, it wasn't square and the door frame itself was racked. You can see it in the header here:



Also, for whatever dumb reason, someone had put a 2x4 spacer in to one side so the door didn't even sit centered in the opening. The 2x4 was also not secured to the framed hole but the hinges for the door were secured to it. That created a situation where the whole door frame would twist every time the door was opened or closed. This caused problems with the door opening and closing, obviously.

You can see it on the left side here



The other additional problem that you can see here is that the door frame sits proud of the framed wall and it is actually recessed on the inside of the house. This was remedied poorly with some painted melamine. Captain Halfass loved that stuff so it was likely him who did it. I don't have pictures of that, though, because it was hard to see the difference where it was and we didn't realize it was melamine until it disintegrated during removal. But here you can see the shadowing showing that the door frame was all screwed up.



So I'll get to the door later when I get to the trim.

Once we got the floor all squared away, we finished off the utilities in the room. One of the things I wanted was a utility sink. Every laundry room should have one. We didn't have copious amounts of space because of the shape of the room so we got a single tub and stuffed it in the corner. This is where the tub was going to go. We put it there to get measurements for the plumbing and then moved it to finish the window sill and trim. We also needed to figure out where to drill the new sewer line hole.



I still have more pictures to take of the finished stuff as I'm still working on the room. Finish materials have been hard to come by over the past year. It's getting much better but prices are still high so budgetary concerns limit how fast I can acquire materials.

So, the floor. It's a wood laminate with backing that isn't MDF and it isn't vinyl but it is a cellulose based synthetic that is water resistant and honestly, hard as a frickin' rock. It's floating too so it went in easy peasey and honestly, looks great.



It was pretty easy to get formed around the existing plumbing like the gas line too.



To reuse a picture, the lighting is two zone. There's the laundry zone which is one light and the closet zone which is 3 lights. The lights are shallow mount LEDs that are essentially held in my spring clips that get pinned behind the drywall. No need for a high hat or anything. Just drill a hole, pull a wire, install and go. You can see how bright it is with the 4 lights. They use about 8 watts each.



The other thing we did was we got a used radiator and put a radiator in the room. The room doesn't necessarily need to be cool in the summer but with how well it's insulated, heat in the room was not a problem last year. We wanted at least heat in the room because of the pipes and water lines. So we added the radiator.




Next post I'll go over trim, doors and other fun stuff.

At this point we are now into the first week of January 2022. We've been at this for about 2.5 months with about 2.5 weeks of holiday time in between.

Jstas

mhardy6647 wrote: »

At least up in New England, termites tend to be found in opposition (so to speak) to carpenter ants. If you have one, you don't have the other (at least, that's what they say up here).
Carpenter ants are pretty common up here.

It's mostly the same here. More ants and bees than termites. Only rotted buildings that are falling down and unsalvageable, like The Pool House and The Outhouse that were here had both termites and ants.

VR3 wrote: »

Im not going to argue anything you are saying. My experience is the Southeast where termites are a real problem. If you feel secure with it then it's cool.

Like I said, they aren't as big a problem here, mostly because of how harsh the winters can get. They don't go dormant in the winter but they do tend to hunker down in the nests and "wait it out".

But I've gone through great lengths here to eliminate the potential bug problem sources around the house because Captain Halfass didn't do any of it.

Also, I went and looked it up just to be sure and NJ does have restrictions on where pressure treated can be used. Given that this crawlspace is under living space, pressure treated is not allowed to be used.

We could use metal or masonry but the way it is done now will pass code inspection. But that's why we put the hatch in so we can inspect it regularly and repair if necessary. If bugs end up becoming a problem, we'll handle it. I get where you're coming from but things are different in different parts of the country. We can get away with stuff here that you can't else where and vice versa. Like I see the in-laws houses down in Texas and I can't believe what they get away with in regards to stuff like plumbing and it'd never pass code here. Mainly because of the harshness of the winters.

But, down in the Southeast, you guys have hurricane strapping for certain types of structures. Up here they never heard of such a thing. But when was the last time you saw an ice dam prevention system which amounts to a roof heater installed in Souf Cacalacky? In Texas they have storm shelters but no real basements, everything is on a slab. Up here, people have basements and depending on the age of the house, the basement might be a "cold" basement which isn't climate controlled. Cold basements often have dirt floors too and you don't see storm shelters 'cause they have a tendency to fill with water. You also don't see too many slab built house up here either because water runoff in certain areas has a tendency to float and break slabs.

Jstas

The trim.

The house has a specific but common type of trim and we wanted to go with something similar. Except, the house uses 6 inch wide boards with a beading attached to the top. Since it was all milled in 1925, it's hard to get exact, matching dimensions with modern lumber and millwork. So we went with as close as we could, my only requirement was it had to be real wood. No MDF, Masonite or cellulose based polymers. Real, primed wood.

The contractors went through and did all the baseboard after the floor was in. They also did the windows sills and the window casing. They did the door casing too but I'll save that for a different post, I gotta take more pictures of it anyway to adequately describe it.

So we put trim all around the everything, including the closets.











The only problem was the outlets, with the old floor height, were above the baseboard height and it wouldn't have been a problem. But with the false floor and leveling efforts, the floor was now about 2-3 inches higher than before. That landed the outlets in an odd spot.

The contractor wasn't sure how to go about it because of how they were sitting and rather than pay him piles of money to figure it out, I told him to just clean it up so it doesn't get damaged and I'll figure it out later. So this is what he left me with at both of the old outlets on the inside wall.



Ugly but it kept the outlets from being beat up until I could get to it. He also did a trim lip around the hatch with a finger notch to make it easy to lift up the hatch.



They did a traditional "Craftsman" style casing around the windows and since the walls are faily deep we ended up with some nice sized sills.



They hung some cheap, hollow core, closet doors for us too.



I did all of the paint work including doors and trim. Doors got disassembled and unmounted, painted and then remounted. I'll get pictures of the finished doors later. Besides, I gotta detail the entry door fun as well.

I went and grabbed some real nice wooden blinds from Levelor for the windows and man did they come out nice!





At this point, though, I messed up my left knee crawling around on the floor doing the baseboard and climbing up and down ladders to do paint work around the ceiling. I also tore a tendon in my right foot and all that made it really hard for me to do any repetitive work in the room. The contractors were done around January 18th after starting around October 18th. By the time I got to the point where I was injured it was the 3rd week of February. It took about 4 months for my foot to heal. The fam went to Texas to visit family and my **** employer at the time wouldn't give me off to go with them. So I stayed home and in July, I finished the baseboard trim around the outlets and finished off the electrical and closet door trim. I also painted the entry door and the trim and casing around that.

I posted about those last August or so but here's shots of the outlets again.










And here's the hatch trim before painting.



After painting.



Here's the finished outlets






At this point, the closet insides were not fully painted yet, just primered. I'm still not done yet because there's more planned in here for laundry organization but like I said, materials availability and costs have limited progress. So we're still going.

Jstas

At this point, this is where we started






And this is where it stands now.






The plan is to install cabinetry along the wall and around the washer/dryer and sink. We have the shelving in for temporary relief but now that I can get cabinet grade plywood again in the amounts I need for a reasonable price, I can get to making what the better three quarters wants in here. The outlets that are halfway up the wall are there because I'm going to put either shelving or cabinets below and the outlets are up top so there are accessible on the fold out counter spaces that she wants there.

But it was a colossal effort to get it to this point and it was a legit 2.5 months of work by 6 people in total to get here.

Still not done.

Jstas

Sooo....haven't posted to this in a while. Not because I didn't have anything done or anything, just a lack of time and inclination. Writing this stuff out takes time!

I have lots of stuff to talk about since March of 2023 like replacing roofs (yes plural) and the Captain Halfassery that was present during that adventure. A few trees fell down again. Built some bookshelves for one of the kids. Also had to replace the water filter/softener system, the pool liner replacement, the pool deck sinking (not fixed yet), electrical line tracing through the property, the propane BBQ grill literally blew up (actually set my hair on fire) and a bunch of other stupid little repairs everywhere that have been more of a nuisance than an issue.

But, no, today I am writing about an epic adventure that has been several years in the making but was waiting for when I could actually get the roof replaced.

Today's story is how I replaced the porch columns on the porch.

Porch columns? Really? That's all?!?! Those are EASY! What kind of a loser can't....

Hold on there, honcho, you're about to find out!

When we moved in, the porch posts were shabby and looked like they had some bad repairs done to fix rot. They seemed solid though. So I marked that as a project to do later instead of right now. Fast forward 5 years and we fixed the biggest issue with the house which was improperly enclosed porch (see last posts) and then I decided that the next big project was the roof. That included the porch posts. The roof over the porch was leaking significantly at this point too and the rest of the roof was showing significant signs of problems. But I'm not talking about that adventure today.

So, the porch roof, should be simple, right? Typically just a header plate on the side of the house with beams and joists attached to create a roof and it's held up at the outer edge by some posts that the beams sit on top of and get toe nailed in or use structural plates to locate and stop lateral movement too. Easy peasy, right?



Yeah, no.

So MY porch roof is a massive, wrap around porch. The house itself was about 1500 square feet of roof and the porch alone added another 800 square feet. It's huge and it's held up by 11 columns at about 10 foot intervals. It's also steeply pitched so there's lateral forces too, not just load bearing forces.

These pictures are at night with the Christmas lights on it but the lights really show how the columns are oriented and with the roof covered in snow, you can see exactly how big it actually is.





That entire porch was held up by columns like this:
https://www.lowes.com/pd/Turncraft-96-in-x-8-ft-Primed-Pine-Square-Column/3099719

They were hollow and made up of chunks of wood finger jointed together to make the necessary lengths and then turned down in the factory to make the decorative scrolling. For something like a portico or a narrow porch roof they are fine. Just keep them dry. For the massive monstrosity of a porch roof I have....no.

That wasn't the worst problem, though. See, Captain Halfass...when he built the roof in the early 2000's, he put this brown shingle on that likely matched the original house roof color. When he replaced the entire house roof in, like, 2007, he didn't pull up the old roof. He laid the new roof down over the old roof. Naturally, this caused a massive water problem. Leaks everywhere and since there was space between the shingle layers, water migrated everywhere. So every rain storm, there were leaks on the porch and they would dribble down rafters and into the soffits. Additionally, there's tons of woodpecker damage 'cause they were going after the carpenter bees that were damaging the posts as well.

Jstas

We had to get the roof replaced so in July, I started getting estimates and in September, we replaced the roof. Now that the leaks were fixed, I turned my focus to fixing the bad posts that they leaks made worse. I looked at the nice pretty flashing to see what I was up against thinking that the beams were on top of the posts like they should be even though the posts were sitting on top of the decking. I figured I could just cut the decking out and connect the new posts to the porch support posts.





HA! Fat chance on that, bucko!

I didn't want to start ripping down all the pretty aluminum flashing that matched the color scheme of the house but, I had to see where the posts met the beam. Boy was I in for a HUGE surprise! So I cut a chunk of flashing out with tin snips.



First revelation was that the "beams" weren't actually beams at all. They were 2x8's face nailed...well, screwed into the posts. On the front and the back and there was no tie in to the posts except the screws. At the top of the "beam", there was a 2x6 laid flush with the top of the 2x8's which made the top of the beam that I could see look like it had a cap plate on it to have consistent nailing surfaces for the roof rafters. Additionally, every roof rafter was toe nailed into this plate. Not the 2z8's, the 2x6. There was also electrical running through the channel these 2x8's and 2x6 made. What's worse is when I looked at the tops of the posts I realized that the 2x6's didn't even meet on top of the posts. My stomach fell out my **** at this point as the severity of the situation and the effort needed to fix it right quickly became insurmountable for just little 'ole me and the pizza and beer brigade.





What this essentially meant was that to fix this complete right, I'd have to build a jack wall, toe nail the rafters in to place to make sure that they didn't shift on me and I would have to put those jack walls in spots on the porch that could handle the load. Then I would have to strip down the entirety of the Halfassery, get either LVL beams or build new ones and put up new posts that would have to be anchored to the 6x6 support posts unless I went totally "Do It Right" and pulled the 6x6's at the perimeter and made them go from the footer to the roof like it should have been done in the first place. But I know why that wasn't done and I'll get to that later. But the "Do It Mostly Right" method was going to cost me months of weekends and be a monumental struggle. So I got some quotes. $30K to $50K to essentially rebuild the porch roof and supports completely. Yeah, no. Don't have the money for that, I gotta figure something else out and soon 'cause the damage is getting bad. Also, at this time, we would be hearing things go thump on the porch, like something hit the porch like a package or a squirrel jumping or something but every time I looked there was nothing. Now that everything is replaced, I haven't heard that thump anymore and hindsight is telling me that it was the porch columns slowly collapsing. Pretty scary.

These pictures will show you why.

















So the first thing I had to do was pull on the flashing to see where stuff was and to find out which post Captain Halfass ran the power through. (it was 3 different posts) and then figure out where the power feed was coming from.

It was coming from here:



There's actually 3 different circuits there. (4 if you count the low voltage line) Two different circuits running through one junction box too. I have no idea how this did not start a fire. I spent 3 hours crawling around under the porch with flash lights, my Chicken Stick, cable cutters and screw drivers pulling the electrical apart and straightening everything out. At this time, though, works stopped because a buried wire end came unburied in all my shuffling around and it some how had tension on it. When I cut another wire, that tension on the old wire was released and it shot a hail of crap in my face and it went right up under my eye protection and got something sharp stuck in my eye. So I had to go to the hospital and I couldn't see for 3 days after that. Fun times. Have I mentioned how much I hate Captain Halfass?

Now with the electrical all sorted and pulled out of the way, it will get replaced with new later. Correctly as well. I started figuring out what I was going to have to do to fix this. I thought I could just get new 6x6's before but when I pulled the flashing down and realized the depths of the halfassery, that went out the window. So I measured the distance between the 2x8's figuring I could order 8x8's at a premium price but at the same time make my life easier. Yeah, no. An 8x8 would actually be about 7.5x7.5 or 7.75 x 7.75 at best. That's not going to work. Here's why.



The total distance between the outer edge of the outside 2x8 to the outer edge of the inside 2x8 is greater than the width of the potential 8x8.



The problem with that is, the WHOLE beam needs to rest ON the post, not face nailed in to it, not partially hanging off. If it was a solid beam, not as big of a deal. But the 2x8's should be sistered together and secured. Also, for the size of the roof, the 2x8's are the minimum code so while they can support the roof, they need to be full engaged at the point load so the post that the weight will be transferred to needs to engage the entire width of BOTH 2x8's. This Halfassed way of doing it creates a problem. Also, because of how the post is integrated into each junction of structural elements, removing it is an exercise in sado-masochism.

Jstas

Anyway, 8x8 ain't gonna work. At this point I called up my friend Brian from college because he's equally as unhinged as me and knows math an engineering stuff equally as well as me if not better and I needed more eyes and brains here. We went back and forth on how to solve the problem for weeks. Then he asked "Why can't you sister 8x8's together?" Well, 'cause, it's hard enough to get 11 of them, 22 will be hard and at the quoted $425 EACH that's almost 10 grand in posts. But...that gave me an idea.

6x6's are 5.5 inches so two end up being 11 inches deep and that would be too deep and one of the 6x6's would be completely engaging porch framing so anchoring it would be difficult at best. 4x4's are 3.5 inches and 7 inches was not enough and the 4x4's aren't wide enough to cover the whole joint in the side to side direction either. So I went to The Homesless Despot with my handy dandy tape measure to go think. While I was there, the lumber yard manager asked me if I needed some help. I said no, I was thinkin' about solving a problem. We got to talking and I told him, you know, these 4x6's and a 2x6 would be the perfect width and depth but that I didn't want to buy a whole 4x6 and 2x6 to see if I could actually get it to work. He looks at me quizzically and I started to say yeah, I know, sounds stupid but I gotta visualize this one in reality, not just on paper. To which he responds with an apology and that he totally gets it and he was just thinking that they got a culling return in a couple hours ago that he hadn't gone through yet and says "Come with me!" So we go back and sure enough, he has a couple lengths of regular 2x6's and even a 4x6, none pressure treated but will be adequate. He turns to me and says "Will this help you out?" I said "Yessir it will! But how do I pay for it?" He hands me the 4x6 and grabs the 2x6 and walks over to the lumber cutting rig and says "Is 18 inches going to be long enough?" I told him for just testing, yeah it will. So he cuts an 18 inch section out of the 2x6 and cuts the 4x6 in half, puts them under his arm and said "Let's roll!" We get to the front and he goes to the register and rings it up as "design samples", no charge. Hands them to me and says, "Let me know if it works and how much you need to get the job done and I'll make sure we have it for you when you're ready!" So I went home and made my test post.

The measurements worked out almost perfectly. A sixteenth of an inch off but that's just sanding loss, no big deal.

So I went back the next weekend and did not see the manager, they said he was on vacation but, there was a brand new pallet of 4x6's. So I made a few trips with the Lightning to get them but they didn't have the hardware I wanted and were 2 short on the 4x6's I needed so I went to Lowe's to get the rest. Also, HD had a run on pressure treated 2x6's in 8 foot lengths. They had 4 left that looked like they came from a Dr Seuss forest.



Yes, that is the Navigator fully swallowing 8 foot lengths of lumber.

Anyway, I ended up building the posts with 4x6's and 2x6's.

First I laid down a 4x6 and then covered it in Loctite PL3 Adhesive. Then I laid a 2x6 down on top of it. It got nailed in to place, nice and square, with stainless steel framing nails. Then I buttered it up again with more PL3.



Then I laid another 4x6 down on top of that and tone nailed it in with more stainless steel framing nails.



Then, I took Simpson SDWS Timber Screws (what they hold timber framing together with) and sunk an 8 inch screw into the center of the post through all 3 pieces to clamp and tie them all together. The Timber Screws are tension rated as well as shear rated so they hold in lateral loads too. I sunk an 8 inch screw every 12 inches alternating side with all the evens going through in one direction and the odds in the other.





On 5 of the posts, I ripped an inch off the 2x6 and set it offset to one side. The reason for this was because, Captain Halfass ran electric INSIDE the column which is just stupid and dangerous on many levels. But, to get power to the roof for lights on the porch, there's no other way. So instead of trying to carve a groove or just surface mount electrical for a lovely eyesore on a finished column, I cut the narrow groove so that I could run conduit up the groove to run electrical through. So instead of stringing electrical everywhere in the roof, I will run electrical under the deck and put junction boxes at each conduit drop to run the electrical up each conduit and directly wire the flood lights and put up outlets at each location too. I'll run some electrical to the back of the porch as well to put an outlet where folks sit to be able to run a radio or a lamp or something too.





So that's how they are held together and half inch or three quarter conduit both sit beneath the outer edge of the posts. They don't sit proud at all so they won't be seen when the pretty work is finished and the conduit will protect the wire from being accidentally cut or punctured.





So that's how they are held together, timber screws, PL3 adhesive and 3.25" stainless steel framing nails.





Now it's time to replace some columns.



First step was to prop up the roof on either side of the column we were working on with temporary supports. That's Brian on the ladder.



Then we would take the weight off the column by cranking the support screws up and knock the column out. Then I would cut the decking away with the oscilating tool to expose the top of the post underneath to be able to anchor the new posts directly to the existing 6x6 porch support.

Jstas

What I figured out about the 4x6 based columns is that I could span the entire width of the "beam". But, when I pulled the flashing down and realized that the "beam" was a C-channel, the only thing holding the C from collapsing in on itself was the porch columns. To be able to pull the columns out and not have the column collapse...it was very difficult and a HUGE safety concern 'cause I had no idea how it would shift and that's a lot of roof to come down on my head. So I decided to cut the posts flush with the Sawzall and leave them in place and I would block them in with 2x6 blocking.



Then I cut the porch decking away and found that the deck framing was heavily lap-jointed into the 6x6's.



That's no big deal, the porch framing is 2x10's with 2x8 joists between the sections, kinda overbuilt but fine be me! But, remember when I said I knew why the porch supports didn't extend from the concrete footer all the way up to the roof? This is why. The porch deck was built by someone who knew what they were doing and they did an excellent job. The porch roof was built by someone who didn't really know and it was put on AFTER the porch was built. 'Cause I can't fathom that the guy who built the deck would have wanted to be anywhere near associated with the clusterf... Yeah, I digress.

So the only problem with the framing being lap jointed was, I got myself Simpson Strong Tie post joining brackets. I didn't see how any other kind of bracket would work here but it was going to be hard to secure the bracket to the framing because of how the holes were oriented.

The fix was to cut footer plates from 2x6's and nail them in with more stainless steel nails to the framing so they wouldn't shift around. Using a plumb bob hung from a nail, I found where the outside edge of the "beam" was and then measured the 8.5 inches back and cut the floor out so that when the new post was in, we knew where it had to sit so it wasn't sitting proud of the outside of the "beam" and was supporting the whole "beam" front to back and side to side.



Once those were secure, the post connection bracket was screwed down with more Simpson SDWS Framing Screws.





Then, the new post was cut to length and put in place and trued up







The bottom connector was screwed in to place on each side with the framing screws. Then at the top, I used more Simpson Strong Tie beam to post anchors on the front and back of the beam and they were secured with the Framing Screws as well.



We followed that process for each post. Brian helped me on day 1 and we were only able to get 4 done, figuring out the first one and getting set up took a couple hours but once we had it down, it took 45 minutes per post for the two of us working together. The next day I wanted to continue. Brian couldn't be around to help and the Beer and Pizza Brigade was no where to be found. So my 70-75 year old parents came to help me with the small stuff and holding things for me. I got 2 more posts done the next day. Then the next Saturday, Brian came back and we knocked out the last 4 in about 5 hours, the one corner post by the wide stairs needed some extra work.

The railings were a pain to remove because the posts we rotted and we I was trying not to destroy the vinyl by just prying them out so I could put them back up. I won't be able to do pretty work until Spring so I needed them in one piece to put back up so the town inspector and the insurance company didn't lose their **** on me.

In total about 22 hours of work from building the posts to installing and repairing everything. Had a hospital visit and injured my left foot to the point where I still can't walk due to the tendon injury but it's healing. It's done, though and the pretty work won't be anywhere near as heavy of a physical lift







It was none too soon too as this was the condition of the posts as we were taking them down. If I tossed a post on the lawn, it would explode in fractures at the finger joints. Even just laying them down gently they would crack and fail. That was what was holding up the porch for 20 some odd years and I really don't think they would have lasted through the winter.





That was, by far, the heaviest lift of any home improvement project I've ever done and I've done some real unhinged stuff to houses, sheds, garages and pools. Never a structural repair like that though.

I was told by a few professionals that they wouldn't want to take the job on and I was nuts for tackling it myself hence the reason I did it myself. I'm pretty sure I was over-quoted too as a way to say "I'm not doing this job" without saying "Sorry, bro, yer eff'ed!". Another friend who does custom houses called me up after he saw the pictures and said he wanted to come by. When he got here and looked at everything we did and listened to all the answers I gave him on his questions he said to me "Yo, you and your boy Brian want jobs?" I blew it off as just flattery and turned to go put the ladder we were using away. He grabs my shoulder and says "No, I'm serious. I have a crew of as many 20 guys at times and I'd fire them all for just 3 Brians and 3 Johns. If you ever need work, just call me. I'll have you on payroll and in charge of a team of chuckleheads before you hang up the phone. And! And the best part is, I've seen your finish work and you're better than anybody I can get to work right now! We'd have work for you. As much as you want, just call, dude." So that was kinda nice.

VR3

You installing structural plates with decking screws or am I looking at this wrong 👀

Nvm I see you are using simspon sdw

Carry on!

Jstas

Also, Milwaukee's 18V Framing Nailer is no joke!

Heavy as hell when compared to pneumatic but it went toe to toe with a Porter Cable pneumatic and did not fall behind at all. One 5.0 High Demand battery lasted this entire project too.

I'm also not a Milwaukee ****. I was gifted an 18V driver/drill combo back in 2010/2011 and that married me to the battery form factor. I've been lucky in that ever tool I've needed that came in that 18V form factor has exceeded my expectations. I'm just relating my experience.

Tony M

OUTSTANDING

Sorry about your serious battle wounds.

Upstatemax

Jstas wrote: »

Also, Milwaukee's 18V Framing Nailer is no joke!

Heavy as hell when compared to pneumatic but it went toe to toe with a Porter Cable pneumatic and did not fall behind at all. One 5.0 High Demand battery lasted this entire project too.

I'm also not a Milwaukee ****. I was gifted an 18V driver/drill combo back in 2010/2011 and that married me to the battery form factor. I've been lucky in that ever tool I've needed that came in that 18V form factor has exceeded my expectations. I'm just relating my experience.

Modern Milwaukee M18 stuff is fantastic.

The 12ah batteries are amazing.

My cabin is off grid, so power tools have to be battery powered.

I built a "bathroom" in the cabin this summer, so I picked up the miter saw, and the brad and finish nailers. The miter saw ran on the 12ah battery, hundreds of cuts and it only lost 1 bar. Ran the nailers and drills off 8ah and 6ah batteries. No issues.

I'll be getting the table saw next.

For most home owners, the M12 is plenty. Go M18 if you're doing big projects, or a professional.

F1nut

Impressive!

Jstas

VR3 wrote: »

You installing structural plates with decking screws or am I looking at this wrong 👀

Nvm I see you are using simspon sdw

Carry on!

No, I made sure to use the correct hardware. My dad had the stainless steel framing nails leftover from a deck he built a few years ago. The rest of the hardware was bought new. The structural connector plates are all Simpson Strong Tie Z-Max stuff and the SDWS fasteners was about $750 alone. With the hardware for the deck boards I had to repair and re-hanging the railings and the 2.25" stainless framing nails for the blocking, I was, like, $20 shy of a thousand bucks for just hardware alone. If I had to buy the 3.25" stainless framing nails, I would be $1500 in to it for hardware.

It makes a big difference because those Simspon fasteners will not just screw stuff together, they will clamp it down too so the glue joints on my "laminated" posts are all tight.

The old posts would ring like bells and vibrate the porch floor if you hit them.

The new posts...they go thud and that's it. No vibrating floors, no shimmying or ringing. Just thud. Even just smacking it to say "That ain't goin' no where!" is unreal with how solid they are.

Also, previously, you could see how the "beams" were off and not level. I checked everything with a 24 inch level and a 6 foot level and now every single "beam" is within a sixteenth of an inch of being true and every post is within a sixteenth of an inch of being true as well.

Jstas

Tony M wrote: »

OUTSTANDING

Sorry about your serious battle wounds.

Stuff happens, at least it wasn't any permanent injury. Could have been way worse.

Jstas

Oh and also, I had the chainsaw out because I didn't know if the circular saw was going to be able to get through the posts far enough when I had to cut them down. Thankfully, it only left about a 1x2 inch square untouched in the center and the Sawzall made handy work of it. So the chainsaw wasn't needed.

VR3

I'm a huge Simpson Strong tie fan. Expensive as it gets but amazing none the less

Jstas

VR3 wrote: »

I'm a huge Simpson Strong tie fan. Expensive as it gets but amazing none the less

Especially the ZMAX stuff. The data sheets on them are impressive, even compared to Simpson's regular galvanized steel plate hardware.

I was going to use the HeadLOK fasteners but the friend who does the custom houses said "Look at the data sheets on them both, Simpson is more expensive for a reason." Not that the HeadLOX stuff is junk or anything but the Simpson stuff is head and shoulders above it. Given that the majority of the porch roof weight is on those posts and it's pushing laterally as well...just, all the help you can get, ya know?

I'll probably cheap out and use HeadLOK stuff when I fix the pool deck, though.

Jstas

Bookcase Stairs.

This caused about a month's delay in various projects because I had to stop and figure this out.

The kid, she's older now but refuses to give up her loft bed. Granted, her room is kind small and Captain Halfass took out the closet in her room to put space that isn't used for anything in the bathroom. It was a dumb idea and it needs to be remedied. Was hoping to get that done sooner than later but, the plandemic and shortage of contractors kinda killed that.

So the problem with her bed is that I had to raise it up a bit more and that required modifying some of the structure. I just built a 2x6 frame that went on the inside of everything to hide it to get an extra foot of height. But, she's too big now to use the ladder that came with it. Mom was scared she was going to hurt herself. So I had to figure something out.

The problem with her bed is that at one end it has a bookshelf. Her small room has little storage in it so mom didn't want to lose them to a stair case. We had a wardrobe at the end of her bed and that created a backing for the bookcase since I had to remove the backing on the inside to raise the bed. Anyway, that's all confusing and tangential to the issue.

I moved the wardrobe to the other side of the room and now she had a series of shelves that were open on both sides and that just wasn't going to do in her mind or mom's. I was going to build a staircase for her access but I wasn't allowed to the take the bookshelf out.

Fine.

Whatever.

So I thought and thought about it to the point where I hurt myself and while we were at IKEA and mom pointed out a bookcase that was a bunch of modular boxes that you could expand to any size you wanted just needed more of the boxes.

I looked at them and said "If only I could use these to build a staircase. Then you'd get more storage and she'd be able to get up and down easily." Mom said that we could get them, it might be expensive but it could work. Just wish they were white like the rest of her room. I said "No way, Jose." She looks at me with fury and demands to know why. I pointed at the weight limit on the box and said "They only hold 50 pounds, each. I know you want your baby girl to still be your baby girl but she's as tall as you and not exactly svelte. Not to be mean but she's over twice that weight limit. They will collapse if she stands on them." Mom gets all dejected and says it's a shame because that was a good idea.

I made the mistake of saying "I can build boxes that will hold her weight and make them any color you want." She asked how I would do that. I said plywood. It'll hold a thousand pounds. Mom got upset, said she didn't want the edges showing. I told I could fill the edges with wood filler and sand it so you'd never see it once it was painted. She reluctantly agreed.

Yeah, I figured it would be simple. I'd just cut pieces, make a jig to assemble them square and paint.

Ugh.

Anyway, I cut the pieces and assembled with the jig like I had planned. My "help", though, didn't pay attention to the edge markings I wrote on the pieces to guide assembly and more than once...in fact, probably half the boxes I had glued and nailed at least one edge and then had to pull apart because my "help" didn't pay attention and would get mad at me if I asked to verify it was right. That created a bunch of extra filling and sanding work before finishing.

I butt jointed the edges so that the vertical pieces were intended to be sandwiched between the tops and bottoms of the box so that they transferred the weight down, through the structure, to the floor.



Mom was not believing that they would hold the weight since they were larger than what Ikea had. So I took one of the boxes, a piece of sheathing to keep the box from getting super screwed up and I picked up a 302 block in the garage with cast iron heads, about 450 pounds, and set it on the sheathing on the box with the engine hoist. I wish I took pictures of that because the box didn't even creak or pop under the weight. I asked if that was an adequate test and she said "Ok then."

So I had voids in the edges and nail holes to fill and sand now.



But at least they came out consistient



Since the weather was humid as hell when I was doing this over the July 4th holiday in 2023, I ended up painting them inside so the paint would dry correctly. The kids were with Pig Vomit...I mean Real Dad™ for the holiday and we had no plans so I commandeered the kitchen 'cause paint drips on finished tile are easy to clean up.



What I also did was I had to put up a backer panel for the boxes and the book case but I also needed spots to secure the book case to the rest of the loft bed so it didn't fall over on her.

So I cut some 2x4's and 2x6's sanded them nice and pretty and painted them the same white. I put blocking up under the bottom of each bookshelf on the bed to give myself something to screw the boxes to. I also ran cleats out that got secured under the top edge of the boxes, about 6 inches in to give me tie ins to the bed structure that I made to raise the bed up higher. Then I got a piece of luan plywood and I sanded both sides and primed them and painted one side semi-gloss white and the other side flat white. The flat white faces the stairs and I told her if she wanted to draw her own murals on it, I could remove it easily and replace it so she could keep the pictures she drew. This also gave the book cases the backings they needed.



So now she has a stair case to get to the 6 foot high loft bed and extra storage for books and tchotchkes and whatever other baloney kids like to have.



The boxes are secured to the bed and to each other in 3 axis. I pilot drilled holes and counter sunk them, used stainless steel hardware on the structure and anything that would be exposed uses bright brass. Been up for over a year now and is still there and she hasn't fallen off it yet.

That took me 4 weekends to get done, started it Memorial Day weekend and due to work and weather hold ups, finished it on July 13th, the day kids were going to be coming back from their vacation with Real Dad™. I think I vacuumed up the mess I had made when Real Dad™ was pulling his Tesla in the driveway to drop them off.

Jstas

So, the roof saga, I'll keep this short since I don't have any pictures.

So this started in June 2024. I started looking around for places that would finance me and I was figuring 35K since I needed to get two roofs repaired and replaced.

While I was doing that, I got a notice at the end of June that my homeowners policy was going to be dropped. They cited, literally, the ENTIRE list of reasons they use for doing so and basically said "It's one of these, so up yours, too bad, so sad, eff you very much! You have until August 24th to find new coverage and report it to us."

Wait, what? Report to you, the insurance company? Get real.

So I had all the insurance through that company and I got assigned to a new agent last year who I could not get to talk to me about anything for the past year. So I went and found new insurance, got a MASSIVE rate cut for better coverage too. So I moved EVERYTHING in one shot. When the old company asked for reasons for the cancellation, I read their BS statement about the level of risk that they were unwilling to assume. The next day, the agent who wouldn't talk to me for a year called me, furious about why I was leaving and if I had just called him he would have been able to help me out. I just laughed and hung up.

Anyway, it's now the week after the 4th of July and I have 5 different roofers I'm looking for quotes on.

One called me back right away, said he'd be out in a couple days and gave me an honest quote without crawling all over the house or flying drones or anything. Said it might change if we have a ton of repair work to do. Yep, fine, I'm expecting that

Another never called back.

A third gave me a super high estimate because he couldn't get a good view of the house from Google Maps....for real, not making that up. I told him I had a garage that needed a new roof too. He just tacked on $15K right then and there without questions or anything.

A fourth came, crawled all over everything for an hour, spent an hour trying to butter me up and then asked if I had any more quotes in the pipeline. I was honest and told him I have 4 more I was waiting on. So he threw out a number he thought was good and then I sent him on his merry way 2 hours later.

The 5th guy got my address and apparently parked across the street and flew a drone over the house and took pictures. Never even knocked on the door, never asked what was needing to be done, just came back with the highest quote for just the house and he did it via a text message. WTF?

Anyway, long story short, after 2 high pressure sales wonks, the no show and the non-contact shenanigans, I went with the first guy who ended up being the cheapest. Even after all the repairs.

New roof day, dumpster drops. A van shows up with all these Mexicans. They got to work at like 7am. Started tearing the old roof off and that was when we found an even older roof underneath. Dumpster 1 fills up in record time. It gets picked up and dumpster 2 gets dropped off. That's filled up by the end of the day and picked up the next morning. Dumpster 3 drops.

They get to the extension where the master bedroom is. Start pulling up shingles and both sides of the gable, the plywood is super soft and starts delaminating as soon as the nails are pulled. All the plywood on the extension is bad. Something like 8 sheets to repair it. They can't understand why. I know why. Captain Halfass vented the bathroom fan into the attic, not to the outside. That's moisture damage from Captain Halfass scrubbing his Halfass.

The other problem is where the extension gable meets the original roof? There is a 2 foot gap between the edge of the plywood and the valley on both sides of the valley across the entire stretch of the gable. The roof was held up with just tar paper and stapled shingles. You couldn't see the valley in the attic either because the original roof extended past the valley and obscured it.

The porch roof was the worst and the double layers of shingles had evidence of water runs everywhere. They replaced probably 85% of the plywood on the porch roof. We had the skylights pulled and covered up too and when they pulled those, one came up with the plywood that it was anchored to and the other one left it's flashing in place and separated completely from it. All because of the water damage from the double layer of shingles.

Thankfully no structure needed repairing. The garage roof had a couple holes punched in it from tree branches from Tree of Heaven that was behind it that we needed to get a harvester on a boom truck to reach over the garage and cut them down but it was straight forward.

Those dudes were here for 26 hours of work over 2 days fixing the Captain Halfassery. I felt so bad for them but they did a tremendous job! The original quotes ranged from $22.9K to $56.7K and we ended up going with the $22.9K quote because he was the only one who didn't jerk us around. We ended up needing $3700 in plywood and other lumber to repair water damage from Captain Halfassery and even at that, we were still in under the next closest quote by $900. For two roofs, too. 3800 square feet of roof. Even added ridge vents to code too. That was a deal I couldn't beat with a stick!

It is insane how hard it is to get anything done anymore, though and find help that isn't going to jerk you around and actually be honest about stuff.

The only issue we had in all of it was the miserable **** who picked up the 3rd dumpster scraped up the driveway because he drug it on to the truck instead of lifting it with the winch and track.

audioluvr

Good insurance and a well placed candle next to a curtain would have solved all of that.