Home Ownership And You!

Jstas · March 2021

So let's try playing with some pitchurs.

From the earlier post, started work on the sewer line.

The house has a half bath just off the kitchen. The toilet has backed up to the point where I needed a plumber 3 times since we moved in. At $250-$300 a pop, that's good money after bad.

Additionally, Captain Halfass had told me he had a sewer stack by the barn (what I've been calling the garage with the loft) so I decided that it was time to see what the hell was going on with this sewer line. So I called the previous plumber's nephew and he came out and we sent a scope up the line to look and it had the radar beacon on it too. We get to the point right where the kitchen bathroom dumps in and it looked like there was a bunch of grass in the pipe the roots were so thick. Verified it with the radar too. So it looks like that boot connection has failed.

The sewer line looks like an F and has 4 branches that dump into the main. The kitchen sink is on one branch, the half bath on another, the main sewer stack on yet another and the laundry room on yet another. So we got past 2 of the branches and they looked good. Got to the 3rd branch and couldn't get past the roots. So I don't yet know what's further up the line but if we get it fixed and scoped, I'm putting a cleanout at the top of the line. Hopefully, that's near the barn like Captain Halfass said.

So to save myself a few bucks, been doing demo around the sewer line and praying I don't find a fresh new hell.

Thankfully, nothing I didn't expect to see. Just a bunch of old mouse droppings and nests because Captain Halfass and Mrs. Halfass were slobs and had mouse and bug problems.

So I had to remove a garden, I'm pretty sure I made enough room for a small excavator. I still have to pull the window wells but we had some serious rain come through today and I didn't want to pull them before then. But still, a bunch of work.

This is what we started with, pulled all the blocks.

Then I dug out the first well because the sewer line comes out just to the right of it. Again, left it sloped and in place for rain. This will be easy to move with the excavator.

The well isn't attached to anything 'cause, Captain Halfass, so it's not doing anything but keeping that garden from falling in on the windows. Which were likely casement windows and some monkey chewed a hole through the walls with their teeth to embiggen the holes to put these sash windows in. The old foam is from me because these windows were not sealed right and they let HUGE drafts in.

Anyway.

The other side of the wall I had to open up to so we could get eyes on the iron stack. The basement in this part is "finished" and after tearing this corner apart, it was finished when the extension was put in because all the framing is held up with square cut nails that were put in with pneumatic hammer for nailing stuff to masonry. They don't use them anymore because we have better tools and methods now. So this was finished in the 60's and Captain Halfass covered it in blue and white paint and put carpeting in. He also put sheetrock on the ceiling without insulating joist ends but that's another story.

So here's the stack. Thankfully, aside from the rust, it does not look like it's been leaking.

Here's what I had to remove to get to it.

The toilet is right above this and it's been leaking but given how it's backed up, I wouldn't expect anything less. I don't have to mess with this right now, one colossal plumbing job at a time.

Now, I'm not a plumber or a foundation guy but, that looks good to me. The best part is the pass through that is in the wall looks to be in the best shape. So even if this stack had to be replaced, it'd all be an inside job. We wouldn't have to break the wall open.

Doing all this, BTW, took about $1100 off of the quote which is still about $2600. So hopefully no crazy surprises and we don't have to break up any concrete.

It'll be nice to get this fixed.

I also have a guy coming next week to give me an estimate on the half-assed enclosed front porch. I need plumbing fixed, the floor fixed and proper insulation up. Hopefully, the line coming out for the sewer there is a 3 inch pipe. If so, I might be able to move the laundry room around and add another half bath there. So we'll see.

Jstas · April 2021

**** chute's getting fixed tomorrow.

Moar pitchurs incoming.

Here's hoping we don't have to break up concrete.

Po op is censored? Really? What are we? 3 years old?

Jstas · April 2021

So, the ploop chute did get fixed when I said it was. I just haven't had the time to write down what went down. Since I posted pictures of the preparation for it, I'll start on the day of about what we found.

First off, plumber came and looked at the exposed stack pipe inside and through the wall. He was pleased with it, it's a little rusty but it's surface rust from being enclosed in that column with the wax ring weeping when the line was backed up. But he didn't want to pass judgement until we dug it out.

So him and 3 other dudes worked it with shovels instead of an excavator because of how shallow the pipe was coming out of the wall. So we got it dug out and found the pipe and this...it's just stupid but it works ok so we left it.

So what's stupid about it? Well, it exits the wall, makes an immediate 90 degree right turn travels 6 inches and makes a 90 degree left turn and drops down. It's held together with a Fernco connector which we thought was going to be the problem but it's actually ok. At this point, we couldn't see what was the problem. That spot, though, in the middle of the pipe with all the collars? That's a 4" Y-pipe with a 2" line from the kitchen sink coming into a few reducers to step it up to the 4" pipe fitting.

What that means is that this is where the sewer pipe ends and you'll see why later on. What that also means is that Captain Halfass was a **** liar about having the sewer pipe extended up to the garage. It wouldn't be hard to do that at all, though, so it might be a worthwhile endeavor. I'd have to cut concrete and dig a trench but, with no pipe, we lay it where we want, no spelunking to search. Since it's open, I can run a water line to the building too and bring both of them up inside the garage at an interior corner and just cap them until ready for use. I have to get a section of driveway fixed eventually so if I'm cutting concrete and replacing it, I'll get it all done at once and save a buck on materials and equipment rentals. Anyway, back to the story.

So you'll see the proof in minute, back to the hole. The bends, though, they were put in because the window was there and they couldn't go out through the wall under a window. It's not only a code problem but a structural concern. So they had to come out where it was. But, I'll tell you right now, this was not done by a license plumber. A license plumber would not have done a hack job like this 'cause he'd be perpetually called back to fix it. There's additional evidence of this coming up too so hold on to your butts, this ride only gets bumpier.

When we first dug it out, Jackie and I that is, we saw that notch at the bottom of the picture and were like WTF? Why? Well, I'll tell ya why. So we got to the point above and the 5 of us are standing there looking at it and wondering what the hell is going on. The plumber is now thinking he's got to bust up the whole concrete slab. Jackie and I did not dig it out because I didn't want to make a bigger problem than I already had and just let the plumber handle it.

So one of the guys slides a shove down the pipe and hits a bump in the line just ahead of the edge of the concrete there. But it's not a pipe. He digs out more and it's a flange. Another 4" Y-pipe. So we start digging out that notch and we find the top of the Y-pipe. They got the concrete saw out and cut a 24" square then hammered it out with a jackhammer so we could see what's going on. This is where it gets stupid.

This is what we found.

That white cap there is the top of the clean out and that's why that notch was there. It wasn't even aligned properly with the cap. So what that tells me is that the driveway was poured after the sewer line was put in. They poured over the cleanout and had to chisel the notch out with a sledge hammer to get to the clean out because the sewer line was backing up. So, if the ground was exposed before the sewer line was put in, why didn't they make the branch line up with the trunk in a direct connection instead of that goofy series of bends and y-pipes? Any why didn't they go an extra 8 feet and plumb the kitchen in to it's own branch? Like I said, not done by a licensed plumber.

So, the white cap. That's the "cleanout". I show pictures in a bit but basically what this was is this. The black 4" ABS Y-pipe is installed there with the clean out pointing up. The Y-pipe was installed backwards so the cleanout would direct a snake towards the house, not down the line towards the street. In that 4" Y-pipe, there was a 9 inch length of 3" I.D. black PVC irrigation pipe. The ends look like someone cut them by chewing through them. The black PVC had evidence of cement primer on it. So somebody tried to glue it into the ABS. But they are dissimilar materials and will not bond to each other. So there was a bunch of failed silicone sealant jammed in the gap that was covered in dirt, roots and other debris. Sticking out of the top of that black PVC pipe was that white cap. It had a decorative knurling around the top of it at the base of the dome. When it was sitting in the hole with the pipe, I told the plumber "That looks a hell of a lot like an oil filter." He says "Nah!...Ya think so? Nah! Who would do that?" I said "Let me tell you about a friend of mine named Captain Halfass..." They all laughed but in they weren't laughing within 5 minutes. Here's what it looked like.

So we pulled that cap out, I didn't get a picture of the cap but it was about 5 inches long and it, thankfully, was not an oil filter. What it was, though, was a PVC pier/bollard cap for a 3" post like you would see on a bulkhead or small private dock. It was just slid into the black PVC pipe with no sealant or cement or anything and was resting on the neck of the 4" Y-pipe flange.

So in that picture you can see all the roots sticking out of the pipe. There were so many roots wedged into the space between the "cap" and the black PVC pipe that we couldn't separate them. We managed to get the "cap" out but it got destroyed in the process. But here, you can see the 4.5" flange on the 4" pipe with 3" I.D. black PVC line slid in and how packed it was. If you can zoom in on this picture, you can see the complete blockage of the Y-pipe with roots.

Oh, also that gray line near the end of the hole? That's a buried electrical line and I'm pretty sure I know what it goes to. Thankfully we didn't hit it.

So, this is the last bit of evidence that this was not done by a plumber because, obviously, what frickin' idiot thought that was a good way to install a clean out? Additionally, when we had sent the scope up the line, we reached a point where there was a blockage that was so thick it looked like someone crammed grass clippings in there. So we cut the section of pipe out with the busted Y-pipe and got back to where the white PVC under the driveway was. Now this next picture might make people queasy but this is the cut out sewer pipe section with the root blockage. You can see the black PVC and roots sticking out of the top of the pipe where the plumber is holding it.

That view is what we saw on the line scope. that looked like a wad of grass clippings.

There's maybe an inch of space below the root curtain for water to get through. So the sinks and dishwasher never drained fast enough to back that up. But, a toilet flush, especially loaded with what you would typically flush down a toilet, well, that would hit that root wall like a Buick running into a brick wall. So this is why it would back up and then drain very slowly over a number of hours.

Next post has the fix and some 20/20 hindsight analysis of what the clues to the problem were.

Jstas · April 2021

So, the fix was replacing all of that messed up and poorly installed Y-pipe with a new one, properly installed the correct way and then a new clean out stack that sits at the grade of the garden that I get to put back now.

The cleanout stack leans a bit because that's the grading on the pipe the Y is attached to. It has a proper cap and everything and now that will be hidden in the garden when I put it back together. If the line backs up for whatever reason, we have a cleanout at the top of the line so we don't have to push the backup back up the line and hope we can flush it out.

Now we have to wait for the dirt to settle and repour the concrete square.

Thankfully it barely sticks out in to the driveway and the only reason the cones are there is to keep a delivery driver from dropping a wheel in the hole and really **** everything up.

So, the reason why the line would eventually become completely blocked is because there's a garbage disposal on the kitchen sink. Pretty sure the previous owners dumped boatloads of grease down there. Since we don't do that, we likely dislodged large chunks of greasebergs that were clogging up what I'm sure is more, numerous, elbows in the kitchen sink drain path. Those greasebergs would hit that root curtain after they were frozen because the line is just below grade but not below the frost line. They would freeze in the line and then get dislodged as chunks of grease ice when hot water from the dishwasher or the sink would melt them enough to become detached from the inside of the pipe. They would hit the root curtain and if there wasn't enough hot water to melt them all the way and get them flowing past the root curtain where they'd get swept down the pipe, they would hang out at the root curtain and refreeze. This is why, when the toilet backed up, running hot water down the bathroom sink would work to clear the line. 'Cause I looked back at records for plumbing because I'm keeping records for a potential fraud suit against Captain Halfass. The sewer line was cleaned out 3 times since we got here. Each time was later January to early February. This past time was late February/early March but within 3 weeks of the 1 year anniversary for the last time and it was after 2 weeks of snow and temps in the mid to low 20's. So when we were talking to the plumbers and I was telling them what led up to this point they called me Sherlock f*&^#$ Holmes and said that's the most reasonable explanation they've ever heard on what's going on. We got to that point because after they saw the **** work on the sewer line, they started asking questions.

This all started shortly after we moved in in 2017. So when we had moved in, the toilet in the kitchen bathroom didn't flush well. I didn't have time or money to replace it when I was dealing with the rest of the plumbing issues that needed to be fixed to make the house safe/livable. It worked, just not well. So had to treat it kindly. Dealt with it for the first year then we had the sewer line back up. They came out and cleared it and I asked about the toilet flushing. I showed the plumber and he watched it go down. Then he said "Get a bucket of water". So I did and he dumped it in the bowl and the toilet flushed with vigor! He said the toilet is probably caked internally with hard water deposits choking down all the water jet tubes. Two things could be done. Dump muriatic acid in the tank and bowl and see if it dissolves the deposits or replace the toilet. The acid was the cheaper route but it might not work and the acid had a good chance of ruining seals. The clogged pipe was a different issue though and he wouldn't know more unless they dug it up. That sounded expensive. So I said alright, we'll deal with it a little longer.

Fast forward about 4 months, got a coupon from Lowe's and saw a terlit on sale. So took mah coupon, sauntered on down to Lowe's and used mah coupon, the sale price and the 5% Lowe's card discount to buy a $275 toilet for $109 out the door. Brought it home, called the plumber and said "I need you to come replace this toilet, I already got a new one but given the problems this bathroom has, I don't want to do it myself in case I run in to a problem then gets me in over my head." They said No problemo, mon frere! and hurried on over.

When they came out to fix it, they found a serious issue.

Toilets have male flanges under them that are design to fit inside and sit down on the wax or silicone ring that goes on the top of your soil pipe flange. When you tighten the toilet down to the flange, you squish that wax ring to the shape of the male flange on the bottom of the toilet. Contrary to popular belief, this is not a water tight seal. It is an air seal. It'll hold back a small amount of water but if the line is backed up and water is sitting in the down pipe from the toilet, if it is at a level where it's at or above the top lip of the wax or silicone ring, it will weep, at the minimum. It is designed so that sewer gases do not escape from the soil pipe and the trap that is cast in the toilet base works to control the sewer gases and keep them from entering your house.

The kitchen toilet that Captain Halfass installed did not have a tall enough flange to reach the top of the crappy floor tile he put in. So the toilet was sprayin' and prayin' on every flush as it shouted at the void with an almost 1 inch gap between the top of the wax ring and the base of male flange on the bottom of the toilet.

So prior to the sewer pipe fix, there was no gurgling in the sink when the toilet was flushed. That was because the wax ring wasn't doing it's thing. That's also why the basement always had a musty smell for the first 6 months or so we lived here. When we fixed the toilet and the wax ring was installed correctly, no more air vent to let out the air pressure.

I had thought that the sink gurgling was due to improper venting, I mean, the house is old. So we had an autovent put on the sink. When the problem wasn't alleviated, I noticed that plumber had put the autovent on the down pipe from the sink, ahead of the trap, where it wouldn't do anything to help the problem. But the problem wasn't because there was a vacuum lock happening in the pipe because air couldn't get in to displace what was moved by flush water. The problem was the toilet was flushing, backing up on that root curtain and pushing air and flush water back up the line into the sink trap. It would push the water up the trap far enough until it could get past the last bend and bloop out into the sink. This was why there would periodically be a sewage smell in that bathroom and when the line was backed up, the odor would work it's way back up into the kitchen and sink and the dishwasher.

The whole reason this started happening is because that wax ring was replaced and the new toilet mounted properly. It exposed the bigger problem but at least it gave me a place to start looking for the bigger problem.

The scoping of the line to find out why it kept clogging up gave me the reason I needed to dig a hole and find the pipe. I didn't want to pay the previous plumber with the "exploratory hole" idea a boatload of money to dig up my whole driveway for no good reason. So we found the problem with a line scope.

Once I saw the condition of the pipe section we cut out, that put the last piece of the puzzle together for me.

So pretty sure it's all fixed now. I just have to get the kitchen bathroom sink feed lines and valves fixed because they leak and then we can destroy that bathroom and refinish it. I wasn't going to do that until the plumbing was fixed. No sense in spending on that money on pretty just to have it ruined by poorly installed plumbing.

Jstas · October 2021

Getting the AC systems replaced this week. The entirety of the 2nd floor system, ducting and all, is getting trashed. Only the coil and compressor on the 1st floor UNICO system is getting replaced.

Don't ask me how much. It's an ouchy but at least it's getting fixed right.

But, remember way back in the beginning of the thread when I talked about that removable panel for the attic stairs?

Yeah, worked out exactly as planned. Took longer to find the tools to get it out than it did to get it out.

Tony M · October 2021

I really enjoyed reading this thread this afternoon. You took me along the process and had pictures to show what you had to deal with.

Wow...what mess that/those previous jackleg/s did on your main drain line.

And that clean-out riser cap job!

And it going the wrong way too? ! good lord.

I'm confused why the jack-leg/s didn't use 2-45* angled fittings in the past.

They made them back then. Maybe they didn't have any on the truck...

I worked with a plumbing Co. that did drain cleaning also. I went on quite a few jobs The owner was a master drain clearing machine expert as well as 2 other employees. There was a pipe clog on this one homes' main drain that took about 4 hours to get it cleared. The clog was about 30 ' or more feet from the home, so the snake was harder to use. BUT...

With all the guys working that snake it turn, they finally got the root-ball cut loose. This Virginia Oak tree root ball was about 8' long and THICK. It got cut loose and forced to the manhole down the line about 20' down the line.

The guys were so glad they got it cut out, they removed it from the man-hole and we all looked at it laid out on the ground like it was an 8' alligator they just wrestled out of the sewer.

It might've been longer too. It was HUGE! It was known to the owner, the digging up of the area where the roots entered the pipe would be a major expense to do. They said they'd just wait it out. They knew who to call in the future though.

I couldn't work the snakes. I was too scared of the tension that builds up! The master plumber/owner said many guys' fingers have been ripped off working those machines. Plumbers are like doctors, you hate to pay the high costs, but when you need them, they'll usually figure out what's wrong and advise on the cure.

Jstas · October 2021

It looks exactly the same 'cause it went back up exactly the same.

Even the HVAC guys were impressed with it and one took details pictures of it because of how well it worked out.

He's going to do the same thing at his house because he has similar space constraints and a big folding ladder is cumbersome to deal with but a telescoping ladder would work perfect.

Jstas · November 2021

So I haven't had a real update to this in a while because, well, ****'s been going down.

But there's major work happening and I have lots of pictures and lots of words to type.

For now, I'll leave you with this.

These are pictures of my latest dumpster rental.

This section of the dumpster is the demolition waste from the work that is happening now.

This section of the dumpster is the amount to trash Captain Halfass had left under the porch, under the pool deck and strewn about the property.

So the demo took up about 1/3rd of a 20 yard dumpster while Captain Halfass's lack of hygienic practices took up 2/3rds.

So about 13.5 cubic feet of just trash and other garbage from Captain Halfass which included 3 old pool filters loaded with sand, a pool cover, a pool liner, 12 cat litter jugs, 2 broken porch swings, the town's "Welcome to..." sign, two park benches, a roll of roofing asphalt paper and a roll of tar paper.

Thing was, he perpetually had a dumpster on-site and just could not be bothered to just throw **** out. He just chucked under something or in the bushes.

I haven't even gotten to cleaning out the woods behind the house yet.

Also, this is the 3rd dumpster I've filled with Captain Halfass Halfassery.

rooftop59 · November 2021

That is insane! Helpfully captain halfass gave you a deal at least!

nooshinjohn · December 2021

Captain Halfass needs to be demoted to Private Fuquad....

Jstas · December 2021

rooftop59 wrote: »

That is insane! Helpfully captain halfass gave you a deal at least!

A deal on what? The house?

rooftop59 · December 2021

Jstas wrote: »

rooftop59 wrote: »

That is insane! Helpfully captain halfass gave you a deal at least!

A deal on what? The house?

Yes. I’m assuming that’s the former owner…

mhardy6647 · December 2021

I found a plastic laundry tub full of old oil filters in the woods next to our house -- presumably the legacy of the prior owner.

It was sort of buried under the leaf litter & pine needles. Could've been worse.

PS I've gotta admit, every time I see new posts to this thread... I cannot help but think: Money Pit.

Sorry!

Jstas · December 2021

rooftop59 wrote: »

Jstas wrote: »

rooftop59 wrote: »

That is insane! Helpfully captain halfass gave you a deal at least!

A deal on what? The house?

Yes. I’m assuming that’s the former owner…

Oh, no, he didn't. He was one of those people who "knows what they got" and wanted way too much for the house. If he hadn't neglected it for 30 years he could have gotten it but he did and he wasn't. He accused us of trying to rip him off (it was his shady **** realtor that was **** him over) and he lawyered up.

We went to closing and I flooded them in paperwork, two inspections from an inspector and Farmer's Insurance, signed estimates on costs to repair and the fact that he didn't do half of what he was supposed to do for closing and his lawyer basically advised him to take the deal I laid out because he was under contract and he was not legally allowed to change terms.

It helped that my realtor was my cousin and when that jackwagon lawyered up, the broker that ran her office got involved and he came with his legal counsel and our Wells Fargo rep, yeah, she came with the hammer of thor in the form of some heavy duty legalese paperwork from Wells Fargo's army of litigators and they shut it down and closed the deal. He left like 5K on the table and ponied up another 2700 or so in cash afterwards just to get out of it.

But the broker's lawyer told me that he was a contract law guy but given how Captain Halfass handled stuff he gave me a contact for a real estate lawyer because he said if anything on the contract is amiss, that's a fraud case and there's legal avenues to take for reparations.

I have talked to a real estate lawyer mainly because stuff that Captain Halfass gave me that he said was done and handed me signed invoices for, I've had to pay to repair myself. Those tradesmen that came and fixed stuff right told me that the invoiced work was not done. So I need to talk to a lawyer again because I've spent probably 10K fixing what he said was fixed.

Jstas · December 2021

mhardy6647 wrote: »

I found a plastic laundry tub full of old oil filters in the woods next to our house -- presumably the legacy of the prior owner. It was sort of buried under the leaf litter & pine needles. Could've been worse.

PS I've gotta admit, every time I see new posts to this thread... I cannot help but think: Money Pit. Sorry!

A "money pit" would imply that I'm losing money on this deal.

As of about 5 minutes ago, the house is worth 102% of our purchased value. After this laundry room fix, I will have about $50K in to the house. That's not even 10% of it's value. It helps that I do a lot of the work myself. I think the detail I go in to here makes things seem like bigger deals than they are. But after this laundry room fix the only thing left that's not done right is the basement bathroom. The rest will be just cosmetic stuff or repairs/maintenance. The house needs new siding and a new roof and the porch is in disrepair but none of it is unfixable.

And if we can get the loft in the barn turned into a livable space, that will take about $75K and add a crazy level of value to the house.

So it's not a money pit, just a bunch of work but I like this stuff and I dunno if y'all noticed but I'm a "smidge" more capable and far more unhinged than your average home owner.

EndersShadow · December 2021

I will continue to just watch from the sidelines.

Lots of stuff I’d like to do here but it all ends up in “just get a new house because you can’t do what you want without spending more than the house cost to do”…

muncybob · December 2021

So, what channel is this TV show on anyways!

Man, I thought we did a lot when we bought this place 25 years ago. I know we've done a lot in those years but it was mainly construction, not repairs.

As long as you're happy, that's what matters most.

Jstas · December 2021

Eh, we were looking at the house with the real estate agent when we were looking at buying it and I actually felt bad for the house. Jackie said on the way back to the old house that she felt like we belonged there.

I told her the house felt like it was begging me to save it.

When I'm done it's going to be gorgeous.

nooshinjohn · December 2021

I get that same feeling when I see a ‘63/‘65 Buick Riviera....

mhardy6647 · December 2021

We did a lot (ahem, had a lot done) to "House 3.0" over the course of the 22 years we lived there. So much so, that I ultimately rechristened it House 3.2 by 2013.

Jstas · July 2022

Haven't posted to this in a while. So I never got around to finishing up the post about the laundry room because I haven't finished it yet.

Lotsa reasons why, company got bought and employment was in question, materials shortages started happening again, costs of stuff is going back up, I hurt my arm/shoulder messing with fuel tanks on my truck, etc. By the time my shoulder was better, I got sick for most of May. That and cars keep breaking.

Trying to get back on track now but with the copious amounts of rain we've had in the past few months, it's showing where there's trees that are in need of removal as they are threatening the structures. So I got a quote on that, came out to $12K+. Ouch. So half of that is happening in August. The other half in September/October.

I did remove the grove of lilac bushes because for the second year in a row, they got "rust" which is a bacterial fungal infection that turns the leaves a mottled orangy-brown until they shrivel and die. It defoliated them completely in August last year. I thought they were going to recover last year because they sprouted new growth in September. But we had an early frost and this year, only half the bushes had leaves on them and the other half got the rust again around Memorial Day. So they would have been defoliated by July 4th if I had left them.

The other problem is that without the leaves on them, a bunch of Tree of Heaven seeds got in between them and started germinating. So now half of the grove is Tree of Heaven. So the whole thing had to come out. I gotta take down the barely holding on Black Cherry tree there too. That'll happen on the second round.

I did buy a backhoe, though!

pitdogg2 · July 2022

Well at least the Cherry tree can smoke some meat 😉

Jstas · July 2022

Not if it's all rotten!

Besides that, it's got gall mites and there's 3 trunks coming off the main, one is still alive with a bunch of small offshoots, the two others are very dead. One has rot from old storm damage and the other has a black knot infection which is likely what killed that trunk.

The tree's no good for smoking. Just firewood at best.

Jstas · August 2022

Well, life got away from me for a bit there and didn't have time to circle back around. But since I'm waiting for a job to finish on my systems, I'll post something more.

So the sewer line we fixed last year that we scoped to see where it went and if we could get to the pipe that Captain Halfass said was at the garage?

Yeah, we didn't find the pipe with the scope.

But earlier this year, I was digging out the section of the yard right next to the garage where the service line for the power comes in. I was just trying to fix the soil erosion that kept burying the driveway right in front of the garage doors.

While I was digging, I hit something plastic, I thought it was the conduit for the service panel line but it wasn't making sense. So I started to clear it out.

SURPRISE!

SEWER PIPE!

Completely not terminated properly and on the opposite side of the garage than where Captain Halfass said it would be. I never would have found it if I didn't try to fix a silly problem.

We did not yet scope it but, we popped the clean out cap off the line we fixed and tapped the far end with a hammer. We could hear the tapping in the clean out so it is actually connected. I called the plumber up who fixed the sewer line and he came out to look. We had a good laugh and he said to just cap it with a Fernco cap and a hose clamp until we're ready to plumb it. It's a simple deal, cut a hole in the floor of the garage, dig out the hole, run the pipe and elbow, connect it, back fill and pour a patch or a sealer around the pipe.

So now all I gotta do is figure out a water supply and to see if we can get a gas line in the garage. There might be one there already but we have to excavate to see. I gotta remove a tree first, though.

pitdogg2 · August 2022

Like a box of chocolates.....you just never know.

VR3 · August 2022

When we were doing the addition... digging the footer and low and behold we discovered a long abandoned septic tank!

Jstas · August 2022

So another post before I get to the laundry room, which isn't really done yet but "supply chain" issues have made that difficult.

Anyway, the porch clean out. Posted the dumpster pictures above. The porch clean out literally filled 2/3rds of a 20 yard dumpster and we still had more to throw in there before it was all said and done. That dumpster was 560 pounds overweight when they dumped it. Thankfully, the dumpster company took pity on me knowing the back story and only charged me what the dump charged them for the overage. So instead of, like, $150 more, they only dinged me $28. So if you live in Bull Waste's coverage area, the number's on the side of the dumpster. Best rates and very professional. Will let you sit on a dumpster for almost a month too.

Back to the story.

So, August of 2021, we went to Texas for a month to visit family. When we came back, we had a yellow jacket problem under the porch. So I called my exterminator friend up to come and help me out. He suited up and went to work. He crawled under the porch and moved one section of lattice under there and that's when all hell broke loose.

There were thousands of yellow jackets under there. He was literally black with yellow jackets trying to sting him. At one point he just sprayed himself with the poison.

Once all the fun died down, I started inspecting under the porch and determined that hey, we're gonna need a dumpster for a demolition effort anyway so I got a 20 yarder and figured I'd fill the rest up with the crap under the porch.

Yeah, there was way more crap than I thought there would be.

Way.

More.

BTW, when I pulled out the yellow jacket nest that was built in between all the layers of junk in there, the total nest weighed about 15 pounds and filled a 45 gallon lawn and leaf bag. I didn't get pictures because it was a foul, stinking, mushy mess of poison soaked "paper" and rotting bug carcasses.

So my brother came over to help and we proceeded to start digging out the dumping grounds.

It started out innocuously with a myriad of items like watering cans, cat litter buckets, some old BBQ grates, pieces of now rotten wood, door mats and so on.

But then we started pulling out all the leaves with a couple rakes. This was futile because buried in the leaves were PVC pipes embedded in cinder blocks.

I have no idea what the purpose was. But we had such trouble removing them that I ended up pulling all the beauty panels around the outside of the porch to get access. Half were rotting and falling apart from Mrs. Captain Halfass and her Halfassed Gardening over-mulching and burying the wooden frames in mulch creating rot and bug damage.

Oh, also, found a 16 foot long 6x6 ground contact rated.

So once we got the panels off, I hooked the plastic lattice that was in there with a metal rake and drug it out. That along with some pieces of rotten OSB was what the yellow jacket nest was in. I did not get pictures of it because it stunk so bad I wanted to vomit the entire time we were cleaning it. I just chucked all of it in the dumpster as quick as I could. This is the rest that wasn't involved in the nest.

Captain Halfass had also told me that he had left me some stuff like extra siding pieces and some railing pieces and stuff for repairs. I never found the stuff where he said he put it.

Well, it was under the porch.

The rest of the stuff we found was:
- Two different styles and colors of open siding, one 3.5 inch, one 4 inch
- One full, 12 foot long box of unopened siding
- Two rolls of roofing tar paper (useless now)
- 4 full sheets of 2" color molded PVC lattice
- 1 banded pack of J-channel for siding that wasn't on any structure on the property
- Half a 500 foot roll of CAT 5e
- Half a 300 foot roll of COAX
- Half a 200 foot roll of 14/3 ROMEX
- 7 more kitty litter buckets with....stuff in them
- 3 wall unit sized air conditioners
- A banded bundle of aluminum angle stock
- 2 dozen different kinds of flower pots
- 3 eight foot sections of copper pipe, well one was 7 feet 5 inches
- 1 eleven foot section of black pipe with a 90 elbow on one end
- Half a toilet bowl (fell apart when I grabbed it but I also know where the tank lid that the AC guy found in the yard came from)
- A total of 12 cinder blocks with 8 foot by 2 inch PVC pipes stuck in them with concrete (half were broken)
- 24 total board feet of 6x6 ground contact rated lumber
- A chair
- An 18 foot coil of yellow gas line
- A 5 pound Maxwell House steel coffee can full of rusted Robertson drive 1 5/8ths" screws
- SOOOOOO much other small BS and nick-knacks.

Here's the few pictures left that I took. I did not capture everything because we thought this was going to take a couple hours and it turned into a 7 hour slog because the porch is probably 600 square feet in total and every freaking inch of it had trash thrown under it.

Every.

Inch.

I salvaged as much as I could but the majority of it was just junk.

I kept most of the siding, all of the 6x6s, 3 of the PVC lattice sheets, the 14/3 ROMEX but only about 60 feet, the rest was too mangled, the aluminum angle stock, the copper pipe, the black pipe, the J-channel although I'm not sure why and I gave the yellow gas line to my plumber.

The rest went to trash or the scrapper.

Clipdat · August 2022

That is some serious next-level junk hoarding. Wow.

Tony M · August 2022

What a day you guys had.

The guy was a true hoarder like me. I've saved stuff till termites ate into them. I'm saving stuff "thinking" I'll use it someday. A true curse of a tinkerer, handyman, or jack of all trades. Sounds like he was a true "jack leg" with some skills but also a short cutter in the biggest way.

I sure wish you had gotten a picture or 5 of those Yellow-Jackets on the exterminator.

I was mowing the field behind my house one summer and I noticed in one area along the loop a couple of bees were acting funny. With each lap, they seem to double in numbers. Well, on the 5th or 7th lap I stopped and saw I did NOT want to drive in that area now. There were about a hundred or so now.
I studied the area and there were 2 holes in the ground. They are about 8 to 10ft. apart. The Yellow Jackets were coming from both holes.

I learned later that Yellow Jackets in the ground most always have 2 holes for entrance and exit security. If one hole gets attacked, they can exit the other one.

My laps of mowing just went from one hole towards the other hole. LOL. I think the whole hive was waiting for me to make that one more lap before I was all-out attacked. I was blessed that day to not get stung one time.

I'm glad the dumster Co. gave you a break. There are some good people still operating businesses that have a heart.

You should have the end in sight of all that can be a hurdle to your nightmares from Capt. Half-**** now.

You have a very nice homestead / estate now it seems.

Jstas · August 2022

This wasn't hoarding. He literally just dumped trash everywhere. Under the pool deck is the same situation.

Additionally, the pool deck has erosion problems under it. You dig like 6 inches down and you will find the original gravel and weed barrier that bordered the whole pool. He just never did anything to curb the erosion or clean out from under anything.

I'll get pictures of what stuff looks like now because, like the slab between the garages, there was inches of dirt over poured concrete. That's not something that got put there. That's stuff like wind blown leaves never being cleaned out and rotting to compost.

I will say, ever since I cleaned out from under the porch, mosquitoes have been minimal. I can actually enjoy my porch in the warmer weather at dusk.

And it's ok, not nice yet. Needs more work.

Hopefully the tree guys get here next week. I got a $15K quote to get a dozen problem trees removed including one of the stately old oaks in the picture above because it's got heartwood rot and half the tree is dying off and dropping tree sized branches on the firepit area.

Home Ownership And You!

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