DanLog the ramblings of Daniel Pettit

I make the trek to the Azusa Land Reclamation facility today in of all places Azuza to dispose of the asbestos laden popcorn ceiling waste from our library.

After some  initial confusion on as to where I was supposed to go, they weren’t any signs once I entered the complex and I didn’t think the obvious choice of entering the main gate where all these semis kept entering into a gravel jungle. They weighed my truck and then I drove inside the dump to the designated dumpster and tossed my two bags in. The attendants never checked to see what I had in the truck. So body part disposal is definitely a possibility if the need ever arises. Anyway the 2 bags amounted to 60 pounds, they charged me $69. Which is a flat rate for up to something like 6 bags of personal household asbestos waste. Oh BTW my truck weighs 5500 lbs. in case you were wondering.  

Hallelujah I have a desk and computer again. It is amazing how nice it was to sit down on my chair at my desk with my computer in front of me. Instead of having to stand at the computer and crouch down to use my mouse as I’ve had to for the past two weeks as I have been installing our new wood floor in our office. Now to get to all those unpaid bills and maybe get some backdated blogging done.

Picked up a new tool today at the Woodcraft retail store in Stanton. It’s a Porter-Cable PIN 100 23 gauge micro nailer. It shoots these really tiny nails, which means little or no hole to fill. It should come in real handy for attaching the detail work on our new dresser.

Yesterday, I addressed the difficiencies in the subfloor and I sank two deck screws per board per joist crossing ( around 300 screws ) to solidly attach the subfloor to the joists. That elliminated 90% of the squeaks. A new tool was used for this, a SENCO DuraSpin™ DS300 Collated Screwdriver Attachment this with a Dewalt screwgun creates the best thing since sliced bread. From a standing position you can sink the screws, the tool automatically feeds the next screw. So it is just a matter of pressing down on the tool and then moving to the next insertion point. You can easily sink 20 screws a minute. Try that crawing around on your knees loading each screw. Today I installed a layer of 3/4″ t & g ( tounge and groove ) plywood ( sturdi-floor ). I ran liquid nails for subfloors along the perimeter and along the joists, layed down the plywood and screwed it down with deck screws into the joists. This floor is not going to creak or go anywhere now. Before I installed the plywood, I set up my trusty laser to prject the locations of the joists. I marked each opposing wall where the joists lined up. Once I had the plywood down, I lined up my laser line with my marks on the wall and had a dead on “chalk” line to screw down the plywood to the joists. My new Dura Spin screw driving tool made short work of driving another 250 or so 2.5″ deck screws.

I completed the sub-floor repairs today.

I had to rip out several boards to get to the floor joists. A couple joists were not cut long enough so they apparently over time kind of rotated up from a flush position against the beam and made a high spot on the floor. I had to sand off the high spots and try to level things out a bit. The level of the hallway is quite lower. I don’t plan on rebuilding the whole second story so I’ll just try to even out the height differences where I can.

I also installed some brackets so the joists are solidly attached to the support beam.

I’d don’t think this is the kind of wood floor Lauren had in mind.

Today was the official first day of the upstairs hardwood floor installation. I have some serious high spots and uneven sub-floor near the master bedroom door, so I just took a sneak peak of the area today.

And no project is complete without some new equipment, here is my new automatic nail and staple remover.

Well I: cut to size, laminated, trimmed, routed in the bumper slot, installed the bumper and sealed the bottom of Lauren’s work table for the art room today. Only took three hours or so give or take less the time of my coughing fits. Dust and lung congestion don’t mix well. Yes, I was wearing a mask! BTW MDF is damn heavy, it is the neutron star of wood products. Just the tabletop ( 32″ x 78″ x 1.25″ )weighs 90 lbs.

All Art Room Photos

Like I didn’t have enough things on my plate. This morning I spotted a water stain on the living room wall where it meets the ceiling. It is directly under the upstairs bathroom, no surprize there. At first I was thinking that Trouble must have pee’d on the floor up there, but that would have taken a case worth of beer to create that much liquid to soak through the floor and into the ceiling/wall and she isn’t a drinker.

The floor was dry around the toilet, I even pulled up the carpet – all dry. The wall was dry under the sink, no visible leaks. I figure it is probably the hot water supply line angle stop since it has always had a build up of rust and some old rust stain runs on the wall. I’ve never noticed any moisture so I was never really concerned about fixing it even though I knew it should be replaced. But in my book with plumbing anyway it’s let sleeping dogs lie.

I get ready to start tearing out the wall and discover I don’t have a drywall demo saw, off to Home Depot. The wall is very tough sawing, turns out it is two layers of sheetrock so that explains the toughness. I cut out a small section near the hot water line. I can see that there is massive corrosion. How can that be? I have copper pipes. I figure it just must be built up from the valve rusting as the water slowly ran along the outside of the pipe over time, but I need a better look. I remove more wall so I can see all sides and get my hands inside.

Well now it makes sense, I’m enjoying the fruits of some idiot plumber from the past. Most likely Denny, the previous owner. Someone used galvinized pipe for the stub out. This is not looking good. I’m very sure that the pipe will disintegrate as soon as I put a wrench to it to unscrew it from the copper elbow in the wall. I turn off the water to the house and drain some water out of the hot lines. I put my wrench on the valve body and give a twist. Yep the pipe shears off about half way down it’s length in a shreaded crumbling mess. Well I think I could be screwed now.

I can’t turn the water back on until the pipe is repaired. I now need to remove the soldered copper elbow from inside the wall and then install a new copper elbow and new copper stub out. Soldering copper pipes is not my strong suit. In fact at work I really try to avoid it at all costs on supply lines I’d rather have the pros do it. I’ve had many a leaky solder joints. I tried and failed running new copper into my darkroom 12 years ago and have been gun shy ever since. In fact while I had success before that time, since I’ve only dared to try it once about six months ago and it worked out. However, this one is inside the wall which is behind the vanity cabinet, just to make it more of a challenge. I will give it a try, after all at this point I have nothing to loose, other than setting the house on fire (not afraid of that). Okay the elbow is nailed to a support board, so I need to detach it first. Well the nails are bent over behind the board just to make it more difficult. They are just not budging. I decide to cut off the pipe below the fitting and will just run out the line lower on the wall. Damn can’t use a tubing cutter because of a strategically placed stud. Okay back to the nails. I work a screwdriver behind the fitting and work out some slack. Finally I can get my pry bar behind the fitting and pry away but my screwdriver is sacrificed in the process to the plumbing gods as it plummets out of sight into the abyss behind the wall. I get one nail all the way out. I work on the other side but just don’t have room to pry after a certain point because of that stud. The head is far enough out now to get my vise-grips on it so I work the nail back and forth until it breaks off.

Off to Home Depot for solder, flux, pipe, angle stop, flame guard, pipe cleaner, elbow fitting. I need to desolder the the old fitting off, quickly and easily it comes off, hey things are starting to look good. I then solder the stub out pipe to the elbow before crawling back under the sink. I get Lauren to hold a flash light for me. Then I solder the elbow onto the supply line. Done – looks good, I have a good feeling about this. I attach the new valve and get Lauren to stand watch for gushers as I go turn the water back on. Success just a small seep from the angle stop which is cured with another twist of my wrench. All of my solder joints are dry. I declare the pipe fixed and lug my tools away to the garage. Just the wall to repair now, which will wait for another day.

Primed the West wall this morning.

pik here

Installed my makeshift baffles today, and finally finished the last little section of the west wall siding.

pic

I managed to install the sliding door today dispite it being too wide. After routering the sheathing flush the opening was still about 3/16″ too narrow. A few well placed sledge hammer smacks nudged one of the 2x4s over just a tad. Once I routed off the excess sheathing again, I had just enough room to slide the door in. I flashed the opening, laid a bead of caulking around the perimeter and set the door in and nailed it in place.

I finished up with spray-foam insulation on the inside. I ran out of caulking so I couldn’t get anything else done today. I felt like relaxing anyway due to the dizzyness.

Today I finished up the regular courses of shingles. I haven’t figured out how I’m going to work the “ridge” vent yet so I kept the underlayment long and curled up against the wall barring a hurricane it should keep me dry enough until I finish it up.

Finally a good stretch of weather. So I’m off to start finishing the roof. First off I had to cut out the holes for the roof windows. I started by jigsawing from underneath the width of the windows. Being upside down looking directly at the saw to follow my line I quickly discovered by saftey glasses were not up to the task as I almost immediately had dust in my eye. I quickly fashioned new protective head gear, a 2 gallon ziplock bag. Lauren really freaked out when she saw me in it. I didn’t understand why it bothered her so much. It wasn’t like the plastic was thin enough for me to inhale it. But I will say that it didn’t take long to get light headed.

Then from the top I used my router and cut the opening flush with the rafters.

Now I was ready to start shingling. Once I got to the bottom of the window openings I could install the windows. After the windows were in I continued with the shingles until it got dark and ghouls started to appear.

Finished the gutter today. More rain is coming this week, so I can’t get anymore work done until I have a good stretch of dry weather to dry out my roof. I’ll also need a few dry days to install the roof windows and shingle the roof as they need to be done at the same time.

I tore off the remaining section of old gutter and started to install the rest of the new one. Had to go to Home Depot again – twice. I called it a day early and stopped by Steve and James’s after my second HD trip.