Thread: So I woke up on Saturday and bought a house.

I'd rather build a completely new garage on a larger slab before I think about a lift. =]

So while I thought I was catching up with things, I noticed there was some other stuff I forgot. So we're going back in time a little bit so I can finally get caught up.

Halloween bitches.

About a year and a half ago I mentioned to someone in the forum chat that I have a hard time throwing things away (I'm only half as bad as my mother) because I figure I'll have a use for them sometime. I hate wasting or throwing things away. I try to reuse or repurpose things when I can.

I was talking about turning our old shower curtain (that doesn't match our new bathroom colors) into maybe a firewood carrier. It gave me something to do inside and kept my mind off being sick. I was having a rough time with my health (turns out it was entirely stress related) from around a month after buying the house up until just recently. I think I can finally say I'm over the problem now but it still threatens to come back some days. Anyway, I sat on the couch and sewed up the old decorative shower curtain. I cut off the eye holes, folded it over four times and sewed it into a long rectangle. I then folded over a small section on each end to run a wooden rod through. This took quite a long time, as I sewed it by hand first with small thread and then with some real thick stuff. I think I went back and forth over the same seems enough times to reach the moon.

Anyway, once the tunnels were created on each end I cut some holes in them for hand holds. I forget now who I was talking to in the forum chat about this, but he wanted to see pics so I eventually took some.













After cutting the holes out, those edges needed finishing off so they wouldn't fray. That took another good bit of time. Eventually I finished the thing.

Now we can carry tons of wood into the house without making a mess and it didn't cost us a dime.

Another thing I was doing to keep my mind off of things, was digging up these damn dinosaur fossils. You saw the two in the front yard that I dug up. Well, doing manual labor and standing up really helped me feel better, so that is good. There was part of a T-Rex skull in the back yard that was annoying me, so I had to get that one too.

This should be the last one. I don't think there are any others left. This one had to go because, again, I don't want fossilized bone attracting termites. It was also preventing grass from growing there, and you could easily hurt yourself tripping on the thing if you decided to play any games in the back yard. I know if I were a kid playing out back I'd want that thing gone.

Maybe I've already posted some pics on this thing? I'm too lazy to go back and check.

So here we go!





It's getting longer? O_o







After a bit of work you can really see the thing take shape.


It looks like a pretty good sized adult from the looks of things.






I got some water on the scene to try and clean things up a bit and show some more definition in the structure. It didn't work too well because the hose wasn't reaching.




I estimate the length of the lower jaw bone around 5 feet long. I think this may be a record.




You can see in the background that I've brought out the brush. After some brushing away of the dirt things really started to take shape.












A whole lot of brushing later.


I think you can really see now that it is the lower mandible of an adult male Tyrannosaurus rex.


Check out those teeth!




Fucking scary shit right here.


While the museums would probably prefer the fossil stay intact it is just not possible with the equipment I have on hand. Plus, I'm probably just going to sell this thing off to some drug traffickers to use for vessels and if I know them at all, they will prefer the pieces easier to handle anyway.












Some of the pieces cleaned up and ready for sale.


Look closely and you can see the lattice structure of the bone. Plenty of nice crevices to hide cocaine or whatever.










If you're reminded of a certain Stanley Kubrick movie, you won't be the only one.




That's it for now!

After a particularly intense rainstorm I found a section of our fence was leaning. Initial inspection seems to point to the ground being waterlogged and the fence posts not being deep enough so they gave in the wind and wet ground. That was my initial guess anyway. I also guessed our fence height at around 7.5' which made me think who ever put it up must have used 8' posts because of how they were leaning. The pivot point seemed right below ground level. What idiot builds a fence this way? I didn't think they even used any concrete.

I tied the fence to a tree to keep it upright while I got the time to fix things. In the meantime three more posts in another section of the fence failed in a similar way bringing the total failed posts up to 5. Who built this fence and how did it even last one year like this?

So, I got a post hole digger, some 10' fence posts and some concrete. I was going to do this "right".











Katie's parent's X-Terra to the rescue. We got four posts not realizing we needed five. We got another one later.


More on the fence in a moment.

So it turns out I was completely wrong about the construction of the fence. It turns out the fence is about 5.5' tall and was built with 8' posts and they did actually use concrete to anchor them. In the darkness my initial inspection was not conclusive. Once actually underway the real cause for the trouble became clear. The concrete was an anchor only, and did not come all the way up to ground level (this is actually common accepted practice). The first 4" of active topsoil was allowed to contact the wood and rot it away even though it was treated lumbar. This explains why the pivot point seemed so close to ground level.



So I bought 10' posts for what really is a 5.5' fence and should only need 8' posts.
This is just going to end up being the most sturdy fence in the neighborhood.









Here is the first anchor I got out. As you can see, the previous builder did an okay job after all. Notice the wood inside the concrete and below the active top soil is in good condition. I think that is important.


Here's the hole left.


The anchor section and the rest. Obviously the area right at ground level is the problem.




Digging the new hole for the new post. Yes, I plan on using the entire 10' post. Because I'm a bit nuts.


The hole needs to be deeper.


I got the hole deep enough. In the process, I actually dug up another 4x4 right next to the previous one which went down much deeper. It seems the fence was first build with a 10' treated post and no concrete anchor maybe 20 years ago? I don't know. At some point that post rotted through at ground level and the home owner just dug a hole right next to it and put an 8' treated post in with concrete to anchor it. And another maybe 10 years later we now have the rotted post problem again. So silly...

The other post I dug up was in pretty decent condition below the top soil and in the sand. It didn't deteriorate down there much. It became pretty clear that the biodegrading going on in the first 6" or so of top soil is what is killing these posts.

I got the hole deep enough and started with the concrete.




More on the fence in a moment.

In an effort to help the posts last longer this time I had a couple options. I could use concrete from the bottom of the hole all the way up to ground level to protect the post. But that seemed overly expensive. I would need three or four bags of concrete per hole because I insisted on using all 10' of these damn posts. The next best solution in my mind was to use one bag of concrete at the bottom for an anchor and then fill in the hole until another bag could be used at the top to protect the posts from the top soil, and to also help with the anchoring.
In addition to this, I could use some good protective paint on the post to help waterproof it as well in the key area.
With this plan in mind after I'd already poured and set the bottom anchor, I got to painting the key section of the post.



A while back I found some purple paint that I really liked. Or thought I liked based on pictures. The plan was to use this on my 20V valve cover. The problem was, the valve cover looked so good brand new with it's high quality black paint that I couldn't bring myself to do all the work it was going to take to paint it. I had primer and paint ready to go but I just couldn't do it. Maybe if the valve cover ever gets in rough shape I'll do it.
So I have this thick coverage purple paint (Rustoleom Ultra Cover 2x - Gloss Grape) just sitting around doing nothing. I decided it would be great for this project.



Just about ready for the second batch of concrete.






The concrete went in and I made sure to have it come all the way up to the top. I also shaped it to make sure water could drain off well and not hang around the post.




Stay tuned for post #2.

Time to get this other post up to finish off this section of the fence that was in trouble.



This hole too had an 8' post concrete anchor and right next to it a 10' post section, both rotted off at the top.








Some rocks/gravel in the bottom for drainage.










Because I thought this one through before anchoring it I had the chance to protect the entire section of post that was going underground.


My camera and the lighting really had a hard time picking up the actual color. It's a bit different than this... Honestly, I'm not sure it's the right color for my valve cover anyway...




Yes, that is how much of this post will be under ground. That's a bit nutty. This fence isn't going anywhere. O_o


First bag of concrete for the bottom.


Then I filled in a good bit of dirt and setup for the second bag and poured that in.


Trying to make sure water can run off properly.


I guess I'm out of pictures for the fence for now. Everything turned out fine in the end and now at least that section of the fence isn't going anywhere any time soon.
Now I just have three more to do in another section. I'll get to those maybe after the convention. I'm pretty busy for the next couple months.

If you recall this post, we had some condensation issues in the chimney that I was going to have checked out by our home inspector. Our inspector is pretty active on Facebook, so I mentioned him in one of the pictures of the condensation and we had a little chat about it.



Jim called me on the phone after reading my description and hypothesis that our gas furnace exhaust might have been capped incorrectly and may be forcing that exhaust, carbon monoxide and all into our home. He was very concerned about the situation and wanted to come by and see the situation for himself. I set up an appointment to meet him and he got to work.

He looked under the crawlspace and showed me, as clear as day, that our natural gas furnace does still exhaust through a secondary flue and that Steve from Steve's Sweep had capped off our exhaust. This was obviously not a good thing for many reasons. #1 is the likelihood of death. Not to mention the condensation it caused, and the inefficiency for our furnace.

You'll be happy to know I'd removed the batteries from our carbon monoxide detector a long time ago because it was beeping (complaining about a low battery I believe). O_o

As you can imagine, I've put new batteries in that thing and stuck it back on the wall.
Honestly had Katie and I felt sluggish at any time or had trouble getting out of bed I would have been more concerned. In the back of my head I always had an inkling that the furnace may be exhausting into the house... I just sat on it too long.

Long story short, Katie and I really dodged a bullet here, and Jim Maass is a really great guy to have around!

Facebook album permalink (in case the images don't show up in the future).

So the kitchen sink is clogged, and after trying chemical solvents, plunging, and some snaking from inside it became obvious I was going to have to get under the house and snake it out from there.
I was thinking I would uncork that provision there and snake the pipe out using it as an access hole.
After trying to open it with a wrench it became obvious that it was not budging.



This is where the pipe from under the kitchen sink comes through to the crawl-space.



Mike Holmes would have a fit if he saw this.
Actually, this was an attempt to plunge the drain a second time. This by-passed the other sink and garbage disposal which are hard to seal.
In the plunging process I blew out the seal of the garbage disposal. =/



Back under the house, I ended up following the pipe for about 10 feet until it went from a metal pipe to some PVC. This was the first junction that looked like I could open her up, so I got down to business.



This is the view into the PVC section, which is noticeably wider than the metal pipe section. I wonder what the other end looks like?



Well there's your problem.




And here's a video I took after a lot of snaking. I'm on the phone with Katie in the video having her poor water down the drain to see if I'm accomplishing anything.





Looking much better! Notice the future fossil fuel in the trench I dug for it.
I'm hoping I don't see any mushrooms or whatever growing under the house next time I go under there. =/



All clear.



So happy now.



Last shot I hope.
Yep, this is the last one. All clear!



Stay tuned for the update with the new garbage disposal I had to get because of blowing out the other one with the plunger.