Our Maintenance and Repair Projects On Our Home Of Twenty Years
Our latest rennovations have been to our new old house - a two bedroom, one bath bungalow in Mount Dora. It was built circa 1925, at least, we're pretty sure it was. The records say it was built in 1925, but there was this fire, a fire that destroyed all of the records previous to 1925. But I digress...
This story is about our old new house in Wekiva Hills, near Wekiva Springs State Park and the Wekiva River.
A Long Story About A Pool Leak...
(Monday, 11 June 2018)
Courtney called last night to tell us the pool pump was spraying water all over. Wonderful. Great. So today I get
to call off work and go look at it. Thankfully Ann is taking the day off to help me too. And I can really use the
help. Lately I've just been tired, with little energy to get anything done. I spent a little time this morning
looking to see where I can get a new "Jandy" diverter valve since it looks like the elbow that's cracked is glued,
not screwed, into the old one. Sure enough, every single one I find online is a smooth glue joint, not a single
threaded one! On top of that, it looks like I'll have to get one from a pool supply house. The big box stores
don't appear to stock them.
Ann's telling me about this "tape wrap" stuff that may work to make a temporary fix just until I can get all the pieces parts I'll need to fix it properly and permanently. She's happy that I'm doing the due diligence, but knows she doesn't want to spend all day working on this, so offers to go pick up the tape at Lowe's while I'm getting my shower. I'm crossing my fingers it will work and hold long enough to let me get the new valve ordered and the rest of the plumbing parts I'll need. We head over to the other house in my car. I'm not looking forward to this at all...
We get there and Ann goes to the door to let our son in law, Es, know we're here. No answer? Hmmm... That's strange. We can hear the dogs barking, but no Es. I grab the bucket of tools out of the trunk and head toward the gate to the side yard. The gate's open? Hmmm... About the time I get to the corner of the house, I see why there was no answer at the door. There's Es, working on the mower. I tell him no wonder he didn't answer the door, then Ann comes around and tells him the same thing! Laughing, I take the tools out of the bucket, flip it over on the ground, and have a seat to scope out the problem at hand. I already read the instructions for the wrap, just to make sure I know what I'm doing before I start.
It says to open the package and soak the wrap in water for 5 seconds, so Ann fills a quart container with water for me, and we're off... I dunk it in and count "one thousand one, one thousand two..." On the count of five it's out of the water and I'm wrapping the elbow with it. I'm glad I have the nitrile gloves on because whatever makes this stuff sticky is black, like tar, and it's sticking to the gloves pretty good! The last thing it says to do is wrap the tape with a vinyl outer wrap, to compress the tape, then leave it set up for fifteen minutes. While we're waiting, we're chatting about things going on and what they're doing this summer and such.
That's when I notice the new "Jandy" valve where the old gate valves used to be. I ask if Nick had done that when he fixed the cracked plumbing last time or if it was the pool guy Ann had to fire. It was the pool guy, but I notice that there is new plumbing to the old "Jandy" valve on the suction side. Normally that wouldn't be that much of a revelation, after all, it is new plumbing. What draws my attention is the fact that the old plumbing used to have an elbow that went right into that valve, into being the keyword here. Not onto, like the new plumbing elbow that now fits over the outside of the old valve, as in onto it.
I may not have even noticed it, except I brought my digital caliper with me to measure the pipe diameter to see whether it was 1½" or 2" pipe. Turns out it's both. Any of the old plumbing appears to be 1½", whereas the new plumbing appears to be 2". All of the old plumbing fits inside the valve outlets and all of the new plumbing fits outside the valve outlets. TIL the outside of the valve outlet measures the same diameter as 2" PVC pipe! Meaning I can just cut off the old 1½" elbow glued inside the old valve and glue a new 2" one in its place and not have to replace the old one at all!
So while all this "discovery" is going on, we're still waiting for the fifteen minutes to be up, and head around front to check out the sunflower Courtney was telling Ann about. Ann and I are looking all over for a full sized sunflower until Es points out the new pot with young ones yet to mature into full blown sunflowers. We chat a bit more until it's time to go check out the repair and see if it works. And it does! That's excellent! We leave the pump running since Es will be there to keep an eye on it and make plans to come back this weekend to effect a more permanent repair. We're home in Mount Dora before noon, leaving the rest of the day to get things done around the house.
A Long Story About A Pool Leak, Part 2...
(Saturday, 16 June 2018)
We decided to stop at the Apopka Lowe's for the pieces we'll need on the way to affect a more permanent fix to
the pool plumbing leak. I found all the 1½" pieces I needed in the garage, so I'll just need to pick up
a couple 2" elbows, couplings, and a chunk of pipe just in case. We get there and I get right to work, or at
least try to... Ann has the bucket with the tools, but she's disappeared with it. About the time she and Courntey
are walking out on the patio looking for me, I'm heading back around the front of the house looking for them. I
walk in the front door, through the living room, and out onto the patio, meeting them there. Now I can start.
And the first thing I find is someone has used my 1½" on something other than plastic pipe. From the looks of it, wire, or something along those lines. Now I'm pissed off because I know all they'll do is crack the pipe, not slice through it like butter. So glad I bought a dedicated set of snips only to have them totally destroyed by someone else. I give it a try anyway... Just like I thought, a nice, ragged, cracked edge! Damnit! Good thing I brought the hacksaws! I needed to saw the old elbow off of the Jandy valve anyway, but now I get to hacksaw everything!
I go in the house on a rant about the blade on my cutters being screwed up. I ask Courtney if she has a file or something. She returns with a set of jeweler's files. Good enough. As I'm trying to dress the large voids and "craters" in the blade, she asks if I would like her blade sharpener. YES! I continue to dress the blade until I no longer feel the imperfections with my fingers. I can still see them, but hopefully they will be smooth enough to allow the blade to again slice the pipe.
Nope. All I end up doing is cracking the pipe again. Guess I'll get busy sawing off the old, patched elbow. The elbow comes off with a fight, but it does come off. Now I need some sandpaper to clean up the gluing surface for the new 2" elbow. Guess what I forgot to bring? I clean up the outside of the valve body with a sanding sponge Courtney has handy. Then I clean up the ends of the old, now cracked pipe and cut a length of the new, now destroyed by the broken cutter blade 1½" pipe using the hacksaw.
I don't like using a hacksaw to cut anything, let alone PVC pipe, the blade always wanders and cuts a crooked path... No matter how hard I try to make a straight cut, it always wanders on me. The cut is never straight! Unless there is some secret magic trick to it that I'm not aware of, I just don't get it. Anyway, with the crookedly trimmed cuts complete, I glue up the repairs and let it cure for a bit. I say that like it's done in a snap, but it takes some doing getting everything to fit together, esepcially now that every cut is now an ordeal. Now for the moment of truth. I turn on the pump and... Turn it right back off.
You guessed it, it's still spraying water everywhere, but now from a crack I created with those damned useless pipe cutters! Son of a... I head back in the house, on a rant, and need to cool off. I'm so damned mad right now... After composing myself and assessing the situation, I find it's a good thing I bought a couple more of those 1½" pipe joiners, because I'm going to need them. I cut the remaining bad part out of the old pipe and glue in another length of new pipe. Thankfully this time it holds! Good. That's done. Courtney had asked me if there was anything I could do to fix the pump timer since they're having to turn it on and off manually, so I decide to tear into it to see if I can figure out why it's not working.
I verify everything fits and engages correctly, then set it to toggle the pump on and wait... And wait... And wait... Nearly half an hour goes by and nothing? Well, looks like the old timer motor just doesn't have enough oomph to overcome the force of toggling the switch on and off anymore. I ask her if the timer loses time or maintains it correctly. She tells me it still keeps time even though it doesn't turn on the switch. So I'm kind of confused now. How can it be stalling the timer motor and yet not be stalling the timer motor? Dunno. I'll have to buy a new timer and install it, but not today I tell her. (I feel bad now, looking back at how long ago this was... it's the end of September now and this was the end of June!)
(Friday, 22 June 2018)
Ann is helping the kids dig out along the office wall and put in stones to enhance drainage away from
the house. The kids had called about the "office" having water intrusion issues. My immediate response was
again? Courtney had sent Ann a couple of pictures of the corner where I had previously replaced the hose bib
and repaired the water damaged drywall back when we replaced the cedar siding around the window awhile back.
So right away I was concerned the new plumbing was leaking inside the wall. Nope.
Back when we replaced all the rotted siding around the office window, I told them the entire length of that side of the house needed to have stones along the drip edge of the roof to keep down the slash erosion of the remaining siding and help drain the moisture away from the house. I guess they didn't understand why they needed to mitigate the splash erosion and drain the moisture away from the house. Guess they do now... There's a lot more to the story, and a lot of cussing and discussing went on, so being a public forum, we'll just skip past that and get to the "...and they lived happily ever after" part.
Ann tells me that they are having a helluva time of it trying to keep up with the lawn with just a push mower. I tell her I don't doubt it, and wondered how they were keeping up with it, we need to see about getting them a new lawn tractor then. The look in her eyes is priceless. In a matter of minutes, she's searching online for a new tractor for the kids. Looks like we're buying a new lawn tractor for the kids...
A Long Story About A New Lawn Tractor...
(Saturday, 23 June 2018)
Bought it. Got it. Delivered it. But it's a long story... So I should get started telling it. At first Ann
went to the Lowe's site to see what they had on sale. She found a low cost Troybuilt, of all things. Right
away I'm concerned that the Troybuilt is the least expensive of them all. The reviews are less than
glowing to say the least. The distribution of good vs. bad reviews is not your typical bell curve either.
The good reviews are evenly distributed between the three to five stars, but the bad reviews are ALL a one
star rating. Most every one of the comments are complaining of the same things too.
To me it's just sad. Troybuilt used to be a quality brand, heavily constructed, and priced accordingly. In this day and age of lowest price pressure, it seems companies with a reputation for quality are struggling to compete with the cheap imports. Mom always had Troybuilt or Craftsman equipment for gardening, but both are now just "rebrands" of the finest quality "Chinesium". Next Ann looks at Home Depot online. The Apopka store has a whopping six tractors in stock. I continue to look at the reviews for the various Troybuilt models, hoping that the bad reviews on the cheaper one are just because it's the low end model, but it looks like most of the same complaints across the board.
Not looking good for getting a tractor today. Then Ann thinks to look at Tractor Supply. Bingo! She finds a Huskee brand model on sale for $999.99 online, free store pick up. It's a "bare bones" no frills model, but should be more than enough to do the job. So now we're looking at how to get it from Tractor Supply here in Eustis over to the other house in Wekiva. Delivery is another $133, so forget that. We could get them to put it in the bed of the truck, but then how do we get it out once we're there? Says the tractor weighs 520#. Not something that even four people can lift easily. A 4 x 7 Uhaul is only about $25 for 6 hours, so that looks like the answer.
So Ann reserves a UHaul trailer online, then tries to go through the early checkout to save time at the store, but runs into a snag... She spends more time walking out to the truck to look at the numbers on the trailer hitch than we would have ever saved at the store, but hey, it's done now. Next she orders the tractor online with pickup at our store in Eustis, because online pricing, since the Apopka store wants $100.00 more for the same tractor? More online vs. in store stupidity. Go figure... We figure we'll get the trailer, get the tractor, then head to the other house.
I've already got what tools we'll need loaded in the truck. We were thinking we should really have a look at the tractor first, but decided it really didn't matter since what would buy if not this one? We wanted to get them a tractor to use today, and off we went on our adventure. We get to the UHaul store and have to wait behind two other customers anyway. So much for the online early checkout... But that's alright. I don't really care at this point. We will get there when we get there. When it's finally our turn and we're finally all set, the lady says to just pull up to the gate and wait for the guy in the golf cart and follow him around the back to get hooked up.
So I back out and pull up to the gate and we wait. And wait. And wait. Finally the guy comes out and hops in the golf cart. Unfortunately, I've parked right behind it and he has to wait for me to get through the gate before he can get around me. That's alright though, since I'm not sure why the other people haven't lined up yet. Even though we were last at the counter, we ended up being first in line! I get a chuckle out of that, but the laugh is soon to be on us. We get all hooked up and head out to Tractor Supply. Because it's right turn only to get back out onto 441 and we need to turn left, we decide to get on the "frontage" road that runs along 441, but let's us go left, hoping for a traffic light at the other end.
When we get to the end we realize there's no light and that it's still right turn only. Ann says hold on a minute while she brings up the map on her phone, unless I want to just turn left on that road and see if it brings us out somewhere behind Tractor Supply. I drive while she looks and sure enough, we can just "sneak in the back way". I pull through two spots in the parking lot, so I don't have worry about the trailer, and far enough from the store I don't have worry about someone bitching about my parking job. We get inside and meet the lady at the service desk and get all checked out. She says to meet her out from by the roller door.
We go get the truck while she gets the tractor out for us. We realize the tailgate on the trailer is too short and has too steep an angle to roll the new tractor up onto it. Not to worry, she has ramps that will work. She brings them out, sets them in place, then wrangles the tractor into position. I offer to help her push it up the ramps and she thanks me. Now we get to the joke's on us part of the program... A 4 x 7 UHaul trailer isn't four feet wide measured from the inside of the trailer... Guess what? It's not going to fit! Wow. I didn't even think to measure it since they're always going on about how many cubic feet inside the trucks. I never would have expected them to misrepresent the size of a trailer of all things, but there you have it.
The lady tells us they can put it in the bed of the truck using the platform and a forklift, but we're faced with more than one dilemma in doing so. First would be how would we get it in the bed with the UHaul trailer still attached? Second, how would we get it out of the truck once we got to the house? We tell her we need to head back to UHaul first, and she says she'll go ahead and have the tractor ready and waiting for us on the platform when we get back. So, we head back to UHaul, somewhat disappointed with this latest kink in our plan. We use the same back way to avoid having to merge onto 441 only to have to turn off shortly after. I drop Ann at the entrance and head to the gate to wait.
The guy comes out soon enough, hops in the golf cart, and leads me around back again. This time he directs me to just pull straight forward, I'm assuming to just unhitch the trailer and cut me loose. Then as if to change his mind he asks me to wait there for a minute. I tell him sure as I spy the next larger 5 x 9 trailer still sitting there, the one Ann and I thought the other folks ahead of us earlier had already rented. I'm waiting for more than a minute. More than a few minutes. I finally text Ann to ask if we're getting the bigger trailer. She texts back a vehemient, YES! He comes back around, unhitches the trailer, and pushes it back where it came from, by hand. Then has me back in and connected back up to the bigger one in no time at all.
Alrighty then, back on track and just a bit behind schedule. We use the back way yet again and pull right up to the loading doors this time. Looks like they're waiting for us too. I was worried I'd need to back up to the platform with the trailer, but it turns out the "platform" is a portable one, welded up from tread plate to fit the forks of the forklift. And the tractor is already on it and is soon in position to roll back into the trailer. I grab a ratchet strap and we secure it to the front of the trailer. As we're pulling out, the guy yells to us to hold up. He realized that the way the tractor is sitting, the wind would catch the hood and flip it up, most likely ripping it off in the process. He offers to turn it around and I tell him we can just strap the hood down with another strap.
Ann suggests feeding the strap through the louvers in the hood so it won't slip off. With everything now strapped in securely, we're on our way. We pull out onto US19 and head through town on old US441 to get onto US441 to the other house. Heading down US441, I manage to keep at or below 55 MPH. That's a first for me. Ann suggests we go all the way around and come in on the Seminole County side, to avoid all but three of the speed humps. I back down the driveway and we're here!
I grab a piece of plywood from the garage and roll the new tractor off the trailer. The kids are very surprised and even happier. While I move the roll fence and make a path for the tractor to get around back, they get busy and start mowing the front lawn! Once I get around to the gate to the side yard, I realize I'll need to shovel the dirt and knock "elephant ears" out of the way to be able to open the back gate for them to get the tractor in and out. Eventually I manage to get the gate into usuable fashion again.
Walking into the screen room around the pool, I check out the rotted wood around the master bedroom sliding doors and assess the pieces I'll need to replace. I figure I'll at least linseed oil the remaining cedar plank and trim pieces while I'm here. Even if we're not doing the repair today, it will be ready and waiting for me when we do. We pack everything up and leave them to enjoy their new toy. We return the UHaul, after texting Nick to see if he needs it for anything first, and I have to help the guy get the trailer unhitched! Young guy, and not very smart it would seem. Finally home and unloading the truck, the passenger suicide door won't open. The bottom latch won't release, just like mom and dad's truck. I unload the tools tehn get a shower. That was quite the adventure!
We decide to treat ourselves to Plaza Guadalajara for Mexican and margaritas. It's always a good end to any day when I can have a margarita or three. When we get home, Ann is asking me if I still have those reeds she was going to throw away, and can she have them back if so? I tell her I do still have them and certainly she can have them back. I have to go get them from the garage and decide to enjoy one of the cigars a friend from work had given me. Ann and Nick are sitting on the back porch step, and they're still complaining about the smell, even though I'm all the way over by the garage. Oh well, I head back in the garage to enjoy some loud music while they head back inside. After that, bedtime for all.
A Long Story About A Broken New Lawn Tractor...
(Tuesday, 31 July 2018)
I knew it was too good to be true... The reason we bought the kids a new lawn tractor and didn't just fix
the old one for them is so we wouldn't have to worry about having problems with it. Well that carefree feeling
lasted a hot week! I got a text at work yesterday from Courtney saying the tractor wouldn't start. After some
simple troubleshooting questions, it sounds like the battery is dead for whatever reason. I swing by the other
house after work with a voltmeter, extension cord reel, and the battery charger. I just beat the rain
there, pop the trunk, and grab my umbrella. With voltmeter in hand, I find that it is indeed dead, reading 0.01V.
So back to the car to unreel the extension cord from the garage, all the way to the shed, about a hundred
feet away. Back to the trunk one more time for the battery charger.
With the charger clamps attached to the battery posts, it doesn't appear to be able to figure out what kind of battery it is? So right off the bat, we're in trouble. Back to the trunk one more time for the battery charger manual. As I'm reading it, I'm not seeing anything about the display I'm seeing. Nothing. Great. Well, my choices are leave it connected and hope for the best -or- don't... Went with the former. I ask Courtney to have a look at it tomorrow to check it and promise to stop by on the way home again tomorrow. By then it's starting to pour down rain, so I just have time to walk Courtney to the door and get back in the car without getting totally drenched. The drive home is not fun...
(Wednesday, 1 August 2018)
At least today the rain isn't chasing me away, but no luck with the charger. I sent a text to Courtney earlier
from work asking her to check on it. She said it looked like it was charged, so I was hoping to just roll it out
of the shed and start it right up. Nope. Only reading 0.02V today... WTF? I noticed yesterday that the bolts for
the battery terminals were loose, so I asked Courtney for a wrench and tightened them up. Today I'm asking her to
borrow a wrench to loosen them up and just take the battery with me. It figures that for some unexplained reason
the battery in new tractor already has a problem.
I text Ann to let her know I'm on my way home as I'm leaving. She calls me, and assuming all is well, asks cheerfully if it was all fixed... Unfortunately, sometimes I just don't know when to keep my mouth shut, and give her an ear full. I finally calm down and ask her if she talks to Nick first, to have him bring one of the battery tenders we use all the time for charging the motorcycles over with him. Once I'm home I have just enough time to change my clothes and get everything out of the trunk and onto the side porch before the clouds open up.
I try setting the charger up with the battery standalone, hoping that perhaps it will eliminate any other potential issues with the tractor itself, like a shorted wire or bad electronic module or whatnot. Nope. Later I retrieve the battery tender from the Jeep and try that one. Nope. Still nothing. This thing is pretty simple, red if charging, green if charged, yellow or flashing red and green, bad battery. Nothing. No lights at all! As if it isn't connected to a battery at all. Come to think of it, both chargers are acting the same way, as if they're not connected to anything at all. Maybe I should try the ohmmeter setting and not the voltmeter setting?
Talking with Ann about it later we both decide to see if we can just get a new battery for it under warranty from Tractor Supply. Ann even said she would call them, I just need to find what I did with the receipt... And promptly forget all about it until now, as I'm writing this, the next day.
(Friday, 3 August 2018)
I finally found the Tractor Supply receipt laying on the floor in the back of the truck... Literally the last
thing I looked at from the stack of receipts I brought in. After seeing what kind of disarray my receipts for taxes
are in, and having to sort through whether they're for 2017 or 2018, I figure it's time to enter what I have for 2017
into the taxes spreadsheet. I get them all entered before I call it a night, all but the last two. They need looked
into a bit more... As in I don't know what to categorize them as, what project, what are these for?
(Saturday, 4 August 2018)
Ann and Nick pick up a new battery at Tractor Supply for the tractor while they're there. Nick puts it on the charger
for me. We leave it charge overnight since it started out pretty low on charge. You would think a new battery comes
totally charged, but most times anymore, that's not the case. Most places just grab one off the shelf and hand it to
you. It used to be they would put it on the charger for you, at least, back when you had to call around to places to
find out whether they carried one or not and who had the best price. We've given up some things for the convenience
of the internet age.
(Sunday, 5 August 2018)
I get a later start than I wanted to this morning, and it's totally my fault. Ann told me I should call Courtney last
night, but I didn't. Well now that I want to know if it's a good time to come over and fix the new tractor, I can't get
in touch with her and Ann just gives me that "I told you so" look. Eventually I drove over to the other house to install
the new battery. Once installed, I pulled the tractor out, sat down and started her right up. Good. That's done. Courtney
and I chatted for a bit then I was on my way home, after delivering the bag of carbohydate rich foods that is. As much as
I wanted to take the truck and bring back some things so they can fully park the new tractor in the shed, I don't really
have any place to put them out here (yet).
(Thursday, 27 September 2018)
I really need to get the bridge tile saw and one of the wooden roller cabinets with all the old motorcycle engine parts
out of there so the kids can park the new tractor entirely in the shed without having to put a tarp over the back, just
to protect it from the elements. I didn't realize it was longer than the old tractor, which used to just fit in there,
but should have known the new one wouldn't... Anyway, whether I have a place for all that stuff or not, it has to go
somewhere other than where it's at now. I'll need that bridge saw to cut the spare pieces of countertop leftover from
the oopsie we had remodelling the kitchen. Actually it was more of their oopsie than our oopsie, but worked in our favor.
Guess once the taxes are done I should plan on getting a new timer and cleaning out the shed some... Maybe I can fix that
rotted hole in the wall too. Not going to hold my breath.
(Sunday, 17 February 2019)
Taking my time this morning. In no hurry to get to the other house since last night was the kids' gaming night, meaning they
won't be awake and alive for quite few hours yet. I spend much of the morning in my robe, at least the part before Nick gets
here with Klaus. I spend much of that time updating this account. I get a text from Courtney around 10:30 AM letting me know
she is up and moving. Nick has my car and is flushing the brake fluid for me, so I let her know I'll be on my way once he's
done.
We have lunch of chunk chicken with salad, then I'm on my way by noon. I'm only worrying about the pool chlorinator and the timer this trip, with a side of evaluating the fencing that will need replaced. Traffic is moving slowly, and as much as I want to get in a hurry, I just relax and take my time. Once there, I wait for a minute for Courtney to pop her head out, but she doesn't, so I just head around to the side yard to the pool pump. I'm greeted by the boys, Skipper and Sailor, telling them Hi Kids! They are very excited to see me, as always. It's been awhile since I've been over and I always take time out to play with them.
Courtney tells me I could have knocked, but I told her I just wanted to get started before the sun got too hot. I already had the lid off the chlorinator by then, using a length of 1x2 I had sitting in the bottom of my tool box, and she was amazed... How did you get that off there?!? I tell her some quick thinking and using leverage for the mechanical advantage, then show her the chunk of wood I used, chuckling. She dons some gloves, lubes the lid seal, and loads the chlorinator with the 3" tabs it consumes regularly. Now all that remains is removing the old chlorinator hose so she can take it with her to the pool store as an example. At first I was going to go, but she mentioned she needed to go get chlorine, so...
Got the new timer installed while Es went to get chlorine and the new piece of chlorinator hose. Once he was back with that, I got that installed too. Unfortunately right before I left I noticed that the glue joint to the base of the chlorinator had separated and was now leaking too. Great. In our attempts to get the cap off the chlorinator, one of us had also popped the plastic pipe joint loose too! That was the one I really wasn't confident with when I was originally reassembling and it gave me grief since I could only get the shorter couplings at the time.
Before I head out, I do a sort of walk through, briefing them on what needs done for repairing the wood rot, and my thoughts on how we'll get there. I had already walked around myself and got pictures of the fence, and then the wood rot that needs repaired. Most of the rot has been there since we bought the house in 1995, but a lot of the new rot is in the same area, except exacerbated by the idiots that rescreened the pool enclosure and their shitty caulking job. Actually, that is the architectural flaw in the house, a poor design where a valley in the back roof shouldn't exist, and of course it empties against the gable end of the main roof. Unfortunately, when it backs up with leaves, the water has nowhere else to go but rise over the flashing and then trickle down inside the wall...
I remind them yet again that they need to keep the leaves cleaned off of the screens and out of the roof valley and rain collector so that it doesn't back up and run up over the flashing and down inside the walls...
(Saturday, 2 March 2019)
Early start. Looking for things we'll need in the garage. Staging them next to the house for loading in the bed of the truck.
Ann and Nick are handling the fence while I concentrate on evaluating the rotted wood and what it will take to replace it.
First thing I notice is we need to cut a path to the gate because the front lawn hasn't been mowed... Probably since last time we were here two weeks ago. But that's not going to stop me from carrying the ladder and tools and such around to the patio. When I get there, I see kids haven't done a damn thing since last time we were there. They certainly haven't done anything I asked them to do on the patio to prepare for today. Leaves are still on the screen and clogging the downspout collector...
I start by thrusting the pry bar through the dry rotted screen, making a long tear in it, then ripping it the rest of the way down with the hooked end of the pry bar... Raining leaves and debris all over me and the patio. One down, two to go. I'm just a bit perturbed that I'm having to do what I asked them to do two weeks ago. Well, called that.
In the mean time, Nick gets their push mower out of the garage, starts it, and mows the front lawn and a path to the gate. He continues through the gate and around the side yard to where he and Ann will be replacing the fencing. What I tell her is yeah, it's an RFN thing for me too, like last night having a U-Haul trailer ready to go to Lowe's and no list of what we needed ready to get... And she can talk to her mom about it. So get used to it I tell her.
I continue with what I started, removing the aluminum extrusions from the rotted 2x12 as I move from one end to the other, ripping down more screening and raining more and more leaves onto the patio. It looks like the guys that rescreened the pool enclosure are the reason why most of the new damage occurred. I had asked them to install flashing to protect the wood, but instead they just caulked it, trapping the moisture in the wood and dooming it. In fact, the one place they did use a piece of flashing, they put it over the wood, not under it! It acted as a funnel, sending the water behind the wood, and down the wall... So now I get to figure out how to replace roughly 12 feet of old style, rough cut cedar 2x12.
Once I get the rotted portion loose, having to cut through a good section of it with the circular saw just to free it up, I see why they didn't install the flashing... There's nothing to nail into behind the bottoms of all those tongue and groove cedar planks on the gable end. No wonder they're loose. Looks like I'll have to figure out a way to get a 2x4 in there to act as the "backstop" for the flashing I'm going to install. Unfortunately I forgot to measure the exact sizes of the planks so I'll have to "guesstimate" that from pictures too.
Long story short, ANn and Nick get the fence finished and I'm able to get a better idea of what needs done for the wood rot. I also realize next time I'll need taller ladders to get to where I need to be to do the work. I did manage to measure the height and width of the half of the gable end that's needs the most work, 64" x 128", and knowing my trigonometry I know that's a 30° angle. Considering the roof is probably more of a 1 in 2 pitch, maybe a 26.6° angle, but close enough for the guesstimate.
Since I'm pretty much done with what I can do for now, I get the panel cut for the new gate and fashion the cross bracing for it while Ann and Nick are fighting with the wasps, trying to finish the fence to the gate. I carry the gate around so they have something to go by as they set the new double posts in place. The gate will hang from them, that is, once I mount the hinges. I concern myself with that as Ann and Nick finish the fencing and start loading up for the old panels and posts in the trailer to take to dump when we get back. I go with Nick to help unload at the dump, and Klaus tags along with us in the back seat of the truck.
We get to see some neat stuff at the dump.
We reward ourselves with a shower and enjoy dinner out and a few drools at the Rockin' Rabbit.
(Saturday, 13 April 2019)
Back still hurts, not as bad, but still hurts. Ann's on her way over to the kids to do the job of cleaning up the front "beds", as the HOA
calls them... I understand her reasoning of not wanting to hear anything else from the HOA, but this will only fix this "violation", not any future
ones...
She was telling me yesterday how she's expecting Courtney to find out what needs done to get the paint colors approved by the HOA, before we paint the house, to avoid the almost expected letter from the HOA about not getting the colors approved first.
Ann spends her entire morning cutting out the overgrowth and hauling it away to the dump , sapping what energy she has for working on our Barkyard water feature, taking the precious time we have so little left of.
(Saturday, 20 April 2019)
Nick and Ann are back from their travels with the new bandsaw in the bed of the truck. I head over to Nick's place to help him unload it with the engine hoist as a crane to lift it off the bed of the truck to the ground... Well, at least down to sitting on the legs of the hoist so we can easily wheel it into the attached garage. From there we head to Lowe's for lumber and flashing for the 270 gable end repair as well as new ducting for our attic. I almost forgot the flashing, and boy was their lumber selection for shit! One look at the 8' 1x4 rough cut cedar and I decide to go with three ten footers instead of four eight footers. And if their select cypress tongue and groove is any indication, I'd hate to see what non select looks like! I grab a couple of the eight footers just in case I can't cut clear with the twelve footers. Even the supposed premium pressure treated 2x4s have tapered ends? WTF?
Anyway, we get it all home and I set up the sawhorses with my portable top for a makeshift workbench for oiling the lumber. Nick helps me stack all the lumber on top of the workbench. I give it a gentle nudging and realize it's pretty rickety and I really can't leave all of the lumber sitting on it. I move the 2x4s over on the ground by the back of the house and it helps a little. I figure since I'll be setting all the twelve footers on the 4x4s on the ground inside the upper loop, it will slowly get better and better. My concern is the dog running under it and clipping it just right, making it collapse on him. I grab the box of nitrile gloves and don a pair, then grab the linseed oil, the yogurt container for just such an occasion, and a chip brush to "paint" it on with, then head back out to the workbench.
There's still some linseed oil left in the container from when Nick borrowed it, but it's been sitting for awhile, so I "thin" it down by pouring more in from the gallon can. Before I know it I have one side of one of the twelve footers oiled, then another, then I flip the first over onto the other and get the backside oiled. Ann's watching me go to town, and as I try to step over the upper loop track, trip over the sprinkling tractor and fall right on my butt. I drop the board in the process and see that I probably broke our favorite sprinkler in the process... I curse a bit and ask why folks can't put things away, but then just place the board on the 4x4s and move on. Ann asks if I'm okay and tell her I am. Only five more twelve footers to go, then two more eight footers, and finally the three ten foot rough cut cedar boards.
My back is telling me to take a break after the twelve footers, but I decide to power through and get it all done. By the time I get to the cedar, I'm really ready for a break, but finish them first. Now I can take my gloves off and sit down for awhile. While I didn't plan on it, I decide to oil the interlocking tower roof assembly while I'm set up to do it. I put on another pair of gloves, grab the roof assembly, and head back to the workbench with it. Ann comes out to see what I'm up to as I'm finishing up the underside of the roof assembly. I flip it over and get the top, applying liberal coats of oil to (hopefully) protect the laminations from the elements. We shall see. I still need to see about using some wet or dry sandpaper as the "simulated shingles" roofing material to see how well it holds up.
(Monday, 13 May 2019)
Pool filter lid threads stripped. Have to make a trip to check it out. Knowing there isn't much I can do about it for now,
I let Courtney know I'll have to check into it and see what the options are and get back to her. A few days later I figure
out that Pinch A Penny will fix it for them, they just need to take it down there. That's a good thing .
(Friday, 31 May 2019)
Picked up the new cedar siding from RoMac and taking it and the rest of the lumber for the gable end repair over there where it's needed. All but the
siding has been sitting in our back yard out here in Mount Dora for weeks now, and I'm sick of it being there and in the way.
My goal is to get as many of the cabinets "unloaded" of the stuff stacked in and on them, loaded into the truck to bring back with me. The unfinished cabinet will complement the one I already have, and the finished cabinets will go in Nick's new machine shop in his attached garage. I move the base frame for the cabinets out to the foyer and take a quick detour to the garage to see what wood scraps and plywood remain out there. Turns out there are only a couple of long, skinny pieces of ½" plywood along with the roughly 4x8 sheet I used as a bulkhead for the old paint booth. There are stacks of cutoffs, like 2x4s and such, but not as many as I thought. Seeing the stacks of paint cans in the way of getting anything out the side door of the garage, I quickly decide to leave the garage stuff for another time.
So back to the corner room, I begin the process of finding a place for everything stacked inside the unfinished cabinet, after making room for the tall speakers of Tim's still standing in the way. All of the rest of his stereo equipment has already been removed by the kids for use in the living room as a sort of retro style entertainment system. The sole remaining piece of equiment is a DVD player. It was brand new when I bought it, but it doesn't even understand BlueRay. Yep. That old... I stash it off to the side and out of the way. Next I better organize all the plywood roadbase I had hastily removed from the office and thrown in a pile behind the speakers. Now I can slide those tall speakers back against the open closet and out of the way. The now open cavity in the built in cabinets gives me enough space to move most of the HO scale car kit boxes and model kits that are sitting in the unfinished cabinet I'm interested in.
Once free, I manage to wrangle it out of the room and down the hall to the pet gate. I lift it over the gate and leave it standing on its side for now. I head back and better organize all the loose bits and pieces still strewn about, like a drawer full of power cables sitting on the floor that would be better suited with the other two drawers in the storage unit it came from. A kit just sitting on top of two open drawers in the built in cabinets. Things like that. And in short order, I can see the floor again. I realize that there's too much stuff left sitting in the first of the finished cabinets to even think about trying to free it up, let alone all of them. I take a look at the time and decide I'd better be loading things up and heading back home. I'm pulling out just as Esnel is getting home. I tell him I didn't get everything, but I got some things out of the corner room.
(Saturday, 22 June 2019)
Not only did I not get my soak in the hot tub last night, I was so tired from all the "proposalling" that I only had one beer before hitting
the sack, and now I get to go over to the other house this morning and try to finish the siding replacement. I don't even want to think about the tongue
and groove planking above on the gable end that needs replaced. I doubt I'll have enough time to even finish the siding before the sun is beating down on
me at midday. Not looking forward to being drenched in sweat within minutes of starting... Not to mention dripping with sweat the entire time
I'm working on it.
I had noticed a new faucet as I walked in from work yesterday, leaning against the dresser on the front porch, still in the box. Turns out it's for the other house too and I'm thinking, great, not enough time to do what I need to do and here's another something else to do as well... Nope. Nick tells me he's going over with me to install it while I'm outside working on the siding replacement. I count my blessings and move on to getting things together so that when he gets here with the truck we can just load up and go. Along those lines, I figure I'll just load my tools in the trunk of my car and we'll take two vehicles, just in case one of us need to go get parts or wood or something.
As I'm moving things from the garage to the driveway through the gate, Ann's telling me how Nick is going to snake out the drain so she can do the laundry. I ask her if he knows this or not... Apparently she hadn't discussed it with him since he told me he was going to the other house with me today. Ann seems more than a little concerned that she needs that drain snaked out, but it's a tomorrow thing now. I let Courtney know we'll be there between 9:00 and 9:30 AM. She had asked yesterday if there was anything they needed to do to prepare and help. I don't think about it until this morning, but I ask her to make sure there's a path mowed with no dog piles in the way of carting all the tools and such from the driveway around to the patio. That starts a whole nother discussion, but the gist is, I'd like to not start out my day with soaking wet shoes full of dog shit...
In typical path of least resistance fashion, I arrive to find a single mower swath wide path mowed from the gate to the patio. Wow. Thanks. I'm. Underwhlemed. I can't complain, I got exactly what I asked for... A path to the patio with no dog piles in it. Thankfully. I must say though, I'm so glad I bought them that new riding mower so it can sit in the shed. I think they may have used it half a dozen times since we bought it, but at least the front lawn is mowed and the house looks nice from the street as we pulled in. So once I have everything I need to start with on the patio, I realize they haven't done a single thing we asked them to do on the patio, like clean out the drain, or even poke the leaves out of the rain collector that causes the water to back up and run down the wall. You know, the water running down inside the wall that's caused all this damage I'm having to repair today. Yeah. That rain collector... Still clogged with leaves.
The first thing I have to do is finish removing the rotted 2x12 cedar trim at the top of the siding pieces I'll be replacing... That comes off with a fight, but it's finally the rest of the way off and out of the way. I decide next I'll take off that rain collector altogether, starting with poking the leaves out of it with a convenient broom handle and... Bad idea, because now a swarm of wasps is actively seeking the culprit that disturbed their wonderful home. Me. I head around to the truck to grab the can of wasp spray that... Nick apparently took out to use at his place and never put back. Great. I hope Courtney has some. Well, they might. She asks Es to find it for me and he disappears. Literally. I don't see him again until I go looking for him, ten minutes later, after I'm done doing everything else I can without getting close enough to the wasps to get attacked again.
I find him hanging around out front. I ask him if he was able to find any wasp spray and he tells me it's on the metal shelf in the garage. Thanks, I think to myself, you couldn't have just walked it through the house an brought it to me? But at least I have what I need. Back on the patio, I spray the shit out of the wasps. One by one, they drop to the cool deck and I promptly stomp them. Unfortunately, the straglers come back, and not all at once. I think I'll just leave that collector for another day, but it explains why Courtney was asking about seeing wasps in the laundry room. Another SMDH moment... Can't even be bothered to find the wasp nest and spray it to keep themselves from getting stung, let alone having things ready for me to work when I get here. I just can't even... In today's parlance.
I remove the remaining cedar trim along the sliding doors and remove the rotten siding pieces, one by one. They don't put up much of a fight, and the last one I don't even need the pry bar for, it just pops off in my hand! I guess Courtney must have told Es to come help me because now he's here on the patio, asking what he can do to help. He sees me pulling the nails out of the old siding and offers to do that while I continue removing the siding. Impressive. I take him up on his kind offer. I'm not pleased with what I'm seeing. The now exposed sheathing is wet, not just damp, and most of the framing behind it is wet as well! Not good. The sheathing is that fiberboard crap that is just crumbling into pieces in my hand. Es brings a garbage can around to put all the trash in and sweeps up the mess once I'm done removing the majority of it. Even what's left of the wall studs is wet! And not just at the bottom where it had already rotted out.
Time to see if I have any suitable ½" plywood left in the garage. A quick determination is no. What I have isn't exterior rated. I ask Nick if he can go to Lowe's and get me a sheet of exterior sheathing rated plywood, now that he's done installing the new faucet. While he's gone, I'm busy ripping out the rotted studs and replacing them and the rotted sill plate so that when Nick gets back, all we'll need to do is cut it to fit and install it. I almost forgot that needed done. By now it's taking everything I have just to keep going. I have to sit and take a break every five minutes it seems, downing an entire bottle of water each time. Thankfully Nick brought a cooler with half a dozen of so. Once he's back, he just carries the plywood sheet around all by himself. I'm impressed, and concerned he should have asked for help at the same time.
We're already in the sun and it's time to move the makeshift work bench under the covered patio. I turned on the ceiling fans long ago. It's a welcome breeze on a scorching hot day, 97° already, and the humidity isn't helping. I've been drenched in sweat all day, from the time I started this morning, and it's really getting to me. Once we're squared away to measure and cut the plywood, Es reminds me of the insulation, so I ask him to go see what we have left in the garage. I'm pretty sure what's left of a couple rolls is still there, and sure enough, he brings them both around. Nick is looking for scissors and I'm trying to tell him the trick I use with a straightedge and a sharp razor knife. He'd rather use the scissors, until that doesn't end well, then takes my advice. It goes quickly once he puts a new blade in the knife. The wall cavity is soon filled with new fiberglass insulation and ready to button up with new plywood sheathing.
We measure and cut the plywood sheet roughly in half and Nick screws it in place. Next I set up to cut the new siding planks. I cut, Nick attaches. Until we get to the one that needs notched for around the sliding door frame. I didn't bring the sabre saw, but I did bring my chisels, so I finish the cut with one of them... Until the plank cracks right along the notch because of a knot right there in the corner! Damnit! Good thing I have more planking left... Unfortunately, I didn't bring the linseed oil, so this will have to do for now. Then the next problem, we're down to the last screw! Ummm... I thought I had another box of exterior screws in my drill bag, but guess I was wrong. At this point, I'm so ready to be done, I don't care. It will be good enough for now.
When I was measuring to cut the new piece of cedar trim, the one we don't have any screws to secure in place even if I did cut it, I notice the one thing I didn't fix and totally forgot about. The framing stud around the sliding doors at the bottom was rotted and needed cut out and replaced as well. It would have been a lot easier to cut it out and fix it while the wall was still open, but I didn't bring the sawzall I would have needed to do it anyway. It's still going to need the sawzall, but it's going to be much harder to get in there to fix it. For now we just screw a scrap piece of pressure treated 2x4 over the opening to close it off. Thankfully we daughtered a stud onto the rotted one to keep everything structurally sound and block any further intrusion into the wall cavity.
We turn our attention to the corner room and extricating another cabinet or two. We settle on one because it's an easy task to get it free. There's too much stuff sitting on the rest of them to even think about getting them this trip, but we do snag a few more items that we'd like to have back home, like the "in ceiling" speakers for Nick's garage. Well, we manage to get the cabinet and ladder and saw horses and stuff loaded in the truck and the tools in my car trunk, but forget about all the other loot we left sitting in the foyer. About ten minutes into the journey home, Courtney texts, then calls, asking what's with all the shit we left sitting there... Damnit! We tell her to just put it back in the corner room and we'll get it next time.
I get in the shower shortly after grabbing some of the tools out of the trunk. I decide while I'm still hot and sweaty to fix that damned piece of trim that's been hanging off the side of the house at the corner of the front porch. I drill some pilot holes and tap in a couple of finishing nails. It's not perfect, and takes a LOT of cursing, but it's done and looks better than it did. I don't think Ann's noticed it yet... At least, not to the time of this writing, going on more than two months later.
Pool Leak Repair 2018
Lawn Tractor Upgrade 2018
