This has been a tough week. I am going to get into it with my podcast on Monday. Needless to say I have not made near the progress I had hoped to. From my work so far, I don’t think this is going to take that long to do, it is just that I can’t make the opportunity to work.
So, I did decide that I would repurpose the old siding instead of replacing with 5/8″ drywall. T1-11 is 5/8 inch thick and it saves it from the landfill (and money). So, Win/Win in my opinion.
With the tips and tricks portion of the show, I am sure everyone is probably aware of this gotcha but nevertheless I will mention it. When taking something apart, be able to put it back together. Take a picture or make a drawing or note or something so that it is easy to reassemble.
I needed to disconnect the sprinkler wire from the controller because I want a nice penetration for the new siding. Anticipating that it will be some time before I turn it back on, I took a picture of the wiring for ease of hooking back up properly.
There are a few small things I can still do but the reality is that I need to go purchase the remainder of the siding and trim. This is what is preventing me moving forward as much as time.
End Your Programming Routine: Life doesn’t always go the way that you anticipate. I think that is pretty well known. It is difficult to build project plans with catastrophic contingency or said a better way anticipate the unimaginable. Fortunately, if this is the only project I get done this summer, it is the most important and there is still plenty of time.
At some point, I am going to write an article about dealing with siding penetrations and other unforeseen problems. To be effective, I would like to have pictures (or video) to go along with it. Since I do not have that yet, it definitely doesn’t make sense to do today.
In lieu of actual content, I will fill space with worthless words (just kidding). I am on the mend, no fever the last couple of days and energy feels good. I still have junk in the throat but the show must go on. Monday, I got back to work and in two hours I had all of the siding off. Yesterday’s goal was to cut the compromised drywall and remove portions of the panels.
I cut the bottom four feet off the offending panels. That should allow me to slap up new ones with the minimum of cuts. After that, I am going to add a Water Resistant Barrier (WRB in the lingo) which will actually be tar paper because that is what I have.
The key to fixing this failure is the details. Normally, T1-11 would not necessarily need a WRB between the panel and the sheetrock. But, because the HardiPlank was applied over the T1-11, water went between the two and stayed wet for an extended time which in turn rotted the T1-11 behind the lap siding. Proper products and flashing will resolve this permanently.
Before I do this, I have a couple of reservations. The first is I am not completely convinced that fire protection (the purpose of the drywall) is necessary. When nailing the HardiPlank back on, the only way to secure it is nailing through the studs. I have inspected the corner construction and there is no structure to nail the edges of the siding. This has me thinking that I should change the backing from drywall to sheathing.
Looking at the cost between OSB and drywall, they are nearly the same. And, HardiPlank is also fireproof. It will be the structure for nailing the lap that will help me decided how to proceed.
End Your Programming Routine: When this garage was built, I think it was done properly. I am pretty sure the lap siding was added later which is why the details were wrong. Or, at least that is what I want to tell myself. I guess we will all see as I go along, stay tuned for the proper way of doing things.
I spent a couple hours on Sunday doing some demo. I was dragging my feet a bit because I was waiting for driveway work to be done. The reason being is that I have stuff in my trailer that I just want to move out of the way and I didn’t want to pile garbage on top of it. Nevertheless, I cannot wait any longer to start. I am going to have to work around the other things and focus on what I can control. That is my project.
I got the lap siding off. Most of it came off in one piece so I am thinking that I can re-use it and save myself some money. The T1-11 siding that was under the lap siding was nearly completely rotten. I also found what I suspected, there is 5/8″ drywall as sheeting. I have some pictures below.
What is that all about? It is definitely not structural. Based on what I was reading, it seems that sometimes drywall is used on the exterior when the setback (distance) between two buildings is too close. In case of fire, it is less likely to spread between the two buildings because of the hour burn drywall.
I think I am going to have to cut the bottom 4 feet off. It has been wet too long and no longer has any integrity to it. Due to the fact that I am changing the construction on the siding, I need to make sure that it doesn’t get wet again. So, I am mulling about how to protect the new drywall and whether building paper will be enough or do I need to go to a rain screen.
Yesterday and today there is rain so that is crimping my plans. This was the weather that was suppose to be here on the 4th, so I guess I can be thankful for that. It does look like summer is coming after this short rain spell. It is dry and temps in the 80’s and 90’s. To top it off, my wife has Covid and I am starting to feel like I have caught some of it too. I hope this doesn’t derail my week.
End Your Programming Routine: I am not saying that I am going to drag this out. But, I might have built up how much work it will be in my head. I still have a couple of sheets T1-11 to remove but I got what I needed to see which was the extent of the damage. I am confident that a couple good weeks of deliberate focus will get this project done.
In my quest to get better AM reception, I ran across this very affordable antenna setup. First, I am going to beta test this versus the traditional loop antenna (the one that came with the receiver). If all goes well, I will permanently mount this outside. If this setup doesn’t work, I have one more play, there is another antenna available from CCrane that I might try.
I actually didn’t really realize this, but the AM band is the same frequency of some shortwave bands. Signals on the AM band range from 530 – 1710 kHz. This antenna is rated for 0.5 – 30 mHz (or 500 – 30,000 kHz) so it should work beautifully. This antenna is specifically intended for shortwave reception, conveniently AM radio is in the appropriate range.
My first test was to simply assemble the antenna and connect it. I did a quick scan through the spectrum and picked up 20 or so channels. That was a positive sign.
Now that I knew it was going to work, I started researching cable extensions. This particular antenna is built with a 10m (33ish feet) of cable. I haven’t measured anything, but I am probably going to need 100 feet or more. In this case, my preference would be to build my own cable but I need the proper tools to do that. The connection is called an RJ-476 which looks like a miniature TV cable end.
Another problem that I had to solve for is my radio has two wire connector input, not an RJ-476. As you might know, with a cable there is a conductor and a ground. The conductor is the center wire but the ground comes off the shielding. Typically, the ground connection is made when you screw the connector in place. Now we are talking about solder and other things. Fortunately I found a cable that splits for appropriate use. The lesson is know how your are going to connect to your radio.
It’s going to be awhile before my priorities are going to align and I actually mount this antenna on the roof. I would hope to get it done before the end of summer. Regardless, I built a frame for the antenna because the loop is so floppy. Since AM signals are directional, the frame allows for a much easier ‘tuning’ of the antenna since it is so floppy.
My hope is that I get the antenna out of the basement and up on the roof I won’t have as much as a need for directional tuning. If that turns out to not be the case, then I have a couple stations in mind that I have not been able to get with any current antenna setup and I will be happy.
End Your Programming Routine: It must be that nobody listens to AM radio through their stereo tuner. I am speculating that the majority of AM listening must be in the car. I am rather surprised by the lack of antenna choices (or information) anywhere. Maybe there is a business opportunity here? I will be happy to eventually tune into the local university sports though.
Wasn’t that great? We are a couple days from the end of our time here in Spain. I will spend time next week unpacking the important items from the trip. Today, I am starting to change my mindset into looking forward beyond vacation. And boy, there is work to be done.
My summer project. It is time to start ripping off siding and fixing the rotten siding. In theory, I think that it is going to take a couple of weeks. Those ideas always get waylaid by everything else going on. I am going to estimate that this is going to take all summer.
Fourth of July. Since the fourth is on Monday, this will be an entire weekend fireworks, parades, barbeques and carnivals. I don’t mind a fireworks display or drinking some beer. But, I have to say that one day is enough for me.
Chess in the Park. When my son has a dream, it quickly becomes my dream (responsibility). My son has created eight Saturdays where he is running chess in the park. Basically every Saturday between the Fourth and Labor day has a commitment of several hours in the park to run this event.
Of the age of Summer Jobs. My other son will be driving tractor for five weeks. This entire time will be before having a drivers license and therefore we will have to drop off and pick up every day.
Birthday week. The last week in July is birthday week for my wife and son. This is usually the most hectic week of the summer with activities.
That is just July (mostly). What happened to camping and fishing? I don’t foresee this happening this year. August starts to look ahead to the next school year, harvest time and finishing what we started for the summer. Hopefully, I can sneak some respite and recreation in there before the summer is over.
I do have some other expectations for the summer. My wife wants the lattice replaced on the deck. Now that my son’s car is in the garage, I need to block off some time to see if I can help him get it working. This isn’t mentioning things that I want to do like take my dad out for belated Father’s day and restart my range trips that have fallen off in recent months. Culinary book club has restarted and I am planning on an AltF4 series on Atlas Shrugged. Plus, I wanted to put some time into making Adirondack chairs while we can still enjoy them.
End Your Programming Routine: In many ways, I have put my life on hold for the sake of this vacation. To be clear, I did have a good time but I am glad to be moving on. I am anxious to get my project started that I have been putting off for months. It’s a beautiful country with lovely food and people. It is not just me to live my life as a party and lay on the beach, even on vacation.
I talked about the appearance remodel that began Monday of last week. We survived nearly a week without a kitchen. As I predicted, there will be a host of changes as a result. The floor is going to get painted as well as the cabinets. Not all of the the cabinets are going back up. And, I will have to build some shelves to replace the corner unit. The ceiling is going to be torn out with new lights and so on and so forth.
I am not upset, there is no point. But I am not totally happy. I think that it is wasteful to get rid of the cabinets and I think that we are adding less functional shelving to replace it. I am not a fan of painting wood for the most part either. The only thing that I can kind of understand is painting the floor. I will be interested to see how that works out.
There are some things that I just cannot care too much about. And this is going to be one of them. I think that it will be nice when it is done, I just don’t think that it is necessary. This is one of my not going to die on hills.
I think the other issue that I had is that this is going to keep the kitchen in disarray for some unknown time. Enough of that though. I have my own projects to worry about. plus we have deck work starting this week and the fence and now driveway soon.
End Your Programming Routine: After the kitchen is done, there will be one room remaining that hasn’t been touched since we moved in. That is what is the master bathroom. I wouldn’t be surprised if that is next on the list as it is 90’s ugly. Just like I like my furniture buy once cry once, I hope that removing the paneling and adding tile is one of those changes.
I am not sure when this changed exactly, maybe when I went back to work last year. But, it seems like our house is in a state of constant evolution. This job was originally scheduled late summer last year, then my father-in-law died and we have had a year of unplanned activities.
This week, we begin the journey of new countertops and replacing the faux brick paneling with subway tile. Since I am not doing the work, I guess what I think doesn’t really matter. Despite all of that, we will be inconvenienced without having a proper kitchen (as long as the job takes).
What bothers me about the process is what seems like the constant piling of cast-off housewares and furnishings and boxes or stacks of things sitting around. Ultimately, even though I am not doing the work, I end up having to deal with the job waste. Trips to the dump and donation centers, listing items for sale, etc. It seems like the ultimate wasteful, consumerism type behavior that is actually beginning to bother me.
We have shifted from the buy-once, cry-once mentality of furnishings to an evolving cycle of cheap(er) decor. Beds last five years, couches are three, chairs and rugs are replaced annually. The items don’t come in a truck anymore, they arrive in boxes that require assembly. This means that they are less durable. Then the old ones have to be moved out to the garage to become my problem. It seems so wasteful to me.
As an example, our first bar stools we bought were by IM David. Looking them up for writing this, I see that they are retailing for nearly $1500 a piece. We replaced them with $150 chairs a couple months ago. One of the two chairs didn’t swivel properly, so now we have three chairs. Our old chairs are dirty and worn by they are still very nice pieces that we could have invested the $300 into restoration. I am debating whether to sell them, restore them or donate them.
I am not against engineered furniture. Some of it can be very nice and there is a place for it. For one, they provide good value. For instance, my kids will likely be out of the house in less than three years. So furniture that doesn’t have to last a lifetime is probably a better deal. It also appears to scale properly. It seems like a lot of today’s furniture is so grotesquely sized. I am not a fan of wood/metal/glass integrated pieces either. I don’t like the ascetic.
I think this will be nice when it is done. It was my idea in the first place. But, was it necessary? No. is it really worth it? I guess we will see.
End Your Programming Routine: Where this is all going is that I am sure that once that work is done, there will be a whole bunch of other changes that will happen as a result. We were discussing hardware changes, our range is ailing, the cabinet finish is worn, my wife hates the lighting and false cealing and things like that. Expect more changes to come.
So, I mentioned my Adirondack chair idea recently. Before I fully committed, I wanted to see if the wood was even viable. I pried a couple representative boards off the fence to see what they would look like if I cleaned them up.
The fence is made from Western Red Cedar. I don’t know how long it has been up, but I would guess 30 years at least. While that is a familiar wood, it is not something I have done any kind of ‘fine(r) woodworking’ with. What I mean is as rough as the boards were, I wasn’t sure how good of chair they would make.
I think the nominal fence picket is 5/8″ thick. Once I surfaced the boards, they were more like 3/8″. Laminating three boards together, gave me approximately one inch of thickness. That means for the structure of the chairs, I will probably need two or three boards per piece. That is time to surface more boards, glue and clamp and waiting for them to dry.
Doing things in this way, means that the overall construction process will be much longer than the half day I was talking about when I introduced my thoughts. So, the initial idea was inspired by having the materials and the time investment is low. This gives me pause in actually committing to this. I really want to do it, but honestly, I cant invest the time (this summer).
There is a secondary concern as well. Since I am paying someone to dismantle the fence, I will only be able to get the boards if I am available when the work is done. I could ask to have them save panels, but I don’t want to end up with a bunch of extra waste either. Based on those factors, the go ahead with this project is still to be determined.
End Your Programming Routine: If this were strictly a business decision, the answer would be no. Time is too valuable and the timing is wrong. All things being equal, If I had a stack of lumber I would make time later. It is going to boil down to whether I am around to get the boards in the first place and then it will happen some time after I finish the siding this summer.
I got my bicycle back last week from the shop. This time, it wasn’t just a tune up but changes that I have been wanting to make for the last 30 years. I started researching bicycles in 1993. I wanted to get involved in a new-ish phenomenon called mountain biking. I was a high school athlete that fancied myself an outdoors enthusiast. This seemed like a perfect combination for me. I did quite a bit of research actually and talked to all of the local bike shops before I made my decision.
My first bicycle I bought in April 1993. I had it until it was stolen in the first of May 1994 (it was fully locked in front of the dorm). I had done a little bit of mountain biking through the year, so I decided to upgrade to a better model. This is still the bike I have now.
At this time, there were very few bikes with suspension. Front suspension had just been invented and there were only a handful of full suspension bikes. The arms race was not all the things you could add to your bike but how well built it was. So, for instance, this is a steel bike that weighs in at 24lbs. There were a few Aluminum frame bikes and there were also a couple Titanium frame bikes as well. Believe or not, I saw a couple carbon fiber frames even.
I think now, most of the performance bikes are Aluminum, not steel. Thoughts on that type of metallurgy is that it is more prone to stress cracking because it is more rigid than steel. I would say that is much more likely when you are riding over bumps and causing additional unintended force. I think if you add suspension, then some of that potential damage is mitigated.
It was always my intent to buy the best bike I could, then upgrade it as time went on. Interest and use had waned over the years. There was a time when I got my bike ready to ride as my kids were of the age of but after using it a couple of times it sat for another season and stopped working again. Another way of saying it was I couldn’t use it when I wanted to without another trip to the bike shop.
One of the things that I wanted to change were the pedals. Mine originally came with what are called toe clips. They were supposed to partially lock your feet into the pedals and give the rider the ability to get power on the pull and the push stroke. The problem with the casual rider is that you needed to wear full shoes, so a casual ride with sandals wasn’t possible. You could flip the clips upside down, but then the clips were frequently dragging, It was annoying and therefore, I replaced them.
I would call my bike ‘higher end’ at the time. Being so, it was intended for more rugged use. This also meant that the rider geometry was aggressive. Conventional wisdom at the time was that a rider would get used to the position. I definitely never got used to it and it wasn’t comfortable to ride over longer distances, even when I was young. I changed the rider positioning with the neck and new handle bar so that I was sitting more upright. Lest be honest, I will be lucky to ride the bike, let alone race it.
I have always enjoyed riding my bike. It needs to work in order for me to do so. My kids are of the age that they will be driving soon so it was worth it to me to spend some money on it.
I am considering possibly making some additional changes (but not this year). I always wanted to upgrade the front forks to a suspension setup. I am also waffling on having a bike that I can use around town to pick-up a few items at the grocery store, rather than driving. That would mean the ability to carry things and probably have some rain protection and less aggressive tires.
To me, the question would be buying a separate bike to setup for town use or modify this one some more. I am leaning toward buying a cheaper second bike and setting it up for around town use. I like the idea of riding my bike to the store rather than driving. It is not about the effort, but the time even though the store is only a 1/4 mile away and a bike would go along way to eliminating the time factor. However, let’s not put the cart before the horse and see how this year goes.
End Your Programming Routine: There is no doubt that this was an expensive job. I spent $350 on the total project. My wife thought that I should have bought a new bike instead of spending the money on all this. In my mind, the changes were worth it considering the quality of the bike ($800 in 1994) to begin with and at least in my mind, a $400 bike is probably a two year bike. Most of the labor cost needed to be done anyway, I added $100 in parts. I hope to get some use out of it this year.
I am mulling around an idea (I will get to in a minute). I have talked about how we are paying to have our fence replaced. We have signed the contract and put down half of the money. I think it is going to be another month or so before it actually happens.
Switching gears for a minute, we were at our wine pick-up last weekend and sitting in some plastic Adirondack chairs enjoying the weather, music and some samples. We had one (or two chairs) of our own that lasted about a year. I think they came from Dollar General and the sun will destroy that cheap plastic. The chair broke and it went to the landfill.
My wife was talking about how she likes the wooden ones, but that they were expensive. That got my mind working. If I salvaged some of the fence boards, I would have a good start on material to build my own chairs. Ideally, I would be selective and take the best ones. But this all depends…
The whole deal includes tearing down the old fence. If this happens while we are home, then of course I don’t think they will mind me taking some of the waste (and picking my boards). If it happens while we are in Spain, I may miss the boat on this whole thing.
The truth is, I would like to do some test work and see if the boards can even be salvaged, but, I don’t want to tear the fence down to do so. I think I can run them through the planer and resize and they would be fine for making plenty of chairs. I do have some reservations however.
Looking at the fence, none of the boards are clear (knot free). Some of them are pretty rough. I suspect that there is going to be a high degree of waste due to wood failure or brittleness and deep weather wear. But, I won’t know that until I do some test work.
The other thing I am not sure of is they are cedar. Depending on the grain pattern, cedar can be rough. So, I am concerned about the possible splinter factor. Some species can have pretty tight grain patterns but I think this fence started out rough sawn which make me think that there is a smaller probability that these boards will make good chairs. Once again, I would like to investigate.
As woodworking projects go, this is a pretty simple one. I would guess that I can knock out a chair in a couple of hours. It means that whatever plans I have wouldn’t be derailed significantly to build a couple of chairs. I am thinking that I would use a semi-transparent stain as well. This project will require some new wood as the structural pieces and I would like to blend the overall look to something more uniform.
I suppose the other option is that I could laminate pieces to make thicker stock, but again this would be another experiment. I am not a huge fan of glues and outdoor exposure, but it would be an option and require less new material. Maybe I will selectively remove a couple of boards to check for viability before I commit to this.
End Your Programming Routine: I hate the idea that all of this wood will simply go to the landfill. I would rather see it turned into firewood rather than simply hauled off to the dump. The real problem is that time is money. Nobody from a job perspective has time to break all the panels down, pull the nails and stack it, cut it, store it and market it or even give it away. To top it off, cedar is not the best firewood by a long shot. That being said, if I can efficiently use it that would be my preference.
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