So... What are YOU doing? - Part 5

[psalms 91]

Getting ready to go to food bank and serve coffee

 

[tango]

My heating guy came by. It turns out I wasn't doing anything silly, I'd justpicked the hardest radiator to start with. Usually there's a bit of lateral play on the pipes to make it easier to get radiators in and out but I'd picked the one that had no play at all. It took one guy pulling the pipe with a 24" pipe wrench and another guy pulling at the radiator to get them to separate. Now I know I can get a saw in there and widen the hole a little, to give me the wiggle room I'll need to put it back.

The second radiator just came straight off, as the first one should have done. Now I just need to get a decent ratchet strap to secure them to the dolly I bought so I can move them out. The dolly can take 700lb and even the biggest radiator is probably only 350-400lb, but that sort of lump still takes an effort to move. Then I can continue breaking walls.

 

[NewCreation435]

This is my son's last week in High School so we have been getting ready for company coming later this week and his graduating.
I spent about two hours yesterday pressure washing our house to clean things up

 

[NewCreation435]

Getting ready to go to food bank and serve coffee

I remember when I lived in the Houston area I took a tour of the Houston food bank. They have massive freezers and refrigerators for their foods. They do things on a huge scale

 

[Lamb]

I went grocery shopping then rushed outside to weed my garden so I can plant tomorrow. But it started sprinkling and got dark so I came inside. Now it's sunny and no clouds in the sky! Bright blue!!!! What is going on? LOL Mother Nature does not want me to plant my garden. We're supposed to get more rain tonight and our ground is completely saturated.

 

[tango]

I got the two smallest radiators moved out of the way. It's surprising hard to move them even with a dolly. I'm really wondering how much effort it's going to be to shift the ones twice the size and that almost certainly weigh more than I do.

The next step was to disconnect a temporary cable I strapped into one of the sockets and turn it into a more temporary cable. Because it powers an upstairs air conditioner I need it to be available even when I've disconnected downstairs circuits, and putting a heavy duty plug on it means I can move it from socket to socket, depending on what is still live. Yes, it's a pain, but the alternative is worse.

 

[Krissy Cakes]

Just got done eating breakfast, now listening to K-Love. Going to help with a kid thing at 10am.

 

[tango]

Just got done eating breakfast, now listening to K-Love. Going to help with a kid thing at 10am.

You obviously really like K-Love

 

[tango]

Today's update.... two radiators disconnected and moved out of the way. Caps acquired and put on the exposed pipe ends, to keep muck from getting in while I work. Wadded up paper towels stuffed into the open ends of the radiators for the same reasons.

Two window sills removed and stored, three more bags of rubble filled - mostly plaster from lath-and-plaster but a bunch of old drywall as well. One of the windows that's fairly new had an air gap underneath it. The guy who fitted it obviously didn't consider it necessary to put sealant around the window he just fitted. I thought he'd done a good job but the more stuff I'm doing the more unimpressed I'm getting. So I put a bead of sealant all the way around the window. I would have done the other one too but ran out of sealant. Off to the hardware store, again....

 

[tango]

A bunch more wall pulled down. I now have the baseboard removed from most of the room I'm working in, and from all of the external wall. I've still got a small section I need to pull down so I can get behind it (which could be fun, because there's a shelving unit in front of it and I'm not sure where to move it to). It's remarkable just how much cement and general crud there was behind the wall. I'm also going to need to reinforce the floor of all things - where the house was extended the basement was extended underneath it and the joists to support the floor aren't strong enough. They support the floor but I can feel a difference in support when I walk across the dividing line. So I'm going to get a honking great beam, cut it to length and brace the inadequate joist sections.

Along the way I filled up another three bags of rubble and stuff. I got another window frame stripped. This window ledge was cracked so I'm going to have to replace it. Some knucklehead nailed it to the window trim so I managed to put a modest split in that while trying to remove it. Replacing that part of the window trim is impractical so I'll glue and screw it, and hope it doesn't show too much.

I also got another power receptacle disconnected, removed from the baseboard and reconnected as a temporary measure. The longer term plan is to rejig the sockets completely - I've got weird crossovers where sockets in one room are on the same circuit as sockets in a different room, while other sockets in the same room were on different circuits. My plan is to rationalise it all. Now I've got the walls stripped back to studs I can get at the holes drilled in the floor to feed cables, which means I've got a sporting chance of getting it all done. That's never a bad thing....

 

[Lamb]

I was out on the back porch for a while then walked around to the front yard and saw a bunny. He crouched down and put his ears back as if I couldn't see him. LOL

 

[Krissy Cakes]

Listening to K-Love, browsing/posting and waiting for dinner.

 

[tango]

I was out on the back porch for a while then walked around to the front yard and saw a bunny. He crouched down and put his ears back as if I couldn't see him. LOL

I don't like finding bunnies in the yard. They dig holes and damage my plants. The only time I like to see them is through a scope....

 

[Lamb]

I don't like finding bunnies in the yard. They dig holes and damage my plants. The only time I like to see them is through a scope....

This one lives in the evergreens between our house and the neighbor's. There are a couple of them and they ran around my garden one day looking for an entrance. I have sticks poked through the chicken wire into the ground so that they can't dig under so they'll have to wait until I get bad vegetables to throw to them for scraps.

 

[tango]

This one lives in the evergreens between our house and the neighbor's. There are a couple of them and they ran around my garden one day looking for an entrance. I have sticks poked through the chicken wire into the ground so that they can't dig under so they'll have to wait until I get bad vegetables to throw to them for scraps.

You can get repellants for them. I used one for a time - it's made up largely of the rather encouragingly named "putrefactant egg solids". The idea is that the stuff absolutely stinks and the rabbits hate it, so go somewhere else. My target wasn't rabbits but I can attest to the fact it truly stinks.

 

[Krissy Cakes]

Sitting here with Peanut (my pup) by my side listening to K-Love. Thinking about taking a nap. I'm tired. :yawn:

 

[NewCreation435]

my parents are flying in today to see my son graduate high school, so I am getting ready to go get them

 

[tango]

Figuring what pieces of wood I need to buy to get on with a few more things in the house. Debating whether to restud a room (tedious, requires rebuilding window frames and moving radiators etc) or take my angle grinder to the brickwork to smooth off the parts that look like they were built by an ape. I'm leaning heavily towards letting Mr Angle Grinder have another outing.

Once the brickwork is sorted I can rip through a load of insulation panels and maybe even get some wiring work done. Then comes the time I need to order a load of drywall. I just need to figure whether to fit the insulation panels to another room first, to get them out of the way, or try and work with a pile of panels and a pile of drywall in the same space. I'm really not looking forward to trying to get 8x4 sheets of drywall up the stairs. That's going to be a lot of work, time to borrow my bodybuilder friend

 

[ImaginaryDay2]

Updating my "Ignore" list

 

[Lamb]

Finished painting the outside doorway/frame and will give a second coat tomorrow. Rain Saturday so I have to get my outside chores done.