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December 30, 2005

Removing raised floors.

http://www.footefamily.net/house/upload/2005/12/bath_dest2-thumb.jpg
With some great help from my brother-in-law nick I began removing the raised floor in the bathroom.

This turned out to be quite a task as the the water is not entirely shut off to the area. (I know bad idea but I had to get started and the 20 yr old valves wont cooperate). Reguardless the floor removal began and we did get quite a bit removed. The floor was raised by the PO to run pipes to the other half of the split bathroom, so I am dealing with a 2x4 (on end) frame for the raised floor. There were way too many nails in the plywood for me to peal the sub-floor up nicely so I am ripping 12 inch strips with the skill-saw, which is very time consuming. The frame pieces slowly came out as we removed the chunks of plywood.

Removing the majority of this raised portion of floor has enabled me to discover various interesting hack jobs that the PO did when installing this remuddle job. One of these discoveries is an original floor joist that is basically hacked in two for roughly 10 inches of its length. The current stack and hot and cold H2O feeds as I expected run through the 8x8 verticle boxin that runs in the buttler stair well area. More on removing the raised floor once I get to it again.

December 26, 2005

Tub -n- Torture

No we don't plan to torture all our house guests with excruciating muscle work. It has been a fun and happy X-Mas season around our house. Currently we have seven people sleeping under our roof. And we have a bit of muscle work that was able to be completed today. Hurray!

The tub is out! With some help from my brother -in- laws (nick and zack) and my father -in- law directing / clearing the way, we were able to remove the 4.5ft castiron tub from the bathroom. The removal of that item will allow me to continue on with the raised floor removal soon.

December 21, 2005

Structured Wire

In looking for just the right type of wire to wire the house I have discoverd many different types of composite cable. I have also defined more of what I want in my structured wire layout. Since our electrical wire project is underway I have asked our electrician if he would assist me a bit with some additionaly holes, and where applicable pull a kite string so I can later pull the wire.

In the end I am going with straight cable not composite. I am going to pull 1 cat6 for data network, 1 cat5 for multiple phone, and 1 coax (to carry cable/antena reception). A trick with this I have foundis to route the cables to avoid large electrical current areas. I am going to route the cables to the opposite corner of the basement as the electrical service entrance. I will be using a Leviton structured media panel and 4 hole wall plates with respective keyinserts. That should make the place alittle more usefull once I get back into my other hoby (old SGI computers).

December 17, 2005

Destruction - day one.

Destruction Saturday was a very eventfull one. Mel and Matthew gave me the entire day to work on destroying the bathroom. To this I owe Mel big time. However, I did do some rather discusting demo work that she would not have done.

There is no longer a question of when the PO's horribly remodeled, ant infested bathroom will go. We have made the observation that is the second large remodel of this bathroom that is visible. By far this was the least water tight remodel and the cause of many problems, one of which was the ants, who knows how many more we will find. Notice the water stains on the plywood in the pictures below.

http://www.footefamily.net/house/upload/2005/12/br_destroy1-thumb.jpg

http://www.footefamily.net/house/upload/2005/12/br_destroy2-thumb.jpg

http://www.footefamily.net/house/upload/2005/12/br_destroy3-thumb.jpg

I began at 9:30 and did not stop until around 4pm. I began with sealing off the MBR entrance with 4mil plastic and tape. Then I started into the "linnen closet". The sawzall and wrecking bar made quick work of this, enabeling me to create an access point to the other bathroom. Out came the toilets and remaining sinks. Once these were gone it was into the removal of the multiple layers of panneling. Towards the end of the panneling removal (close to the tub) is where I located the nest. There were roughly 300-500 ants forming a large pile. The removal of a pannel caused them to begin to move. I quickly grabbed the sawzall to remove the pannel and shopvac to suck up this pile. I removed the opposite face panneling and discovered an area where the ants had formed galleries. This was where the winged ones were with all the larva. That 2x4 was cut quickly and taken directly out side into the snow whle the shopvac was left on for the remainder of demolition in this area. I was able to remove this nest and the dividing wall. The raised floor remains and I hope totacle this tomorrow.

We'll see.

December 15, 2005

Loving ants?

Ok - Loving ants? Not really!!
Ants are a problem reguardless of timing but our luck has happened at the very wrong time. With company coming and things getting busy around the holiday season, projects were taking a back seat to cleaning and preparing beds for our guests.

When you purchase an old house you are invetably taking on all of the PO's neglect and other disasters that they have caused over the years. (I'll make a bathroom post soon) One of our receient discoveries is that yes there is an ant problem here. (Again - bad timing). Needless to say I will be in full distruction mode this weekend.

We are proud of ourselves for putting our two heads together to think through this problem and figure out just why, when, and how the tiny destructive creatures are in our midst. Best described in a timeline I guess.


  • We first started seeing an ant or two roughly around last friday.
  • Tuesday we were seeing more of these thigs and wondering what was going on. First thoughts were we have to keep this old (junky) kitchen cleaner.
  • The discovery of an ant on the landing to the second floor made us think a bit more. Why are they up there? This is not good!
  • Research on the internet during the evening. Colleges alwase have entimology departments with loads of info. :-)
  • Wednesday we put some timing in place.
    • we first moved into MBR the previous Wed.
    • Mel closes the door to small bathroom
    • bathroom has radiator and gets very warm.
    • Kevin has taken some parts and pieces apart in the bathroom (disturbance)
    • warmth wakes up the colony

  • The bathroom must be a key.
  • More research on the internet during the evening solidifies our guess. The horable job done in creating that bathroom has created numerous water leaks and suspect wood rot areas where ants like to develop colonies.
  • Thursday Mel picksup Boric Acid and Raid. I know, raid is not our solution. Destruction and removal is.
  • Confirm nest is some where in bathroom area. Most likely in the pannel wall dividing the bathroom.

In hind site we both agree that this bathroom project has taken a very long time to get started. But we (I) now know that when I get started destroying I'd better have the shopvac and raid handy. In this situation this is a better thing to know ahead of time. I have purchased my sawzall and am very ready for distruction saturday to happen.

December 12, 2005

Relying on electricity

http://www.footefamily.net/house/upload/2005/12/new_200a-thumb.jpg

Our electrical project is now underway! It is amazing how much we truely rely on electricity. Today we flip a switch and expect things to work. Our house was supplied with a 200A feed and new pannel box today.

It was snowing this morning so that made it a bit warmer for our electrician. His other attempt at scheduling the outside cut over it was 3 degrees. This time our electricians was able to get the service switched over.Our main concern was obviously keeping the house heated during this process. Our electrician was able to work out a live line to keep the furnace going during the cut over process.





http://www.footefamily.net/house/upload/2005/12/old_panel_100a-thumb.jpg
old

http://www.footefamily.net/house/upload/2005/12/new_panel_200a-thumb.jpg
new



The electrical inspector came over about 12:45 and inspected the panel and outside meeter. The Electric Co. came about 3:00 to do the crimp and connect. Everything is patched back into the new panel and set to start building from there. Our new panel is a Siemens 40 circut 40 space box with copper bus. Plenty of room to add AC and applicances later.

December 2, 2005

To save on heating...

DOH! Remember. To reduce winter heating bills verify that all the windows are actually shut in your new (old) house. Yes these windows are most likely drafty, we will address that later, but they should definitely be shut once the winter weather arrives.