The Home Improvement Thread. Successes and Failures

[BassAle]

Re: The Home Improvement Thread. Successes and Failures

At the Home Depot we bought all our house crap at there were signs that clearly indicated this. (It was, by the way, news* to me.) I would think the presence of signage nullifies the argument.

IINM when it says "4x4" there are no units specified, anyway, so for all one knows 4 Rigelian skulpulshanks equals 3.5 Earth inches, and the name is correct.

* Here is the reason, for everyone not born on a workbench.

A 2x4 doesn't lose that much size from the drying process alone. What you buy at Home Depot is "dimensional lumber", meaning that after it has been dried it has also been milled down to a standardized finished size with smooth surfaces. You can get rough cut lumber at a lumber yard and mill it yourself if you want. That rough cut lumber is closer to the advertised size (but not exactly)

 

[Kepler]

Re: The Home Improvement Thread. Successes and Failures

A 2x4 doesn't lose that much size from the drying process alone. What you buy at Home Depot is "dimensional lumber", meaning that after it has been dried it has also been milled down to a standardized finished size with smooth surfaces. You can get rough cut lumber at a lumber yard and mill it yourself if you want. That rough cut lumber is closer to the advertised size (but not exactly)

Cool. Thanks!

I know nothing much beyond "wood comes from trees."

 

[burd]

Re: The Home Improvement Thread. Successes and Failures

A 2x4 doesn't lose that much size from the drying process alone. What you buy at Home Depot is "dimensional lumber", meaning that after it has been dried it has also been milled down to a standardized finished size with smooth surfaces. You can get rough cut lumber at a lumber yard and mill it yourself if you want. That rough cut lumber is closer to the advertised size (but not exactly)

Yeah, roughsawn hardwood boards are usually not uniform in width and are typically measured by the actual board feet. A board that planes down to 3/4 will typically be closer to an inch thick. I buy a considerable amount of hardwood but always from a hardwood store, not a box store like Home Depot. I don't know if they even sell roughsawn hardwood. Even the s4s (surfaced all sides) hardwood sold by hardwood stores will be around 7/8 thick, since most craftsmen plane them down further for projects. Hardwood purchased at Home Depot will be 3/4 inch thick. I really can't imagine why a person would buy hardwood at a big box store. It's usually inferior wood and not less expensive, in my experience. But I digress.

 

[BassAle]

Re: The Home Improvement Thread. Successes and Failures

I know an Australian and he calls them by their actual dimensional size, using inches: "I need to go to [insert Australian equivalent of a Home Depot] to buy a one and a half by three and a half". I'm wondering which countries use inches to describe the dimensions of framing lumber rather than metric.

 

[St. Clown]

Re: The Home Improvement Thread. Successes and Failures

So working on my floor some more, realized something was different. What I thought was a ribbon of concrete from imprecise use of the concrete saw was actually some nylon from the expansion joint. That means my basement floor was leaking due to an imperfection in the expansion joint, which likely means that Water Plug, or its non-union Mexican equivalent, will likely not be the answer to my issue.

My cut is only about 1/4" wide, so this joint spacer is making in dammed near impossible to clean out the debris. I'm going to seek out some more advice. This whole thing suh-diddily-ucks.

 

[burd]

Re: The Home Improvement Thread. Successes and Failures

So working on my floor some more, realized something was different. What I thought was a ribbon of concrete from imprecise use of the concrete saw was actually some nylon from the expansion joint. That means my basement floor was leaking due to an imperfection in the expansion joint, which likely means that Water Plug, or its non-union Mexican equivalent, will likely not be the answer to my issue.

My cut is only about 1/4" wide, so this joint spacer is making in dammed near impossible to clean out the debris. I'm going to seek out some more advice. This whole thing suh-diddily-ucks.

Are you saying this area is a joint between separate pours or that it is an area where they troweled in or cut a shallow "expansion joint?" (which is not something they usually do in basement floors). Is it a straight line?

 

[St. Clown]

Re: The Home Improvement Thread. Successes and Failures

Are you saying this area is a joint between separate pours or that it is an area where they troweled in or cut a shallow "expansion joint?" (which is not something they usually do in basement floors). Is it a straight line?

It's a strip of white-ish nylon(?) that's thin and tented, and runs the entire crack. The crack wasn't present in the concrete when I bought the house, the slab was covered fully covered. However, yes, it looks to be the point between two pours. It runs from the corner of a squared-off U shape to the staircase post, which is not a 90-degree angle, but is a straight line.

 

[dxmnkd316]

Re: The Home Improvement Thread. Successes and Failures

A foundation done in two pours? I thought they almost always try to do a single pour.

 

[burd]

Re: The Home Improvement Thread. Successes and Failures

They do, though this is a floor, not a foundation. Basement floor might be a retro pour they had to do in pieces, or one area might be an expansion of finished area. St. Clown probably knows, even though he is not original owner.

 

[St. Clown]

Re: The Home Improvement Thread. Successes and Failures

It's a townhome. From what little I saw of the homes still being built around mine at the time (mine built on spec, sat for a year before I bought it), it was done a bit weird. They brought in the class 5, set a series of horizontal concrete pours as a base for where the vertical concrete pours were put in place - which are clearly multiple pours, and then came back to do the basement floors. I think they added these expansion strips during the pour, to help stave off cracking. It only worked for the most part, only a single crack in basement floor as I've not had issues outside of the utility/storage room (large room, BTW). the garage has two cracks, one the length of the garage and the other on the horizontal access. Both of them were pretty much dead center in each direction.

 

[BassAle]

Re: The Home Improvement Thread. Successes and Failures

it was done a bit weird. They brought in the class 5, set a series of horizontal concrete pours as a base for where the vertical concrete pours were put in place - which are clearly multiple pours, and then came back to do the basement floors.

doesn't sound weird to me. The pour footers first (anywhere there will be foundation walls or support columns). Then they put in the foundation wall forms on top of the footers and pour the walls. Then they back fill in between the footers with crushed stone and pour the floor, which sits on top of the footers. Three pours, with a little curing time between.

For my basement, they came back and cut expansion joints in the floor.

 

[burd]

Re: The Home Improvement Thread. Successes and Failures

doesn't sound weird to me. The pour footers first (anywhere there will be foundation walls or support columns). Then they put in the foundation wall forms on top of the footers and pour the walls. Then they back fill in between the footers with crushed stone and pour the floor, which sits on top of the footers. Three pours, with a little curing time between.

For my basement, they came back and cut expansion joints in the floor.

That's the typical process. Footers, foundation, floor.

In single residence homes, they also usually pour the floor after the main floor is framed up, using an egress window or walk-out doorway as an acces to pump the concrete in (they will pour the post and beam piers when they pour the footers or foundation walls). This is for practical reasons, since the stairs are framed on top of the basement floor and HVAC sets on the floor as well. It's also nice to have a cover when you pour the floor in the event of bad weather. They will almost always pour the basement floor before drywall is hung anywhere in the home because there is a lot of moisture coming off the basement floor as it dries.

 

[BassAle]

Re: The Home Improvement Thread. Successes and Failures

That's the typical process. Footers, foundation, floor.

In single residence homes, they also usually pour the floor after the main floor is framed up, using an egress window or walk-out doorway as an acces to pump the concrete in (they will pour the post and beam piers when they pour the footers or foundation walls). This is for practical reasons, since the stairs are framed on top of the basement floor and HVAC sets on the floor as well. It's also nice to have a cover when you pour the floor in the event of bad weather. They will almost always pour the basement floor before drywall is hung anywhere in the home because there is a lot of moisture coming off the basement floor as it dries.

around here, I've _always_ seen the basement floor poured before any framing starts.

In my house, I have some steel support columns in my basement. Those sit on my basement floor, which in turn is sitting on top of a footer running below the floor where the columns are placed. It wouldn't have been possible to frame my first floor because the beams holding up the floor joists would be unsupported. (basically, for any beam that might have support columns, there is an equivalent footer below my basement floor. not sure if I am explaining that well). This seems like a common way of doing it here

 

[burd]

Re: The Home Improvement Thread. Successes and Failures

around here, I've _always_ seen the basement floor poured before any framing starts.

In my house, I have some steel support columns in my basement. Those sit on my basement floor, which in turn is sitting on top of a footer running below the floor where the columns are placed. It wouldn't have been possible to frame my first floor because the beams holding up the floor joists would be unsupported. (basically, for any beam that might have support columns, there is an equivalent footer below my basement floor. not sure if I am explaining that well). This seems like a common way of doing it here

It's real interesting how building practices can vary from region to region. I'm sure there are a lot of factors to this--even building codes can be the result of purely historical practice. I was a carpenter building new homes for about 5 years each in Western Wisconsin and Southwest Missouri, and pouring the floor after the deck was on and first floor framing well underway was fairly common practice in both places. Basement beam posts were usually steel and set on footings poured when they poured either the footings or the foundation, so there were no support issues in building the deck. Adjustments, if necessary, were made with steel plate shims under the beam (and before the drywall was finished).

I also worked 3 years in the SF Bay area, but that was on a gazillion dollar house for a rocker, so all the rules were broken anyway. There, though, everything was about earthquake planning and very different from practices in the midwest.

An odd story (while we are discussing such fascinating things as basement floors). I was once told by a more experienced carpenter to look closely at the instructions printed on one of those round steel screw posts typically used to support beams from the basement floor. Those posts actually were designed to be installed with the screw part down (on a footer) and the concrete floor poured after installation so the screw part was at least partially immersed in the concrete. This seemed very odd to me, and it might have been the exception to the rule with those posts, but that was the case.

 

[joecct]

Re: The Home Improvement Thread. Successes and Failures

33 years ago when my newlywed bride and I were looking at houses for our expanding family one thing I insisted upon was a steel beam holding up the 1st floor and not engineered lumber.

I had owned a townhouse prior to being married and had an engineered beam as support. I had settlement cracks all over the place, some as wide as my finger.

Never again will I live in a house without a steel beam.

 

[walrus]

Re: The Home Improvement Thread. Successes and Failures

Sounds like your engineered beam wasn't engineered very well. I have neither steel or engineered beam, no issues

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[burd]

Re: The Home Improvement Thread. Successes and Failures

Sounds like your engineered beam wasn't engineered very well. I have neither steel or engineered beam, no issues

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Engineered, manufactured, and installed by liberals

 

[walrus]

Re: The Home Improvement Thread. Successes and Failures

More like tract homes thrown together as opposed to owner built with care and attenion to detail

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[FreshFish]

Re: The Home Improvement Thread. Successes and Failures

It's real interesting how building practices can vary from region to region. I'm sure there are a lot of factors to this--even building codes can be the result of purely historical practice.

In some cases, building codes are also influenced by local politics (i.e., who has enough electoral clout that can be exercised to give themselves a competitive advantage through regulation).

In some parts of the country, building codes say that you cannot use PVC for indoor plumbing....because that forces you to use other materials that require more skill, and more specialized tools, to install.

In some places, building codes say that you cannot use PBX for internal wiring, you have to use conduits. Most skilled do-it-yourselfers can handle PBX, while to use conduits you need an additional set of specialized tools that generally are only owned by professionals (yes, I know that you can rent a conduit bender if you are ambitious enough...).



One of the most contentious zoning regulations where we live now is about setbacks. It makes a big difference whether you are "repairing" something or "replacing" it because structures that were in place before the current setback limits were implemented were grandfathered.

 

[BassAle]

Re: The Home Improvement Thread. Successes and Failures

In some parts of the country, building codes say that you cannot use PVC for indoor plumbing....because that forces you to use other materials that require more skill, and more specialized tools, to install.

I think San Francisco used to require cast iron DWV plumbing, even in residential construction. I think they allow plastic now (probably mostly ABS, but I assume most places allow PVC by now...), but only in places two stories or less.