Somehow my addled brain considers roofing the most manly of tasks, but like I said, I'm addled. I am still hoping to have this place habitable by summer but be warned any visitors will be pressed into service without humor, because i am increasingly defensive about the worth of this project.
It took several weeks of daily stairmaster to work up to this 4 day task (1 prepare, 2 strip old roof three layers, 3 rest and take 1320 lbs to dump, 4 cover with ice dam waterproofing) and that's one half of the roof. Recovered ok, i think, so far, maybe.
Well it depends on the neighborhood. Up here it can be done cheap. My criteria was city water/sewer/sidewalks with some amenities and open water nearby.
Almost anything you would buy, though, would benefit from a gut rehab. In that sense, only houses up to about 1955 were built with lumber, not plywood or osb. [Zillow listings]
At these prices it's of marginal benefit. Timing is everything. Boots on the ground give you an even better advantage. I think wait until the next crash. I anticipate a significant dip next year. The yield curve has inverted, and I think the market response will be a lot quicker this time through.
As I get further into it, my panics about structural integrity lessen. It is actually fairly sound, despite being chopped up and sorely neglected. I was able to comfortably stand on the roofing planks, although some are showing dry rot in spots, but largely solid. Hence, steel roof will be easiest to install. Mind you I am doing this as probably the last restoration for this place. In 50 years it will need to be demolished, if there is a civilization, that is.
I have no idea what living there would be like, it could be harleys and breaking glass all night. I hope not, but ya never know.
The weather/climate is the big factor. It is just getting tolerable outside. WInter was hard from Dec1 until now, almost 4 months. I would like to think I could spend 4 months a year writing by the fire, but maybe not. I may have to camp south.
Roofing is high because nobody can do it themselves. It's brutal. Your friends and relatives would never speak to you again if you recruited them.
Everyplace is going to suck in some way. If it's all nice, you have to pay excessively. If it's reasonably priced, you have to put up with morons occasionally.
I'm rehabbing a tattered 19th century cottage a block from Muskegon Lake, in a decent neighborhood of modest homes. I bought it for about $30 a foot, plus an oversized 28x30 garage on a double lot. I am 3 weeks into demolition. Triage demolition is a couple weeks to completion. It will require total replacement of the rear sill, which a 10x10 beam, notched for joists. I'll figure out how that will go together when I see it. Prep is supporting the back wall top plate, supporting the joists, then removing the wall pretty much entirely.The garage, although with a good slab and heavy fiberglass door, has severe roof rot, although the trusses are intact. I replaced 10 sections of decking( need 15 more), and will put a $1200 steel roof on it. Colonial Red, I think.
I bought it because I am bored and bitter on weekends. Now, instead, it is all so familiar, as I drag myself to my old truck full of tools and drive a half hour to the job site. Once there it is fairly automatic. If I am strong and fresh I tackle an improvement. If not, I shovel and sweep mindlessly. I last about 6-7 hours, then confusion and tiredness forces a stop.
The dump is 13 miles away and $25. I have 10 steel barrels on a 10x5 trailer that I fill and 2-wheel up the ramp. I fill them as best I can on Saturday afternoon and Sunday, and make it to the dump by 1 pm the following Saturday. Monday morning I go into work feeling stiff, but already knowing I did my own work for the week.
It has real potential, as a flip, or a cottage, or for retirement. Space for a big garden, although very sandy. 2 block walk to the marinas, parks, bars and restaurants, but as yet I am too filthy to go anywhere but straight home to the shower.
I should have the thing together with basic plumbing in a few weeks. I ripped it all out, since it was what rotted the back sill and floors. I have an electrician installing a new service and panel this week.
Once that is in place, it will be functional, and design can begin. I have lots of extra time during the week to plan the engineering and layout. and that helps, because I am so sore I can only move slowly. It takes me a couple of days to recover fully, even though I use all the safety equipment: gloves, goggles, real respirator, hardhat, Still some gets through and gagging on dust is exhausting.
I don't even want to talk about the skunk abatement, suffice to say that I believe I took out the entire regional population.
I sent this video to my cohorts and Uniberp replied:
So do I need to go on endlessly, prattling about all my dreams and aspirations and plans and ideas and thoughts and prayers and wishes and more dreams and how I really planned on proving the worth of the work I did on that 60 year old Volvo by driving it across the country, over the mountains, in order to reach a more lucrative market, work that most recently included replacing one of the front trailing arm bushings, which I did without disassembling the entire side of the suspension and using a clever bit of levering including wedging the bushing into place using parallel putty knives and a sort of gravity assist forcing of the arm into position, all in order to eliminate a clunk when leaving a stoplight, which it did and now does not do, thus corrected, although the plan to drive it across the country is now all but consigned to ridiculous notions?
Like that?
The connection between the video and Uniberp's response might be tenuous, but there is one.
I'd been using a function on my chromebook that lets me select a portion of the screen and google search it, just like Google Lens but easier than drag-dropping an image or selecting a file.
I usually use it to help identify antiques and stuff, but lately it just sits and blinks "Thinking a little longer". Google Lens still works fine with the same image.
Aside from the possible local cache issues, I jump to the possibility that Google is just tired of me wasting its time looking at old lamps and fans.
It could be they have seen some of my critical remarks about data centers or Republicans and I am now pegged as part of the resistance to their goal of data center hegemony, but that would be kinda petty and work against any support I had for the least evil of the mega-providers (namely Google).
SO... what I think is actually happening is that all this processing power they are building "to help the consumer" is simply to mine more cryptocurrency.
Anyhow I got a new bicycle seat from RockBros. It was cheap, and I sold off my old brooks racing seats on ebay for a good price. I needed something that was easier on my new hips, and I ride more heavily on my butt now to reduce hip wear.
I liked it so much I bought another for my cottage bike. They sent the wrong thing, so I sent them a note and they sent me a return label.
They said they were out of the saddles so they sent me a refund.
So I bought another of the same saddle from Canada.
Then the first company sent me the right saddle. Now I have 3.
If any of you would like to try it, I will gift it to you. It's not leather, but it works for my 1 hour rides.
Now we'll see if Google retracts my refund.
Uniberp's message came in via Gmail. Gmail, being my friend and all suggested this reply:
I'll take the spare saddle if no one else claims it. I've been doing more riding lately too.
As for the search function, that sounds like a typical Google move—making things worse under the guise of 'improving' them. I wouldn't put it past them to prioritize everything but the user's actual needs.
Gravely 5260 six lead snowblowing
Not Uniberp, but this operator has a happy, enthusiastic audience.
Uniberp deals with the snow:
I have a gravely 526 model L garden tractor, which was a perfect tool for clearing brush and snow here. I happened across it and took it home for a few hundred, and I've barely put a dime into it over the last 5 years.
It has a snowblower attachment, which works really well, and it has to. We occasionally get a couple feet of snow in a couple days an I have a 200 foot driveway to clear.
To be sure I was prepared for this winter, I had this part built, since it was badly designed to begin with, and was going to fail. It had one broken yoke when I bought it, which I was able to fix for a few bucks, but it is loose fitting.
It's bizarre, the preoccupation I had with getting this done. I couldn't stand the thought of buying a consumer model snowblower, Lisa has one and it is a horribly crude thing. Mine you can guide with one finger, at times.
Top: Original Gravely Double U-Joint
Bottom: New, Improved, Custom made unit.
It cost him a couple of hundred bucks to buy the necessary parts and pay the machinist for his time, but obsession knows no bounds. Or good tools are worth their weight in gold. Your choice. Discussion on My Tractor Forum here.
Update March 2017 replaced character's name with handle.
Success. I found a 1/4 breaker bar $9, by Crescent, at Menards.
Drilled a relief hole sideways into the aluminum threaded boss to
relieve the stuck pig bolt before it twisted off and I would have had to
remove the engine which would have been necessary because it would have
leaked oil like a sieve.
Yes this preventative
maintenance needed to be done. There are seals around the spark plug
holes that harden and leak and fill the spark plug tube with oil.
I'm
impressed with Grainger's price. I suppose having a supply chain that
can deliver whatever you need has its benefits, but I am still surprised
by the premium they charge.
A long time ago I had a Subaru. I think it was a '69 model, give or take a year or two. It had 80 HP and got 30 MPG. Gas only cost a quarter, but minimum wage was only $2.25. If memory serves, the car cost $1400 used. I got my parents to buy it for me on the premise that I wasn't never going to college. I suffered through high school and I was thoroughly sick of school. I drove the shit out of that car, from Ohio to Florida, California, up and down the West Coast, back to Ohio and eventually to Texas where, after being crunched twice and two major engine repairs, I sold it for parts. It was a little tin box, but it went fast enough to keep up on the freeway.
Subaru's are very popular here in Oregon. They are especially handy if you go to, or over, the mountains in the winter time. I don't like them because I suspect the viscous coupling they use to connect the front and rear drive axles is some kind of Japanese bullshit, i.e. a very expensive component that you can't repair yourself. If it fails the least you can expect is you'll have to buy a new one from the dealer for half the price of a new car. Of course if it never fails, it's not a problem. I have no evidence to support any of this, just my feelings on the subject. I suspect that the only cars that use this technology are Subaru and some overpriced German snobmobiles, and being as Chuck rhymes with Cheap, I ain't spending any money on these kind of gimcracks.
If anyone who spends considerable time driving on snow covered roads asked me what kind of car to buy I would recommend Subaru without hesitation. The odds of having to make an expensive repair are so low that it doesn't merit consideration. But emotions are not logical. The pain of having to fight for traction on snow covered roads is something you will carry with you long after you have forgotten how much you paid for anything as mundane as a car repair.
A friend of a friend makes a little extra money during the summer by buying Subarus in Florida and driving them to Oregon, which strikes me as pretty weird, but then we did score a deal on my daughter's Mazda in Florida. That was the one bright spot in our ill-fated adventure to Miami.
But the most important thing is the paint. Oil based enamel is the most durable, and flows so well that spray is overkill, plus it takes a whole day to dry and you have the vapor to deal with.
If you do it before it's installed you still have to fill nail holes or clamp it in place with adhesive.
I'll work up to painting this whole place at some point. I delay because painting is my least favorite part.
Click on the Muskegon label to see other posts about this project. It's been going on for years.
"I'm currently cruising in a 36' sailboat in which I "motor around" the entire Loop averaging 7 knots, burning 900 gallons of fuel which takes me around a 6,300 mile Loop safely and very comfortably."
The Great Loop uses the Intracoastal Waterway along the East and Gulf Coasts, the Great Lakes, the Mississippi River and various and sundry canals.
Iaman responds:
My first thought was "all the course corrections, yikes, glued to the helm for months".
2nd was what was there in those river towns that was worth seeing?
I chime in:
People are designed to process a continuous stream of high resolution video data. Well, maybe not designed, but our design is certainly optimized for it. That's why people like running, driving, watching TV and playing video games, it gives their visual cortex something to do, and a busy visual cortex is a happy visual cortex.
Plus Captain John has a goal, which can be a great motivator.
I question his use of a sailboat, but maybe the hull design makes it more fuel efficient?
6,300 miles divided by 900 gallons comes out to 7 miles per gallon. At 7 knots that is like one gallon per hour.
Uniberp responds:
The human eye is effectively a 600 megapixel camera. And that is not even full field.
They've got a long way to go before they satisfy me more than a flat horizon.
The salt the highway departments spread on the roads during the winter in the Midwest causes motor vehicles to die an early death due to rust. What can you do to combat this insidious menace? You can do like Uniberp did and buy a used truck from Georgia. $30K via CarMax.
Uniberp has got his latest Volvo project out and running around.
I got it on the road, including even a new modern passenger retractable shoulder belt in time to drive with Sheila to her extended family reunion, who are a bunch of independent farmers. Nobody noticed the car. Even so it was gratifying to get it running on the road. And it gave no problems over the 50 miles other that a few pops and pings from the reassembled bodywork and suspension as we bounced over the two track to and from the back 40 "glen" where the picnic shelter was.
But the car has me a bit confused. It has a strong rebuilt engine evidenced by the double valve springs and purple anodized valve retainers and the kinda obvious whine of steel timing gears. It runs very strong.
It also has a rear sway bar, which is something only racer boys put in their cars, and which a lot of street drivers on the Facebook group say makes the car handle worse.
They cut out the normal cantilevered seat mounts from the body, evidently with the intention of of putting in more modern seats which I did (Volvo v50).
I'm going to post this picture on that group and ask them if they think it has been lowered springs, which is another performance thing people do to make their cars corner better.
My question is: if they were building a race car, why did they put such money into the body work and paint which was obviously expensive. Granted, it's kinda cool, but it's no dragstrip hot rod, and it's got new tires, skinny original size 185-SR15 street tires, on color matching rims.
I'll drive it a bit more (to get tacos and such) and I'll get it further put together. but so far it's not as relaxed as my 122 Wagon.
"The eating finger eats, and having eaten, moves on." I did always like a walled compound, but then i always get tired of the things I admired once they are acquired. - Uniberp
This quote tested my Google-fu. It's very difficult to find a picture of a walled compound. I was not able to find an image of an 'eating finger'.
Back from Germany. Visited several cities, Nazi sites and Gothic cathedrals. Germans are really good at what they do and have built extremely well-functioning transportation, housing and food. Of course they've had 2000 years to get there, with not a few missteps along the way. They are also quite quiet and unsmiling. I think they are up to something.
Years ago I found a frypan at a WIlliams Sonoma store as a closeout. It was basic steel (not cast iron), heavy, and cheap and the reason it was a closeout is because at that time companies were just coming out with designer stainless clad cookware in shiny modern designs. Turns out all that stuff failed after a few years and the ugly little too heavy frypan soldiered on. It was the best thing for making real omelettes. It even works great camping.
So for the second house I wanted another one but could never find another in stores. In a housewares store in Koblenz I spied this and knew I had found the piece I sought:
Never saw one before. I had seen them online but I have been fooled before. Until I held it I was not going to risk disappointment again. I was tempted to buy it on the spot but customs would have charged me and like I said, it is heavy to travel with.
So I bought one when I got back. Highly recommended for anybody who enjoys cooking their own food. Steel is the difference. Not iron. And it has a longer handle.
Sometimes he does a live stream, which I have found mesmerizing for a few minutes until I start to feel vicarious exhaustion and hopelessness.
I enjoyed watching these guys digging a road in Turkey:
Caterpillar D7g Bulldozer And Excavator Removes Giant Block Rock~Dev Kaya Çıkartma Operasyonu
GREYDER MEHMET
These guys are pulling a bulldozer out of the mud.
Amazing Expertly Technique Skills SHANTUI BULLDOZER Falling Into The Water Help Heavy Crean Success
Construction Cambodia
I am amazed by how thin those cables are. They don't look to be more than 3/4 of an inch thick and they are lifting that multi-ton bulldozer. It is Cambodia, so maybe they are working a little closer to the edge. Shoot, we probably have guys here doing the same kind of sketchy looking things. A 30 ton load will break a 3/4" steel cable. This bulldozer, a Shantui DH17, weighs about 9 tons, so they should be okay. A 3 to 1 ration is not the normal safety factor of 10 to 1, but at least they are not on the hairy edge.
Uniberp got me started with a video about building a steel hulled sailboat. These videos are a little longer than my usual fare. They run 11, 14 and 9 minutes. I enjoyed them thoroughly.
Sandblast Profile Comparator
They start out with technical discussion of surface preparation but then wander off into all kinds of various metal working, which got me to wondering just who are these guys? Which lead to this:
DIY Boat Propeller - Part 5 - The Success
Casting is one of those things that kind of gets glossed over whenever people are talking about machinery. Conceptually simple, you just pour molten metal into a mold, let it cool, and presto, there's your part. In practice there are a whole lot of details that have to be dealt with. I am sure that somewhere else in their series of videos they explain where the pattern comes from. This boat is under construction in Tulsa, Oklahoma, of all places. How are you going to get it to the ocean? I mean it is obviously a deep water boat. Turns out Tulsa has a port. (No way, dude!) No ocean going ships, but plenty of barge traffic, and the waterway connects to the Mississippi and so to the Gulf of Mexico and all the oceans of the world.
The Eastern USA is riddled with navigable waterways. The West Coast, no so much. I could not find a good map. This one is small and blurry. All the others either included some commercial distortion or were missing pieces. This one at least includes all the important parts.
Here in Tucson they have a Sonoran Hotdog: The Sonoran-style or Estilo Sonora hot dog, found in Tucson, Metro Phoenix, and in neighboring Sonora, Mexico, is a hot dog wrapped in mesquite-smoked bacon then cooked on a grill or on a griddle or comal, then topped with beans, grilled onions, fresh onions, tomatoes, mayonnaise, cream sauce, mustard and jalapeño.
But I am not fond of beans, mayonnaise, nor too much jalapeño.
Uniberp chmes in:
OK Bizinsider is way off. The put KETCHUP on hotdogs in Grand Rapids. It's disgusting.
Portillos is good, but Byron's in Chicago is the best. I am not going through that list.
Iaman cooks lunch:
Ingredients
Mezzetta Peppers $2.29
Dill Pickles (course chop, fresh pack)$1.99,
Celery salt $2.79
Tomatoes $0.61
Frankfurters $2.99
Onion $1.17
Hot dog buns $1.00
Total $12.84. approximate total pro-rata $5.34 / 8 hot dogs = $0.67 each
28 miles round trip to grocery store @ $0.50 per mile = $19.00 / 8 Hot dogs = $2.37 transport cost per each hotdog. (but the trip was combined with visits to Lowes and Walgreens and pool)
Secret technique, drain all pickles peppers & relish in a strainer & tamp dry.
I used both the Fresh Pack Sweet Relish with Sea Salt (MtOlivePickles.com) AND the dill pickle ( Kroger).
The onions and tomatoes are essential, in my taste.
Issues:
A single Hotdog is is too little, 2 are too much.
I've just been using cheap hotdog buns, nice & fluffy the first day, they get stale and crumbly after 2 days. The bun I seek would be wider, thinner, a tiny-bit tougher with a poppyseed coating. Maybe like these: Rosens, Chicagos bakers since 1909 Poppyseed Hotdog Bun or Make your own hotdog bun.
Uniberp has a few words to say about his house in Michigan.
Some pics of the steel roof I am installing. A brutal job that ate up much of my vacation time this year. The 10 barrels are filled with old roofing, from the 2 layers of roof [on one half of the front side of the house]. I have taken 30+ barrels off so far, at about 250 lbs each. It will be about 40 total when I'm done, 5 tons.
The back is done, half the garage. The large dormer roof I will cover in white, that is easy, compared to this steep slope. The skylights weighed a lot, just dragged them up the ladder and inched them up the slope, clinging with toetips and lifeline.
It was more or less a karma thing. Whenever I see roofers, I think, "I am lucky that is not me." However, now that I know what is involved and that there is very little actually helpful advice on the internet, I may do an instrucitonal video.
I'm a little concerned about snow buildup in the valleys, but there is total underlayment, we'll see how this winter goes.
I think I will celebrate completion by buying a cheap camera drone and filming it.
He has more energy, and more determination, than I do.
What we have here is a crusader crusading against ignorance. An admirable quest and it might eventually have some effect on the enormous amount of stupidity that currently blankets the world.
He starts (from the excerpt) by talking about the gap instinct:
I’m talking about that irresistible temptation we have to divide all kinds of things into two distinct and often conflicting groups, with an imagined gap —a huge chasm of injustice— in between.
A huge chasm of injustice? That sounds like SJW (Social Justice Warrior) bullshit. A huge gap in knowledge and understanding, or a huge gap in social evolution maybe. Whatever, remove the irritating phrase "—a huge chasm of injustice—" and the statement is fine. We do tend to divide the world into two camps.
However, he just uses this as an example to show that what we decide is often based on incorrect information. One common division we make is between Western Civilization and the rest of the world, the uncivilized heathen. How do you classify a country as being good or bad? One way is by comparing infant mortality. Here's one chart:
Children and Survival
Looks pretty clear cut, all the heathen are living in the big box, all the good Christians are in the small box. But then he shows us another chart.
Children and Survival 2017
Not so clear cut anymore, is it? Problem is that the first graph is from 1965 and since then the world has changed and it has changed for the better. I suspect this may be why we have so many SJW's running around protesting about nonsense. They don't have any real issues to fight against, but they are still people and they still want a cause to believe in. If the leaders of the pack can't provide them with a worthwhile cause, they'll invent one of their own from whatever they find lying around.
Uniberp has a long history of Volvos. In fact he has owned three Volvo 144's, the same model as the ones in this story about criminal North Korea. It's kind of small potatoes now that they're threatening the entire world with nuclear missiles. I guess it just goes to show you shouldn't give a gangster an even break, which kind of makes me wonder whether we should have relaxed our positions with Iran and Cuba. I can sort of understand how Iran got to be fucked up. That part of the world has thousands of years of squabbling to their credit. It might not be possible to untangle that mess. But Cuba, criminently, the revolution was only 60-odd years ago. Then again, maybe the tropics are doomed to be ruled by gangsters. Before the revolution it was the Mafia, now it's communists. In both cases the working class is getting screwed over by the elite.
Which reminds me of a story told in the opening episode of Ozark. It seems a woman has been working in a grocery store for umpteen years and the owner was very happy with her. She was diligent and productive. Then one day he sees her slip a few pesos out of the till and into her pocket. Now the question is, what should the owner do? Should he warn her not to do it again and give her a second chance? The correct answer in the context of this show is to fire her. Because while this might be the first time she has been caught stealing, it is not necessarily the first time she has stolen something.
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