Demolition man.
Two leaks ruined my hardwood living room floor. That's been pulled up, and is in the back of the van to go to the dump.
The old AC unit that leaked all over my living room floor is pulled out. It's on my lawn. The furnace is still good, and I'll probably Craig's list that old thing.
My living room floor has a 6 foot trench that I jackhammered into it, to replace the rusted drain pipe from the washing machine to the main house sewer line. That was the second leak: a slab leak. Of course I managed to hit the supply lines whilst hammering out the concrete and digging out the drain pipe. The plumber only charged me $251, which I actually was grateful for.
I'm currently in the processes of removing the floor from the utility closet that the updraft AC/Furnace was in; it's been waterlogged. I've pulled the gas hot water heater, and the furnace and AC and jerry-rigged plenum adaptor, this evening. This would have been a LOT easier if the SawzAll hadn't died on me today. I didn't know that they did that. I've never seen one do that. Poor old SawzAll. It served me well. This is the first time it's given me reason to cuss it.
I'm painting the new floor (made of doubled 3/4" CDX) with exterior "oops paint" that I bought at Home Depot for $5. It's brick red. Whatever.
The new A/C, new furnace, new exterior unit, and new copper lines are all at the house, ready to install today. My partner's dad is generously helping me for free.
Gotta get back to it.
Labels: day off, deadlines, home ownership, ouchy, tools
posted by Matt G @ 2:04 AM
9 Comments:
Ah, the joys of home ownership.
A corollary to Murphy's Law is Snowman's Sewer Line Theorem. "Any sewer or water line will fail in the spot required to dig up the most concrete." Slab concrete counts...
Texan beat me to it... And yeah it's ALWAYS the most expensive flooring that gets ruined too... sigh...
Good luck. BTW, to pick a nit: "jury-rig" is an old naval term meaning to do a good job of building a replacement for whatever broke when the correct parts aren't available; "jerry-built" means to slap something together in a less-than-professional fashion. I blame NASA for encouraging this incorrect usage. I'm sure your lashup is a ship-shape jury-rig.
WV: eateria "Let's grab some chow from the eateria"
BTW, Milwaukee will overhaul your tired saw for what used to be a reasonable fee- I dunno about currently, though.
https://www.milwaukeetool.com/
My plenum was actually jerry-rigged, Robert, by the previous owner. The previous owner had pulled the old coils, put in new ones through a hole cut in the side of the cabinet, and then fashioned an odd patch with an assortement of pieces of snipped galvanized sheet metal. It was tapped, but leaked air, and condensed badly, causing nice moldy spots in the dust that built up in the less-than-smooth resulting ducting.
The one that I built up from the new coils is made of that aluminized foam board, cut to the odd-angles to make a prismatic box that would match to the plenum sticking out of the ceiling, somewhat off-center. I used aluminum tape to carefully smooth every edge, so that it will not gather dust. In so doing, the cheap, easily-handled foam board became quite a bit more rigid, and actually has become a pretty good ductwork, with a bit of R value to boot. I threw a couple of turns of wide stranded aluminized silver tape around the outside to bolster it, and it's perhaps a decently jury-rigged job, for a lot less heartache than it would have taken for me to fashion one out of sheet metal and tin snips and bitty sheet metal screws. :)
My SawzAll is of the DeWalt variety. Dunno if Milwaukee would care to rebuild that.
This DIYer can't know exactly what you're going through, but after 11 years in my 100 year old home I have an idea.
A guy in MN is rooting for you.
Thanks. Believe it or not, that means something to me.
That, and coffee, and ibuprofen.
And an overtime gig that I've got coming up.
And the promise of a cold adult beverage when this is all through.
Okay, it all ties in together, to motivate.
;)
You sound pretty handy, Matt. Our maintenance guys could someone who can do it right and under budget. When, I mean if, you tire of Texas, come on over to WI and show the folks in the capitol how to do things right.
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