RC spy car as crawlspace inspection device?

[The Daring Dufas]

UG! 2300sq ft, good size for man cave. 8-)

TDD

[krw]

Precisely! Unfortunately, I only got about 450ft^2 of unfinished attic and it's going to be tough getting the tools up there after it's finished.

[clare]

snipped

Up here you need to get below frost for the footings. If you are going to dig a hole anyways, why fill it, when for the cost of a concrete floor you have doubled the floorspace of a bungalow, and increased the floor space of a 2 storey by 50%? It is the cheapest space you can build, when the hole has already been dug - and going deep enough for a 7 1/2 foot deep basement instead of a 4 foot one isn't much more expensibe if bedrock is not involved.

In the summer my basement is the coolest part of the house, and in the winter the warmest. It is fully finished except for the furnace room - and with the house being only just over 20X30 feet, the extra room is welcome.

[clare]

Nope, but it all runs under the basement floor eventually too. Having the drains in and under the slab is not generally an issue.

[clare]

The house I grew up in, the main basement was only just over 5 feet high, the cistern was out behind, and when we built the addition on the back in '64 it got a full basement under the part of the addition that was not over the cistern.

[clare]

It's called a walk-out basement or a "bank house"

[The Daring Dufas]

Cool! Now I know what to call it!

TDD

[The Daring Dufas]

I suppose when you're married, you must make compromises to stay that way. I'm uncompromising, that's probably why I'm single. Of course the drooling and the crazy eyes may have something to do with it too. :-O

TDD

[Robert Green]

When I saw the extent of the bites I can easily understand how they could kill moose AND people. My bud and his son had built a blind and were sitting in it and said they felt little if anything as those suckers climbed up and hitched a ride. I certainly never felt the one that I found clamped on the tip of my you-know-what when I went to take a leak after mucking out a friend's stable. I imagine that when hundreds start sucking at the same time, enough blood volume loss can make some people faint.

My jarhead friend spent a few days taking turns with his son sitting in a bathtub of clorox solution. It was the only thing that even put a crimp in the itching. Now he's got to be innoculated for and tested and retested for all wonderful diseases ticks carry. This is the same poor guy who after pulling all the weeds surrounding his new home got the almost the worst case of poison ivy I had ever seen. His arms looked like bloody loaves of bread, the skin was splitting open.

After seeing that, even on the hottest days in the garden you'll find me in long pants, boots, long-sleeved shirts and gloves. I remember getting a bad case of poison ivy reeling in a 100' extension cord in my hands that had passed through a small patch of the crap as I pulled it in. The dose on my thumb was so high it left a permanent mark on the skin. That was the finger that wiped along every inch of the stinking wire as I reeled it in.

The worst case was a guy I knew was way back at school who used leaves to wipe his butt. He was enough of a naturalist to know what leaves were OK - except they were all entwined with poison ivy which he failed notice. It was rubber inner tube and screaming in the bathroom for a long, long time. Reminds me of the story of PT109 and how they were so thirsty one night that they licked the dew drops off the plants until to find out the next day they were covered with guano.

-- Bobby G.

[krw]

Kinda. When we were looking for this house, we both had a "veto", which even a couple of years ago limited our choices considerably. I liked one house that had a 3-car garage, until I measured it. This one at least had some space that could be converted into a shop. I'll have to cut a hole in the garage ceiling to hoist the tools up.

After ~40 years at least the "drooling" part pretty much dries up.

[Douglas Johnson]

When my wife and I were looking for this house, we had three criteria: I liked it, she liked it, and we could afford it. We looked at a lot of houses. It was easy to get two out of three. This was the first one that scored 3 of 3.

-- Doug

[krw]

;-)

The one rule that I didn't mention was that she wanted a new house. We didn't even look at older homes. That wasn't my decision, but I didn't have the time to look at many more than I did (new job, long move and all). I really wasn't into a fixer-upper or a new roof, either.

The "could we afford it" part was easy. We had long decided to look well below what we could comfortably "afford"; we were looking to pay the mortgage off in ~5 years (not our first rodeo). Bottom line: if it wasn't in our price range we didn't waste the RE agent's time[*] or ours.

[*] Never tell an agent what your real financial situation is. We set her sights lower, knowing that their MO is to up-sell. ;-) We came in at the upper end of our target, but well below what I had in mind for the walk-away limit.

[Robert Green]

Further evidence supporting your theory is NYC. They blast six story basements out of the bedrock when building because land values are still ridiculously high and probably always will be. You can rent out parking spaces in the basement for incredible sums - at least they were incredible the last time I had to park in Manhattan ($500 a month in nineteen eighty somethings). They probably get $3K a month now.

I agree. That's why I'd pay a premium for a house with a basement although I must confess, my stores mostly junk since I live in one of those 100 year flood zones that now floods every 10 years. We had close to 12" of rain in ONE day:

"Places like Federalsburg, Maryland had to be evacuated when over ten inches fell in only 24 hours. Washington DC and Columbia, Maryland had similar conditions on June 25th, when seven to ten inches of rain fell in only 24 hours. Northeast Maryland, just east and northeast of Baltimore, experienced extreme rainfall on June 25th, when seven to ten inches of rain fell in only

24 hours. One of the highest rainfall totals in the entire region was at North Bel Air, MD, just north of Baltimore, which had nearly 12 inches."

That kind of water turns streets into waterways. I saw cars flooded up to the hood. I began wondering whether I should have built an ark in the backyard.

-- Bobby G.

[Robert Green]

Well, if you want the Rolls-Royce of cooling technologies, those portable airconditioners they use for the A-line stars on movie sets would make the attic most workable. Directors can't afford to have a drop of sweat ruin a makeup job that can easily cost 10's of thousands of dollars, especially the prosthetic workups.

However, neither a ducted fan or a portable AC unit is in my future. A garden hose is. I mounted the hose on an old, heavy duty photographic lightstand and clamp rammed into a hole in the ground. I should go to google and look up who posted that suggestion because it's one of the most useful things I have learned here. (Speak up if you remember, anyone!) It's also a "D'oh" moment because I should have been able to think of it myself.

-- Bobby G.

[The Daring Dufas]

It also works in an emergency when the condenser fan goes out on an AC system. You tie a water hose and sprayer to a stepladder and water the condenser coils with a medium shower, not too fine or too coarse. The water will keep it running until the fan motor can be replaced.

TDD

[clare]

Well, my house is built at the high point of the street, on a sandmound just over half a mile from the grand river, which would have to rize over 200 feet to reach my house. I don't even have a sump pump, or provision for one. The "T" intersection beside our house (we are a corner lot) has occaisionally filled withwater when the 3 storm drains all get plugged - usually with ice from snow-plough ridges, and we get a heavy rain/thaw. Only had a trickle of water in the basement once - before we replaced the rotted sill to the back patio door.

[notbob]

Crawlspace homes are common in CA where it's not wet or damp. I went under mine to run some tv cable and was surprised at the total lack of most everything, even spiders. Jes dirt and wood flooring. Here in CO, it's similar. OTOH, I have an freaky aversion to spiders. The solution is cleanroom suits. When I went under our park model home to plumb a new sewage run, a cleanroom suit was perfect for the job. Kept me clean and kept the crawlies out.

I jes happened to have a couple, from working in clean rooms at one time, but "bunny suits" can be purchased for home use. I've found them as low as $8 ea. Since they are pretty tough, even the disposable paper suits, they can be reused a couple times.

You can get 'em as low as $5 ea if you're willing to buy a couple dozen. If I gotta go where the bug count ain't low, I'll gladly shell out a twenty for a couple suits and shipping. ;)

nb

[krw]

Sure. The price-feature curve certainly isn't linear and varies significantly by location and market conditions. We bought this house two years ago, which was pretty good timing. The market was obviously on the down-slide but there was still a reasonable inventory of spec homes. Builders were quite motivated, at least those who hadn't rented. I'd likely have looked higher if I didn't have a short end in sight (retirement) and wasn't somewhat concerned about the job lasting. It's not like we need more space (two people,

2600ft^2, 3BR, 3-1/2 bath). My cave is the only real shortcoming.