How NOT to build a wall

[cshenk]

"DGDevin" wrote

When our brick cookout subsumbed, we dinally took it out. Piece de la resistance? A broken lawnmover in the base. I guess gravel was too expensive that year (grin).

[news]

Perhaps because they know someone who is in the building trades and couldn't find his butt with 4 hands, a mirror, and a flashlight.

We lived in one house where the back wall of the carport was almost 2 inches out of plumb - I can only wonder how work done by "professionals" who didn't know wha sqaure, plumb, and level were got past the city building inspector.

I knew the wall wasn't plumb, but discovered exactly how bad it was when I enclosed the carport and started fo finish the walls. I ripped

2x4's diagonally to make the nailing surface vertical. My work was permitted and inspected; the inspector even asked whether I was an electrician by trade (no, but I learned the right way to do wiring - I was sleeping in that house....)

John

[HeyBub]

BOOKS? In a LIBRARY? How quaint.

Mine has hand puppets, games, wall art, toys, videos, and a few other odds and ends.

They do have a spinner rack containing historical romances ("bodice rippers") with a sign: "Leave two, take two".

Libraries have abrogated their classical role as repositories of information. Most should be burnt to the ground and the ashes scattered. Not to worry, you won't be burning books!

To be even more topical, there are libraries in Berkeley that loans tools (power saws, pressure washers, ladders, post hole diggers, etc.). Buncha goddamn communists, you ask me.

[Morgans]

"cshenk" wrote

Yep. One of the best things anyone has invented for building recently, is the self tapping concrete screw. Trying to anchor anything in old concrete used to mean a gunpowder powered nail, but now, drill a hole and drive a screw. So easy. Also, if any of you don't yet have an impact driver (cordless) you need to get one. They are the stuff for driving hard to drive things like concrete screws, and deck type screws.

[Malcolm Hoar]

Power tools are permitted in Berkeley?

Those symbols of the industrial military complex should be banned immediately.

[JoeSpareBedroom]

If that's how things are where you live, it's because of YOU.

[J. Clarke]

Uh, how is what the libraries contain "because of HIM"?

In most towns the library has limited shelf space and tosses anything that doesn't move regularly. Are you saying that he should go regularly check out carpentry books that cover material that he has long since mastered just so the library will keep them?

[Upscale]

On Sat, 07 Aug 2010 17:02:58 -0400, "J. Clarke"

Possibly, he's suggesting libraries will stock books on subjects that people attending the library are looking for. If most go to the Internet to do their research, libraries have less information to go on when they stock their shelves.

But, I think libraries are doomed to obscurity. I believe most people (those living on the North American continent) including those less financially capable have their own access to the Internet in one way or another.

[krw]

Plaster is an art, not something I'd ever have the time or need to learn. I also hired someone to put in a hardwood (bamboo, actually) floor. I wish I'd just bitten the bullet and done it myself. I had never seen it done and thought it would have taken a lot more knowledge to do. I did tile without having seen it done and there's a lot more to tile, IMO.

She would never do that to me. Though on second thought, she might because it does take me a lot of time to actually finish projects. ;-)

[Mike M]

Yes that's the style I usually use as well. Most contractors know to use rebar, and some jurisdiction want to inspect before you pour, but there is always someone looking to get it done the easy way. Even had one survive a garbage truck other then damaging the J bolt. One engineer used to spec 6' anchor bolts just in case.

Mike M

[hallerb]

My paperwork skills SUCK:(

But I have great mechanical ability to fix things, can strike up a conversation with a total stranger and tend to be a good surviivor when things go bad.

[Harry K]

When I got around to changing the old kitchen into a bedroom after adding an addition, I found that the proud former owner had used scraps of sheetrock to do the walls. Pieces as small a 1' square! the price of mud he used probablywould have bought new sheetrock.

Harry K

[FrozenNorth]

I don't even want to know how you hand a 1' square piece of drywall on studs with a 16" centre. yikes.

[Twayne]

Not all do; some post here instead.

[Harry K]

Old construction, the walls were the old wood ship lap. This must have been built way back. After some research I found out it had been _two_ shacks shoved together.

Harry K

[Bob Villa]

I went to an "A card" carrying electrician's house years ago and he had some bare receptacles nailed to the bottom of window sills (inside) wired with lamp cord!!! WTFrenchToast

[JoeSpareBedroom]

What he described is a dysfunctional library. An extreme. Libraries like that are reflections of their patrons' indifference.

That's quite different from what you said, which is a moderate and correct view.