How NOT to build a wall

[The Ranger]

We have several public libraries close enough that my daughter-units can bike easily enough to most of them. I've donated books to each over the years and it's not that they don't have an over-supply from willing patrons. It's the resources to bind them for shelving and use, catalog them, and then put them out so they get used.

Tangential thought: I watched one mom put a book back because it was "old and a hard-back" (I asked because I knew the book was a good read.) It didn't have a cover sexy enough to hold her daughter's attention. Gahdferbid the story do that...

If your local library has volunteer hours, find out what you can do to assist them in getting their back-logged books out on the shelves. If it's like our system, you'll have to go through _some_ training but once you're in you can make a difference.

The Ranger

[cshenk]

"Robert Green" wrote

Grin, first one I did had to match an older house. 12.75 inch. It was a replacement due to termite damage of a semi-structural wall along a stairwell (with closet underneath). Original followed the steps and we wanted to match to the undamaged other wall wood of the closet. The stairs were actually falling down on that damaged side so had to use metal supports (the sort where you twist to rise until hit it right). Major pain in the ass with leveling everything. Mom also insisted it be cedar to match the other side and we had to have that special ordered because they hadnt crossbarred shorter lenghts on the original wall and we needed over 10 foot

3x6 pieces for the stretches at the top end.

We were in a small town and had to order from Charlottesville VA (about 1 hour drive away). I still chuckle about the guy driving up and asking Mom for her husband. She saw the wood and told him, 'oh, thats for Carol. CAARROOLL! Your wood is here!'. I'd slept in late and came trotting out in my PJ's with a level in one hand and a muffin half eaten in the other. He didnt stop laughing until I showed him exactly why I had rejected 2 of the pieces. He gave Mom his card after I took him inside and showed the specs I needed for some of the floor beams and 10x2 oak flooring replacements in the far bedroom.

Lets not embarass anyone with my age then. Just say, young enough to come trotting out in my PJ's (girly snicker) and old enough to grab a level.

[DerbyDad03]

Apparently the "force fit and let friction take over" practice is not unique.

I just removed a bi-fold door in an old house apartment that my moved into.

The bi-fold doors were shorter than the original door opening - by a foot - so they install a new "header".

They screwed the header (an unpainted pine board) into the jamb on the dumb end of the bi-fold and forced the pivoting end into the opening.

I guess if you're going to do a job half-way, you might as well do that half wrong.

[Gerald Ross]

snip

When we were building a house in Texas the builder came every afternoon to check on the framers. He had a big red marker and would look down a wall then would put big X's on the studs that stood out. The framers would take these out and replace them with straighter ones.

We moved to Georgia and had planned on building again. We visited one builder at a job site and noticed that about 1 out of 3 studs were out of alignment. When I pointed it out to the builder he said, "the sheetrock will straighten them all out." Then we visited a finished house he had built. The walls looked like snake tracks. The sheetrock had not helped straighten them. We marked him off our list.

[Puckdropper]

Rich wrote in news:i3iuog$ons$ [e-mail]:

They'll hold together ok for a year or so... just until the warranty's over. Even if the guy doesn't do the repairs, it saved time on the install, right?

Puckdropper

[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]

Pretty dumb idea. You could use peel-and-stick floor tiles and get the same effect. Cheaper, too.

[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?

[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

[Luigi Zanasi]

It also shocked me the first time I took the casing off a jamb. And our house is usually exceptionally well built, as it was built as part of the carpenter apprenticeship program and the instructor was a real bastard who made the students redo anything that was not perfect. I know this because I talked to a couple of guys who had worked on it as apprentices in 1978.

I will not say anything about want one of the subsequent owners did, like removing a couple of 2X10 joists under the decks so he could install a cheap tin overhead garage door. But he did replace each joist with a couple of 2X4s

Luigi

[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

[Cindy Hamilton]

Of course, if the little woman is constantly changing her mind about what she wants for a backsplash, peel and stick would be a great labor saver.

Cindy Hamilton

[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.