Question: "This Old House" The Current Project

[Keith Williams]

IIRC 12:1 is a pretty dry number. 10:1 is dry snow. I believe 6:1 is closer to the average. Whatever, the numbers are on the weather sites (snowfall vs. precipitation); scale accordingly.

But that "normal drainage" is off the path only to re-freeze somewhere else. Some may go down the drain, some may just cause a skating rink in the road (the towns around here will get mighty pissed).

I assume you mean w/o. ;-) 10'? Yikes! We had 5' in three storms over 10 days (early December) last year. That was 'nuff. Fortunately we didn't get much more until March.

[Neill Massello]

There is no "reality" on television. The medium turns everything it touches into entertainment, which usually means fantasy and bullshit.

[yourname]

Of course your time is not worth anything, if it is someone elses time, it will cost more than 30 bucks, at least around here. I think the plow companies get twice that

[hallerb]

That home owner (George Marby) is very unlikeable and a bit of a whiner. A TV guide listing of the show describes him as a Bio-Tech Bachelor. I wonder if there are any hamsters crawling around that house ....

Actually I think george is great! What show were you watching?

It sure isnt TOH with georges contemporary home...

[RicodJour]

There were two others that got testy - the Salem house where the zoning board made the homeowner cry, and the London townhouse where they had to rebuild the newly installed steel roof structure due to some zoning code or other and the budget got blown to hell and back.

I think they must write into the contract that for the owner to get the discounts or freebies they have to smile for the camera.

R

[Neill Massello]

Actually, they are in touch with the PBS viewer base. The show is an example of why PBS has become irrelevant.

[Nancy1]

I agree mostly. However, I get tired of east coast/west coast/south. It was explained to me by the TOH e-mail responders a long time ago: they have to work where there is good weather in the winter, and/or where they can go home overnight. That means east coast (go home overnight) or west coast/south (good weather). I think they did do one house in Chicago, but can't remember for sure. It was a new kitchen for some family with new babies or something like that, where the kids were eating on the floor. Anyone remember that?

In any event, they won't ever come to Iowa, Nebraska, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Michigan, Kansas, Missouri, etc. etc. etc.

And I really miss Steve Thomas and don't like the new dorky host at all. Ah, well. Things change.

N.

[nicksanspam]

... 20x50x1/12 = 83 ft^3.

5250 lb (actually less, since ice is less dense than water.)

... 5250x144 = 756K Btu, eg 756K/(55-32) = 32869 lb (522 ft^3) of groundwater cooling from 55 to 32 F.

Back in the 4' deep x 50' long x 522/50/4 = 2.6' wide stone-filled trench with an EPDM liner on one side of the driveway, where it can warm up to

55 F and get pumped over the driveway to melt the next batch of snow :-)

Nick

[Brent McKee]

I remember them both. In the case of the Salem house, a member of the heritage board referred to the woman homeowner - who was several months pregnant - as "waddling" into their town. I was sure someone was going to get punched out after that incident. Of course the solution the show had come up with to a rather serious parking problem was at best tricky and at worst potentially dangerous.

The London apartment was a more inexcusable case. A British contractor _should_ have known that there are severe restrictions as to what you can do to a listed heritage building like the one they were working on (probably class 2 - you can not alter the exterior of a class 1 building at all). One of these is that you can't substantially alter building profiles, but this designer decided "oh yeah, we can get away with not replicating the original Mansard style roof and just put up what amounts to a flat wall". Then to compound matters, nobody even bothered to wait for planning approval. You can bet there were law suits ready to fly on that one, particularly since one of the homeowners was a lawyer.

[RicodJour]

Not nearly as much as you might think, but in any event it's a drop in the bucket when you're spending a couple hundred grand for a staircase.

R

[D4]

They ought to change the name of the show to to "The Ultra-rich Remodel." None of their projects are practical any more.

[Neill Massello]

I was thinking "Construction Projects of the Rich and Famous" or "This Gold House".

Ask This Old House is their practical program. TOH itself has become a "behind the scenes at Disneyland" show.

[John Hines]

Yes it is very informative. Especially in plumbing, where they cut open the piece and show how it works on the inside.

This week it was water heaters, and after pulling the old one out, they cut it open to show the insides and what they had been talking about.

[Tekkie®]

posted for all of us... I don't top post - see either inline or at bottom.

That is why I will never donate. Also the ads

[Tekkie®]

Sir Topham Hatt posted for all of us... I don't top post - see either inline or at bottom.

Sounds like sewage to me... bio-tech

[Tekkie®]

Sir Topham Hatt posted for all of us... I don't top post - see either inline or at bottom.

So you are lactose intolerant ;~)

[ANIM8Rfsk]

in article y4mdnYE3kcFHEUjenZ2dnUVZ [e-mail], Tekkie® at [e-mail] wrote on 1/23/06 7:11 PM:

And so many many many other reasons.

[trader4]

I remember reading an article in the Wall Street Journal over ten years ago about how some of the projects had turned into mini disasters. Seems it took a lot longer than anyone would have thought and the homeowners wound up spending like 2X what they thought they would, even with all the discounted or free materials.

[Mark Lloyd]

I remember listening to a PBS radio station (sometime in the eighties). I heard a relative getting a gift membership for "Sam Lloyd" (the cat).

[SQLit]

Years ago they did a house in Phoenix. I went to the finish party. Met the owners, they both were worried that they were not going to be able to pay the loans off. The project did run well over 2 times the estimated cost. They were happy with the results, just not the cost. They also mentioned the "donated materials" were generally the cheapest of the needed materials and were less than 1/4 of the total bill. Both of these folks were attorneys so money should not have been a issue. A year later I went by and the house was for sale. It did sell for a premium for the area, but nothing close to what the property would have sold for with out a major street near over the wall.