bought a house from 1910

[Mr.Ratbastard]

1920's house here. It was originaly a church, pretty well built except for the addition. The plumbing is completely ridiculous. And the crawl space is about 8" tall.

 

[Poopyface]

My house was built in 1870. Found this photo of it sometime in the 1920s or 30s. (Center bottom)

The factory to the left is long gone, and there is a barn behind and to the right of the house now (~1800sqft)

Thats the Delaware river in the background.

Own the property to the left of the house that extends out of frame, its a 3/4 acre lot, as the property extends down the hill behind the house.

If we bought our neighbors house on the right, we would own almost the whole side of the street. After his house is a park, and then the Vets hall.

A TON of trees grew in on the slope behind the house, typical North East forest stuff and In the winter, when the trees lose their leaves, we can watch downtown, its quite an elevated street. We look down at the row of white homes in the background.

Bought as a fixer upper for the price of the lot essentially. Solid house, just needed some love.
filedata/fetch?id=94961&d=1596795033 filedata/fetch?id=94962&d=1596795998

That's awesome. I love the aging exterior look.

 

[dnsfailure]

Whoa... It looks like you have some "knob & tube" electrical stuff going on. I am sure your going to rip that shit out.

First pic.... box next to door.

my house, built in 1899 has knob and tube everywhere (except the kitchen and new laundry room), and it even still has live gas lines in the ceilings for old gas lamps. LOL

 

[Andrew]

That's awesome. I love the aging exterior look.

Its since been re-painted. 😁 That photo was like day 2 of arriving there in 2018

What do you expect for $25700 said and done.

 

[[486]]

Folk's place was built in either 1899 or 1901. There's documentation on both dates. How's the plumbing? Dad redid the upstairs bathroom, and there was a mix of copper, lead, and brass piping.

it seems to be mostly hard copper, inclusive of the boiler piping
except for the hot water, for some reason they saw fit to run that with flared soft copper.
drains are mixed ABS and PVC, as said, mound system, so the plumbing has probably been updated many more times than the electrical

Suuuuuuure it did...

Looks pretty standard for an old farm house. Have fun and don't snap your neck from shaking your head at all the odd cobbled together shit you find!

I might suck dick but I ain't loud about it

 

[Muckin_Slusher]

my house, built in 1899 has knob and tube everywhere (except the kitchen and new laundry room), and it even still has live gas lines in the ceilings for old gas lamps. LOL

So....put some fucking lamps in.

They're badass, and I'm planning on some in my 1937 beauty.

I want one outside the front door that never shuts off, and I want one on each side of my pocket doors by my dining room.

https://legendarylighting.com/

 

[dnsfailure]

So....put some fucking lamps in.

They're badass, and I'm planning on some in my 1937 beauty.

I want one outside the front door that never shuts off, and I want one on each side of my pocket doors by my dining room.

https://legendarylighting.com/

the gas lines are on the ceiling in the center of the living room and dining room, not entirely sure I'd like having flames right below the ceiling, haha!

 

[DozerDan82]

the gas lines are on the ceiling in the center of the living room and dining room, not entirely sure I'd like having flames right below the ceiling, haha!

I mean thats what insurance is for right...

 

[Johnny Longrifle]

My house was built either in 1902 or 1920 depending on who you ask. There was no foundation except for 4 large rocks at the corners. I hand dug a "footer" and mixed my own concrete 2big bronco style. Snaked in new rim joists and replaced all the floor joists. Tore out all the interior walls one at a time, (because I had to live in the house during renovation), insulated, sheet rock, rewired, finished and trimmed the whole thing myself. I'll never see any ROI on it, but it was a rewarding project.

I am certain that the fuckin hillbilly that built this place to begin with owned neither a tape measure or a level. It was built all by drunkard eyeball.

 

[arse_sidewards]

My house was made in 1926.

The studs are 16" on center. The walls are drywall skim coated in plaster. The old wiring is BX. The new wiring is romex. The pressurized plumbing is all pex. The drain system is all lead joined cast iron. Every room has an overhead light. Someone replaced the windows with modern ones. The roof is steel. The siding is vinyl. The central heat is oil fired steam and my only complaint about is whoever did the piping clearly wasn't trying to prioritize space in the bedroom.

Edit: also my basement is bone dry and made of poured concrete.
You people are buying the Yugos of houses.

 

[[486]]

My house was built either in 1902 or 1920 depending on who you ask. There was no foundation except for 4 large rocks at the corners. I hand dug a "footer" and mixed my own concrete 2big bronco[/USER] style.
I am certain that the fuckin hillbilly that built this place to begin with owned neither a tape measure or a level. It was built all by drunkard eyeball.

they had a level, but the lack of foundation made it frost heave all over the fuckin' place
I've gotta dig down at least 5' for footings here by code (which doesn't apply in pine county, no inspections on anything), 6' by actual frost depth, so steel beams on concrete piers is very tempting

 

[88mitsu]

;n94776]
Course I've already given them ghosts a nice show, beatin' off and such.

Just remember to scream and grunt loudly. Like a hobo beatin' off in his rape shack.

 

[[486]]

Just remember to scream and grunt loudly. Like a hobo beatin' off in his rape shack.

Coke bottle in the ass count?

Oh it's a fuckin' rape shack for sure. Smells like squirrel piss and all.

Here's some pics of the overhead UF I ran, totally up to code, and the pumphouse I made outta ghetto-icf
did I mention the silo and chicken coop? came with the place
Well is a 3" iron pipe casing, haven't stuck a tape down there to see how deep it is, you can see tye old insulation that was piled around the open wellhead in one of the pics, still gotta bleach the fuck outta it as the water's pretty fishy

 

[[486]]

Had a barn with a lean-to, but a tree had rubbed a hole in the cedar shake roof maybe 5-10 years ago, so it wasn't worth propping up and repairing, it had caved in pretty bad by the time money changed hands so I just cut free the steel-roof'd lean-to and been working on supporting it as a shed
sonotubes are kind of expensive for something you only get one use outta, I tried using a sheet of stainless and sliding it up 2' at a time but that sucked so I bought a 4' section of 12" doublewall and it works a lot better though the increase in force required to remove it was substantially more than I thought it'd be
Got a bunch of nice chainfalls and cable winches down in the cities, always seem to end up using ratchet straps... :\

 

[[486]]

Last pic is the updated lifting eyes I added, yet to be tested
I'd forgotten my vise opens this far, haha

fuckin' 5 attachments per post maximum? the fuck on dudes, fix this shit, even pbb's 10 was a horrible limit

 

[88mitsu]

Nice pipe work with the EMT.

I wish I could find a rape shack on 40 acres to work on instead of the dump on 0.2 acres I'm working on now. I wanna comfy old cracker house with a couple acres.

 

[Muckin_Slusher]

;n96854]Had a barn with a lean-to, but a tree had rubbed a hole in the cedar shake roof maybe 5-10 years ago, so it wasn't worth propping up and repairing, it had caved in pretty bad by the time money changed hands so I just cut free the steel-roof'd lean-to and been working on supporting it as a shed
sonotubes are kind of expensive for something you only get one use outta, I tried using a sheet of stainless and sliding it up 2' at a time but that sucked so I bought a 4' section of 12" doublewall and it works a lot better though the increase in force required to remove it was substantially more than I thought it'd be
Got a bunch of nice chainfalls and cable winches down in the cities, always seem to end up using ratchet straps... :\

Holy shit.You might actually be more of a cheapskate than [email protected].

Is there any concern of damaging the concrete when you remove the form? How long do you let it set up before removing?

 

[[486]]

Holy shit.You might actually be more of a cheapskate than [email protected].

Is there any concern of damaging the concrete when you remove the form? How long do you let it set up before removing?

I pull the form up when it has firmed up enough that you'd normally be finishing, so... 60ish degrees in these holes means about 2hr
I'm not hugely concerned with them losing much strength, as I've got 6 uprights of 3/8" rebar in there (three u bent pieces) for uplift, and vibrated the shit outta them when pouring, so they're pretty solid in the compression direction

I have learned that trying to salvage anything useful from the pileup of barn is an exercise in futility as you're spending a shitton of labor for boards that are worse than the ones on the dollar rack at the local lumberyard

Somehow I'm still justifying pulling out the rotted ass 2x6 roof rafters to use for nailer boards when putting steel over the ancient shingles on the house roof. I don't think they're purlins when they're basically just furring strips, dunno.
Got a pile of the better lap board siding that I'm keeping in the chicken coop to keep the bees company
I don't think I'll be able to sell it as while everyone says they want "barn wood" for projects, what they actually mean is the nice consistent dimensional lumber without nails, rot, splits, knots and lead paint that is in the "barnwood" isle at home depot.

Nice pipe work with the EMT.

I wish I could find a rape shack on 40 acres to work on instead of the dump on 0.2 acres I'm working on now. I wanna comfy old cracker house with a couple acres.

the EMT was a learning experience, I pulled 10/2 UF through about 8 sticks of 1/2" emt with all those bends, by the end it was so work hardened that I could barely get it through that last bend by the box on the end even pushing on the back and pulling it through with a rope concurrently
should have put an outdoor outlet box on the silo rather than focusing on having the whole 170' run being contiguous, then the whole length doesn't have to be pulled through every bend in the conduit.

 

[88mitsu]

;n97149]

the EMT was a learning experience, I pulled 10/2 UF through about 8 sticks of 1/2" emt with all those bends, by the end it was so work hardened that I could barely get it through that last bend by the box on the end even pushing on the back and pulling it through with a rope concurrently
should have put an outdoor outlet box on the silo rather than focusing on having the whole 170' run being contiguous, then the whole length doesn't have to be pulled through every bend in the conduit.

Hopefully that UF doesn't fail, you wont be able to pull it out and you'll have to cut up all that pipe lol.

 

[[486]]

Hopefully that UF doesn't fail, you wont be able to pull it out and you'll have to cut up all that pipe lol.

ehh, separate it at a coupling and peel the pipe off with a death wheel in the angle grinder
nothing is unfixable, just requires effort

 

[[486]]

As an update to the dismountable sonotube, someone was asking when you can remove it: earlier today I erred on the too early side of things rofl
was way too cold to stiffen up quick, I gave it a solid 6 hours before I got antsy and pulled it even though it was still a bit mushy
noticed it slumping down real bad and quickly backfilled fast as I could, to hold it up
we'll see in a week if it looks okay. Probably mix up some mortar to make the top 6" that sticks outta the ground look okay

Prolly shoulda used hot water, or that mag chloride stuff

 

[[486]]

All righty, someone asked for an update, so here it is
been working on the place a bunch, so you get a rather disjointed update with gaps and such
got the other side of the roof steel on, that side I just did all myself because when I had help I felt rushed so we did a shitty job
Put in a class A flue for a stove in the upstairs of the house, found a real nice secondary combustion fireplace insert on craigslist for free, just had to break the speed limit to run over and pick it up before anyone else did. Managed to install the flue pressed up tight against a roof rafter, didn't think anything of it at the time, but first time I fired it I wriggled up into the attic to feel the outside of the flue and it was hotter than I wanted, so I had to noodle my way in there with the sawzall and cut a bunch out, got an inch of clearance out of the roof decking (ancient shiplap boards underneath more recent 1/2" osb) and packed the gap with fiberglass then covered it over with sheetmetal, made a sheetmetal shield for the rafter after cutting a section out of the roof rafter then sistering on a second 2x4 to get the clearance needed. This place is framed so badly that that kind of fuckery is the least of my concerns. Didn't even pinch my blade as I cut it out, so the roof didn't even move, oddly.

Did a bunch of sheetrock, got half of a room finished out, the roof was a 9' or thereabouts span of 2x4 rafter, unsupported right there above the cot, so I tossed in a 2x8, a 2x6 and a 2x4 together as a beam (they matched the pitch of the roof when screwed together)
did 1/2" sheetrock on the vertical walls and 5/8 on the cieling, actually scored enough 5/8" from a dumpster to do the whole painted 45 degree wall there, the unpainted wall was all salvaged drywall from the "garage converted into living space" that I turned back into a garage (another pic on that later)
I kinda hate wiring inside walls with a passion, it provides holes in the studs for mice to transit and is also relatively unserviceable, so I just do EMT and make it external. Fan doesn't have a box in the cieling, just screwed it to a rafter and I'm using the escutcheon as the box (once it is assembled, pretty sure it is going to get new bearings as dumping 20w50 into the noisy ones in it made it not spin any more)

Floor was a single layer of 3/4 tongue and groove, I cut a slot in the drywall to fit the new sheets of drywall up the stairs, then hung the drywall before even thinking about getting a proper subfloor in there. I had a bunch of 12" shiplap boards from the barn that fell down, was gonna sell them to idiot hipsters but just used them as the second layer of subfloor instead because they fit up the stairs. Fuckin hate how it looks, might run a floor sander over it, might just toss ceramic tile over it.
only 5 pics per post, so stand by for the next one

 

[[486]]

So, down to the first floor, more shitty framing was removed and replaced with sturdier wood
that upstairs room's 2x6 floor joists had a 6" overlap in the middle of their span atop a "beam", 2x 2x4 underneath it, stacked up flatways like a top plate as apparently there was a load bearing wall in there at some point, too. That "beam" was enclosed with some real nicely done 1x lumber so at least it looked real nice. Replaced it with doubled 2x10s. Actually first I tried sistering on a couple 2x6s to either side of the floor joists (because as said before they were two separate boards with 6" of overlap and 2x 20d nails holding them together), so they were basically triple 2x6 on 24" centers, but that wasn't enough schnozz for the 16' span, so then I put the 2x10 beam in there...

Where you see the quadruple 2x6 in there, there is a load bearing wall in the upstairs that had nothing underneath it. Also all of the aforementioned 3/4" floorboards were cut just before they would reach the next 24"oc floor joist. So, the load bearing wall was atop some 3/4" tongue and groove pine, at the end of a 24" cantilevered span. The 4x 2x6s was to get over enough to support that wall. Right next to that quad 2x6 you can see where the stairs make a 90 degree turn, originally there was a couple steps and they extended further in, but I figure having a continuous beam is more important than a pretty staircase. I'm torn on if I'm going to have another stair projecting into the landing, like the stack of boards in that pic, or if I should bisect the landing into a sorta kinda spiral pair of stairs. I'm leaning heavily toward the straight stair out into the landing.
The vertical triple 2x4 painted black, that was their idea of supporting that end of the upstairs floor joists. That whole side of the staircase was another load bearing wall they cut out. Along the ceiling they had left the single 2x4 top plate, again enclosed in some beautifully done 1x lumber. That particular post was supporting a cantilevered 2x4, laid flatways. It did not even extend to the right to the floor joist beyond. Atop that, the last joist that it was nailed to had no less than 4 20d nails and 3 16d nails through it. Needless to say that it was completely broken off at that junction.

The last picture is of the roof of the garage, it's sagging a bit as you can see it is simple 2x6 rafters on a 4:12 pitch with a 26' span. I can't make them into proper rafters because the door to the house is too tall, so I got some 18' 2x6s (those three were a hundred bucks, lumber has gone crazy lately!) and I'll jack up the middle until it's straight then tack those bottom chords in and do the normal zig-zag bracing in there as though they were trusses. Gussets will be 1/2" osb salvaged from the raised floor they had in there when they converted it to living space. There were animals living under that raised floor, and the cieling in this section was nothing but the paper backing from fiberglass batts, shored up with a few layers of vapor barrier, held up with a shitload of staples. The squirrels were up there too, in fact you can sorta make out where a ceiling fan was hung at the peak, the insulation was packed in there with so much piss and shit that it was a rigid block.

Look down to the eave and you can see that the roof ends slightly before the wall, I stuffed some tin under the shingles to direct the water past the wall, then tacked a piece of tin on the wall to keep the animals out. They'd chewed on the shingles and then rot took care of the rest.
The other wall (behind me in this pic) was much the same, I put a new wall in a couple feet inboard in order to deal with the missing rotten rafters, I think that was detailed better earlier ITT.

Hopefully I'll remember to take better pictures as it progresses

 

[CenCon]

26' Man I wish there was a way to measure the pressure of those ridge joints.

 

[[486]]

26' Man I wish there was a way to measure the pressure of those ridge joints.

I'm kind of shocked that the walls haven't folded out
there was almost no wall left on the side I replaced, it was all just bullshit stacked upon bullshit
they actually used the old garage door as lumber to frame the fucking thing
then carpenter ants and rot reduced it to nothing

 

[[486]]

Almost forgot
this monstrosity was in the bathroom when I bought the place
it's got a few battery packs attached to it, so they were still showering here even after the well quit. I took the wall out while trying to get the upstairs floor joists straightened out, they had about 1.5" of peak to them in the middle.

 

[[486]]

okay, took more pics for you all to laugh at
first one is above the cieling fan , where the insulation was a space-age piss-shit-fiberglass composite
fuckin' squirrels get shot in my yard, this is why

second pic is jacking up the peak, I ran a stringline and it had sagged 3" in the middle, though the ends of the rafters are still tight together and when I jacked it up they opened at the top, stayed together at the bottom. Maybe the roof was swaybacked from the start? whatever. Got it up 2" before it started crushing the 2x4 in there too much for comfort. Put that rafter sorta halfass together so I can move the jack and lift the ones next to it tomorrow.

third and fourth are the rafter tail at the wall I haven't torn into yet

fifth shows the jack I found in the street (A norco, made in japan!) see also the wall I replaced, full length green treat double 2x10 header because why the fuck not, free craigslist garage door, 6500 dollar bobcat, 300 dollar german "rattelplate", free chainsaw, free battery charger, free concrete vibrator wrapped up on the wall there (good god are those things fucking mean, like instant full body hemorrage levels of mean)
my shame: priceless

more pics next post because limit of 5 I guess

 

[[486]]

Couple pictures of the roof, dunno what all I was trying to show

third is of the gussets, I'm using 1-1/4" drywall screws to hold them on, I was thinking I'd get some 2" wood screws for it, but these seem to be able to pull themselves in past the head, so why bother with more holding power than the OSB will handle...
Might glue them on with doing final assembly

will be adding in the usual zig-zag cross bracing in there too so that the triangles are smaller and many instead of large and singular

Last is the new baffle I made for my stove
my dad has basically the same model but a decade older, back then the baffle was a piece of 3/8" plate
now it is these silica stone styrofoam feeling panels that are fragile as hell and a hundred bucks to replace with chinese parts off ebay
PO had broken them up, so I just cut a piece of 1/4" plate because it's what I had
both baffle types would normally have a piece of ceramic wool atop them, I don't have that but I do have some leftover drywall and remember that when trying to burn the paper off of some I wanted to throw away in the yard, the gypsum part was pretty hard to bust up and consolidate in the firebox
so I tossed some 5/8" drywall in there under the baffle, might toss another piece atop where the ceramic wool blanket should be but I dunno. We'll see.

Kind of odd in that if you run one of these by the book the flue doesn't get all that hot at all, probably just above boiling where my crappy harbor freight "boxwood" stove in the garage that I burn all my trash in, that thing gets the flue pipe glowing red. No wonder manche's friend was having trouble with chimney fires (and no wonder they recommend calling a chimney sweep every couple weeks).
Gotta run that shit HOT every once in awhile to knock the shit loose, on this that seems to require leaving the door cracked open a little. Just doesn't have the air inlet capacity.

 

[[486]]

Have you considered using some scrap steel to fabricate a saddle for the top of that jack to help keep your post located? I’d hate to see that thing slip off and you lose some teeth.

it bites into the wood real good
I've got a 4x6 that has a dent 3" deep in one end the exact size of the jack's ram to attest to that

the fun part is that if you don't line it all up plumb, the board you use to push will bow until it spits itself and the jack out the side violently

 

[[486]]

I'm always disappointed in how slowly everything goes
it all fits in a 15 minute youtube video, after all