What's new

bought a house from 1910

Sometimes it is. Although you lose all the charm an older house brings. Also if the house is historically significant or registered that will present problems. We personally had plans drawn up for an 2000 sqft “addition” for our current house because our location was grandfathered in yet we could never build there again. Setbacks have changed some since 1970.

The charm of a rape shack? :flipoff2: I must not be a lower cost old house person. I respect a nice manor, a large plantation house etc, but so many of the smaller old houses you would have to pay me to live in.

[486 said:
;n207794]
100% the plan going in was to burn everything down
I always confused everyone by describing the house as "a burn-down"
poked around in there and figured I can fix it for much cheaper, really proven right on that one with the current lumber market

I'm only into this structure about $2k and it is sorta kinda half liveable already.
It would absolutely be faster and easier to just plop a mobile home 40' away and let this shithole fall into a pile, except for the fact that when I poked around a little, a single wide mobile home is like $40k, a few years old

Fair enough. I don't feel bad for thinking "Fuck No" about the structure anymore :laughing:. I had not realized that you were getting into this for so little. It seems like every project i touch on my property costs me 1k min, and I'm sure that skewed my opinion. That is one hell of a cost differential, 2k vs 225k to build a new house is rather significant lol.

I don't think i am a "fixer upper" buyer. I like property fixer up projects like trees, ponds, fixing horrible overgrowth, killing bamboo, driveway culvert issues, fencing, residing the house or window replacement etc while living in a nice interior from day one.
 
The charm of a rape shack? :flipoff2: I must not be a lower cost old house person. I respect a nice manor, a large plantation house etc, but so many of the smaller old houses you would have to pay me to live in.



Fair enough. I don't feel bad for thinking "Fuck No" about the structure anymore :laughing:. I had not realized that you were getting into this for so little. It seems like every project i touch on my property costs me 1k min, and I'm sure that skewed my opinion. That is one hell of a cost differential, 2k vs 225k to build a new house is rather significant lol.

I don't think i am a "fixer upper" buyer. I like property fixer up projects like trees, ponds, fixing horrible overgrowth, killing bamboo, driveway culvert issues, fencing, residing the house or window replacement etc while living in a nice interior from day one.

The older house my buddy is looking at is 3400sqft. Its not small but for me the layout is crap. But it works for him I guess so fuck it I will help.

I am with you on the cant start it for under a grand deal. By the time I figure out what I want its a grand to get the basics covered.
 
I lived in the farmhouse Steinbeck wrote Red Pony in...not far from 2BB. It was an eclectic mix of overdone and wtf. There was 12' plate...and 6'6" ceilings. Made no sense. we rewired it from asphalt/asbestos wrap on porcelain pins to romex. it was a nightmare on all fronts.
 
Last edited:
I had not realized that you were getting into this for so little. It seems like every project i touch on my property costs me 1k min, and I'm sure that skewed my opinion.

the three biggest things I've ever bought were this property for 75k, my bobcat for 6500, and... really had to think about this one, a honda insight for 2500 that I immediately made back 1500 on by selling the drivetrain out of it. It's got a TDI motor in it now, btw.

Point is, there is always a cheaper way to do it.
I was thinking about what kind of header beam I want to put under the roof rafters on this thing while I'm working on this side of the house.
I've got some 2x8s left over from the barn that fell down, but not enough to do the whole 26' header doubled up, and when it is done with the wall under it there won't really be any spans bigger than maybe a door.
I've got a lot of 1/4" plywood that I could laminate together, basically everything in this house that would have been drywall was 1/4" plywood with many layers of wallpaper and panelling over it. That seems like far too much work even for me.
What I think I've settled on is tripling up some 2x6s that are also left over from the barn. They've got the square corners and are circular sawn, so someone might want them for aesthetic reasons but I'm kinda fucking fed up with that sorta fuckstain lately so fuck it, I'll glue and screw them together into a fuckin' beam. Was gonna do 2x, osb, 2x, osb, 2x but then I realized that I'm pouring the walls, so making it out to be normal 2x6 width doesn't really matter, I'll just toss an extra 1" of foam alongside it so it is flush with the wall.

Anyways, no real update, spent the whole day vacuuming blow-in cellulose outta the rafters. Do have some pictures, might upload them later tonight
 
[486 said:
;n208877]What I think I've settled on is tripling up some 2x6s that are also left over from the barn. They've got the square corners and are circular sawn,

My FIL has a shed that he built about 40years ago from lumber he salvaged from an old farm house. The boards are all like that. When we went to hang drywall in it last year we had to pre-drill the holes as regular drywall screws would break off before they would screw in. Shit was hard wood, probably from some now extinct tree.
 
My FIL has a shed that he built about 40years ago from lumber he salvaged from an old farm house. The boards are all like that. When we went to hang drywall in it last year we had to pre-drill the holes as regular drywall screws would break off before they would screw in. Shit was hard wood, probably from some now extinct tree.

My dad's floor joists are like that. If you manage to get a nail driven in it isn't coming back out.
 
My FIL has a shed that he built about 40years ago from lumber he salvaged from an old farm house. The boards are all like that. When we went to hang drywall in it last year we had to pre-drill the holes as regular drywall screws would break off before they would screw in. Shit was hard wood, probably from some now extinct tree.
some of the original... well... early framing in this house is done with white oak
that shit, you pick it up and wonder if it's wood or aluminum

the barn is mostly pine, certainly all the 2x6s are at least, and conveniently enough they're cut to conventional 1.5x5.5 size, too (plus or minus an eighth)
Kind of neat, some of the roof boards were 3/4 thick and 18" wide! Too bad the roof was shit for so long that they were rotten at every rafter, not much value in a bunch of 22" long pieces that are about half by weight little tiny nails from the cedar shakes
 
first pic: Finally we see the bathroom from the other side. Tore out the back wall and got to work on tearing down the ceiling

second: poland cannot into selfie
doing it right?

third: got a piece of fiberglass caught in the unguarded fan, probably fuck you up real good if you stuck your hand in there

fourth: what a fucking mess... the shit on the plywood is molded on there good enough that a drywall knife isn't scraping it loose
Fun fact, those cardboard cieling tiles? flat shovel makes quick work of them, takes most of the staples out too.
fifth: dunno what I was expecting, but it actually looks pretty decently framed. Gonna sister on a second board where they put that electrical box, but other than that everything's pretty solid.

photo33837.jpg


photo33838.jpg


photo33839.jpg


photo33841.jpg


photo33842.jpg
 
some pictures of the "foundation" that goes a few inches into the ground
the red steel is salvaged from a set of shelves, it is keeping the FUCKING SQUIRRELS out
oh, and the shit you find in the insulation...

photo33843.jpg


photo33844.jpg


photo33845.jpg
 
[486 said:
;n208950]first pic: Finally we see the bathroom from the other side. Tore out the back wall and got to work on tearing down the ceiling

second: poland cannot into selfie
doing it right?

third: got a piece of fiberglass caught in the unguarded fan, probably fuck you up real good if you stuck your hand in there

fourth: what a fucking mess... the shit on the plywood is molded on there good enough that a drywall knife isn't scraping it loose
Fun fact, those cardboard cieling tiles? flat shovel makes quick work of them, takes most of the staples out too.
fifth: dunno what I was expecting, but it actually looks pretty decently framed. Gonna sister on a second board where they put that electrical box, but other than that everything's pretty solid.

Why's your ladder so ghey? :flipoff2:
 
[486 said:
;n208962]some pictures of the "foundation" that goes a few inches into the ground
the red steel is salvaged from a set of shelves, it is keeping the FUCKING SQUIRRELS out
oh, and the shit you find in the insulation...

What's all that white shit all over the place:eek:
 
Why's your ladder so ghey? :flipoff2:
came with the barn, I'm a much more subtle brand of faggot
apparently the previous owner raised three daughters in this cramped shithole
I don't even want to imagine the ****y time of the month
What's all that white shit all over the place:eek:

it's like... "snow", man
you know pure uncut canada white
just pick it up from the ground and put it straight in your lung holes
how else do you think I get so much done

see also: keeps the somalians concentrated in the cities
 
seems the floor was a bit slanted when they did the bathroom remodel. Plywood is stamped '86 so pretty recent all in
I think the OSB was even later than the actual plywood that was under the rest of it

whoop, don't step there, they'd busted out a layer of the floorboards to get enough space to do the wedge shaped shims for the plywood
one layer of leaky-bathroom and 2-feet-of-water-in-basement boards isn't very strong

started cutting off the ends of the busted out floorboards, they were just bothering me for whatever reason

who needs teeth when you've got 11 amps of 120v at your disposal? that's a solid 73 amps of 18v, no way those little batteries can dish out that kind of poop

busting out more floor, you can see the mess I've gotten into. At least maybe 1/4 the basement is already dug out to about 5' on average... nice set of three green treat 12' 2x6s there, I'll be using them for the sill plate atop the concrete walls for sure
fun aside, after I got the plywood up that was covering over the neat gray painted wood floor I noticed wear in the paint that walked straight into the wall I tore out. Hit me again that this house predates indoor plumbing. They didn't have electric until the '50s, that means no running water (unless they had a tank in the attic which I really doubt). No bathroom when it was originally built.

photo35108.jpg


photo35109.jpg


photo35110.jpg


photo35111.jpg


photo35112.jpg
 
pulled off the interior panelling (one sheet of 1/4" plywood) and found daylight from the exterior walls. I think that used to be tar paper and the squirrels sure had a fun time fucking up the fiberglass

Did that so I could get the beam in there that'll span the roof rafters
I'd love to get a full 26' beam in there all one piece and shiny new but I'm a cheap fuck that just disassembled a barn. Triple 2x6, glued and screwed together in place as I'm only one dude, so lifting too much at once is a non-starter

view of the works from the kitchen (another later addition, from the '50s or earlier though as told by the DMV paperwork found in one of the walls)

then started pulling up the floor the rest of the way down that wall

joy of joys just look at that beautiful foundation there
yes, that's a single CMU block and gallons of spray-foam

also had a fun time rolling the boiler up the basement steps, bout 4' square by 18" wide, maybe 300lbs of sharp rusty sheetmetal encased cast iron. Flipped it over and up a couple stairs to see if it was doable, then realized I was halfway there so had to keep going. Just about had a heart attack getting it up the last couple stairs. Ended up cutting it up in the front yard anyways, coulda done it down there and woulda just had to deal with a bunch of asbestos in the neatly enclosed basement. BTW, old style gas boilers got a real neat rectangular cast-iron heat exchanger in them. If this one doesn't have any cracks in it (they never drained it, so I think the frost handled the draining for them) I figure it'll work great plopped atop a woodstove.

photo35114.jpg


photo35115.jpg


photo35116.jpg


photo35117.jpg


photo35118.jpg
 
oh right, got a single treadmill from craigslist so far, guy gave me 20 bucks to haul it away
gonna be making a conveyor belt to carry the dirt out of the basement and out a window. I've gotta get at least two more to scavenge the belts off of in order to make this one long enough to reach that far at a reasonable angle. Sadly, I seem to have exhausted the immediate supply of free treadmills. :\

gonna dig down and put in a couple posts from foundation level up to the 2x6s on the roof before I dig too much of the old foundation out. I think I'll start the foundation with the corner, mainly so that I've got some resistance to it tipping. Though, the whole "front wall" will need to be done directly underneath the existing wall which would suck. Maybe I'll start a few feet back and just brace the wall up with boards to keep it plumb...
 
screw digging, get a machine and dig a ramp to under the house and dig it out.
 
Pics of the heat exchanger?

Are you gonna power three treadmill belts long with one treadmill motor, or have each one dump on the next?
 
Pics of the heat exchanger?

Are you gonna power three treadmill belts long with one treadmill motor, or have each one dump on the next?

Knowing what I know about how much DC treadmil motors like running wood lathes I think dumping from treadmill to treadmill is the way to go.
 
Pics of the heat exchanger?

Are you gonna power three treadmill belts long with one treadmill motor, or have each one dump on the next?
gonna sew three of them together into one
was thinking I'd just cascade them, but then I'd need like 5 or more in order to deal with the overlaps eating up belt length both vertical and horizontal, never mind the difficulties in setting it all up.
screw digging, get a machine and dig a ramp to under the house and dig it out.

just not in the cards, man
this is a glacial pace job, and I already evicted the animals once
maybe if I had some lockable storage on site and the ground wasn't gonna freeze soon, and I were planning an 8' ceiling height down there

thinking on it some more, I might just put in the posts for the winter to keep everything standing, then start digging once it thaws
Knowing what I know about how much DC treadmil motors like running wood lathes I think dumping from treadmill to treadmill is the way to go.

actually, the speed controller was broken so I'm just running it off the transformer from a new broken "smart" battery charger, it has more than enough power to do anything I'd ask of it. Lifting a couple shovelfulls of clay really ain't that much horsepower.
 
Last edited:
first couple pics of the heat exchanger for muckin'
think it would work great plopped atop just about any woodstove, they come with boxes on the top and bottom, but it is a typical gas/oil flue with a bypass so that the draft draws in ambient air, horrible idea for a wood flue, as it'd make a chimney fire instantly uncontrollable instead of being able to vacuum damp it down. Actually the bottom box has enough room to be a tiny little woodstove if you took the gas burner logs out

third pic is the best mousetrap I've ever owned. For whatever reason those retards just can't resist that bucket of nasty-ass water that's had at least one mouse floating in it for months at a time for the last year
Really should drill holes in the bottom so it'll at least drain, and take on water without it needing to come over top of the slab.

Cut a hole in the floor for some posts to hold the roof up. This one is about central, and actually ends up on the small slab that's poured in the basement. Gonna use a couple 6x8 guardrail posts I got a long time ago.
Had the lovely smell of an aquarium with wood chips in it while sawing
which is to say, pine and rodent piss

Last picture is a cheap animation to give some depth of field, that's looking down the basement stairs
there used to be 7 house jacks under there, you can see a couple posts that I've already substituted in
it is like they didn't know that you only gotta buy the one house jack for 50 bucks, then you just use it to put in 5 dollar green treated posts

photo35245.jpg


photo35246.jpg


photo35247.jpg


photo35248.jpg


photo35249.gif
 
I have found many treadmills by the dumpster of hotels that have exercise rooms, once I had a vehicle to haul one away in.
 
[486 said:
;n219032]first couple pics of the heat exchanger for muckin'
think it would work great plopped atop just about any woodstove, they come with boxes on the top and bottom, but it is a typical gas/oil flue with a bypass so that the draft draws in ambient air, horrible idea for a wood flue, as it'd make a chimney fire instantly uncontrollable instead of being able to vacuum damp it down. Actually the bottom box has enough room to be a tiny little woodstove if you took the gas burner logs out

So you're just gonna plop it on top of a wood stove, rely on the metal on metal contact for heat transfer and use that as a small booster for a baseboard hot water system?
 
you're not very good with context clues are you
the implication was "the shape is conventient to plop atop an existing woodstove by cutting a plate out of the top and replacing that plate atop the HX"
or possibly even just taking the cooking burners out of a flat topped stove like my crappy "boxwood stove" and blocking off the original flue
 
I have found many treadmills by the dumpster of hotels that have exercise rooms, once I had a vehicle to haul one away in.
Doubt any of them are refitting their exercise rooms currently, what with a lot of them hurting for business ATM
I'm seriously considering responding to an ad for a $20 treadmill. This is painful, but I think I'll get over it. :laughing:
 
[486 said:
;n206721]

okay cool, so I'll vapor barrier the outside and the entire stem wall/footer
leave the inside wall open to the structure, as it is likely to be the dryest air in there

got a couple mean motherfuckers of concrete vibrators, they'll be a tight fit in the wall forms though. Might have to buy one of the sawzall-motor driven ones too...

I'll probably be making up a set of two 4x4 foot form boards and just leapfrogging them across everything. Yes, there will be a lot of cold joints but I figure it is still going to end up much stronger than CMU block walls.

I'd love to bring in a truck, but 4yd minimum would mean I'd need to make 4 sets of 4x8 form boards, and at 40 bucks a sheet for the good outdoor rated plywood that stands a chance of re-use, that'd be another 320 bucks plus whatever the 2x4 bracing on the backs of the forms would end up running. Also, much more technically concerning, I'd need to dig out 32 feet of the perimeter at a time to set up those forms. I've got a 10' beam already down there provided by the previous owner that I can leapfrog around once I've got a section of the stem wall poured to brace the floor joists against.
Too cold out to do "half the concrete in the forms, and half into pouring a segment of driveway" sorta deal.
Basically, shit timing is why I'm doing it this way. I could leave it for 6mo and then get the concrete delivered.

ETA: the pump house in post #42 I already did, and I found out that I can do about half a yard in 4hr working at a lazy pace when it is hot out. Cleanup without running water included. Mixing with my sand and gravel piles 100' apart. Figure I'll start moving the gravel up to the house with the bobcat to save some effort.

sounds like a bitch of a plan, but a plan nonetheless!

Wow that'll be a lot of triangulation. Sounds like a very 'Extreme 4x4' plan. :lmao:

Foundations. Now they come in 300m, and with extra beef!
 
first one's the bottom guardrail tie post dealieo in the floor
second's the double 2x10 it'll eventually support
third's the basement, just knocked some of those bricks outta there that day
fourth, couple plates I found in the dirt, '74, iirc
fifth, spent some time turning dirt, didn't bother lifting any without the conveyor together yet

photo35905.jpg


photo35906.jpg


photo35907.jpg


photo35908.jpg


photo35910.jpg
 
okay, way overdue update
got the conveyor belt thing up and going, didn't work worth shit, dirt just fell off the back end
ground froze and I stopped digging

photo36584.jpg


photo36585.jpg


photo54180.jpg
 
all righty, got a piece of wood all cut up, iirc that's pine, there's 120 rings in it by my count, meaning that the middle ones had to have been at least from the late 1700s, possibly older with how there wasn't any bark on any of the corners of the board
just fucking nuts when you think about it.
couple newspapers I found pasted to some of the framing

got the insulation and all torn out, that section of wall is actually really nice apart from having no sill plate, I'd just toss a footer underneath it and run it with new siding if the wall in the room where I'm standing weren't such shit
last pic is showing why I hate fiberglass, mice might tunnel alongside foamboard when you leave them enough room in the wall cavity, but they won't soak it in piss and shit

20210308_153424.jpeg


20210226_150933.jpeg


20210226_150949.jpeg


20210312_142638.jpeg


20210317_125635.jpeg
 
tore up the kitchen floor and took the drywall off the wall (1992 date code) in the earlier picture with the insulation, this is that same area
they'd had the normal 3/4 t&g boards with that green asphalt flooring, then they had riser boards for some reason, then more 3/4 t&g with linoleum on that, then atop all that they put vinyl. The torn out section was 3/4 high density OSB subfloor, and a couple layers of 1/4" ply atop some 1/4" masonite strips, all of it had gotten wet for a very long time and was mushy
that pvc pipe was the sink drain, it had primer and glue on it but it wasn't hooked up to the tee on that end, it drained to the septic at the missing end where the insulated water pipes kick up
the laundry was in the garage where I'm standing in this picture, that also drained down that pvc pipe
you can imagine a lot of water went into the basement from that but they don't seem to have ever fixed it, just let it rot

next picture is my haul of $3/bag cement, 15 bags is all the 773 will lift before falling on its face, so I had to repallet it all and there's still 3/4 a pallet on the truck waiting for the yard to dry enough for the skidsteer to not immediately high center
the woodstove that burns oh so much rotten trash, and my grandpa's wheelbarrow of all riveted construction. Predates commercial-scale welding apparently.

next is a chisel plow that came with the place, might have to get that going for some use in my yard grading extravaganza that'll be coming along at some point.
there's also a shitton of disk sections so I can toss together a disk pretty easily too

dunno what this antique is, I'd imagine some sort of deal that acts like a disk, but with less turning of the dirt? there's a bunch more of the springy leaf spring fingers throughout the yard. I ain't no antique farmer.

finally one of my favorite shit that the house came with that I didn't even notice until months after I bought the place, an isetta
and what I think is a stock tank heater, put fire in it and it can be submerged with the flue (extended up of course) handling breathing for the fire

20210322_113230.jpeg


20210322_163357.jpeg


20210321_145040.jpeg


20210321_145007.jpeg


20210321_144108.jpeg
 
Leaf spring thing is a spring tooth. I've pulled one behind a disc but I'm also not a farmer and don't know wtf I was doing.
 
Top Back Refresh