Cynicallous

A light, airy, effervescent, blog of grave consequence. (NOT!) Dedicated to those of us who must respond to negative stimuli by Chernobyling (entombing in concrete) our innermost thoughts.

Name:
Location: Slaughter, Louisiana, United States

A semi-gruntled corporate reliability engineer trying to make ends meet while keeping my wife happy, and myself out of the asylum.

Saturday, April 28, 2012

If the Illegals Ever Unionize, I'm Screwed


So I finally got enough time away from work to start the repairs on the front porch roofline. And, as it has been going lately, This one was even worse than the last. I'll let the pictures speak for themselves.

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Obviously, all of that is going to be covered by the new roof, so the color really doesn't matter much.

Now, I'm finally  at the stage of powerwashing and painting it. Then to decide if I want to spring for metal or just go normal asphalt.

Monday, April 23, 2012

F U nited

Nearly got screwed off my flight to New Orleans. I volunteered to miss the
last flight, but they found me a seat. They seem to have forgotten they had
already changed my booking. Hard to find good help.

Sunday, April 15, 2012

Pneumatic Nail Guns are the Root of All Evil

So I spent the last few hours adding fasteners to the fascia board to properly secure it. Then I ran down to the 'Po to see if the had a piece of crown molding that would match the one I mushed up. Amazingly, (or not), they had the exact stuff in stock in great quantity.

I cut that to length and nailed it up to finish off the back of the house.

As I've not done much carpentry in my life, this is all a learning experience. I think I've finally figured out how the original builder made such a mess of the soffits.

Have you ever tried to drive a nail into a springy board with a hammer? You'll sooner put your thumb through it. Unless the board is backed properly and rigid, the nail won't move as the board flexing takes up all the energy of the hammer blow.

Air nailers will drive a nail through anything regardless of whether or not it is framed correctly. Hence, you can be totally sloppy with your construction and framing habits and still stick the house together.

For the exact same reason that you learn derivatives in math longhand before learning the secret, carpenters should be required to learn to frame a house with a hammer before being able to purchase a nailgun.

VIOLA!. (sorry ma.)

Pictures of the back of the house basically completed. I need to drive some more nails to secure the fascia board and run to the 'po for a replacement piece of some sort of crown molding, but this part is about complete. I will say that it is much easier just ripping it all down and replacing with new than trying to cobble around existing stuff.)

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Saturday, April 14, 2012

Enough for today.

Things got off to a somewhat less than auspicious start this morning when, at Lowe's, I ran over my right little toe with the center castor of my loaded cart.

I don't think this is supposed to be this color.

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Anyway, at least now I know which ankle to limp on.

So I tore the rest of the back apart and started with the rebuild. It went pretty well overall. I was able to salvage the fascia on the north side of the house and just had to replace 8' of soffit over there. I didn't get a picture when it was totally apart, but here it is slightly before and then after replacing the 50' 8.5" of 2x4.

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Here is the pile of rotted junk I've got left so far.

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And here it is almost complete.

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I'll finish this up tomorrow and then powerwash it and fix a couple holes in the low shingles to get it ready for the upcoming rain.

Back from Lowe's

Borrowed a trailer so I wouldn't have to cut all the 16' stuff I needed and headed to south Baton Rouge. I had to go that distance as I bought the last few grooved fascia boards that the close store had and Home Depot does not carry them. Tying it all down took the better part of an hour, but it didn't move at all on the 30 mile trip home.

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Now to finish tearing this mess out and start reconstruction.

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At least it is a beautiful day. (Tomorrow supposedly as well.) Storms predicted for Monday-Tuesday, so I've got a bit of time to get this buttoned back up.

Friday, April 13, 2012

Didja Ever Start Something and Wish You Hadn't?

So I power washed the front of the house and then went to the store for some paintable caulking. I gummed it up nice and figureds I'd let it dry until tomorrow before painting it.

After mowing the lawn, I figured I'd pull the small section of rot in the back down to see what I had to do back there. I'd have it buttoned up before sundown.

Turns out, the only thing holding any of the wood in the back of the house together was what little paint was left. They same stupid spaced out building practice although it does the same as the front and the ends are set properly. I can salvage about 16' of soffit but everything else needs to be replaced.

So, I've made my list of stuff and will be hitting Lowes in the morning. After I get back, I'm going to string the joist ends to see if there is a problem there. Maybe that will allow me to put it back together without so many waves.

There. I fixed it.

So the front of the house is basically back together. Now I need to powerwash it, caulk the seams and start painting. I'm going to do that before I tackle the other sections as there is quite a bit of new wood in the soffits. I never did figure out why the builder chose to do that. Both ends were proper. It's a bit wavy in a few spots if you stand under it a sight along it, but it won't leak this time.

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The other picture is of the 20' section of tin that had been slid under the shingles by the previous owner when it started leaking the first time. Since they were the original builders, I guess they knew what was happening.

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It's funny, now that the boards are all tight, the original drip edge can reach the roof sheathing like it's supposed to. I'm still going to replace it with a wider piece to ensure it's structurally sound.

Tuesday, April 10, 2012

Rose on Homes

It doesn't quite have the ring of the other guy's TV show, but such is life. Our house needs a roof. It was built in 1986 and roofed using 15 year asphalt shingles. It still has that original roof in place. There are no leaks that I would call serious, but there is about zero sand left on the shingles and the stuff is so thin that the next hurricane will certainly complete the removal process if I don't first.

We have had a few spots in the fascia and soffits that have begun to rot over the last few years. Generally, the problem areas are at sections where the drip edge was poorly installed, so I figured, I'll get those spots repaired and then paint it all before starting the roof overlay.

I picked up new primed and grooved fascia board and some 3/8 one side sanded plywood along with a few other odds and ends last weekend. I replaced a small section of fascia that was broken and that went well enough.

This afternoon, I tackled the first notably rotted section. The fascia came down easily enough but strangely, the drip edge came with it. Oh well. I carried on and removed the bad section of soffit. While I was inspecting the 2x4 under the fascia and deciding that I needed to replace it as well, I noticed something odd about the original construction.

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The 2x4 that faces off the roof joists was installed with a gap of about 1" from the joists themselves. Because the roof sheathing was installed "normally", this allowed for about a 3" section of unsupported shingles all along the edge of the roof with only tar paper as the underlayment. That, in conjunction with a short drip edge that could only be nailed into the fascia board, was what has been causing my leaks and rotting wood. As the roof aged, and being the first area you step on when you climb onto the roof, the unsupported shingles had broken down enough to let water behind them which immediately went through the cracked tar paper and behind the improperly installed drip edge.

So, as rain is in the forecast, I scurried off to the 'Po for a new 2x4 and some nails with which to install it. I mounted it properly and set about cutting and installing the new soffit board. This proved a bit more tweaky than I expected as the original had been installed prior to bricking the house. I chipped away the interferences and was in business.

Then, since it was getting dark, I cobbled the drip edge back together to try to protect the new boards at least until I figure out how much of the rest of the house is screwed up in this manner. I'm hoping it only extends to the dining room corner as I expect they screwed up the initial construction and cobbled this edge of the house to hide a mistake. Oh well. It will be correct after I'm done with it in any case.

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Thursday, April 05, 2012

The Death Penalty and Economics

I am not a believer in giving many people the benefit of the doubt. I believe that the world would be a much better place if we just nuked the Middle East in its entirety. To hell with "Just War" bullshit and civilian casualty whiners.We stopped the Japs and the Germans in WW2 by the application of excessive force. That approach is still valid and would be more than acceptable to me in the current conflicts we are in.

So Connecticut is getting ready to re-abolish the death penalty. I don't blame them. The analysis of the economics of the death penalty in CT (Read it here, if you'd like.) shows a decent savings by not having to litigate the current ludicrous appeals process.

I've an even cheaper alternative. The final analysis shows that the total cost per inmate of a life sentence is $1,300,000.

Instead of commuting all the death penalties to Life Sentences, Just execute the bloody lot of them.

Now THAT's how you save money.