Home Improvement Today?

Yup Toto, I keep waiting for it to start yelling in japanese

 

The piers have a 20yr and foam 10yr warranty.

Here is everything hooked up to lift the north and west sides. It lifted a range of 1/4 to 1/2 inch. South side is tomorrow and pulling up our wood floors to prep for foam injection/flooring replacement next week.

 

Are they checking slab levelness inside? How often are they drilling holes to inject foam? If you have a piece of chain, drag it on the floor slab like a snake slithering back and forth and you'll be able to tell hollow spots though with foam it might not work well. Out here we call it "sounding" and we do it on concrete and tile installations.

One more thing: since you have clay soil, you should keep the grass away from your house foundation at least three feet. It'll keep water from affecting the clay. Probably not much of a concern if they back fill with good material.

 

Project Interlude , Phase 1 , Day 3

All ready for concrete in the morning





Been working long hours , was there till dark tonight but this place is not a bad spot to be if you gotta go to work

 

I really want to see the final product, looks like some of that form stays and acts like a relief and decoration.

 

Why did you put a drain in by the garage on such a steep driveway?
Asking for a friend

 

This is what we worked on this week, took a break from the big adobe wall, have to do some expensive form work to build the bond beam, so we are coming back to that soon.


We have a portal (porch)with an adobe banco(bench), another project that was half finished a couple years ago.


My dad decided this week he wanted to finish them, so we started with some simple forms. The porch is the only part of the house that is mostly true, we built it about 30 years ago. So the entire banco is at the same level.



We've never used powder coloring in the cement before, but my dad really wanted some color, so we tried it.




I think it came out really nice, one of my favorite things we've done! We're not done, about 2/3rds complete, but it looks so much better.


I'll take a few more pics next week of the finished portal.

 

Its a catch basin for the water that will end up down there at the bottom of the slope , the panels all pitch to it , there is a trough drain across the driveway at the far end of Phase 2 as well

 

Project Interlude , Phase 1 , Day 4

Sandstone coloured borders placed and finished this morning






Micro finish retarder applied




We wash it this evening

 

Washed , we apply seal and cure in the morning

Next pour is the exposed aggregate infill panels on Wed next week

 

I was planning on wall mounting a big ass TV in our living room, though the location of the studs are going to be less than ideal for this. There is a stud almost dead center to where the TV should be, the ones on either side are spaced 16". The walls are nearly 100 year old wallboard, plaster, and wood lath, probably some asbestos in there. The TV is going to be 65", and the Samsung im looking at is about 52lbs.

Im planning on a dual arm articulating wall mount. The mount will have the ability to move the TV off center, but it will be positioned so that its center is past the outside of the wall plate. Is this advisable?

The other option i have is to get a mount with a wall plate for 24" stud mounting. I would mount to the 16" studs with lag bolts, off center on the wall plate, then the inside edge of the wall plate i can add a third set of fasteners, toggle anchors for example.

I made a sketch of what i was thinking.

 

*warning im a few drinks in*

If i understand correctly you are asking if having a tv mounted to the studs then have the arm be off set of the "mount" on the tv doesnt line up the the "mount" to the wall.

That is fine as long as you actually hit the studs in the wall with the lag bolts. And have a TV mount rated to do that 9i think any with the dual arms are?).

Ive had my 40 inch tv mounted that way with a monoprice mount since i moved in in 2011

 

mmmmmmmmm, scotch.

Yes, sketch may not show it well. But for example, the wall plate of the mount would be bolted to the left pair of studs. The arms would be extended as far to the right as possible. The TV would be moved to the right of the mount's wall plate, with the center of the TV to the right of the bolt on the center stud. It might look kinda fucked up, i cant really think how it would stress the mounting point any more, as the arms extend form the center of the wall plate.

The other option i mentioned was to get the version for 24" stud spacing, bolt them just like the 16", but off center with the right more portion of the mount extending past the right most set of bolts, and add a third set of fasteners to the drywall/lath. with somethign like this:

 

Sounds like a solid plan with the wider wall plate

Drywall anchors are not gonna hold much weight so be careful there but that shouldn't matter as long as u have 2 lags in studs

U may have to drill the wall plate to get bolts in the right place.....

Another (ideal) option would be to add some blocking behind the Sheetrock but that's a whole lotta work lol

I've mounted soundbars to 3/4" blocking screwed to the face of the wall but I wouldn't do that with a big tv

 

Not much work to cut sheetrock and put blocking in wall. Plate tv could hide the patch.

 

Good point

 

Unless its lath and plaster

 

True.

 

With the 24" wall plate, I would still have 4 lag bolts into studs that are 16" apart. The extra anchors would be on the inside portion that is past the center stud. The only reason for all this would be to get the center of the mount as close to the center mass of the TV so that it would not be extended so far to the side just to get to center on the wall.

From what I can see, the mounts come with 5/16inx2 1/2in lag bolts, I will probably go with some 3" bolts to be safe.

I see at Home Depot they have lag bolts in zinc plated and stainless versions. Are there any strength differences between the two?