Home Improvement Today?

The dimpled membrane is great stuff. Used it on the recent short wall. Too bad it came out after I did my job on the back long wall. Got quotes anywhere from 7-11k to do it from contractors.
Bought an old Chevy w/ a 3 on the tree for $700. Limestone & Weeping tile say another $1000. The foundation coating was recommended to me from a soils prof. from the U of M. 3M stuff iicr. Then 27 full loads to a nearby area that wanted clean fill. Nearly cried day after I moved the Step, then it rained and another 4-5 more truckloads after some slid back into the trench from a lazy contractor throwin’ in a partial bag of fibreglass pink too close to the footing. Best part was when the wife got stuck like a human fly to the sticky coating while cleanin’ up.
Lost a fair jag of weight that Summer but not a lot of money.

 

As expected, rim joist has been om nomed by termites and im not sure what was even holding my floor joists up anymore. Im sure partially caused from the rotted sill where they bolted a 40’ ledger directly to it with no gutter or flashing of any sort for 20 years. Cant wait to fix this shitshow. Doing the same as the other side, bottle jack the pressure off and replace it sections at a time with simpson hangers where there isnt a single one to be found under the house. And good thing im tiny because the furnace is right in the damned way.. I’ll be pro at this just in time to not do it anymore.
The house was dirt cheap and is paid off so I can only complain so much.. I'm still going to though..

 

That looks like a whole lot of not fun. On the bright side, I can get rid of most of the fern-like 'grass' and clovers that have over run the yard nearest the back of the house...

 

Quick question, for a drainage system to be effective, it needs to be as low as or lower than the footing?
I was just looking at french drains (because I know nothing about the fine details of building a home) and they seem to be only a few feet deep. Are they not as effective vs a full blown drainage system like the one @OZ-T has shown?

EDIT: I think I answered my own question reading this: http://kellylangcontractors.com/french-drain-foundation-drain/

Looks like Foundation drain is the way to go for the end-all-be-all solution.

 

When I excavated my back yard (long side) & still after day 3 encountered water in the trench I decided to do a little investigating. Lookin’ back at historical maps combined with GPS coordinates, it seems like the developer just backfilled over some old creek tributaries & hoped for the best. No way you’d get away with this now. The creeks still there, just underground as my findings confirm.

 

That sounds like a fun thing to find... Well when life gives you underground water, dig a well?

 

I do not have a solution for tree rats but poison cookies could help you rid of the lazy ass neighbors

 

Seriously! It’s a damn stream flowin’ thru hard pan shale in thick gumbo clay. Stood there with a flashlight & yup, it’s a slow flowin’ creek tributary. Guy on the corner house said his sump pump hasn’t stopped in the 23yrs. he’s lived there.

 

below the interior floor height it is protecting

 

Gamo whisper or snares

 

All you need on a mount like that is one stud within the 16” span. You put 2 lag bolts directly into the stud. That’s why they have all those mounting holes. Combined that will hold any weigh of any TV that stand is rated for. No need for that plate you made.

 

there are natural springs in the area where my house is , the water in our drain tile flows all year at about the same rate so I ran all my perimeter drains and sub slab drainage into a 250 gal underground plastic storage tank and then a piped overflow out of that so there is an approx 220 gal standing volume of water in that tank all the time . We put a flow sensing pump in it and I use the water for irrigation of the plants around our house

 

Great idea Best I can do is 3 45gal rain barrels that need to be drained & turned upside down on account of serious Winter.

 

That's Genius! Talk about efficient use of resources!

 

Just about every old concrete slab I've ever seen sloped toward the house. I can't imagine everyone was pouring these this way. I wonder what causes it.

 

Probably because if it was poured near the time of the build, the disturbed soil around the foundation settles and causes the slab to slope. The rest of the soil further away from the foundation is usually undisturbed so little to no settling will occur. If the slab is under-pinned. Then this probably wouldn’t occur. Im not builder or contractor but I would assume this is the cause.

 

Never even thought of that.. BRILLIANT! And makes sense.
We just chalked it up to the prior owners being absolute dingleberries. He bought it off his succubus state-case of an ex wife's parents, 13 years ago and still trying to fix everything before he sells it.
The best one is them chopping a hole for the upstairs and basement stair wells in the middle of the house without running any supports, lallys, footings, nothing. Just cut a hole, put stairs in with a single 2x6 around the opening and hoped for the best. The house sagged in the middle, as expected. Husband ended up bottle jacking the house back into place which took about 3" to accomplish.

 

90% of what I do is of the "fuck it, that's good enough" attitude. But when it comes to suspending a 70 lb. sensitive electronic device 14 inches away from the wall, I definitely fall into the overengineer camp.

 

Had to go to my parents house today and install a dishwasher and plumb the ice maker for the refrigerator, damn I hate crawl spaces when you can’t see daylight.

 

lucky its people/ family you know, be worse if you dont know them