Home Improvement Today?

We lifted this building about 5" to level it and get better basement headroom with temp LVL lifting beams at 3' in from exterior walls and added the temp walls after lifting at 4' from the exterior wall line . Upstairs is gutted , only weight is the framing itself

 

Fascinating stuff. I love following the builds here. If I didn’t go into medicine I could see myself in the trades in some capacity

 

Trust me, you made the right choice. It's cool to build things and most of us that do it full time take great pride in it. With that said, it beats the shit out of your body. I've thought more then once about becoming a nurse. lol

 

Just would be nice to have some of the skills you guys all have baked into your brains. I make stupid mistakes which cost time and money when I attempt to build stuff. The third or fourth version starts to be decent for me.

But, yeah, as I creep in on 50 I can feel it more the next day.

Still, for me, as a software guy, there is something extremely unfulfilling about a lifetime of effort making 1’s and 0’s.

 

For sure man. The grass is always greener, right? Funny thing is I can code a little bit. Guess who makes mistakes all the time when he sits down to play at the desktop? This guy. You would probably laugh at the mistakes because they are so entry level. Point is as long as you can think and have drive you can do whatever you want in life. It's natural to re-think your career choice and more so as we age. Hell, I do it once a week. lol

 

As another software guy, I have to agree.

I think the problem (at least for me) is, a software project (program) is never finished. There is always something else you could add, or change to make better, etc.

When I complete a home improvement project, there is a finish line.

 

I love being a carpenter / residential builder but its a true story it takes a toll on you physically . I'm in my early 50's and I'm definitely feeling running a concrete saw and 65 pound breaker hammer for the last 3 days lol

 

Yep. I'll be 49 next week. I definitely can't go climbing after work anymore. I have to save that for the weekends now. The upside to this trade is we're probably in the top 10% of physical fitness for our age group. You can't be a slacker and be a good carpenter.

I truly enjoy what I do. Question is how am I going to feel when I'm 60. lol

 

For me its when I run out of money.

Problem is, that always happens way before the project is done.

 

So true. I worked for 15years in aerospace machine shops, it took it's toll on my body so about 7 years ago I went back to college and got the AAS part of a mechanical design degree. Now I sit in a cube for most of the day and design parts in Solidworks and write some 3 axis CNC programs. At my last job, I was able to set up the HAAS and make the parts that I designed, it was a very fulfilling feeling. At the new job, I only get to make the parts in the design software. Sometimes I think about going back into a shop, so much less drama and general BS.

 

I try an do as much as I can around the house to save money, but sometimes it's easier just to hire out. Also, many things are out of my skillset. Case in point, hot water heater flush and new filters yesterday by me. Today, I'm having the irrigation valves and control box replaced by someone else.

 

Absolutely well said. It’s any career path you choose. It always looks better when somebody else has a job that looks good. It’s always under appreciated how hard that person has worked to get a skill to make that job look fun and easy. I’m happy to be in medicine for the physical aspect for sure. I spend a good amount of time doing some addiction medicine work and I have a lot of guys working in the manual labor fields trying to get clean from drug use since they had a work injury and needed pain meds but couldn’t stop working or were getting tired and beat up and needed an edge to keep up with the abuse the younger workers could handle. Meds or Street drugs made that work for a while but even that has to end at some point. Tough physical work takes a toll for sure! I just love getting to watch what you guys are doing on a daily, it’s really entertaining

 

As luck would have it , one of our new seismic foundation walls goes right through the footing for the old masonry chimney , it was 16" thick lol

Here I thought I was done with the jackhammer yesterday

 

If being in a trade didn't beat your body up so bad, I'd be all in. But, I've lost count of the number of 40+ guys that have rolled through my IT group because they just couldn't do their trade job any more. It is hard to watch. They've got mortgages, car payments, kids, wives, ex-wives, and all the other baggage we collect with age. And there they are at an entry level job competing with high schoolers that seem to know tech from birth. I do mentoring for a number of high schools, and I tell the kids when making your career choices look for the number of "old" guys doing the job. If you take a young man's career save every penny so you can retire at 50 if you want/need to.

And here's some DIY -
My water heater is a high efficiency model that's going to be stupid expensive to replace, so I want it to last as long as possible. The only thing I know to make a water heater last is to make sure the anode rod never wears out. To that end I've been doing an annual maintenance that includes inspecting the anode.

Here is one year's wear on an aluminum anode, next to a new magnesium anode:


This is one year's wear on a magnesium rod


And this is 2 year's wear on a magnesium anode. The rod is still wet in this picture, so that's why it is darker.


A new anode is $40 ish dollars which beats the crap out of $1,500 for a new water heater. Based on this years inspection I'm going to skip the anode removal for a couple of years, but I'll still do the flush. Magnesium doesn't make the jelly goo like aluminum, but there was some debris coming out in the flush this year.

 

I have TONS of plain rough cedar fence to coat this next summer. 100's of feet of 6ft boards

I need a powerful mean sprayer. I am not going to roll this, I would die..........

What high volume sprayer is recommended? Oil or water based wood preservative.

 

If you want something that will last, go with a Graco brand 5 gallon airless sprayer. The kind that looks like it has it's own 2 wheel dolly.

 

Like this? https://smile.amazon.com/s?k=graco+...aco+Magnum,aps,362&ref=nb_sb_ss_ts-doa-p_1_12

 

Switch to a tankless HW heater next time. No more anode rods.

Graco X7. I painted my entire house exterior and it worked great. The Titan Impact 440/400 are really nice professional level sprayers, but they're closer to a grand or more. Oil based will be a little more durable, but seal once marine seems to have good reviews. I've never used it though.

 

Yes, just like one of those.

 

OK this post sent me down a HW heater rabbit hole. Tankless lead to heat pump, which lead to cost savings and . . . my next water heater will be a heat pump. The operation cost savings is crazy compared to natural gas or resistance electric heaters. One of these days I'm going to do the math to see if it makes sense to replace the one I've got before it dies.