Home Improvement Today?

Relive your teenage years and drill a hole and giv'r the finger tickle. A borescope isn't going to tell you it's wet. Honestly for that small of a section, it's probably easier/cheaper to cut it out, if you're really concerned and replace the blown in with a batt of pink insulation, slap up a drywall patch, prime and paint.

 

The follow up.

I got a call from my employer very early this morning. Turns out he couldn't sleep and called Sika before I did. Contrary to what I thought they would say they told him as long as it looks good to go ahead and use it. They also said it's usually still good up to a year after it's expiry date. Sweet.

Started dropping the floor today and got most of the master bed and closet down. The T-100 performed like it always does. Only another 59 boxes of flooring left to go. lol

 

Great news!

 

I have some blinds that have a track on the side. I want to put some new blinds over a sliding glass door but I'm not sure it'll look right. I would be removing the molding and placing a 1" spacer under it.

Does this sound dumb? The door is in the same room and has the same molding as the window in this picture

 

Glad it worked out and also not surprised Sika said its fine. We used to get "extensions" all the time on all sorts of products and it mostly just came down to "was it properly stored?"...if yes then getting a 1 year extension was pretty common. Hell some stuff ended up being 2-3 years past its "expiration" and was still good.

 

The way expiration dates work on drugs is the company takes samples from every batch and stores them in climate controlled vaults. Every so often they test the samples to make sure they're still good. The last test is at two years and any remaining samples are destroyed. I asked the guy that did the testing if the drugs were good for longer and he said "probably but we don't test so I can't say for sure." Keeping those samples was an expensive part of the business. I'm sure it's the same for Sika. (worked for big pharma for 10 years)

 

Fun project we did this week at my current job . A curved concrete retaining wall at the entry that forms a planter . The wall will eventually be clad in stone

 

Sprinkler valve follow up:
Original



Improved:





The originals were leaking around $10 bucks a month of water. Still have another two banks in the front and side yards which aren't leaking as bad, but need to be replaced.

 

Nice use of unions.

 

Bathroom Tub leak, located and fixed:


Probably the original overflow gasket from 1979. What was left of it was hard as rock, and the lower portion totally missing.

Luckily I am remodeling the adjacent bathroom and could easily open up more drywall to get at the overflow tube. Pulled the whole thing out and wire wheeled both faces of the overflow, cleaned up all the corroded brass. Had to knock off some old pipe dope and under water epoxy the previous owner (probably) tried to use to fix it.



That is now on a 5 year replacement schedule.

 

Toilet leak, found. Not yet fixed

After a few rounds of "I must have fucked up the wax ring", and pouring loads of water directly down the flange with a funnel, I tried pouring a small amount of water around the edge of the flange were it was joined with the elbow under the floor. Turns out, it was not as joined as it should have been, and water just passes straight through this hole:



The previous plumber must have just jammed enough wax in there to make it work, and when I came along to clean it up and remove all the old wax, exposed the leak.

The main issue here (other than the leak) seems to be that the drain line is too high in the sub floor to allow for "normal" elbow fittings to be used. They cobbled together like a 3" spigot x something smaller hub elbow to fit inside of the flange. The elbow being "inside" of the flange has lead to the leak. I found a 3" spigot to 4" hub street elbow that the flange fits inside of instead. I have a 3" reamer to cut and clean out the 90 degree closer to the main drain line- So I should be good to open up a little more sub floor and give myself some room to work and patch everything up.

Solving bad work sucks.

 

@Andy01DblCabTacoma

It's far from the "correct" fix but would a wax ring like this have done the job?

 

Had a very nice day today. Near 50. Rare for December in Maine. Went to a job to replace some exterior window/freeze board trim (2-3 day job) Ordered materials a while back and my customer pre-painted. I'd spray prime any cut ends/edges. Removed one of the rotten pieces and realized I made a mistake. The trim was actually 5/4 stock, not 3/4 that I ordered. Ugh. Owned up to it to my customer and they were very understanding. I put in a piece of 3/4 just to put something in place. The material I use on exterior trim is called Lifespan. They had already paid me for the material. I reimbursed them as it was my screw up.

 

A Jumbo wax ring wouldn't have helped. There is a flaw in the way the elbow and flange are glued. Wax could have covered it up, and that's probably how it was before we bought the house... but that was just a bandaid.

The flange itself was a little messed up as well. It had been raised to accommodate a 1/2" hardie board and tile. We paid a plumber to correct that for us, and all they did was remove the two wood blocks the previous guy wedged under there and called it a day. And the vertical mounting hardware had obviously been over tightened and pulled through the plastic- there were some large washers on the back side... Additionally the sub floor had been cut away in places to try to fix some of this stuff in the past, and never repaired correctly, so the toilet rocked a bit.

I have sub floor open- just easier to replace it, sure up the sub floor around it, and solve all the problems.

 

Shit happens. You'll burn it on another job some day.

I got the upstairs flooring laid and the top stairs and landing. Then I found out the homeowners aren't coming up next Friday. They are coming up this Monday. Guess who gets to work tomorrow and Sunday to try and lay 1200 sq/ft of flooring and finish the other 13 steps and small landing. Fun times. lol

 

At least you've got plenty of glue.

 

On a positive note....Karma perhaps. At the local supermarket, I saw the customer who I did that kitchen for about a year ago (the one with the floor 2" out of level). He's renovating the other unit (upstairs) and wants the kitchen redone. He rents to traveling nurses for 3-6 month stints. Next one leaves in February and it'll be vacant until May. Should be another good late winter project.

 

At least you know how to deal with the upstairs floor which will also be at least 2" out of level. lol

 

not always. been in houses where the 2nd floor is nearly straight due to a balloon frame, and just the main level is off kilter...