Home Improvement Today?

Haven't you seen home building in Australia

 

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A long time ago I was hand building a beam (basically a home-made LVL) and I measured it perfectly and spent 2 days building it for a large bedroom span. ...

Then we went to install it and and we put it in one beam pocket and tried to slide it into the opposite beam pocket and the other end fell ... ...

Yes ... I had measured the inside room width WITHOUT the beam pockets and built the beam to those specs ...

After that mistake ... I was paranoid about measuring everything.

 

Oh shit. Loud sucking noises that haunt you.

 

Sounds familiar, eh?

 

I agree with doing the whole ceiling if its gonna bother you (it will). Id scrape it first. Even if you were to sand and skim the patch area, you would NEVER match the popcorn pattern and it would show big time with or without knife drags. Sucks but sometimes you just gotta do it right.

 

I know a guy that was a pretty experienced carpenter that was cutting a huge fir timber , something that took months to arrive and he ended up cutting it an inch too short by having his helper hold his tape on 1" so his measurement would be more accurate but he forgot to add the inch back in to the equation

 

Dropped a digit once. Measured 114inches,, cut 104 inches. The beam looked a little slanted from 0 to 12 feet (cut post short). My helper laughed and said "you don't see a tape measure on my tool belt. No mistakes are mine". That was after my two s hissy wang fit.

 

Nothing quite that painful, but we've all been there, right? I believe that's called education, or wisdom, or experience, or regret, or fucking up.

Edit per Ben....

 

Oh yeah, I know that maneuver well

 

@OZ-T Looking Good Just curious - Does the spray foam carry a fire rating? I noticed the floor is framed with dimensional lumber; is dimensional lumber the preferred material for floor framing or are TJI joists preferred in your area?

4BYTOY

 

Yea
I’m looking at a fire rated R7 per inch to use but like said previously I’ve got all the plumbing and wiring to do first.

 

The foam is fire protected by the drywall , floor joists are pretty much all original to the house . In my area for residential construction , unless spans are very long , floors are mostly framed with dimensional lumber still .

 

@Kolunatic (and any other wise, old plumbers) I'll be shopping for a new water heater soon, gas, approx. 50 ga. Tankless has crossed my mind, but I've had no time yet to do homework. Old home replacement unit, in basement, plenty of room.

Recommendations please?

Tank or tankless?

and

Brand?

 

Edited my post just for you. And feelings.

 

Residential gas tank type had good luck with Rheem from supply house. Haven’t touched a tankless in years but liked Takagi and some Noritz but there’s so many nowadays

 

If you can go tankless I would. Have to check if gas load can handle it or go to high psi meter and install regulators everywhere else

 

Yeah, I saw Rheem coming up highly rated a lot in general. And yeah, the tankless market seems a bit dizzying with brands.

That the one thing I ran into while briefly searching, is that tankless int an older house could get costly for related system retrofits. I guess that could be a long-term economic in reduced heating/gas costs, but after gushing cash for closing a house deal, I take pause, because god know what else will crop up. HVAC is aging, and fridge on the bench, too.

All the hot water pipes are relatively short runs, too, so not too worried about heat loss/water waste, and could easily insulate most of those, too.

Oh yeah, and I'll want to replace the detached garage sometime soon.

 

You can always get an exterior tankless so don’t have to mess with venting. I got a Rheem marathon, it’s like a yeti water heater. Lifetime tank, but it’s electric not gas.

 

If you go tank, I suggest Bradford White. High quality, only one made in America.

I'm going on 10 years with mine, zero problems.