Things I'd Do Differently 1

I'd buy a different drill.

Probably this one that DIY Diva loves.

We'd always had a Craftsman 19.2v cordless. It was serviceable and worked well, so early in the project we decided to get another one and thus be able to use the same battery. Makes sense. Back in the day, the big issue was running out of juice and needing extra batteries. Things are better now and charging happens faster than ever, but still, an exta battery is good. The thing is, the drill was a poor fit.

Poor fit how?

First, it was a poor fit for the job(s). The craftsman is pretty big and pretty heavy. We were up on ladders a lot and working in tight spaces often. This drill is geat for doing a deck or a number of straight forward jobs, or occasional use. For our purposes, it was a bit unwieldy and heavy requiring some unnatural positioning and some precarious perches on ladders, etc.

The drills were also a poor fit for our hands. Neither of us is large-handed. That means that my thumb doesn't easily get up to the reverse/forward button without some unatural twisting of the wrist. For Mrs. OrDie, it's a two handed job in many instances.

So the long and the short of this is over a year and several months of work, we've driven hundrends and hundreds of screws, often in ergonomically incorrected or damaging positions. The upshot is that both of us have arm and elbow injuries that just don't want to heal up. The injuries are similar to tennis elbow in part, but there are also some funny tendon issues from twisting our arms. Both arms, I might add. As our right arms got screwed up, we just learned to drive screws left handed. Then our left arms got screwed up.

I really wish I'd coughed up the extra dough for two of the small powerful makita drills. I'd be feeling much better now.

The lesson learned is this: keep the scale of your project in mind and don't just try to work through something that's not quite right. That's fine for 10 screws. We drove over 600 tapcons, plus pre drilling the 2x4's, plus screwing 1x3's (1200 or so screws, I'm thinking) into the uneven ceiling joists, plus all the funky little jobs that we don't even remember any more. If you're straining or using bad form with that many screws, you're going to develop a repetitive stress injury.

Make sure you get the right tool for you to do the job and not get hurt. Next time, I'll do that differently.

Shout Out to Bob--Top Tapcon Taskmaster

Bob Carlisle deserves another "atta". We ran out of the masonry fasteners that we use to fur our exterior walls and otherwise attach stuff to brick. It was Tuesday evening and we're under the gun to get the place furred out for the electrician.

We then forgot to order new fasteners until late Wednesday. H made her order with Confast.com again. They cost about 33% less than the big box hardware stores charge--including shipping. THURSDAY afternoon they were waiting for us. That was less than 24 hours turn around, AND it saved us good money. Oh and they throw in the bits too.

If you need Tapcons, go to Confast.com.

Here's a video of Bob showing you how to use Tapcons. "Atta" boy, Bob!

Tapcon Quick Tip

As part of our preparation of the house, we're firring out the brick walls to accommodate wiring and spray foam insulation. This also gives us a chance to make sure the walls are plumb for the 5/8" drywall. Fortunately, they are, for the most part.

But, one has to be aware of how much the heads of the tapcons rise above the face of the 2x stock, as this will interfere with the dry wall. Additionally, we need to be concerned with tightening the screws in too much. If we over-tighten the anchor, it will strip out of brick and masonry leaving nothing for the tapcon to hold onto.

So, if you drive the tapcon in hard in order to make the head flush with the firring strip, you stand a high probability of boring out the hole and causing the anchor to fail. So, what to do?

Since the boards are pre-drilled (a masonry bit won't do well with wood), one can purchase a and use a counter-sink bit which will allow the head of the screw to drive flush with the boards without excess tightening. Fair enough, but if you don't want to stop what you're doing to mess around with that, I've found that often the drill "head" can be simply driven down against the board until it cuts about 1/16" into the board, which will allow that tapcon head to be sunk to board level. We'll try to provide a picture of this.

Just remember, don't over tighten your tapcon anchors and countersink your anchor holes in firring strips (be sure to check out the link to Confast.com for cheap tapcons, too).

Our prior post on tapcons is here.

It's still raining.

And the wind has kicked up and oh, yes, tore off all of the felt paper the box gutter fellas put down. It's all over the yard now.

And I think they must have pulled off some of the flashing from around the chimney and the apex of the west roof line, because we're getting as much water inside as the Titanic.

I did take a picture of what I rigged up in the meantime to scuttle the water outside instead of pooling (or freezing) on the floors of both the first and second floor. It's rather rudimentary, but it's working like a charm so far.

If you ever have a REALLY leaky roof and need to divert some moisture out a nearby window, I suggest buying a large roll of plastic and grab your staple gun.

We were told that the Benchmark guys would be back when the roofing materials came in (should be another week, week-and-a-half or so) but I really hope we don't have to wait the entire time with no flashing on the roof.

The winds were howling and we noticed that every once in a while, we'd hear the existing metal roof being picked up and off the sheathing. Hubby wanted to get up on the roof and secure the roofing materials so that we didn't have an even bigger problem than we have now, but I wasn't about to agree to that. Gusts were recorded between 47-50 mph. Yeah, go on, Gidget. I dare ya.

Not on my watch.

The next problem to tackle is the rear door. Everyone seems to think that replacing an exterior door is no big deal. Yeah, that's if you already have a framed in door. -----We don't.

The rough opening for the door is 39" wide by 101.5" tall and 9" deep. The transom was covered over in 1x6 and painted white. The door is
hanging on by a few nails. There's a 6" gap between the 1" door frame on the left side of the door (where the hinges are) and the rough brick exterior wall. If we pull out the door and frame, I fear the lintel above the door will collapse.

I think we'll need to carefully pull the door apart, temporarily support the lintel with a 2x8 and 2- 2x4's on each side, and rebuild the hinge side of the door frame with some connected 2x8's tapconned to the exterior brick, and seal up the gaps with expanding foam sealant. Once the lintel in once again supported, then we can work on the door frame itself.

As you can see in the image here, the pink area is where the lintel is (behind the white painted wood covering). The lintel is supposed to deflect the downward pressure of the wall above the opening towards the side walls left and right of an opening. That's not happening here and explains why there's a small crack in the exterior brick just above the doorway.

You can also see the gaps above the door and on the side. What a pain in the @ss.

On to better news: our first shipment of lumber is scheduled to arrive tomorrow. We bought from Riemeier in Norwood, Ohio and delivery cost is only $35. The lumber is a little bit more versus Home Depot, and I just found out why.

First, the price comparison:

Lumber Size: Riemeier Prices vs. Home Depot $
2x4x10 :......... $2.99........................ $2.69
2x4x16 : ........ $5.69 ........................$4.67
2x8x8 :..........$5.87 ........................ $5.25

So Riemeier is about 5-10% higher in prices, but from what I've seen and what I've been told, unlike the other lumber yards where the toss in about 10% of grade 3 lumber in with their grade 2 lumber and use 5 year old growth, Riemeier uses much older growth lumber (25 years?) so the lumber doesn't twist as soon as you cover it with drywall like the stuff from Home Depot.

I've also been told that the grade 2 lumber is as good quality as grade 1 lumber from Riemeier. I've walked through the drive through (Yes, they have a drive through!) and from what I've seen, the lumber yard is packed with high quality, no warping, no knots, no split lumber.

Also, Home Depot's delivery charge was $65, so if you're getting lumber delivered, overall, it's about the same cost for a small shipment from Riemeier.

But don't take my word for it. Check it out yourself. I'll let you know how it goes from this side when the lumber shipment arrives tomorrow for the reinforcing of the ceiling joists (see bouncy floors previous post) and for furring out the walls with the tapcons.

G'night.

ADDENDUM from M:

We were still shipping a ton of water around the chimney. Actually, because flashing and the cricket were disturbed/destroyed by the roofers and box gutter guys in the process of doing their work and diagnosing the situation, we're bringing in much more water than we were before. I'm getting worried about deterioration of the brick at this point.

Sooooo, I gambled on a bit of spray foam. This isn't a solution, of course, but it is a stop gap measure. I sprayed AMPLE foam between the brick and some goofy framing at the roof line from inside. It took a lot of foam, but it seems that the fast majority of the water is no longer eroding my brick. That should hold if we get some more snow or rain between here and when the roof arrives.

I'm sweating bullets about that roof popping up with high winds, too. I'd rather not lose that, thank you very much. That's a water leak that I can't patch with spray foam. I'll be checking on it this morning.

M