All car projects on hold for summer 2014

Karsten, I HATE wallpaper.....Old home remodeler here, done tons of houses, including from foundation through roof, many kitchens and tons of baths....including my own here in Florida, and yes, you are correct, even at ten bux/sheet on the drywall, just make damn sure it's AMERICAN sheetrock not some damn China crap import shit that screwed up a ton of Florida homes some years ago....I pulled the rear wall out when redoing the kitchen and living room, and added insulation, but my house is cinderblock, so only 3/4" firring strips for the drywall to hang on....The 300' room addition was to be a rental, and was for some years, combined with the master and bath, just close and latch the door,......but we moved into it maybe ten years ago....I had the foundation/slab done and did the rest myself....hardiboard outside....large windows....all my windows are new plastic single hung thermal lo E and that has made the comfort factor greatly better in the front, especially as the house faces directly west, and that afternoon sun really burnt into the living room, but the window cut that crap by about 60%, I replaced ALL the windows in the house for a total cost of 1000 bux...not so awful evil, the comfort factor alone was well worth it over the last 13 years....I was lucky in that I worked for a while as a sub contractor for a handyman outfit that went under, and so got some GREAT FINDS for material on tear outs, for instance a glass/aluminum addition about 16x12, for FREE, helping a guy tear it out as customer wanted a Lanai instead.....and then two FREE glass sliding thermal doors, one for Bob across the street, and one for me off the kitchen into the glass room....

I tore out the bearing utility wall off the kitchen/laundry deck, restructured the ceiling with steel to redistribute the load....brought the laundry inside behind doors, moved water heater to shed on the side, moved the HVAC air handler, and made my own kitchen cabinets right here in the garage, having done that up north years earlier....so kitchen is opened up and nice/bright now, not that claustrophobic mess some previous owner did.....

SO you see, you are opening up pandora's box here now, once you bare the walls, you can start knocking out shit, and making it mucho better without much effort....so get on your thinking cap man, make some measures and sketches, and maybe some pix....and I easy can make suggestions to spend your money......:smash::smash::eek::thumbs:
 
MYBAD79 said:
Welcome to new homeownership.... Closing is pretty much set for the end of this month..... But homeowner's insurance was a bitch.... I have to replace the wiring quickly , I decided to remove all drywall to save money on the electrician.... Wiring should be much much quicker this way .... On the existing drywall they glued wallpaper to it so scraping and speckling and sanding that crap is no fun either, easier to rip out and replace..... While i'm at it I'll add insulation......
Anybody here done this crap before ??? Any hints ???
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One way to remove wall paper is diluted fabric softener. If it's real tough they say score the paper. It works once the paper is soaked.
 
Every time I pitched a job, I always made sure both the hubby/wife were home, so we all on the same page......and I would inevitable get asked about paint choices......I would say, it's your house, I can't advise you in all honesty....then if pressed for an opinion, I would say 'Purple with pink polka dots'......and get a huge laugh every time.....:thumbs::harhar:
 
I am considering replacing the widows while I'm at it... I prefer the lower window sill on newer modern windows, like the lower edge of the window on knee level rather than chest level...... Lol.... Can somebody please call the guys from Home Makeover ??? :smash:
 
Made some progress on the house: installed pool fence (insurance/legal requirement) , ripped out some drywall and 40 year old wooden paneling ... Removed all old tiles , cut some dead trees ... First dumpster left Monday AM ...

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Like Gene mentioned...... I have the same 3/4" strips to hold the drywall ... thin 1/2" insulation.... and only 3/8" drywall..... so now I am considering upgrading all exterior walls to 5/8" drywall and maybe even use thicker strips so that I can get 1" insulation in there.... how thick is that R19 pink insulation when you compress it slightly? 1" ???
 
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5/8 drywall is for fire code barrier walls into a garage area....it will add nothing to your insulation, so no reason to do any interior walls with it, mostly all walls are done with 1/2" my house faces directly west with little to no shade except in the AM, I have been cutting these rotten oak trees down like a madman since '97 seen two of them actually hit houses, one was the guy across the street,

as for compressing R 19 down to 3/4 thickness, I would be taking it down by peeling the fiberglass layers down enough so you can fit it in there without making the drywall bulge out with time from compression pressures....
the glass you peel off can be used alone just tape it in position so you can get the drywall in place.....

I too removed all my old single pane aluminum windows, and replaced with plastic/vinyl white LoE thermal double layer glass, that move in the front picture window must have cut the front living room temps by some 20f, 8 windows and the pix window ran me 1000 bux even but was done over ten years ago....

to save A/C costs, years ago I painted my light gray shingles WHITE, cut attic temps over 40f, cut 100/month off my a/c bill........I wish I could afford it I would put on a metal roof like the guy around the corner, but he did it in a bright medium blue, which has faded to almost white over the last dozen years, looks funky.....but done in white to start with would be a good move....

my house is cinderblock on slab with stucco over it, and fake brick/morter lines cut in the side/front....back was painted cinderblock, but it's been covered over now, for the most part.....I have added a room addition 14x22' and a glass roof atrium out of aluminum, looks like a Wendy's burger joint....got that for free, helping a guy tearing it off the back of a customer's house, they putting in a Lanai so this would have been in the way....so I got all the glass and aluminum for the right price.....:yahoo::D
 
Karsten - in lieu of batting have you checked the spray foam applications? You are familiar with spraying enough - might be a good DIY approach and better R-factor. Heat transfer comes down to delta T and barrier "porosity." Less porous is better.

Hardi-panel has some R-factor details on their site as I recall. And its fireproof. But a BITCH to cut - wear a mask and clothes you don't like. It is heavy but do-able.

Cheers - Jim
 
I expected the thicker drywall to have some insulation benefits, well, maybe not..... due to that wallpaper problem I will have to replace the drywall in some areas, might as well use the 1/2" then.... on the exterior walls I might just double up the thickness of the strips so that I can use the pink insulation - at least on those walls that get hit by the sun....
I think I am beginning to understand why the previous owner installed the vinyl siding - it adds to insulation.... unlike stucco....

Just spent an hour at HomeDepot tonight trying to learn some about windows... yep, looks like replacing all my windows with double pane is about $1200 ... that's all new.... so really not as bad as I thought it's going to be....

this house already has metal roofing over existing shingles.... so it should be quieter than metal roofing alone but reflect heat pretty good.... we'll see ...

Jim, yes, I am considering Hardy panel instead of stucco.... right now the house has vinyl siding which reminds me too much of Rubbermaid.... I don't like the house of the same material as my trashcan...lol.... was going to use stucco but the hardy panel has some advantages.....
 
The stucco on my house is white, so not an issue with heat, I was told by the folks that sold me the metal roofing panels for my room addition that I was NOT to put it over the existing rolled shingle material roofing that it was replacing, to tear it all off and put the metal right over the tar paper.....that rolled shingle material is crap, and gave me nothing but troubles for some 4-5 years, the addition outside is hardiboard over 2x4 studs and insulated R19 and 1/2 inch sheetrock.....the huge windows are all thermal insulated, but aluminum frames, I bought them on a huge discount as damaged /bent on the metal, but the glass was intact, so I just straightened them out, and called it a day....:smash:

I am not sure about the metal over shingles, they did mention expansion/contraction and scrubbing action eventually wearing out the metal o the shingle surface....but maybe it was because it was rolled roofing material instead of shingles, I dunno had 3 of us on the roof and one on the ground, so it was an interesting 3 hours getting it installed, each panel is about 30" wide and 16' long, ~2' overhang in back and funny story as I went and picked up the metal, I had a 3/4 ton Dodge van B 250 trick is that the metal hung out the back of the van about 5' worth so I got around the freeway about 30 miles worth, stopped at the light on the main drag here, and when I hit the gas, the whole damn load slid right outta the van and on the street, about two cars pulled over and 3 guys helped me reload the van and quit blocking the street.....good old redneck attitude...Git Er DUNN!!!!!:thankyou::twitch:
 
Started taking panelling and some drywall down..... Exterior walls have pretty much no insulation so still looking for options here, maybe some 3/4" fiberglass instead of the 3/8" stuff that's in there right now.....

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Also, replaced the first window, wasn't all that difficult .....
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Damn, Karsten, I gotta admire your drive to do all this stuff. There's few things I enjoy less than working on the house.

Keep the pictures coming. :thumbs:

ps: I'm interested in some garage interior shots when you get an opportunity.
 
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69427 said:
Damn, Karsten, I gotta admire your drive to do all this stuff. There's few things I enjoy less than working on the house.

Keep the pictures coming. :thumbs:
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Haha.... It's really not very enjoyable but I have a vision: just like when buying a POS old car, I see what I want the end result to be like.... This house is going to be friggin awesome when I'm done, right now it is just blah.... Like a 40 year old house.... Lol

Without me putting this much work into it (and the great foreclosure deal I got) I would not be able to afford all this..... :smash:

Like installing new windows: these dual pane windows are not all that expensive, paying somebody to install them cost more than the window itself..... This big (62x72) living room window was my first ever attempt and I got it done within maybe 3-4 hours..... Next one will be half the time..... Just like car projects: you gotta try, otherwise you'll never know if you can do it or not..... Lol
 
69427 said:
ps: I'm interested in some garage interior shots when you get an opportunity.
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Lol

It's just an open 2400 sqf garage, open trusses, rafters ..... I closed two doors on the side facing away from the house, just used cinderblocks and mortar..... There were two busted windows that I removed and I used glass bricks to replace the windows: lets plenty of light in but makes breaking in a lot more difficult .....

Here's one of the pics I took while closing out the existing doors....

In my worst Italian: La torre pendente di Pisa.....

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And this goes between the two 16' garage doors:

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One of my housewarming gifts..... It's awesome!!!
 
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MYBAD79 said:
..... Exterior walls have pretty much no insulation so still looking for options here, maybe some 3/4" fiberglass instead of the 3/8" stuff that's in there right now.....
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The best insulation available for a 3/4" space is polyisocyanurate, also called polyiso. You can get 3/4", 4' x 8' sheets of it at Home Depot or Lowes. It's rated at R5. Put the foil side toward the exterior of the house. Tape all seams with foil tape. There are ways to put this on the exterior of a house before installing the siding and to do so much thicker than 3/4". You would probably have to special order thicker sheets or you double or triple up on the 3/4" sheets.

Here's the link to Home Depot's version:

http://www.homedepot.com/p/Unbrande...igid-Foam-Insulation-Board-W-N5075X/100317820

In regards to a previous comment about compressing fiberglass insulation, compressing fiberglass insulation causes a reduction in R value. R value per inch goes up but an R19 batt compressed to something less than designed for will become less than R19. There used to be a chart online that showed how to derate insulation when compressing.

Take some time and get the insulation detail correct. The wrong approach could end up trapping moisture in your walls with very bad results down the road.

BuildingScience.com is a good resource for learning how to better insulate your home. I would recommend spending some time there. The main guru at Building Science (Joseph Lstiburek) writes excellent builders guide books for each climate zone. Check out the bookstore on their site. Very good reference material for what you want to do.

You might also check out the forums at Green Building Advisor. There's a bit of a northeast regional bias which is a much different climate zone so make sure they are fully aware of your location before accepting their advice.

DC
 
I agree with everything DC3 said,

TWO 16' garage doors??? jeez man, enough room, ya THINK??

on CF there is a C3 guy with a huge house/garage even an indoor pool, he picked up the house for like 100 grand, and tiled hell outta the entire house, did a NICE job on it.....I think his name is Oliver, GSc3 Grand Sport C3.....

:smash::thumbs:
 
http://www.buildingscience.com/doctypes/insights

Karsten,

I don't have time at the moment to look for the specific articles that come to mind from this guy, but here's a link to a list of some of them. He's into moisture and thermal control and after you've looked at a few of his "insights" I think you'll like his attitude. I incorporate a number of his ideas into my plan reveiws & inspections. Can't usually call them as code requirements, only recommendations. In particular, look for one about attics in the south with HVAC equipment in them, and I believe there's more about walls in the south too. There's a lot of very good info about the entire house envelope to found here.

Oh hey, I just noticed DC3 mentioned this guy in his post too. Joe is the man, and he's hilarious to hear speak. He loves to make fun of lawyers & engineers & architects. And he likes his bourbon and cigars.
 
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A/C air handlers in the attic, dealt with that shit, what in the HELL WHY would some guy be stupid enough to put a chiller/blower in an attic that reaches a MIN summer temp of 145f, on the plywood underlayment like my light gray shingles did, before I paint them WHITE and dropped the temps by over 40f......

When remodeling the kitchen, I put the air handler up on a platform in the garage, and redid the ducts....IF I had the MONEY, I would have put in one of the sideways/attic blowers, but hanging from the trusses in the garage space, below the sheetrock ceiling, but up tight so not to lose ANY floor space, I store shit under the platform as it is...so not too awful sad.....

:smash::smash:

Karsten, IN FACT pay attention to the above, and IF you can stand the framed in ductwork, punch it through walls below the sheetrock keeping ALL ductwork below the ceiling....sneak it along the walls/corners so it looks like a kitchen soffitt.....dropped maybe 18" at most and 18" out from any wall....for instance, in my house, from the garage , through wall, over front door/window, through bedrooms turn a 90 and to back of house in a series of closets....to spring up into the attic for about 16' and into the room addition.... I have read that keeping the ducts under the living space ceiling is worth a significant savings in electric....You tearing it up that much, maybe do some research/thought and see what......:smash:
 
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