One year ago today: December 14, 2016, remember Ginger?
Five years ago today: December 14, 2012, the fifteen-foot rule.
Nine years ago today: December 14, 2008, exactly the right height?
Random years ago today: December 14, 2009, despite being federally funded.
A warm enough afternoon to get out in the yard. The good news is I’ve got half the porch deck length completely level. The bad news is it was the easy half, and one of the piers was by chance at the right height. This was all possible due to my new water level. I’ve got some more instructions about that apparatus that have again been neglected by every Internet video I’ve seen. One is that you get the impression you’ll fill the hose with water at one staked end. Then walk around with the other end of the hose placing a level mark at strategic spots around your construction. Wrong.
There are probably ways to get around working the level as I did. Or ways to refine the technique, but who’s got time right now? Here is a nice picture of the part of the porch we now know to be perfectly level. It already adds to the appearance of the property. I was impressed with how accurate this water level can be if you exercise patience.
Here is a better shot of the water level, showing the grounded stake in place, the filling funnel, and the orange dyed liquid near the bottom sill. That is the leveling point for the porch. You also get one of the best views yet of how the sister joists fit under the building to reinforce the older structure. I might add that so far, this method is bringing the project in well under budget. Don’t dance in the streets yet, there is still potential for all manner of mistakes. Here is the latest picture of the construction today. These water-leveled joists are remarkably level. My respect for the pyramid builders went up a notch.
Putting this work in perspective, I can’t just race ahead and finish the porch, though I may finish leveling the remaining length. Let’s not anybody forget I had to remove the finished portion of the interior living room floor, which included wire mesh, insulation, and underlay. I have to bolt the joists, another thing I’ve never done on such a scale, and rerun the electrical that I had just put in under all this around a month ago. And there is no fastening the floorboards in place anyway, because that the exact area I’ll be running the new plumbing. The best way to get at that is from the inside.
Agt. R and I took an extension light under the kitchen area. If you thought the rest of the building was wired badly, this is a disaster. Three types of wiring hanging under the joists, none of it properly grounded. That kitchen is going to be a major project because the floor there has to also completely get taken up, which involves removing the kitchen cabinets. What I may do is just level it, and remove only the center section, kind of like a booby hatch. I could get at that hodgepodge of wiring and if Clint Eastwood ever visits, he’ll feel right at home.
Yours for $9,000.
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This is an almost ground level view of the joists. Hey, I had to really get down in the dirt to find this angle, so at least take a look. This should convince any doubters as to the value of that water level. This shows the porch joists looking down half the width of the house. There are three remaining concrete piers to be dug up and repositioned. I’ve decided to go ahead with that even though that section of the cabin is not yet leveled. I’ll leave the joists floating under that part. From the street, the building will look good as new.
I still have no explanation why the blocks were not level. I even left the string in place so those who cared to take a look could see how one side of it actually curved upward. That part had gotten wet, but it was still flexible and had a string level attached. But it was still off perpenzontal.
Sigh, another guitar player down the drain. This was that Karaoke lady who strums, but she totally lacks the right brand of motivation for a project like this. I’ve now checked out all the local jams and those are not suitable either. Every one of them is dominated by guitar players who view the process as gradually getting the other band members to get better at backup. Myself, I have yet to see of a jam session that led to a successful band. I know it happens, but I’ve never seen it. The reason could be that the entry level jams I’m likely to attend are not brimming with guitar players with the right aptitude or attitude to play in a band.
I repeat, the skills to play in a group are not the same as musicianship. This is why most musicians never make it to a band. Another thing I’ve never met in Florida is a guitar player who goes home and practices new music, showing up the next week ready to play it. For that matter, I’ve never seen one who’s even practiced an hour each week. Running over his ancient song list for the nth time is not practice, it is rote memorization. And that is such a poor substitute for talent.
ADDENDUM
Here’s today’s final shot of the work. Visible here are the new girder, which is far stronger than the sill plates used on the old house. The joists are not aligned yet as I hesitate to do that until the entire length is completed. One of the marked water level states is shown at center. The amount of disturbed soil that used to be my yard indicates the considerable work needed to dig up and realign those concrete blocks.
I ran one of those English diagnostics on this blog just to se. Sometimes I get surprised on the links when I find out how long ago I first said something. This time I was curious how many phrases this blog actually repeats. It appears to be only 6% including the title and standard daily features. Not bad at all. The average with all blogs is up around 15% or nearly one word in six. So I guess we’ve got it pretty good over here. Also, the average blog page contains 620 words. (That’s per web page, not per paper page). This blog weighs in at 2,093 words. That’s serious literature.
The monthly newsletter also went out today. There are a surprising number of hardcopies that go out via USPS. It would be easy to presume that’s because I was the first and only one of my crowd to embrace computer technology. Ergo, I still know people who have never used a word processor and have no clue about the Internet. That’s merely the most common reason, but it’s the second reason on the list that’s an eye-opener. Any idea what it could be? Surprise, it is people who are “over-computerized”, such as Agt. M. If I send them the newsletter electronically, all too often it gets lost in the background clutter of their smart phones and never gets read.
Ah, but a private letter in the mail always produces results.
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