Chad Fabry

That's what they tell me. Boats and Corvettes seem to fair OK. It's recoatable, but not really easy to recoat. It requires thorough sanding followed by cleaning with acetone. (I already recoated it once becaue it was the wrong color) I figured the worst thing that can happen is it fails miserably. If that's the case, it'll make an excellent substrate for something else.

I did soldered seam terne on my balcony. It was *very* time-consuming. I considered standing seam metal, but what you can't see in the photos is a flare at the bottom of the slopes. I thought it would look cool, and it does, but you can't see it from the ground. If you visit, be sure to check out the cool flare from the upstairs bathroom window. I was afraid the standing seam would not accommodate the change of slope.

We added on to our old farmy Italianate house. It's mostly done now - I still need to add a few layers of trim and some corbels. The original house has a Medina sandstone foundation I built the addition foundation of the same material. The elevations of the addition ended up pretty close to two existing second-story windows that I didn't want to move. It left very little possibility for slope on the roof. So we built a hip roof with the lowest slope being about 1-1/2:12, and the steeper side slopes are about 2-1/2:12. There's not enough slope for any regular roofing except for products used on flat roofs. After a bit of research, I found that it's really common to use FRP(fiberglass reinforced polyester), AKA fiberglass in the UK, so I gave it a shot. Most of you know I come from an automotive background, and I'm experienced with fiberglass resins and fiberglass mats/ cloth. Still, there was a lot to learn. I learned a lot about the different resins, cloths, and appropriate weights. It was a fun diversion from peel-and-stick or modbit. The roof is two layers of 1708 cloth installed with polyester resin. It's about 220 ft. I used 14 gallons of resin. I pre-made the flashings and installed them first with fiberglass cloth and resin. Learning how much resin you can put down at a time was the most anxiety-ridden portion of the project. Once the resin and cloth were installed, I protected the assembly with two coats of gel coat—the top coat contains what's referred to as wax. The wax is a mixture of styrene and paraffin wax dissolved in acetone. You mix that into the top coat of gelcoat, and the styrene and paraffin rise to the top during the cure. They create an airproof layer that allows the gel coat to fully harden rather than remain slightly tacky. I'm fully aware of the pedantic nature of this crowd. The siding is all different colors because I had enough scraps from other jobs to fill it in.

I'm not a fan of the ground in the up position.

Around here, Zinscos make Federal Pacific look like a Cadillac. "voted most likely to set your house on fire"

They're really stupid. In the winter, they burn natural gas because they're stealing heat from the conditioned spaces. In the summer, they make basements clammy. And as Jim stated, they're also bad at their primary purpose.

Arlene Puentes subjected herself to 24 hours of CE at my little school. As a thank you (or maybe it was like offering a breath mint to someone with bad breath), she sent me a book titled, "On Writing Well" by William Zinsser. Throughout the text, Zinsser preaches that to write well, one must pare down, then pare down again, and then pare down more during the final edit. Her inscription said, "Jim Katen told me about this book; I thought you'd like it. Thanks, Arlene".

Wear rubber-soled shoes at all times.

I have a very good friend whose kid is under contract in San Antonio. Does anybody know somebody who can help?

Guys, Geez, I'm sorry to hear about your health problems. Marc is right about your ability to contribute and your legacy of contribution. You'll all have to find some way to contribute. My career focus changed to litigation support, and I now spend the time I used to spend here with my nose buried in manufacturer's instructions or code books. I've been coming back lately, and it feels the same as my childhood neighborhood. When I started, I would have paid any of you to review my reports; if you can't stand that idea, create a collaboration to write good books- nobody's interested in that effort. There is a dearth of valuable information available for beginners and those who want to improve their skills. Start a "dollar comment" where you can sell item comments individually. Nick's group has an absolute idiot writing shit for sale and he's killing it You guys have all that knowledge AND the ability to share it so others understand. It's a super rare combination in this profession. 40 WPM, that's such a burden. Wait. On a good day, I type 35, and there aren't that many good days. Thank God for speech-to-text engines.

Hi Mike, It's a good thing I built it, or we couldn't afford to heat this beast.

Thank you, everyone. The support from this group means more to me than any other. It's a great house, designed and built by others. Despite how rough it was when we bought it, it was easy to restore because all we had to do was make it the way the designer/ builder intended it to be. (to be honest, we added the balcony- prior, there was a 4'x4' personal viewing platform above the front door and below the tower windows on the adjacent side) I bought terne-coated steel for the balcony floor/roof in the late 90s for the project and didn't build it until 2016? Follansbee stopped selling terne in the US around 2010. We may be the last in the US to install a soldered seam terne roof. Kibbel helped with Tin O Lin's paint info for the project. We also deviated slightly by adding plumbing, electricity, and central heat.

That was beautiful.

The primary responsibility is to possess the required technical knowledge and the ability to convey that knowledge in an unbiased, matter-of-fact document.

You're the luckiest person on Earth if there's no damage. After five years in the northeast, your house would be a compost heap.

Hair spray, cooking oils, candles, floor waxes, many foams, plastics and, 'rubbers' vinyl upholstery and shower curtains, kayaks, carpet, carpet pad, olympic bumper plates, margarine, shirts from Wal Mart.

soap and dirty talk

I'm not sure regarding your question, but PVC is PVC and the fittings are clearly DWV. It wouldn't merit a mention in my report.

Yes.

Stainless and copper can be sweat connected. I've seen it done with boiler systems- usually the boiler systems of engineers who worked at Kodak when Kodak was famous for being the stainless hardware supplier to felonious employees. I've never seen any sign of galvanic corrosion though- the 98:2 tin/copper solder likely isolates the dissimilar metals with an atoms-thick loving layer of protection.

That's formed-in-place concrete with decorative forms.

Take down the ceiling and watch the plumbing while someone takes a shower.

Good news! Stop back in a few months to let us know how it's going.

Automotive paints will last 20+ years after sanding, prepping with a rust converter and an etching primer. I bet that most of the rust is the result of rough handling during installation.

Your vernier digital indicator is off. The scale shows 15mm and .60 inches. .60 inches which is almost exactly correct. 16 mm is almost exactly 5/8 inches. 16.5 mm =.65 inches