kurt

Are you proposing that folks wear multiple gasses monitoring equipment all the time in any restricted or interior environment? Do you always wear a full tilt PASS system when you're working? Do you do that? (directed to Hearthman)

The easiest way to do it is with an outlet, plug and cord. It's more work to do it wrong. Drift.... Anyone seen the late model Bosch DW's with the plastic hex box and cord thing that goes in an adjacent cabinet? It looks like a better way to make the electrical connections.

Where's the disconnect?

Same here.

I never could come up with any reason to leave old wiring. Even if it's just chopped up and left in pieces, that's OK, but leaving it in place always struck me as a dork shot.

HI's, or anyone else. That's not a bad reason. It's actually a pretty good reason. I mostly asked because I am curious. Why wouldn't one tell folks to take out old K&T wiring?

Does anyone not call for its removal?

A couple false negatives here, before I stopped using sniffers altogether >a decade ago.

I think Parlee's right. I don't see it much, but in times I have seen it, it's just stuck to the building on stucco lath over tyvek.

That's what I thought. I also thought there was something in the electrical code indicating old abandoned wiring had to be removed.

Yeah, I don't know your market. Here it'd be a scraper; a new foundation under a shack would just mean more to dig out and haul away.

It's all possible and most of us have done similar things. As far as adding value, let alone big value....maybe/probably not. It sounds like a dirt value deal and sticking a real foundation under a box on blox sounds like a waste of good concrete. I wouldn't bother. I'd just jack it up and jam more supports in anywhere I deemed necessary.

It would be hard to describe it accurately within the requirements of any SOP without it scaring the financing end of it. For $229k, it sounds like a good deal. It's just a box on blox.

It was cobbled together at its inception and during any and all subsequent repairs or alterations. Trying to sound professionally technical about it would almost make one sound like a boob. There's no perimeter foundation. I would bet my teeth there's termite or pest damage in areas I can't see or get to. The entire structure has settled and will continue to do so. No effective repair can be made without lifting up the house to put a foundation under it whereupon you'll find a multitude of other problems. At that point, one must consider the entire package and decide if it's even worth it. Lord knows what mess of problems are in the electro-mechanical systems. If there's historical value in some form, conservation is noble and possibly warranted. If there's no historical or cultural value, it's a fool's dream house. The most effective approach is probably living with it and understanding it's a marginally functional piece of crap. I look at a lot of 110+ year old pieces of crap that hold up fine. If someone doesn't care about mice, cold floors, all the other stuff one gets with a piece of crap, and the price is right, then maybe it's ok for the individual that wants it.

If it's new construction it's a disaster, but I've not found major issues with this situation in old buildings. Old growth lumber, the generally loose nature of construction (drafty, easy vapor transmission), minimal to no vapor retarders to retain moisture, etc., make for few problems related to condensation. That's my experience anyway. I'm reasonably sure there's some condensation in there somewhere, but I'd tend to doubt it would be a big problem.

Water getting into underground conduit. Always. Even when I put the pipe in and swore every joint was tight and right. I don't know how, and have never been able to figure it out.

That's probably it. Putting that assembly on vinyl means you'd need a horse collar under the vinyl detailed into the WRB, a drip cap, and I don't see anything remotely like that. Doing that thing with a conventional J channel surround is a leaker.

Are you sure it's not lead coated copper? Regardless, it's pretty nice.

Yep. The miracle of epoxy and microfiber filler can solve just about any mess. Personally, I'd glue it even though I have my reservations about glue down. Installing engineered flooring always seems to involve making choices between lesser evils. Engineered flooring always results in me being peeved about some less than satisfactory thing that I get to revisit every day. The mess of traditional installation results in net end benefit, i.e., it's for a 100 years and it doesn't go bad unless I make it that way.

They take the flooring and the whole steenkin' kitchen. Sometimes bath fixtures, especially fancy valve handles. The kitchens are really cool. Modular rack mounts. Plug in and out.

Bamboo is excellent material. I've seen it hold up great in a couple showrooms in Chicago (Lightology @ Franklin & Wells) that traffic in hundreds of customers daily, tracking in street grit. It should hold up in a residential kitchen. I don't know why you'd have to replace it. If you did have to replace a chunk (which I doubt), we've cut out sections with "buzz" saws (commonly called oscillating saws ala Fein, Festool Multitool, etc.) easily. Don't need a router anymore.

MAI is the Master Appraisal Institute...it's one of those acronyms folks put behind their names to signify something or other. The joke is MAI = Made As Instructed. They work for the bank, not the buyer. It's amazing how many appraisals come in right at the contract price, or slightly over.

I never see brass, so I'm curious. If there was any concern whatsoever with condition, why wouldn't one just cut out the brass and replace it?

I agree. I'd certainly be doing it that way.

I've seen it too. It's not paint, or at least it doesn't look or act like paint. I thought it was an acid wash or some similar treatment so the contact points would have a microtexture that would grab the clip.