What did you do today?

[Mark Brown]

So, that foam is there for a reason. It is a frost curtain. The logic is that is it inside the slab to prevent cold in the slab from getting into the structure. Don't ask me the how of it. We run into it all the time. I cut it down fill it with hydrolic cement and pound nails into it

that is one bloody mess man

 

[highup]

So, that foam is there for a reason. It is a frost curtain. The logic is that is it inside the slab to prevent cold in the slab from getting into the structure. Don't ask me the how of it. We run into it all the time. I cut it down fill it with hydrolic cement and pound nails into it

that is one bloody mess man

I haven't checked, but maybe it's code for commercial buildings. We occasionally have frost. It's rare for an overnight temperature to get below 27°.
The location of the foam is stupid crazy. If it were 1 1/4 inches closer to the wall, it would be underneath the baseboards.
The builder, the architect, and the floor layer should all know this is going to be a problem. One of them should have dealt with it early on in this project. The architect in my opinion, screwed up. He should have specified that the foam be left out for a few inches so the concrete could be poured directly up against the foundation. Either that or he should have designed a fix for the problem I'm having.
I put a 3/8 diameter 12-in long bit into my drill and drilled down into the foam. Maybe what I need are 12 in long foam tackstrip nails. Anybody know where I can get some? I want rigid foam nails, not that flimsy kind of foam nail.

 

[highup]

The room that I just showed with the tack strip fastened to a hardened bead of dried adhesive, had the same issues has every other room has. Probably 15 ft of the perimeter of the room had the felt pad overlapping the tack strip by one quarter to half an inch. There was probably another 12 ft or the pad was one half of an inch short of touching the tack strip. In the process of dealing with that I was able to fold the padding back out of the adhesive.... It was really easy where there was no adhesive.
The bottom unit where I had the foam problem is concrete. The upper rooms are all gypcrete or some kind of acoustical concrete. It's actually pretty hard. The tack strip is all glued and nailed, but the adhesive isn't designed to stick onto painted surfaces.
Like most new construction jobs you're required to paint the floor at least 6 inches out into the room when you are painting the walls.
So on top of all the other issues I'm drilling around the perimeter of the room and driving in coated deck screws. That's going to take forever to do this to 23 more rooms. Half are on concrete and half are on the gypcrete. If the upstairs has painted floors, I'm sure the downstairs has painted floors, so the strip adhesive has a minimal effect.

 

[MSLI]

O-boy ! High’s in the middle of a low situation ....however ! If they placed a third row in the middle, it would have created a nice 1/4” lift, then use 1/2” 60 ounce felt pad.......Could this be the universe providing a possible solution to the raised trim in the foyer ?

 

[highup]

The raised trim in the foyer needs to be fixed with something like self-leveling concrete or something like that. If you tried to just feather for ramp the tack strip up, you would be doing that in every doorway and in a 10 ft span going on to tile, and all the walls. You need to go up at least a quarter inch on the areas with the trim, and maybe about the same amount or more in the tile areas.
the architect picked out the carpeting for these rooms so he knows how thin it is. Why he didn't set specifications for other trades is beyond me.
the guys that installed cabinets also installed the door trim and the base. None of this was their fault.

 

[MSLI]

“ Just use thicker pad “ is what my ears would hear even from finished carpenters who should know better......It would have been nice if the blueprint specified and maybe it did, but imho if the Trim crew is raising the base, they need to contact the flooring installer for instructions.

 

[Floorist]

You would think an architect would be smarter. I did basement rooms in a new church once, where they wanted carpet 4' up the walls. The architect was smart enough to specify having a 2 x 4 flat in the concrete 4' from the floor. I stapled the top of the glued carpet to the 2 x 4 as he had also planned trim over the top of the carpet.

 

[C.J.]

I’ve done some old time churches that had 2x4s flat in the concrete so they could secure the pews to them. Now with tapcons it’s not an issue but I imagine back in the day that was a must.

 

[zannej]

Highup, that job seems like a total mess.

Architects don't often think about the work other trades will do. Sometimes they don't even think about how a space will be used. I remember we went on a tour of the local federal prison that had just been built. There were huge glass windows the size of walls and outside of them were big rocks larger than baseballs. I commented that this was a prison and it was a common area where inmates would go and asked what they were thinking having rocks where inmates could use them to smash the glass. My mom said "Whoever designed this is a moron!" and the moron in question was standing right next to her. He had been so proud of himself but we were pointing out all the flaws and bad ideas and he was looking pretty sour by the end of the tour. Inmates *did* pick up those rocks and smash the windows during a riot.

Today I took Mom for bloodwork, picked up mail, ran to the store to get more weedeater wire so the guys back at the house could cut more weeds. But it was getting overcast & about to rain so they headed out. Only 3 hrs of work done today. They went through my car port and found oversized weedeater wire that wouldn't fit the weedeater. They also found old weedeaters and other tools. They were point a bunch of stuff out to me and saying they could organize it all for me and cut off some of the broken parts of the car port. Also discussed pulling some of the posts for the broken fence. And we discussed where to put the solar panel for the gate opener once we got that fixed. I told them about the keying method of locking posts in so they don't tip.

They are supposed to come back tomorrow to work on more stuff. Mom has a doctor's appointment tomorrow but they might be done before we have to leave. She certainly took her sweet time getting ready to go this morning.

As an aside, my friend discovered that there is cold air (like from an AC) blowing out from under the house at the corner of my room. Cold air doesn't blow through my ceiling vent in my room even though the vent is open. So there is probably a break in the ducting and somehow it is ending up under the house-- perhaps through the walls since the morons who built this place didn't put in bottom plates under the walls. They put 2x4 studs in but didn't have a 2x4 flat underneath. Not sure what is supporting the studs.

 

[highup]

I posted something on Boston earlier.
The story behind the band still blows me away. It wasn't a band. It was some guy in his basement.

 

[highup]

 

[highup]

Gained a little bit today. Got the first room stretched in but not trimmed. Between the pattern and where I wanted the lines to land by the tile and the outside wall did not work out as originally planned. I wanted to start with a big pattern square next to the tile and eliminating the closest line to it. Have I done that there might have been a full row or line parallel with the opposite end of the room. I didn't want to chance having part of the line in the room so now there's a line that's 3.5 inches out from the wall at one end and 3 in away from the metal edge by the tile.
There appears to be a skew of about an inch and a quarter or more but I was able to deal with that and make it straight or parallel to the wall.
It sure is a lengthy process going back and forth to get things just right, but just knowing it's possible makes the rest of the job easier to think about. For sayin', a little bit less stressed now. Now I need to show the other installer what I did to make it turn out right. I hope I can instill some patience in him so we won't try to rush this thing. You can't fix woven carpets like you can normal carpet...... And I don't want to do no fixin'
I stretched parallel to the fireplace one direction and then turned around and stretched it back the opposite direction, then I made relief cuts to fold the carpet into the right and left sides of the fireplace. That's the starting point. Once you have it stretched into the fireplace and both sides of the fireplace and your lines are straight, everything else is just straight walls except for the tile area. I'm hoping the tile is very close to being straight or parallel to the exterior glass wall in all 24 of the rooms........ well, I guess it's 23 now.
I like stretching away from difficult. And I often take an 8' or 10' 4x4 to build a wall around surfaces I can't stretch off of.
The 8-footer was not long enough for this, my 12-footer is longer than I wanted to work with, but my 10-footer is no more.
I built some stands and ramps to support the front or back of my truck for doing oil changes and stuff.......
In the process I chopped up my 10 footer to make up part of the supports. That was long before they were $95 a piece.
Oh well this is going to work just fine.
I'm a wall builder. I love making walls. Walls solve all kinds of problems.

 

[highup]

I mentioned before about the amount of chemrex 948 that was used and that it oozed out all over... Even on the back side of the tack strip. The base is raised up so in some places it doesn't make any difference. Where the carpet will tuck in against the tile, I want that cavity 100% empty and void of hardened urethane adhesive.
I bought a quarter inch chisel but the angle was wrong so I couldn't get to all the areas I needed it to get to. It was also a little bit too wide. I hit it with my angle grinder to narrow it down then put it in my vise and heat it up with a torch to give it the shape I wanted. It's much more efficient this way.
Time travel the tile to carpet transitions are probably 7 ft wide. this is how much adhesive I cut and scraped out from between the tack strip and the tile edge.
On the bright side, unit number three has not had any tack strip or pad installed yet. I can prevent this mess from happening in those eight units.
I will also make a spacer so that the transition gap between the carpet and the tile is narrow and even. It's not that way now and all of the units.

 

[highup]

The contractor had his guys and two girls knocking out the concrete and digging out the foam that was causing problems on the lower floors by the foundation. They've been bashing the concrete from the top side to break the concrete loose then digging out the foam with the claw of the hammer. It's about 3 in deep give or take. They've done all three units (twelve rooms) with exception of one room that's halfway done. The phone was much wider than I thought it was.
They ordered a bunch of hydraulic cement that they're going to put or pour into these voids and I want to be sure they get it as smooth as they can. They stepped right up to the plate to get this problem fixed.

 

[MSLI]

Good thing one of the contractors has an eye on the details ( OCD Rules ! ) Nice work and walls High !......I’m ?......you’re

 

[C.J.]

Started a flight of stairs today. Paint grade skirt boards, risers. Solid oak treads will be stained.

 

[highup]

Good thing one of the contractors has an eye on the details ( OCD Rules ! ) Nice work and walls High !......I’m ?......you’re

I got down to the job today about noon. The guys stretching in the carpet were already finishing up the third room.
After tucking the carpet in against the metal edge of the tile, he was hammering down the pins and the tack strip.
I told him if this carpet ever needs restretching, it will cost $4,800 including labor. His reply was they're probably going to replace this carpet ina year anyways because the golfers trashed some other units that he worked in previously.
Those were not woven carpet nor wool carpet..... Just, commercial carpet.
I'm just going to put seams together from here on out, and nothing else.
Nobody cares. Like the old saying goes, "it's just carpet"
You liked my walls that avoided stretching off of the face of the tile. There is a much faster method and I saw it today. You take an 8-ft 2x4, place it across the face of the tile.
If put four, one foot wide strips of carpet scrap behind that 2x4 it apparently keeps the tile from cracking when you stretch off of the tile.
Film at 11:00

 

[highup]

Started a flight of stairs today. Paint grade skirt boards, risers. Solid oak treads will be stained.

View attachment 12096View attachment 12095View attachment 12097View attachment 12094

That was a day's work? I is impressed.

 

[highup]

Anyway, I have my room done. No more stretching for me. I'm back to being the guy that does the seams. I don't have to care about anything else from this point on.

 

[zannej]

Ran out of cat food. I fed them yesterday but one of the dogs hoovered a bunch of it up. Cats were not happy so they pestered me all night. When they want food, they climb on me and touch my face with their paws and talk to me. A few of them decided that cuddling me would be the way to go but they had to be near my face and on top of me so I couldn't roll over or move. Then there was the face-touching that kept jolting me awake. Got up early & tried to get my brother up to help me when we got to the store. Gave him another 2 hours bc he was tired. Went to the store and grabbed water and cat food, then popped in to the post office. Mom had a package there so she was happy.

Guy who owes us $ is now trying to get me to give him more $ and only keep half. He owed 50hrs of work and only worked 8 thus far. I'm trying to find the polite way to tell him he's on crack if he wants us to give him any more $ after he no-showed after we paid him up front & that when he had enough $ to pay us back he bought 2 new iPhones, a gaming computer, a new tv, and a truck. Mom is still miffed at him for that. She's not giving him a dime more. And last time he was over he took some old tractor parts (and he only asked if he could take one of the parts- didn't ask about the others). We need the work done, and I get he needs to make $ to pay his bills, but he's the one who blew his $ when he had it and he's so unreliable he can't keep jobs. I do have sympathy for him, but mom no longer does. He's burned bridges. I mean, I don't think it's unreasonable to NOT want to give him more $ when he still owes several hundred.

Now on to something completely different. I want to get in to sewing. I looked in to the price of sewing tables (the kind where the machine is recessed in to the table) and they were all high priced mdf garbage. I want to build my own, but I'm thinking it would be cool to have the platform/shelf for the machine be adjustable in height (in case I want to raise it up or lower it down for any reason) and I'm trying to figure out if there is a way to do it with some sort of hand crank or turning wheel. Sort of like when you raise or lower a blade on a table saw. I'm wondering if I could rig something using a similar system to those sawhorses where you turn a crank to tighten them up but have it so it raises or lowers. I'd have to figure out the right sort of hinges to use.

Does this sound like a feasible idea? Any suggestions? I know Highup and a few others here are quite creative when it comes to things like this.