Drainage

Here's a project that got out of control. The whole concrete slab in front of the door sank backwards, so rain puddles in front of the door and seeps under the frame into the living room, where it destroys the shopping bag floor cover.

I pondered this issue and decided the best thing would be to destroy the whole slab and re-pour it with a slop toward the lawn and not the door. But that sounded like a big project that could force me into other problems. So Plan B was to cut a channel and dig down and put a french drain and then drill some holes or use lattice pavers so water could drain down to the french drain. But that involved digging a trench a foot below a channel in concrete...

Plan C came when I discovered PVC micro-channel drain for sidewalks or in front of garages. Hey, this might work. So, I cut the channel with a freakin' circular saw and masonry blade, which was tool abuse, but it worked to cut a 3 inch deep slice. Unfortunately, I needed a 5 inch deep cut, so I had more work drilling and hammering the channel open.

 

The weird thing is that when I had only the thin cuts in the concrete we had a rain storm and all the water drained down the thin channels. There was no pond in front of the door. Everything was dry on the other side of the cuts. I think the cuts were enough to solve the draining issue since water always had a lower way out to the lawn. But I was not convinced it would work for a huge rain so I broke out the channel and agonized over getting the channel drain to angle slightly toward the lawn. This was agony because the slab had was pitched badly the opposite direction. So, this created a big lip/drop down when I had the drain slopping toward the lawn. It's a tripping hazard, but I had no choice and envisioned a grate over the drain...or a door mat.

I suspected that when I finally started to cement this in place my errors would become clear and that's what happened. As soon as I had committed to mixing cement I started to visualize what was happening with the water. I was thinking correctly, that I want a sloped drain toward the lawn like a roof gutter, but this is not totally a good comparison. A roof gutter is not water-proof and will leak at seams with standing water. Only a slope minimizes the leaks and maximizes drainage. But a ground level channel drain is UNDERGROUND, so who cares if it leaks? Furthermore, the channel drain is 3-1/4'' deep. So, if the channel drain was dead level, or even sloped in the wrong direction then it will STILL DRAIN as long as the yard end of the drain is not over 3-1/4'' above the grade of the opposite end of the drain. See? The drain would have to fill completely with water, with 3-1/4'' of water for the pond to return. But if the drain was dead level with the slopping slab, even slopping in the opposite direction of the lawn, it will simply fill up with water to the level required to start draining toward the lawn, which was probably 2'' of water, which is still below the top of the channel drain, so I would never see ponding. The water will be captured in the drain until it starts to drain. So, I don't think I needed to agonize about the slope of the drain since standing water inside the drain is not a big deal. It will evaporate in the heat of the sun. But I did agonize over the drain slope as I tried to ensure complete drainage, and thus caused there to be a depression where the slab and the drain do not match.



I think my instincts to get the drain to slope in such a way that there will be no standing water was correct, but I wanted to show how this was not the only way to skin the cat. The difference in slopes between the slab and dead level and a drain slope caused the offset depression that becomes a tripping hazard and another problem to fix.
Again, the solution is to tear all the concrete out and compact the area and slope the new pour in the direction of the lawn, but I have none of that equipment and am trying to solve these problems with what I can assemble myself. I can't justify a $1000 solution to the drainage problem, but I can justify a $40 solution that creates a tiny depression that can be covered with pea gravel or a door mat or a metal grate or something that eliminates the depression but still allows water to reach the drain.

The lesson here is to simplify everything. I do believe sloped cuts in the slab would've solved the problem with minimal effort. Water would've drained down the cuts into the lawn and there would've been no tripping hazard. Hell, make 3 cuts. As long as lawn end of the cut is below the opposite end then water will drain down the cut. The slab remains mostly unchanged. The only cost is the masonry blade. Maybe the cut channel fills with debris and stops draining but that could be solved by making it wider so it can be swept clean.


This solution will work, but it was a little complicated and I'm trying to keep things simple since the house is neglected in general so that any little project can quickly become big if I dig too deep into the problem. Pouring a new slab might be a solution but consider what insanity that would involve as soon as I exposed the area beneath the wall. It leads on and on and the project balloons out of control. I'm not trying to reinvent the wheel but I do want to make some attempt to solve major issues like water entering the front door. It's a fine line between doing nothing, doing something that almost works, and doing something that works but creates other problems and creates.
Here's a mathematical graph to represent this.

Valley Drainage

I can't help feeling that the only solution is to tear the garage down and start again. But that seems too extreme, so I tried again to solve the drainage issue of these ridiculously designed roofs. This is Before...my latest work, but after my attempt to cover the earth in asphalt. The roof still leaked with this much asphalt because it didn't drain and the pond slowly penetrated a few nail holes.

Step one was skipped, when I struggled to make a 20 foot long evenly sloping wedge. It involved more math than I care to admit because it goes from a 30 inch wide piece to an 8 inch wide, and each of the three pieces of the wedge had to be centered. It sucks experimenting with money I don't have for these projects but financial stress is the homeowner's default status.

I tried to salvage some of the paper but it was easier to simply cut it so I could put some tar paper, then some ice and water guard (expensive stuff), and the final cap layer of rolled roofing...which I did not affix with nails because that caused the problem to begin with. I used adhesive sealant.

End result, The wedge of OSB, then tar paper, then ice and water guard, then the rolled roofing slipped under neath the older roofing (that sounds easier than it is to do) Then I buttered the seams with adhesive and weighed it down with some stones and bricks that you see on the roof. I knew that once the adhesive cured then the seams would be water tight, but this is no the ideal procedure since it's a clusterfuck of messing with old roofing and working alone on a 20 ft length of rolled roofing. I couldn't manhandle the long rolls of roofing so I ended up with two seams that required real attention since they are the critical aspects. You can also see my butcher job on the neighbor's roof, since I'm doing a patch job and slipping roofing under old roofing that was too delicate to touch and trying to limit the amount of damage.

I feel the lesson of the roof project is still an issue of my attempt to save money by struggling against the grain. The neighbor's roof needed to be torn off to make it easier to build back up again properly, but I did not want to go to that extreme because that would really force me to rebuild my whole roof with a better pitch, rather than this ridiculous mild arch? And I didn't want to do that either. I just want a few years out of this garage before I get extreme so I'm trying to keep the work and material at a minimum since it could be considered throwing good money after bad.

Here's a photo...two different sink drains. The one of the left is the one attached to the roof vent. I don't know the story behind what happened but someone abandoned the drain on the left and attached the sink waste to the drain on the right...or maybe they added the drain on the right through two walls because the left one was plugged. Either way, they didn't provide any venting for the drain on the right. Way to go! So, there was a loud gurgling from both the kitchen sink and the bathroom sink when the water was running because, I gather, the suction was siphoning the water out of the P-trap. Great! So, my demolition revealed what I suspected: no vent. The water just goes directly down into the house drain (which is another mystery that will be investigated one day)  It was a classic case of plumbing 101. Either tie the drain to a vent or... I purchased a basic air admittance valve, and rebuilt the drain to include the AAV.

This might look easy, but the critical thing is to build it with a slight slope down from the P-trap to the final drain pipe. I managed to build it close to perfectly level and the old slip joint connections all dripped, so I have to rebuild them with new pieces instead of being cheap and using the old stuff. Fine. Whatever. I will say that the AAV fixed the gurgling sound. Actually, I don't know how the water drained at all except it siphoned all the water from both traps to create air above it so it could drain. Then I realized the drain that had the vent is basically a direct vent into my sink cabinet, which reeks. So I'll cap it off.

Domestic Futility

Domestic Tranquility Futility:
Home ownership is all-consuming. The problems can't be ignored so my life has recently leaned in the direction of servant to a house. I waited for the rain to show me the leaks and it showed me 4 leaks that I attacked with asphalt cement and fabric tape.

I also finished the laundry room project that involved finding some kind of pipe about 1 inch below the surface of my lawn. I didn't hit this one with a pickaxe because I suspected it was there. I have no idea what this pipe contains or if it is obsolete. I was sure it was cast iron but it changes into some kind of yellow plastic. (EDIT TO ADD: This is FLEXIBLE YELLOW GAS LINE. Most definitely active. buried 1 inch deep, connected to black pipe. They flexed it under the alley)

Very practical solution to avoid dealing with black pipe. Can be connected to black pipe with a transition adapter. BUT CONSIDER BURYING IT DEEPER THAN 1 INCH!

The garage door wasn't too complicated. A box rail, hangers, some finesse with a drill and then a basic frame to hold the corrugated metal. I need some ideas for painting something on the door because it reflects the sun into my face and blinds me to the point I think it could start a fire.

I'm trying to win the award for ugliest roof but there are some very ugly roofs in this neighborhood so I won't even get a ribbon for participation. But in the race for worst conceived roof, I stand a chance. My neighbor's roof pitches down into my roof, which is a very slight arch. They meet like two bull Elks fighting for mating rights over a harem. But there is no slope horizontally so the water puddles on top of the seam and drains onto my motorcycles underneath it. This is going to be very interesting to solve but I have an idea for something called a "Hog Valley" Now I can call it an asphalt cement valley because I covered it in asphalt patch. Believe me, when I was roofing the area I stood on to that this picture I knew that valley would be a problem, but if I even breathed hard on the neighbor's roof, the material tore in shreds. But the house was vacant so I didn't know what to do, spend money fixing a neighbor's house, or fix my roof the best I could and deal with problems when the house next door was purchased and I could talk to the owner.

The worst decision was connecting the two garage roofs into one seam. With no horizontal slope so the water doesn't drain fast enough. Such is life.

My plan to solve the drainage issue with the roof is to build a false, upraised valley on top of this valley using roof decking. Then cover that with tar paper. I plan to use trapezoidal cut pieces of decking that will create an artificial slope in the direction of the yard. It's too complicated to explain and I'm sure any experienced carpenter would advise against it, but my mission with this house is to learn the hard way and possibly create new solutions to old problems. I want to know why something failed. For instance, I learned that any exposed nail head, even if it was obviously nailed down, will probably leak if the roof was installed using zero asphalt cement on the overlapped seams. That's how my roof was installed and all the nails leak. The asphalt cement on the seams at least gives a chance to seal around the nails, but there's a blind nail method that's even better. None of those effective methods were used so they basically laid a roof down and nailed it down, which doesn't last at all. I only want to limp this roof along until I can pay for the metal roof that I will install to the top. That's all.

Clear day between late fall storms.

A view of the man cave, metal door, illegal electrical subpanel, utility sink draining to god knows where, etc. etc. One day there will be a plaque....Oggy Bleacher Worked Here.

Why Doesn't The Roof Ever Leak Over a Bathtub?

Hoarder's Paradise

Fucking hell, the rain was predicted but I could not finish the laundry room modernization of this garage before it hit and forced me to bring my toys off the lawn. Bummer. The garage roof leaks terribly but I knew it would. I didn't know the floor would channel it everywhere and create a mess. The house leaks badly too and not in places I can find....due to there being two roofs.

Continued Progress

It took a battle to get this far. Wooden shutters, old plastic interior shutters, trenches, gas line collisions, pex, washing machine, sharkbites, sub-panels....on and on. It reads like a keyword seminar for home improvement. 

Oggy elected not to jackhammer into the foundation of the house, which is actually a wall since the house is 2 feet below the dirt. So, the PVC comes out at a 45 degree angle. I put a rock there in case someone gets careless.

Yep, a wired back-fed main breaker. And some branch circuits. You electrical geeks will say, "Where is the required retaining clip on the back-fed breaker??? That's a code violation!" Well, those things are hard to come by in ghost towns, so clam down. I ordered one and it's on the way and I'll install it asap.

Light! And a dryer that works. The last stage is the water for the washing machine.

Here's some photos of where I have water and how I have to get it to the garage.

conveniently placed water line is out of sight down an alley.

Any reservations about working around gas lines?

Sub Panel Seminar

The problem with writing about residential electricity is that I have to include a disclaimer to the reader advising them to do nothing with the information I share.  So why write at all? Because it is an exploration of information as complicated as Tax law and twice as deadly. So, promise me you will do nothing with the information I am about to share. 

The basic info, if you don't have time to read further, is 1) if you are putting a basic sub panel immediately next to the primary circuit panel, then you can buy a 125A Main Lug load center. It doesn't matter if you only need 60 amps. Just get the 125 because it serves the same purpose. A Main Lug Load Center won't have its own main breaker and will only have a service disconnect on the primary panel of an amperage hopefully more than you plan on using in the panel but no more than 125A. Got it? 2) If you are putting a sub panel some distance away or out of sight of the primary panel, then buy a "125A Main Breaker Panel" which will include a double pole service disconnect for that panel specially designed for the top of the lugs of a panel. If it doesn't say "Main Breaker" then you are going to have to back feed the whole panel with your basic double pole 220V breaker if you desire (or code requires) a service disconnect in the panel itself. This is what I did because it's a few dollars cheaper, but the time spent in hunting down the right components is not worth it. If I had to do it again I'd just buy the basic 125 Main Breaker Panel because it's plug and play and requires no further research and assembling of components. 

Off the top of my head, I wanted a sub panel 30 feet from the main panel in a detached garage. I used 2'' grey conduit glued together and probably should've used rigid conduit buried about 18 inches deep and it's so obvious that I really pray no one in the future digs it up accidentally since I didn't put caution tape over it when I buried it. Bigger conduit is better in case someone wants to run larger wire for a hot tub or welder in the future. I used #6 black, red and white and a #10 ground. This went to a 125 amp main lug panel with a 60A breaker at the main panel and a 60Amp breaker back fed disconnect on the sub panel. I was required to hammer 2 TWO ground rods and run a ground wire to one and then the other, but I hammered only one ground rod. And the ground bar is not bonded to the panel since this is a subpanel.

Read on if you want more details.

Subpanels are as common as pigeons, but this last month I've really dug into them and still I did not truly get all the information I needed until I finally purchased nearly the correct panel.

It's a common issue: you have a detached garage that has no power. You want power in the detached garage, but not simply a single light or outlet, but multiple outlets, a dryer outlet, a washer, a car lift...etc. So you really want an additional circuit panel in the garage. That makes sense. So you decide how many circuits, what you will use, etc, and determine what size wire you will need, which will determine what size conduit you will need, and what size breaker to use to feed your additional breaker panel. But then you have meticulously customized your breaker panel in your mind and then go shopping and realize you have a choice of a 125A, a 150A or 200A. Well, wait, you only have a 100A main panel, so that would make no sense to have a subpanel that is larger than your main panel. It's not like you can buy a $20 bill with a $5 bill, right? You can't provide 200A, magically, from a 100A panel, so why purchase a 200A panel?
And that is just the beginning of an exploration of a simple, yet detail oriented topic. It's interesting, yet requires a binge of information that can really test your aging brain and make you pretty sure you have dementia, but not so sure that you want to see a neurologist. It will test you. The physical technique is pretty basic, but the research is intermediate.

The whole problem comes from overthinking the concept of panels. They do not come pre-packaged in a box customized for your needs. Nope. That would be too easy. I could probably make a living packaging sub-panels for someone's custom design. A big box store will carry few options for your project, but one of them will probably work.

Multi-space panels require an exclusive main disconnect when they are not adjacent to the main panel supplying them power. Code requires this and it makes sense if you are envisioning turning off power to a sub-panel by sprinting across a yard to the primary panel. A panel in a detached garage 30 feet from the main panel will require a main shut off switch. Right? But if you have customized on paper that you need 75Amps to run your treadmill and electric dryer and lights....then you will find that no such multi-panel exists. You have to build it from other panels. Or, I've learned, you simply buy a 100A main breaker panel and run wire from a 75A breaker in your main panel...and ignore the 25A discrepancy between the two items. You can't use more than 75 Amps, so who cares if the panel is rated for 100Amps? Your sub panel breaker will say 100A, but it's being fed by a 75A breaker in the main panel. That discrepancy bothered me at first, so I tried to figure out a way around it. I wanted a 75A sub panel with a 75A Main breaker that would MATCH the 75A branch circuit breaker in the main panel that feeds the sub panel circuit. Simple? No, it's not simple. Because no such '75Amp Main Breaker" panel exists that I know of. Manufacturers are not going to package panels for every customized demands customers come up with. The problem is a disconnect between the customer who is required to determine his needs...and the products offered, which will likely not correspond exactly to his needs.

Add to this quandary the issue of cost and value and Oggy's unemployment insurance being maxed out and cancelled, and you now have a classic home owner problem....how to get things to work, as cheaply as possible, but correctly and 'by the book'.

Fortunately, I have more time than money lately so I can learn about the details that I've only touched on in the past. I have learned that there are times when the numbers not matching is very bad. Right? We know instinctively that a 120V circuit should have 120V on it and not 440V. That's simple. Wire rated for 220V should not have 440V passing through it. 20A outlets should not have 50A equipment plugged into it. 

So if I have a sub-panel with 100A breaker that is being fed from a 75A breaker then my instinct is that I have done something wrong. I'm right to be cautious and to ask questions. My motto is that electrical work is very easy: either you know what to do or you do nothing. See? Easy. Studying electrical work is like diving into real estate law or tax evasion codes. It's insane. It's not easy. If it were easy then there would not be millions of products with specification pages running into the billions. The research, the learning, the book work, is extremely time consuming and requires focus and a scientific method. But the actual hands on work of basic residential electricity, once you know what to do, is in the range of the average home owner. So, how do you know what to do? How do you wade through the insane number of false leads and bad info, let alone the expensive code book? Time. You spend lots of time learning, following false leads, taking each step to a conclusion. And then making mistakes. See, you should never do anything unless you know what to do. But you will still make mistakes. How is this possible. You can't make a mistake if you knew what to do, right? If you made a mistake then you didn't know what to do. Ah, such is life. You don't know, until you know, and then it might be too late. But if it's not too late, then you move forward.

I hit a gas pipe with a pick axe the other day. It was buried 4'' deep in the middle of my lawn. I knew I'd have a surprise but nearly blowing up the neighborhood was bigger than I thought. I dented the pipe. But didn't rupture it. So I taped it up and moved on. What else could I do? I found out why they buried it 4'' deep when I tried to dig 18'' deep to put the conduit. The ground after 10'' is as hard as concrete and also filled with debris. They, whatever idiot buried this gas pipe, gave up at 4''. I gave up at 10''. Even if you had told me I had a gas pipe buried 4'' deep in my lawn I would've hit it with the first swing of the pick axe, which has a 5'' tip. Ponderous.

So, sometimes the numbers will not match, and you should investigate. Your wire is rated for 60A...but your welder requires 80A of current. Is this a allowable or not? Your sub panel has a main breaker of 100A, but it is fed from a 60A breaker in your main panel. Is this allowable or not? How about this....your sub panel has a 60A back-fed breaker coming from a 100A breaker on wire that is 12 gauge in conduit that is 2'' in diameter. Is this allowable or not?

See, it's a trade with specific details but one thing I've learned is that trying to make "everything match" is sometimes a path to problems, and sometimes a path to avoid problems. IN the case of a subpanel with a 100A main breaker, being fed by a 60A breaker in the main panel....that's actually fine. The 100A sub panel can't get more current than 60A, You can 'try' to access 100A due to some flawed hope that your 100A sub panel will provide it, but the 60A breaker in the main panel will trip. You can't get 100A through a 60A breaker, even if there is a 100A breaker between the 60A breaker and the appliances. More importantly, you won't be able to easily find a 60A main breaker panel because they aren't common, aren't pre-packaged, and have to be custom assembled by YOU. And you will be assembling the 60A sub panel with a 60A main disconnect from a 60A breaker in the main panel simply because you want all the numbers to match, but this is not required for it all to work or for it all to be in line with the electrical code. It's your own code that you are obeying, and that's fine, but in this case you will find that getting the numbers to all match is twice as expensive and time consuming than simply having the numbers not match. And it will all work with both approaches.

The terminology isn't helping either. There are Main Breaker Panels. And Main Lug Only Boxes. But a Main Lug Only box can be converted to a Main Breaker box. And there are Service disconnects, and sub panels. But a sub panel can have a main disconnect. So these terms are all jumbled and a person thinking of a main breaker might think they are talking about a main panel, but the main breaker is just the disconnect to any panel, not necessarily a sub panel or a service source panel. The vocabulary is not self explanatory unless you are a veteran of residential electricity projects.

Main Breaker panels will be pre-packaged and ready to go out of the box, but they only come in a few amperage ranges. Changing the main disconnect on one of these is possible but it's not something you'll likely find in the same store you bought the panel. It's special...and looks like this bolt on variety.

This bolts to the top of the hot legs of a panel. Then the hot wires go into the top lugs. It's 5x more expensive than a similar double pole appliance breaker that does the same thing but is installed in a circuit space by clipping onto the hot tabs and rail rather than at the top of the two hot legs.

Main Lug Only panels are rated for only a few amperage ranges, but can be customized using back-fed basic double pole breakers to a much wider range of amperage. They are also cheaper because they don't use any fancy equipment other than a retainer clip on the back fed breaker. But using a back-fed breaker basically detours the original design of the panel. It's permitted but one has to wonder if this is the best solution when a panel is designed to either have no main disconnect or only be converted with a main breaker like the one pictured above, but you go and get a $9 appliance breaker and control current to the two legs by screwing the hot wires from the main panel directly into the breaker, where the downstream wires usually go, and use it as main disconnect switch. Is that sensible? Instead of using a breaker to send power downstream to an appliance, you put wires in the downstream lugs and use the breaker to send power 'upstream' to the panel legs. Power doesn't care if it's going upstream or downstream in relationship to the breaker. But we're all accustomed to seeing breakers control downstream appliances and a back-fed breaker has a hot panel in the downstream direction that is sending power 'backward' into the panel. I can definitely see this leading to error. But you can customize the panel and get all the numbers to match.

I guess it's possible if you have 200A service to your house and you use a panel rated for 125A then you can have a double pole 125A breaker on the main panel and control current to a prepackaged 125A main breaker panel and you will not have to customize or modify anything and all the numbers will match. But this is only one scenario and my experience is that we estimate our needs and then find that nothing is prepackaged to fit exactly those needs, the prepackaged products will fit 'within the maximum threshold of those needs' and that turns out to be good enough.

Here you can see my main lug only sub panel that I have converted to a a Main Breaker by using a standard double pole breaker (bottom left) to control current to the two  rails. This works, but took more time to assemble the parts than a simple 125A main breaker panel that comes with everything in a box.

So, sometimes, it's up to your own choice what to do. You can spend more to assemble your custom panel, or you can use a pre-packaged 100A sub panel with a main disconnect and feed it with a 60A breaker. But you can't get any more current than 60A from it. And that might bother you because the main breaker says "100A". It's like a lie, staring you in the face. This panel is rated for 125A, has a 100A main breaker, but is only capable of 65A because that's the size of the breaker in the main panel that is across the lawn. I have a hard time embracing that lie. I want the numbers to tell the truth. I want a breaker that is rated for 'Truth'. And they don't sell those at the big box stores.

P.S. do nothing with the information I have shared.

Maybe It's The Pot Talking...

(This will be explained later on.)

That's the name of a comedy show I am performing in another dimension. "....maybe it's the pot talking, but..."
I feel like I'd get a laugh no matter what I said after that lead in.
But in this case I/m not laughing because...."maybe it's the pot talking, but I just read that an American trained dog chased down an evil zealot/radical wearing a suicide vest that detonated and killed the zealot's family. America is honoring the injured dog."

I'm thinking of a punchline but can't come up with one. Sorry. Maybe my comedy show in the other dimension is a bomb also.

In other news....progress is being made on the alley adobe. Slow progress. The list of things that I have to do eventually is long,
landscape lawn for paver/brick patio
canopy over windows
shutters over windows
replace siding on three sides of house
add attic vent on west side of house
clean garage
put electrical and water in garage
fix gurgling drain in bathroom or kitchen (not sure which)
bust up cement curb

Since the weather is cooperating for outdoor activities I tackled the garage first and then the shutters and then the curb.

I think this curb was a foundation for a block fence and gate, since this was originally the rear of the house, not front

This was the limit of my Harbor Freight hammer drill. It worked for 45 minutes and I noticed the cone was worn out. I believe it destroyed the machine but at least it also destroyed the curb.

A sliding window on the west side of the garage? Like a service window for small motors.

Semi organization. This is after about 15 years of neglect of this garage. I mean, it doesn't have much life left but new garages are expensive so I'm determined to keep this one working for another decade.

I remember when I was looking at houses to buy and people would look at an empty field/lawn and tell me casually, "Just build a garage." Jeez. Like I have to spend $80k for the privilege of spending $15k more to get a garage? Can't I find a place with a garage? I did find a place with a garage but it was a disaster with no electrical option, nor water, nor a roof, decomposing bottom plate, rotten wood, NO ROOF...so lame. But it's better than going through an equal amount of hassle to pay for a new garage. Whenever I've been faced with a choice to restore something that has been neglected or start from scratch I've normally gone with the restoration. This deserves some examination because this is a home improvement blog.

The basic choice we have as home owners is either restore or replace. Maybe we can restore some of and replace some of it. Depends on the scenario, but it still boils down to either restoring it or replacing it. In the case of the original aluminum frame sliding windows with untinted single glass. Replace or Restore? Well, they don't need to be replaced or restored. There is no way to restore them. Either Use Them or Lose Them. Right? Either buy new vinyl windows and throw the aluminum frame ones away, or keep on using the aluminum ones and replace them when that time comes. The basic decision making process for me is to decide if the fantasy of 'purchase ecstasy' which is a myth should not blind me to the fact a purchase might be the right choice. My immediate reaction to, for example, buying a new garage for $12k, is that the basic function will be identical to that of using the old garage after investing $500 in repairs. See? The new garage may look new, but it's essentially the same object. A square, with a door. It will not be warm. It will not be filled with light unless I do the identical work to fill the old one with light. The new garage will not be better at keeping water out. The new garage will be new and the materials will be less neglected, but when a scorpion sneaks into the old garage I should not think, "Ah, this would never have happened with a new garage." Basically, purchase ecstasy is an illusion mostly and at best it is fleeting. Money can't buy happiness. A new garage is not happiness. An old garage is not the absence of happiness. See, these statuses....(stati?) of emotion are not dependent on a garage. The garage will not bring me happiness in any condition. Thoreau introduced me to this concept early in my life and I've found it's true. The pursuit of the newest and the latest and the coolest trend or object is a mental disorder, it's not related to reality, it's a product of mental manipulation by advertisers and of class pressure and maybe even a fear of death and geometric inequality. But, I would be misleading you if I told you there all  scenarios where newer items replacing older ones are mentally diseased. I don't want to make a broad judgement that all items should decay into subatomic particles before being replaced. I'm just saying that if I analyze my objectives and motives in home improvement I see that I am very sensitive to the proposal that my self-worth is somehow tied to my garage. I never embraced that idea when I rode bicycles and lived in the forest and now that I am a homeowner I still do not embrace it. I understand completely how the linking of my self-worth to my appliances and sub-flooring would greatly benefit the economy. Yes, I see that line of strategy. But I reject it. My self worth will not be affected by my garage decisions. The only thing that gets affected is the garage, not my innate value. So, if I look at my garage and think "I can make that work for me." Then I move forward with that plan. If I look at a broken window with tape holding the frame together and cracks in the glass and think, "That's beyond restoration and a new one is $120...so...." I go buy the new one and throw the other in the dumpster. But, note closely, that my analysis is never more than the sum of its parts. I'm talking only of a garage and a window frame. That's all I'm dealing with. I have vanity in the form of plaid '70s pants and Batik shirts, but I am not vain about my garage. A man's garage might be a reflection of him, but it's more of a reflection of what he can tolerate. If he can function well in a restored garage then that's the kind of person he is. Or maybe he likes the handicap. Or maybe he knows that a newer garage would not change his approach and would not enable him to do any more than the old garage. The garage is not the issue. The issue is only functionality and his understanding of his own needs and tolerances.

Look at it this way: wouldn't life be easy if our self-worth was tied directly to the age of our garage or appliances? I'm not fooled.

Finally, the artistic flair is starting to bubble up from the arid landscape that is my soul. Saguaro cacti on re-purposed pallet wood shutters. Simplistic, yes. I looked at new shutters and I looked at the pallet and I thought. The pallet will work fine....maybe even better.

Brief Update

It's really impossible to do any house repairs when located 300 miles north of the house. But this is the way I thought would earn me some money and blah blah blah, get me in a position to do some work on the house. I recently made a long trip back to the house that involved several police encounters. It's aggravating as fuck to be routinely molested and fucked with by law enforcement. The van is a cop magnet so I bought an '83 GS850 motorcycle. The speedometer has 145 mph as a top speed so I'm thinking I can leave the cops in the dust.

Oggy overlooking a volcanic cinder field. His sweet '83 GS850GL sits behind him.

I ask myself, maybe too often, "Am I writing my own story?" and a lot of the time the answer is no, fuck no! Sometimes I am writing my own story but the trees and the forest become blurred so I think I'm not. Other times I really am just a pawn being pushed around a board pointlessly, going through the motions like some hired cock, looking forward to some distant day in the future when I will take control of my life again. Then I think, 'Why wait?" and I quit whatever I'm doing because, why not? why wait? I'm definitely at an age in life when I think, "If not now, then when?"

Like with this house, I was thinking that if I don't buy a house now then is there some other distant time when it will be more appropriate or timely? If not now, then when? I tried to buy a house in Mexico back in 2015 but the stars didn't align.

Same goes for a transcontinental motorcycle trip. If not this Fall, then when? Exactly what time will work for that kind of trip, if not immediately? I'm not getting any younger and if I were indeed younger I would likely not have the wisdom to make the trip a success. So, this is the time to do it. Now. Today. Well, that's another story.

I did return to the house because I knew the rains were on the march and I knew at least one leak still existed in the house and I was also getting a bit nervous about having the gas and the water and the electricity on in a house that had been neglected for so long. So I drove way down toward Mexico with a small jack hammer, a weed wacker and a ladder and an electric dryer (for future use)

At home, destroying a crappy piece of plywood that hides...

...a totally uninsulated roof. No wonder it's so hot. It's just a porch awning with a low ceiling.

This single nail that sunk below the rolled asphalt roofing is the cause of the one leak in the roof. I really scrutinized the roof but did not cover this hole with the elastomeric coating which covers the seam next to it.. You can see that I missed the nail by half an inch in favor of getting the seam....but the nail was more important. This time, I used the real asphalt patch so now this hole will not leak.

Looking north over the metal shed roofs to the copper gap.

A fruit tree? Maybe apricot, maybe peach. Not sure yet.

The garage roof looked to be in good shape but it had not rained much since I left. It doesn't rain in Arizona....it pours. It's like the monsoon season of Costa Rica. The rain is epic when it comes, like a hurricane.

That's all for now.

The Problem With DIY Videos

The phenomenon of shared information dates back as far as communication. But the problem is that the dawn of time involved humans who A) Had something to say. B) Had already determined the value of their information because there was no one to share it with for months or years.

Today is an era of instant information and that has several drawbacks, the chief one being that the information has not been tested and has no follow-up and has no spirit of scientific approach attached to it. The second big drawback is that everyone wants something that will increase their quality of life but there is no such thing and they already know it. Nicaraguan coffee country involves a mud house with mud walls and a cotton hammock and no light, Cows, fireflies, chickens, pigs, corn, beans, milk. Their quality of life was fucking fantastic. Nothing could improve their quality of life beside some medicine for fever. No DIY video would make any sense to them because it was all additional complications and effort to create something that would require more maintenance and resources. A poor person needs a truck, right? Well, give a poor person a truck and they will eventually sell it to pay for the gasoline. Then they are left with gasoline and no truck. No, humanity needs less, fewer, simpler things. You want a hot shower? You want air conditioning on your aircraft carrier? You want 3D movies with buttered popcorn and self-serve soda fountains and reclining chairs? These things are not designed to make you happy. I have seen the alternative and I've seen the path of materialism and I know the results. We're deluding ourselves with excessive inventions, complicating our lives with digital eco-spheres, digi-spheres, to maintain, investing time in virtual creations that increase our quality of life for about 20 seconds before the same dull discontent returns. DDIY should stand for Don't Do It Yourself. As in, Stop! Don't invent any more shit. We have invented some crazy crap and none of it helps anything we're only burying ourselves in our own waste and destroying defenseless nations for their resources to fuel our useless contraptions. Don't Do It Yourself. GBOLYDF. Get By On Less, You Discontented Fuck.

For more lecturing, read on.

Drip Edge Overlap

Here we have the south side of the house.* I count 4 layers of rolled roofing...and probably 2 layers of felt paper. The top layer of roofing has almost no adhesive bonding it to the layer underneath, but the top layer is in OK condition except for some blistering caused by the fact no adhesive was used and it wrinkled. Any issues with this roof are not because of old surface roofing. 

The photo above shows the ridiculous method previously used of wrapping a piece of wood in the edge of the roofing and then nailing it to the fascia. I could tell how well that worked when the wood turned to dust as I broke it away. Now, to be fair, the roof was installed when Jesus was a Corporal, so hey, that's a long time. Nothing lasts forever but this method doesn't meet my high standards so I'm going in a different direction.

Here's what it looks like after I tore the old edge off.

I started thinking, which is bad enough, then I started watching DIY videos which is worse. I had a goal to work purely from instinct but my instinct is to look for example videos of how other people have done these kinds of repairs. Basically, no repair I'm attempting is the first of its kind, but all the repairs I'm doing are because someone failed in their attempt to repair it. Is the person who wrapped the asphalt paper in a circle around some wood waiting out there for me to call them? Probably they are long dead.

DIY projects invariably decay into a series of experiments that take a long time to get results back. So long, sometimes, that the person has sold the house and the new owner thinks the experiment was a bad attempt. Maybe, and maybe not. Maybe it was an experiment like the ones I'm doing.

The specific issue I'm dealing with is rolled asphalt roofing. This is sort of the same material as basic asphalt shingles, except it's a 3' x 35' shingle. Owens Corning has this PDF for my examination and enjoyment.

It is all right there in plain English (and Spanish) and even a diagram. There are no nails at the bottom of the roll near the eave. That's an interesting detail because all of the eaves that I'm repairing have nails in the edge. I think that's because there is no asphalt adhesive used. Ok, so that's the detail I'm puzzling about. Asphalt adhesive is the product to use to bond the top layer of roofing to a 9'' strip that has been nailed on the eave. In my specific house there were 4 layers of rolled roofing both adhered with cement and also nailed. So, the next person was thinking, what's the point in using adhesive to glue the 5th layer to the 4th layer. Maybe they have a point. A nail secured the roofing to the next lower layers. Now, some of the nails were actually too short to penetrate to the wood deck, but let's forgive them for that detail. They were attempting to fasten the top layer to the bottom layers and the bottom layers were secured to the deck, so in theory they were trying to do the right thing. And they saved a few bucks in the process by ignoring roofing asphalt.

Now, the big issue that I'm looking into is how to add a proper drip edge to the eave...that has never had a drip edge. Ideally, in a perfect world, I would get down to the wood deck and slip the drip edge underneath all those layers of rolled roofing and tar felt. But in this reality there are hundreds of nails and asphalt cement bonding this huge tar sandwich to the deck. What to do? Well, I slipped the drip edge into the one place it would go, under the top layer of roofing and the next layer under it. Then I nailed it down and smeared some asphalt adhesive under it too.

Here's a literary illustration of what I've done.

TOP LAYER ROOFING

----------------------------------

DRIP EDGE

..............................................

THICK LAYER OF 4 Layers of OLD ROOFING

==================================

==================================

Wood Decking

_________________________________________

Now, drip edge should be installed immediately over wood decking. And to do that I should tear up the mess that exists at the eaves of this roof. The extent of this project is not so vast that I don't have time to do it. I could probably demolish the entire roof in one day. But, what's the objective? The theory is that the drip edge should be the last line of defense for water that is running down the wood deck. But the deck in this case are horizontal boards with hundreds of holes in them and gaps between them. In short, no water is ever going to run down the wood from any leak and get to the drip edge. No, the water will run inside a gap or nail hole and drop onto the other roof under this roof. So, the drip edges I'm adding are purely for one purpose...to direct water running off the top layer of roofing away from the house wall. Any leaks or other problems will not involve this drip edge no matter where I put it. There are so many layers of roofing and it's all asphalted together that there's no way to 'do it right' because I could only break everything down and start from scratch, which I'm not going to do.

So, I'm back to doing the best I can to add a drip edge with the only goal of improving the water shedding at the eave. yes, water from a leak will theoretically go UNDER the drip edge if it makes it to the eave but I don't see how the water can possibly reach the eave if it's going over hundreds of holes and gaps in the wood deck. If you think about the wood deck of a roof you imagine a smooth, nearly water resistant surface. Well, that's before you nailed thousands of nails and staples in it. Yes, water will leak behind the roof surface eventually, but the videos of roof leaks rarely involve someone saying "See, if this drip edge had been properly installed under the felt paper then the water would not have been trapped at this point an inch above the drip edge. " 

No, the leak immediately finds a way into the attic. The drip edge does one job: shed water from the top layer of roofing. Sure, install it directly onto the deck. Why not? But don't delude yourself that a leak under the roofing material and the underlayment to the deck and will run all the way past a hundred holes and gaps in the decking until it finally gets trapped at the point where the drip edge was nailed over the underlayment. I see that happening if an entire section of roofing material was torn off and water poured in from a hurricane directly onto the wood deck where it ran under torn roofing and tar paper. Sure. But a little leak that reaches the felt paper will go to the nearest nail or staple hole and go right through to the attic underneath the roof deck. The drip edge placement is best directly on the wood deck of the eave. But in my case when there are 4 layers of roofing material nailed to the roof, then the second best place is beneath the top layer of roofing.

This brings me to another issue I'm pondering: The prevailing wind rake. 

The 'rake' is the part of the roof that is sloped.

here is the prevailing wind rake of my house. The abuse is evident.

here is the non-prevailing wind side of the house. This is the 'Lee' side of the house. It doesn't show as much abuse.

I got a better photo of the Lee side of the house so let's use that as an example. Imagine this were the windward side. Now, the same method of rolling the roofing material around a piece of wood and nailing it into the house was used here and it's all decayed and ruined so I'll be adding a drip edge around the entire house if everything goes well and I figure out a method. The experiment I want to try is to focus on the windward side of the house which is a rake. The leeward rake needs a drip edge but little water probably sheds from this side so it's not a huge priority. The winds here are strong and the windward side of the house gets a good burst of wind...when it rains the water pounds this one side of the house almost horizontally. Now, WHY would I follow the directions and install the drip edge under the rolled roofing and over the tar paper? Why do that? That will create an edge, that is nailed down and adhered with cement to the drip edge. Why not, on the prevailing wind side of the rake, staple and use cement to fix the tar paper to the wood deck. Then use adhesive to fix the roofing to the tar paper. THEN install the drip edge over everything and lay a good bead of cement under the drip edge before nailing it down good and tight. Yes, the surface of rolled roofing is not as flat as wood so there would be some rolling in the edge, but the layer of cement or butyl tape under the rake drip edge would seal those small imperfections. Then...when the wind blows water against the rake...the first and only thing it hits is indestructible galvanized drip edge. There is no lip of asphalt or tar paper or nails to loosen.

My visualization of this scenario has me hearing a voice of experience saying, "Oggy, a properly adhered underlayment with a concealed nail method...a 9'' strip of roofing material nailed over tar paper that has been cemented to a properly primed drip edge on the rake will create the same impenetrable seam that you are trying to create with a drip edge nailed over the entire edge...plus, any repairs to the roof will now involve removing the whole drip edge and risk damaging it...when you normally don't have to touch the drip edge to replace the roofing material since it is installed under the top layer."

I hear this voice of experience and answer: Ok, you think you're so smart. Why not DO BOTH? Huh? Why not cement the tar paper to the deck. Then nail the primed drip edge over the tar paper. Then nail the starter strip of roofing material to the drip edge using asphalt cement. THEN, once you have confirmed the asphalt sandwich you have created is solid, THEN add an additional drip edge that is shorter than the drip edge below it. Then you have triple protection on the windward rake! I'm not talking about doing some insane experiment around the entire roof. No, I'm focusing only on the windward rake that takes the most abuse. Why not use everything under the sun to keep water out of that area? Kind of like my plan to cover this roof with a metal roof. But this roof is already covering another roof. And this roof is made of 4 different layers of roofing. So, if the original roof includes 3 layers of roofing...and this roof includes 5 layers of roofing and I add one more layer of metal roofing...THEN THAT MAKES 9 (NINE) ROOFS over one house. Again, the problem with water infiltration are not the roof....the problem is the cracks in the stucco and the rakes and eaves allowing water to run under the roof along with the Vigas directing water back into the house.

here's another written illustration

_______________(top drip edge nailed to....

|    Top Layer Asphalt Roofing

|    cemented layer of felt

|     felt cemented to primed drip edge

|    _______________ (bottom primed drip edge nailed to....

|     |

|     |   WOOD DECKING

     |

     /

It's possible someone might say, "Oggy, what you're describing won't look good." So I include this photo from my roof. Does this look like a place that is concerned with aesthetics? We have literally rusting metal roofs...decaying fences...a huge pile of arsenic laced, rust colored, lead rich soil surrounding the town. The alley is unpaved. Dogs run freely. This is a town for practical people. All that matters is keeping the rainwater out of the house. If you can do that then you have succeeded.

*I'm tempted to make a video showing how I approach this but that might trick some innocent viewer into thinking I am trying to train others. No, that is not what this blog is for. I'm only trying to record my process of DIY thought. Training is not done on videos. We aren't in the fucking Matrix where you click "Download" on a "How to be a roofer" file. No. In the real world it takes years to learn the finesse involved with each process, let alone the decades to learn the insane number of products one can use. Have you seen the caulking aisle in the hardware store? It's insane. Many ways to get the wrong item. It's like going to the store and accidentally buying "Low Fat" cream cheese...as though a person eating cream cheese is counting calories for fuck sake! Well, you go to the cereal aisle and accidentally get a frosted flake you didn't intend to buy....and you're going to eat it. I'm sure you will. Because it's all the same cereal. Well, you're fucked if you get the wrong caulking and still use it. This is just an example of the infinite combinations of the wrong material you can purchase that will cause a huge mess and make you look like an asshole. The difference between Cement and Adhesive is pretty significant although any innocent person would think they are the same thing. Cement patches holes when used with fabric....Adhesive binds two new surfaces. In short, don't think I'm training anyone about these topics. I'm a philosopher, not a roofer. The process and underlying principles are important because the roof and my flesh and blood are all going to be wearing a wood suit one day. The principles will remain.