If you’re reading this, you owe it to yourself to check out Richard’s post below on the con in conservative proposals for health care reform. Shorter: the “reform” is to make sure the wrong people get less and more expensive care under the guise of a variety of measures claimed to be (but not) free market efficiencies. Also too, why Avik Roy isn’t an expert, but a marginally policy-literate hack.
With that out of the way, more on the joys of home renovation.
First the good news. It turns out that this problem — the wire formation inside our kitchen walls that I’ve since dubbed “Cthulu’s Hairball” — isn’t actually live electrical wires. Instead, its what you get before you texting became the way to call the kid to dinner. Before the internet, kiddies, it turns out, people networked their houses in other ways — including setting up, in 1920, a house-wide intercom system. “Come, child!”
So, not the fire hazard general wiring nightmare we expected. We’ve still got plenty of knob and tube spread round the place — wiring we’re replacing in bits as we work on the house. But Cthulu sleeps.
However…and as those of you who know, know, there’s always something.
Check out this:
That’s what you get when you open up the wall, and find a sill that has been so chewed up by termites you can sweep it away. I mean, with a broom. (We did chunk up the rotten timber a bit, before getting out the sweepers, but still.)
Which is to say, it seems our house was holding itself up out of habit.
Here’s another view:
That’s the post at the end of that run of sill.
Ah, our six-legged friends.
What’s bugging y’all today?
schrodinger's cat
How is Tikka handling all this commotion?
Eric U.
I’m working on a house from the 1890’s made by Appalachian tradespeople, and it’s always a joy opening up a wall or fixing something in the crawlspace. The guys from 1890 were not so bad, but the construction quality went downhill over time — there are at least 2 additions from later.
Tom Levenson
@schrodinger’s cat: Not well. Not well at all. We see him mostly at night when the guys are gone.
Belafon
At what point, when you start replacing things like walls, do you actually have a new house?
scav
Oh you lucky lucky man. The things you’ll learn. For one, I think of
Witold Rybczynski’s <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Home-Short-History-Witold-Rybczynski/dp/0140102310/ref=la_B000AQ1U8A_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1408119347&sr=1-1″>Home, but I think there’s another similar one. Entirely as much fun as the history of kitchen appliences.
raven
I had sill damage that I found while replacing siding. I dutifully too a sawzall and a chisel and went to work on that sucker to replace the bad end by scabbing on to it. When I broke through the rotted timber I found that it had already been scabbed onto from the inside!
Cervantes
Whom did you pay to do your home inspection for you before you bought?
scav
@scav: Mr Pad, Mr Pad, not a good combo with FYWP.
Home: A Short History of an Idea
gogol's wife
Our garage is now in its sixth week of the promised three weeks of construction. But one of the carpenters told my husband our (1927) house was well built, so there’s that. Our brave female cat likes to sit in the second-floor window and supervise the work, she’s so funny.
schrodinger's cat
@Tom Levenson: Oh the poor magnificent beast, how he must suffer. My boss cat is the same way, he gets upset even when he see suitcases being packed.
raven
Also, our rental has a concrete front porch that is the width of the house. It’s really bad on a sill to be butted up against concrete because moisture leeches from it to the wood. The sill on that house was eaten up so I crawled under the house with a floor jack, 4×4’s and reinforced it.
CONGRATULATIONS!
If I ever have the option to have a house custom built – and given my monetary status, this is pretty fucking unlikely – I’d go aluminum frame for exactly the reasons your pictures show. As you so beautifully say, you house is standing merely out of habit.
raven
@Cervantes: More importantly, from whom did he get the termite letter?
Tom Levenson
@Belafon: Never. See in a related vein, the U.S.S. Constitution, which is at once a warship from the early 1800s and a near complete rebuild — more than once, in fact.
shelley
Aargh, termites. The only way to know if you’ve got them, without, like you, opening a wall and visually identifying them, is when they swarm outside. Which they only do once a year. For a couple of hours and then disappear. So if you’re not right there at the time, you’ll completely miss it. Or mistake them for flying ants.
Betty Cracker
My sympathies on the termite damage, Tom. The mister and I once faced a similarly harrowing amount of chewed infrastructure in a crumbling bungalow we once occupied. Only we didn’t discover it while attempting renovations: It was brought to our attention when a painting suddenly fell from the wall, and then we noticed you could push through the wall with your pinky finger. Zikes.
Tom Levenson
@Cervantes: There’s a story there, but I can’t tell it to you. You may infer the reason why.
jacy
Yowza — termites bad. My utmost sympathies with the remodel. It always seems like it ends up being far more painful and complicated than you could have at first imagined. Here’s hoping it gets better and your “deconstruction” doesn’t have any unintended consequences like breaking a seal that releases the elder gods….
As for what’s bugging me — things here have gone from unimaginably bad to whatever lies beyond unimaginably bad. But I’m still breathing and able to sit upright and put together at least a semi-coherent sentence, so there is that.
Cervantes
@raven: Not required by law in all states, only some; elsewhere, not required by all lenders in all loans, only some.
Cervantes
@Tom Levenson: Got it. Good luck.
raven
@Cervantes: Aha, didn’t know that. I paid $300 for the inspection yesterday.
schrodinger's cat
To take your mind off termites in the house and the House, a Friday moment of Zen.
Eric U.
@Tom Levenson: interesting that you might have recourse. One of the editors of Fine Homebuilding recently found out that typical home inspector contracts exclude any damages beyond the fee. He paid $500, the repairs they should have seen are going to cost him thousands. They cheerfully refunded his fee. He discovered the damage when he was across the crawl space and just happened to point his flashlight to an area on the other side of the house and noted that it looked funny
The home inspection report on the house I’m fixing up is extensive, and depressing
BethanyAnne
I am going to meet these beasties tomorrow. https://www.petfinder.com/petdetail/26178131/ If we get along, two new furbeasts for the house :)
Mike in NC
Our townhouse in Alexandria, VA (built c.1975) had a big funky intercom system that connected the kitchen to the wet bar in the paneled basement. It didn’t seem to work well and was really ugly. About as useful as an 8-track player in the 1990s. I quickly ripped them out and patched the walls before repainting everything.
shelley
@BethanyAnne: Oh man. Wish I hadn’t seen that photo of Hammy
Cervantes
@Eric U.: Might have, or might have had. Either way, comment may be impossible, for now or in perpetuity.
A good home inspector can be insufferable. Mine is … excellent.
Villago Delenda Est
You know, those pictures remind me of Berlin in the summer of 1945.
Eric U.
@Cervantes: from what I have heard, it’s hard for an excellent home inspector to stay in business. Most people ask their real estate agent for a recommendation, the recommendation comes back for someone that only finds the most obvious problems that definitely have to be fixed. The horrendous problems that probably will not be found for a decade or 2 are best not mentioned.
Cervantes
@Eric U.: Asking a real estate agent — even a buyer’s agent — to recommend a home inspector is … unwise.
JustRuss
My parent’s house, built about 1960, had an intercom system. I remember Mom using it when I was a kid, the master control was in the kitchen. I’m not sure if it died of natural causes or if the addition they did in the early 70’s killed it. Cool thing was it had an AM radio built in, so you could have music and advertisements coming out of really crappy speakers throughout the house!
WereBear
@BethanyAnne: Oooo! She looks wonderful. And you are taking her brother, too? Awesome!
As the person of a dilute tortie, I’d say, Don’t worry about a thing. She’ll be running stuff within 2 days.
Glocksman
My mother’s old home was built in 1940, and the quality of materials used and construction was vastly higher than the houses surrounding it that were built postwar.
No drywall or concrete slab foundation and plywood under carpet floors in that home.
Thick plaster walls and hardwood flooring, along with a basement that was always dry.
The only thing that was a potential problem was the aging 1940’s BX cable used for electrical wiring.
Good stuff at the time, but wax coated cloth covering natural rubber insulation doesn’t last forever, as I found out while replacing switches and outlets over the years.
TG Chicago
Sorry to put this in a nice thread about home improvement and such, but apparently Ferguson’s finest — having already assassinated Michael Brown’s person — are now working on assassinating his character.
They’re claiming that he robbed a convenience store 10 minutes before he was gunned down.
FUCK YOU
Even if he was actually guilty — which is dubious (how could it have taken this long for that to come out?) — that has nothing to do with the murder as it has been described.
Are they trying to make a bad situation worse? Who are these awful policemen?
Violet
@TG Chicago: Two posts down this is being discussed.
lamh36
UGHHHHHH!
If this goes to trial…it will NOT be a fair one
White St. Louis Has Some Awful Things to Say About Ferguson http://t.co/kNktUGgYsv via @tnr
Mike E
That picture reminds me that I need moar roughage in my diet ;-)
My niece bought and renovated my brother’s rowhouse in Philly and found some interesting stuff…the root ball of a tree had absorbed bricks from the foundation, and critters were making good use of the bamboo in the vicinity and thatched together quite the bivouac. The contractors found original windows that were walled up, too, and the sun shines through them again after all these many years.
cckids
@BethanyAnne: So adorable. Good luck!!
I’m jonesing badly for a new kitten, but it just isn’t happening. We’re already 2 kittehs over our professed 2-animal limit here at our new apartment, so . . . no. Just no.
Have fun with your new additions!
Soprano2
Been there, seen that, got the T-shirt. You have my sympathy, Tom, kitchen renovations are no fun and always a) last longer than you thought and b) take longer than you thought. We worked on our kitchen for 4 years, when I tell people I went without a kitchen sink for 4 years they don’t believe me (we had a dishwasher hooked up, that’s the only way we survived it). We now have a beautiful, functional, modern kitchen with 21st century wiring and lighting, so it was worth the effort. Keep thinking about that, it’ll be worth it when you’re done.
Ruckus
No termites but the previous tenant in my rented room had turned the window AC unit sideways to fit in the window. The water ran down the walls inside and rotted out the sill, drywall and framing, along with mold. Tore it out and reframed all the bad and added a new window AC unit. Properly. Or at least as properly as possible without rebuilding the entire wall.
Mike E
@Ruckus: Holmes On Homes (
EH?HGTV) has whole episodes depicting similar boneheaded maneuvers.kindness
Are you going to replace the slab floor? I hate concrete floors. Wood gives. It is so much better on my feet & knees.
Mustang Bobby
Best wishes, Tom.
rea
That’s what you get when you open up the wall, and find a sill
Well, don’t do that. There are some secrets mankind was not meant to know.
Gin & Tonic
As this is an open thread, I’m sure Bob will be along presently to mention Russia’s generous “humanitarian aid” to Ukraine. Here’s a photo from the FT’s Moscow correspondent, who reports that most of the trucks in the convoy are empty or largely empty.
max
@TG Chicago: Are they trying to make a bad situation worse? Who are these awful policemen?
max
[‘Just so. They didn’t like gettin’ showed up by the State Police.’]
ET
Back in the 1980’s my dad was so tired of yelling down the stairs for one of us three kids he rigged a doorbell near his chair and ran it down to where our bedrooms were. My brother was one buzz, my sister was two, I was three, and when he wanted all of us it was four.
We moved out and the system stayed. After Katrina I went back to the house and the owner gave me a bit of tour and I asked her about it. The battery he used to power the system had been found but they never know what that was or why there was a doorbell in the den.
max
First the good news. It turns out that this problem — the wire formation inside our kitchen walls that I’ve since dubbed “Cthulu’s Hairball” — isn’t actually live electrical wires. Instead, its what you get before you texting became the way to call the kid to dinner. Before the internet, kiddies, it turns out, people networked their houses in other ways — including setting up, in 1920, a house-wide intercom system. “Come, child!” So, not the fire hazard general wiring nightmare we expected. We’ve still got plenty of knob and tube spread round the place — wiring we’re replacing in bits as we work on the house. But Cthulu sleeps.
Those ceramic knobs still work though! They still make them – it’s still useful for stringing plastic-clad wiring. It’s the cloth wiring that breaks down.
Fables of the Reconstruction, Part Deux
I was thinking more Dead Letter Office, personally. I have dutifully put it in the CD player.
REM – Dead Letter Office – Voice of Harold (alternate version of “Seven Chinese Bros.”)
max
[‘We should make Cole listen to that record.’]
Origuy
My Russian Facebook friend believes that Russia and Ukraine have reached an agreement. Donyetsk will be abandoned by the separatists; the Russian Army will enter the Luhansk Obast in force; there will be a ceasefire declared next week and the status quo at that point will be quietly accepted. The sanctions are starting to hurt Russia.
Karen in GA
@BethanyAnne: Ooh, what beautiful beasties. Best of luck!
In my own beastie news, Iggy was supposed to have his first heartworm-killing injection yesterday, but the vet ran another heartworm test that came back negative. No point injecting and confining the dog if he tests negative, right? Happy me. Picked him up yesterday afternoon.
Meanwhile, the vet sent blood off to a lab for confirmation. Those results came in this morning, positive.
But the vet’s okay with waiting until I get back from my London trip in September to do the injections, so at least I know I’ll be home the entire time he’s confined. And I have time to train him to use a Gentle Leader so he doesn’t pull and run in place when he’s on the leash, which will at least keep his heart rate down when he’s walked outside during his confinement.
Still, though, ugh.
FlyingToaster
@Cervantes: I actually did a search on “meanest home inspector in town” — and I asked the husband of my agent, who was a retired contractor, who he hated the most.
The inspector caught the ungrounded mains, and the lack of a drain tray under the upstairs HVAC unit.
He stays in business by word-of-mouth — I told at least a dozen people to use him.
Origuy
My family moved into a house around 1965 that the developer had been using as an office. So there was an intercom installed in it as well as a garage door opener, so that they could show it off as an upgrade. It carried FM as well as AM and the sound wasn’t too bad. We rarely used it as an intercom; I’m not sure if it still works. My dad and sister still live there.
Cervantes
@Soprano2: What’s the difference between your a) and b)?
Gin & Tonic
@Origuy: I’m skeptical that any such agreement would be reached with Ukrainian Independence Day next Sunday. Giving up another piece of territory in light of that timing…
BethanyAnne
@WereBear: Oh, I gotta have both. I’m confident she’ll run the house with a firm but fair paw.
Eric U.
@Soprano2:
augustine’s law of scheduling:
the corollary is that this is still the case if law XXIII is taken into account
srv
Can’t you Yankees just call This Old House or something?
I’d just demo it.
Glocksman
@Eric U.:
Don’t forget Lt. Commander Scott’s corollary:
Tell Captain Kirk that a repair takes 1.9x the amount of time it actually requires.
That’s how engineers maintain their reputations as miracle workers when they repair the ship just in time.
BethanyAnne
@shelley: He looks like a great doggie. That first photo is clearly in need of a treat.
Trollhattan
Termites. Nice. Who needs that nasty old wood, anyway?
We never had termites (to my knowledge) but did have powderpost beetles, necessitating tenting and fumigation and weeks of foundation reconstruction while squeezed into the crawlspace. Old Calif houses like ours are foundationed and framed in redwood, which is bug-resistant but with a sufficiently moist environment, evidently still tasty. And in the ’20s they did not to seem to understand you don’t place the fvcking sill plate at or below soil level. Somebody give me a time machine so I can go yell at a contractor.
cmorenc
@Tom Levenson:
That’s some serious dry-rot you have in the last picture of your post. Or at least that’s the BEST-case potential cause of it, cause the worse potential alternative is termites (which could have a much more systemic effect on the house’s structure).
Tommy
Isn’t Fables of the Reconstruction a REM album. Just saying. Pretty sure it is and off to listen to it,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ozdrFAnPrZ4
Butch
We live in a 120-year-old farmhouse in the Upper Peninsula. Our kitchen is really dark, so we decided to add a skylight, and discovered when we cut into the ceiling that the rafters are tree trunks with one side kinda shaved smooth.
Riley's Enabler
@BethanyAnne: Beauties, both. I hope it goes well for all three of you. Preemptive congrats!
raven
@Butch: Lotsa old houses are like that. All of our sills are the same.
Butch
@raven: We just thought it was funny; our house was actually built about 2 miles from its current location in an area known as JamDam and was brought here by horses. The intent was to set it at the top of our hill but it fell off the skids about 100 feet shy of there and the movers decided to leave it where it was.
2liberal
@Tom Levenson:
So are you suing someone? That is my guess.
Tom Levenson
@cmorenc: This is why I shouldn’t tell you guys anything. I’m going to put my head back into my very comfortable sand-hole now.
raven
@Butch: That’s great! I’ve only been to the UP once. Drove my sis up there when her boyfriend split the draft to The Soo. I hitched back to Chicago and got stranded on HWY 2 all night and almost froze, in August!
raven
Chief says initial contact between Michael Brown and officer who shot him was unrelated to alleged convenience store robbery.
Butch
@raven: My thumb used to be my most common means of transport. I’m about halfway between Escanaba and Iron Mountain, if that means anything. My house was built in the middle of nowhere and it’s still in the middle of nowhere.
Gin & Tonic
@raven: So releasing that info was just to smear him pre-emptively, and taint the jury pool, right?
Belafon
@Gin & Tonic: The officer’s “busting sense” kicked in – imagine Candice going after Phineas and Ferb – and he just knew he had to go tell his mom, or shoot someone.
raven
@Butch: Yup, sure does. Them’s were the days. I got picked up by a biker who was driving a nice 64 poncho after the border partol made me get out of a car that was going all the way to Chicago! Didn’t like them longhairs, Nam Vet or not. The biker and I stopped at every roadhouse we came too and I finally realized I need to di-di mau from him. I walked all night for fear of freezin and finally, after dawn a UPS driver took mercy on me and took me to Green Bay where one of my boys came and got my sorry ass. Six months later the dumbass decided to go down to Chicago to see my sis and the FBI broke down my old mans door with guns drawn and carried his ass away. he had an LB in the car and my dad called me down in Champaign. “Should I throw it away”> I said “hell no” and beat it up there and go the goods!
Belafon
@raven: Missouri Highway Patrol Captain Johnson didn’t like that press conference at all, so he’s having his own (Daily Kos link).
geg6
I’m about ready to tear my hair out over this whole John’s-daughter’s-wedding shit. The whole thing blew up last weekend, with the kids having a huge fight. Which is understandable, what with the wedding two weeks away at the time and having just closed on their new home. But what made it horrible was the meddling of John’s ex-wife and her current husband, two of the biggest insane control freaks the world has ever seen. Turns out they’ve been meddling in the kids’ relationship in a toxic way. So they had tentatively cancelled the wedding and Kaitlin spent half of last weekend, hysterical, on the phone with John. Of course, John was furious with Jeremiah (having only half of the story, of course) and was just raging all weekend. It was all I could do to talk sense into him, saying that he should just support Kaitlin but not say anything bad about Jeremiah and certainly not track Jeremiah down to pound him into the dust because, chances were, they would make up within days and then John would look like the bad guy. Thankfully, John cooled down and listened to me. And, apparently, the kids were making up and trying to work it out. I’m still operating on the assumption that the wedding is still on. But I don’t know for sure and now John is reluctant to call Kaitlin and confirm. Which is driving me crazy. We have 15 gallons of the liqueur we make that has to be poured into the 6oz. bottles that are meant as favors. I have a dress at the seamstress being tailored. I have a pedicure appointment. I have to set up dog sitting with my sister. I’m about ready to scream with frustration.
This is just one of the many reasons I never have and never will get married. It’s too fucking crazy for me.
gbear
@Belafon: He’s gotta be incredibly pissed off that the Ferguson cops tried to paint the victim as a thug and criminal, and then admit at the afternoon press briefing that the cop who shot Brown didn’t know anything about the store incident before he killed him. Now it’s come out that the cop who killed Brown skipped town a couple days ago.
Johnson has got to be ready to join in with the protestors in burning the police station to the ground. Tonight is going to be difficult.
dmsilev
@geg6: Jesus. My condolences.
geg6
@Butch:
My ex and I had a big old Victorian built in 1905. We had the same thing. Seeing those rough cut rafters with the bark still on them just fascinated me. I had no idea. I wanted to try to find a way to keep them exposed, but the ex said forget it.
cckids
@geg6: I got out of the wedding dress design/seamstress biz because of the mothers of the bride/groom. Stressed-out, sometimes hysterical brides I can handle. (Thankfully, never had a full-on bridezilla) Control-freak, finally-getting-the-wedding-I-was-denied moms? NO THANK YOU. Weddings make people f*cking nuts.
My kids, whenever the time comes, are getting a check, a “congrats”!!, and no. advice. whatsoever beyond “Have fun, kids!”.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@geg6: You’re in my thoughts.
dmsilev
@cckids: My brother and his wife did the Justice of the Peace thing. Easy, no muss, no fuss.
On the other hand, my cousin is getting married in a month and based on the stuff that came with the invitation it’s going to be a three ring circus complete with elephants and lion-tamers.
SatanicPanic
@dmsilev: The big circus ones are fun for people attending though
Iowa Old Lady
I’m awed by the termite damage. And I speak as someone who had the front torn off her house and the studs replaced last summer.
Butch
@geg6: I thoughta that too. It was the thought of the exposed wiring that stopped me, actually.
Iowa Old Lady
@Belafon: When you look at those two police chiefs, it’s really clear that one is trying to do the right thing. The contrast hits you in the face even if you were someone who didn’t want to acknowledge it.
scav
@SatanicPanic: Not always, they’re often hard to live up to even for the extras. Are we providing the correct back-drop, living up to expectations? Will our presence ruin their embossed photo album of great professionalism? Unless you mean the ones with actual monkey and acrobats and cotton candy. I could maybe do with a low-impact version of those.
cckids
@dmsilev:
Yeah, my spouse STILL, (28 + years later), advocates for that, or eloping. I am taking a hands-off approach, because it is up to them.
Our wedding was pretty low-key, the only thing that made it stressful was that our mothers hated each other & kept sniping at each other through us (mainly through me). I remember a major, knock-down-drag out fight over stupid tablecloths. I was 23, and didn’t have enough of a backbone yet to tell them to back off or just fight with each other. I’ve grown since then. :)
Trollhattan
Feel the Freedom(tm), part the infinity.
“Yeah, we were just putting it back in the safe when it went off…yeah, that’s the ticket.”
The world woud be a much better place if dad got back to collecting and hiding pr0n instead of shootin’ devices.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Michael Brown’s killing was live-tweeted. Bizarre times we are living in
The witness also confirms Brown was running away from the cop
rikyrah
@TG Chicago:
he murdered an unarmed Black kid without a record….which was gonna be there excuse.
they obviously do this shyt all the time, and now they have to construct the crime with which to justify this young man’s execution.
Cervantes
@geg6: Good grief.
SiubhanDuinne
@geg6:
Good heavens! I was actually just kind of waiting to see you on a thread so I could ask about wedding plans. Hope the kids get it sorted out in the next couple of days and everything ends up going smoothly.
(Or, of course, if it’s not meant to be, then not.)
Cervantes
@dmsilev: A young couple I used to know — or rather, their parents — spent more than a million dollars on the wedding. The marriage ended before all the bills were paid — and the bills were all paid very quickly.
(I still know the couple, except they’re not any more.)
Tommy
@Cervantes: My brother got married on a beach. We have no affiliation to a beach. Brother just wanted to get married there. It was amazing.
Tommy
@Cervantes: My brother got married on a beach. We have no affiliation to a beach. Brother just wanted to get married there. I t was amazing.
Tommy
@Cervantes: My brother got married on a beach. We have no affiliation to a beach. Brother just wanted to get married there. I t was amazing.