Over the years I have worked on a few old houses mostly as a laborer for one of my frends helping him on projects for him and his frends onn off once in a blue moon. Im not a pro by any means but I have come across alot of stuff that just makes me ask why?!!!
When I was insulating the basement of my friends old house I discovered that no 2 bays measured the same and they weren't even the same from one end to the other It was as if the house was built without a tape measure.
In the same house I found wiring done so badly the homeowner had the house rewired once I showed it to him. The wires were twisted together without wire nuts and were wrapped in electrical tape and none of the connections were inside electrical boxes as required by code. (It was a fire waiting to happen)
In his frends house I was asked to insulate the basement so I did. while working in the crawl spaces I noticed there was a crazy number of old dead wiring and old disconected plumbing left in the enormose crall space. when all this stuff was replaced noone botherd removing the old stuff. this is dumb because If something malfunctions is going to be 10 times harder to track down with all the dead stuff to sort threw. All those extra obstcles made insulating that place ten time harder than it had to be and the homeouner didn't want to spend the mony or time to fix it. I also discoverd a broken leaking pipe that the owner took over a year to bother fixing despite it being part of the heating system and leaking all over a section of woold wall.
My most recent example is my oun house. I have a fixer upper that I have been slowly restoring and renovating as I have mony and time to do so. I have spent countless time on it so far. so far chimny lined, new furnace, new oil tank, upstairs radiators craked and broken (fixed) upstairs bathroom plumbing leaking (fixed). front wall rotting due to improper roof desine (fixed) wall replaced. New basement stair treads installed first floor rewired. ugly wallpaper removed from entire house front living room front walls gutted insulated and re assembled and room was re floored and thats most of it so far. To many smaller mods and fixes to list.
If you ever wonder why I take so long to finish mini bike builds now you know! Not my only projects!
My most recent upgrade is painting then re flooring the dining room the paint work is done but the flooring is waiting on me fixing a structural issue. On both sides of the chimney the floors were sagging and on the ketchen side the sagging had broken a support beam clean in half. so far I have spent months slowly jacking the broken side back up into position. and I now have it where I want it. The jack happend to brake a hole in the thin cement floor in the basement durring the procces. I went to dig this un intentional hole out to pour a concrete slab to use as a support for the permanent lally column im going to install just to un earth an old support hidden under the floor! (Its in good shape so I'm going to re use it)
so This house was built or was repaird with a support for the spot that I found broken and at some point somone had the bright idea to remove the support and let the beam crack and brake full well knowing what they had done!
The dumb things I find in old houses never seas to amaze me!
These are some of the dumb things I have found in old houses so lets hear some of your stories.
When I was insulating the basement of my friends old house I discovered that no 2 bays measured the same and they weren't even the same from one end to the other It was as if the house was built without a tape measure.
In the same house I found wiring done so badly the homeowner had the house rewired once I showed it to him. The wires were twisted together without wire nuts and were wrapped in electrical tape and none of the connections were inside electrical boxes as required by code. (It was a fire waiting to happen)
In his frends house I was asked to insulate the basement so I did. while working in the crawl spaces I noticed there was a crazy number of old dead wiring and old disconected plumbing left in the enormose crall space. when all this stuff was replaced noone botherd removing the old stuff. this is dumb because If something malfunctions is going to be 10 times harder to track down with all the dead stuff to sort threw. All those extra obstcles made insulating that place ten time harder than it had to be and the homeouner didn't want to spend the mony or time to fix it. I also discoverd a broken leaking pipe that the owner took over a year to bother fixing despite it being part of the heating system and leaking all over a section of woold wall.
My most recent example is my oun house. I have a fixer upper that I have been slowly restoring and renovating as I have mony and time to do so. I have spent countless time on it so far. so far chimny lined, new furnace, new oil tank, upstairs radiators craked and broken (fixed) upstairs bathroom plumbing leaking (fixed). front wall rotting due to improper roof desine (fixed) wall replaced. New basement stair treads installed first floor rewired. ugly wallpaper removed from entire house front living room front walls gutted insulated and re assembled and room was re floored and thats most of it so far. To many smaller mods and fixes to list.
If you ever wonder why I take so long to finish mini bike builds now you know! Not my only projects!
My most recent upgrade is painting then re flooring the dining room the paint work is done but the flooring is waiting on me fixing a structural issue. On both sides of the chimney the floors were sagging and on the ketchen side the sagging had broken a support beam clean in half. so far I have spent months slowly jacking the broken side back up into position. and I now have it where I want it. The jack happend to brake a hole in the thin cement floor in the basement durring the procces. I went to dig this un intentional hole out to pour a concrete slab to use as a support for the permanent lally column im going to install just to un earth an old support hidden under the floor! (Its in good shape so I'm going to re use it)
so This house was built or was repaird with a support for the spot that I found broken and at some point somone had the bright idea to remove the support and let the beam crack and brake full well knowing what they had done!
The dumb things I find in old houses never seas to amaze me!
These are some of the dumb things I have found in old houses so lets hear some of your stories.
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