ffj's Early Retirement (round 2)

Where are you and where are you going?
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AxelHeyst
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Re: ffj's Early Retirement (round 2)

Post by AxelHeyst »

ffj wrote:
Thu Dec 22, 2022 8:50 pm
Looking back I was a shithead with an attitude which I've tried to make up for in my adulthood but at the time I hated it.
Oof, that resonates. I'm now really glad I wasn't paid for the work we did on the family land, because I now feel a sense of ownership/pride in our place that I don't think I'd have if it was paid labor. It feels more like I earned some kind of right to be here now as an adult.

Really cool story, thanks for sharing. I hear you about the renters. I have a vague idea that if I could find some burnt-out writer who just wants to lock herself up in an offgrid cabin for a year to write her Great Novel and not be bothered by anyone the entire time, that'd be sweet. How to find her, though.

ffj
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Re: ffj's Early Retirement (round 2)

Post by ffj »

Whenever one of my children irritate me I go back to my childhood and try to remember some of the tactics I used to employ and that usually gives me some perspective and makes the irritation go away. Haha. Sometimes I think I am being paid back for all of my sins.

If people weren't involved the whole landlord gig would be a pretty nice set-up. :D Or airBnB, or subletting a room. I spoke with a guy once about it and he told me (he owned a hundred houses) that if you don't want to fool with people and still make money then storage units were the way to go. He said before he could finish building them he would have a waiting list for potential clients. But most importantly, if they didn't pay he kept the deposit and then he put his own lock on the unit, and auctioned everything off within 7 days. Then took the next person on the waiting list. He said most times he never dealt with anybody as they just abandoned everything. And whoever bought the stuff at auction was responsible for removing everything with minimal cleanup on his part.

ffj
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Re: ffj's Early Retirement (round 2)

Post by ffj »

I guess this is the time of year when you look back at the previous 12 months and reflect. I tend to not do that much, as I enjoy looking to the future, but I did finish phase 1 of the clearing of the woods, which was a major amount of work. That's kind of a big deal for me because now I can move on to other endeavors in my life. But for contrast:

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That's a photo I shot yesterday. All of the trees left are beneficial for either animal or man, and now they have space to grow correctly and fast. I also have enough empty space for the planting of trees I want, namely fruit and nut trees. Lots of possibilities now without the scrub. Now for what this same space looked like several months ago:

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My dog had treed a squirrel which you can't see for the choking vines, but that is what I was dealing with. Just junk all around. It's nice to have a blank slate in which to create for the future. I'm excited for the possibilities.

Now that I have more free time I went ahead and contacted a previous client of mine to see if she needed work done and she was very excited I had contacted her. I hadn't worked for her for over two years due to building my house. It feels good to be wanted, haha. Even after I explained my labor price increases due to inflation these past few years. So I'll resume various home improvement tasks for her while also sporadically working for the Amish fellow. I decided a while ago that I need to get out and do something different besides staying home and working on my property. It makes for a muted existence to a point, although you can get some stuff done. It also makes you not appreciate it as much because you are too close to your "work". I need some separation and some seed money because I decided also to pursue another endeavor:

I'm going to create a mushroom growing operation and dip my toes in the Farmer's Markets this Spring. Some of you may remember my documentation of learning how to grow gourmet mushrooms so I have a solid base of knowledge from which to pull from, I just need a grow space. And I want to do it as cheaply as possible while still looking professional and being efficient. Fortunately I have a bunch of building materials left over from the house build that needs to get used and this would be a great opportunity to put them to use. I'll keep you guys posted.

Also, today I will be resigning from my last Fire Department. It's time, as I don't have a desire to do this anymore after close to thirty years of service. I am old per fire dept. standards, and there is a young group within the dept. that is rising up just as I did many years ago, but the main reason is that all of my friends that are older like me have left and I have nothing in common with a bunch of twenty year old kids. Life moves on and it will be a relief not to have to monitor every incident within my town and county.

All right friends, hope everybody had a good Christmas if you are into that, and a better New Year. Cheers

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ertyu
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Re: ffj's Early Retirement (round 2)

Post by ertyu »

overall, a good year. happy 2023 ffj, hope both you and dog enjoy it

IlliniDave
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Re: ffj's Early Retirement (round 2)

Post by IlliniDave »

Best wishes for the new year, ffj. I enjoyed the home build/property rehab series!

ffj
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Re: ffj's Early Retirement (round 2)

Post by ffj »

@ertyu, IDave

Thank you gentlemen. And the same well wishes from me to you. It's going to be a good year.


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How's my girl look? Almost looks like she's wearing a bow, doesn't it?

My neighbor called me and said she was back and to come down and put a collar on her if I had one. I had an old dog collar, but it was a bit too small and I was afraid she would choke as she grew so I improvised and took a short section of rope and tied a double-fisherman fairly loose. I thought she would shy away and resist but instead started licking me, haha. I really wish I knew where she came from but at least now people will know she's tame and not shoot her.

Anybody here read Greek?

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My son was gifted this from a friend and I don't know how to Google translate this. I assume it's vodka. Gin maybe? I'm curious.

Henry
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Re: ffj's Early Retirement (round 2)

Post by Henry »

If it's Greek I'm guessing Ouzo.

chenda
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Re: ffj's Early Retirement (round 2)

Post by chenda »

It's Tsipouro.

OutOfTheBlue
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Re: ffj's Early Retirement (round 2)

Post by OutOfTheBlue »

Better than Ouzo. Tsipouro!

This is the pure version, not anise-based.

https://wikiless.org/wiki/Tsipouro?lang=en

Edit: Chenda beat me to it. Impressed

Henry
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Re: ffj's Early Retirement (round 2)

Post by Henry »

Well, whatever it is, hopefully its better than that shit ass plate you got.

ffj
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Re: ffj's Early Retirement (round 2)

Post by ffj »

Brandy! I never would have guessed that as I didn't even know there were clear brandy's. Thanks everyone for your help. As an aside, here is my favorite brandy cocktail recipe:

https://www.liquor.com/recipes/brandy-alexander/

It's delicious if you like things on the sweet side.

@Henry

I've got a topper:

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Not to be outmatched by the $10 gift card to Walmart by the person who drew my name for Christmas this year. I almost lost my shit when I opened my "gift" and declared to everyone I'm not playing this rigged game anymore. I guess the point is for us to spend a decent amount of money on thoughtful and quality gifts so I can get a .99C beer cooler and $10 to the Wall-Mart of my choice. It makes that plate look like gold at this point. I'm complaining but it's fucking comical at the same time, so thanks for the laugh. :) I've missed your humor here.

Henry
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Re: ffj's Early Retirement (round 2)

Post by Henry »

That looks like something you'd buy for a baby with fetal alcohol syndrome.

ffj
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Re: ffj's Early Retirement (round 2)

Post by ffj »

Back to work for me, at least until I make enough money to fund another endeavor I am pursuing, namely a mushroom growing business. I'll probably detail that in a separate thread so those of you that want to learn how to grow mushrooms can learn from my experience.

But the last couple of days has been building a simple porch/deck which I thought I would highlight to demystify construction for some of you. And this project is simple enough for anyone to understand.

First you have to design and layout where this thing is going to go. This is a simple rectangle so easy to design, and for the layout I cheated and grabbed some scrap lumber lying around to establish where my support posts would go. This is a good example of not over-complicating things as I could have done this all mathematically but why?

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Next I dug my footings for the posts and poured the concrete. This was the end of day one as I needed the concrete to set up.

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Day two was construction day. First I established the height to the deck. Then I cut all eight posts to height, all of which were different because my concrete were different levels. It's important that you maintain level to know where to cut these posts. Since the deck is so small I just grabbed a scrap piece of wood, held it level, and got a measurement. Again, not overly complicating things.

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Then it was a process of filling in the blanks. All while maintaining level, square, and plumb. Which is not hard to do on something this small. But you must check periodically nonetheless.

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And lastly, I nailed on the joist hangers to make this dead-strong. When I go back I'll secure the top of the deck with decking boards with a trap door to access the water shutoff.

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So there you have it. Hopefully some of you that are intimidated by this kind of stuff can see it's not complicated, just a bit of hard work.

Gilberto de Piento
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Re: ffj's Early Retirement (round 2)

Post by Gilberto de Piento »

Are the posts set into the concrete, sitting directly on the concrete or is there a spacer between the two? For some reason I thought the current practice was to put a spacer in between. I ask because I have some work like this to do eventually.

mathiverse
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Re: ffj's Early Retirement (round 2)

Post by mathiverse »

Wow, I didn't realize that the posts for a porch might just be sitting on concrete. I would have guessed the posts were *in* the concrete, but obviously that's not the case. Thanks for sharing!

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Lemur
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Re: ffj's Early Retirement (round 2)

Post by Lemur »

@mathiverse

Several reasons you can't put the wooden posts in the concrete.

1.) The posts would rot as the concrete would hold moisture against it.
2.) The concrete would crack eventually because the wood swell up like a sponge and expand.
3.) Setting the wood in the concrete would make it a PITA if you've to make a leveling adjustment one day.

@Gilberto de Piento

The posts sit on top of the concrete. Regarding spacers, tons of ways to skin a cat in construction....we used to put spacers on the top of posts (like half inch pieces of plywood or something) if we had to jerry rig the leveling. I think its better to get the posts cut right the first time though.

ffj
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Re: ffj's Early Retirement (round 2)

Post by ffj »

@All

Good questions and good answers. Regarding the spacers, I'm not aware of anybody doing that at least around here. Maybe it's code somewhere else?

Also, regarding different ways to skin a cat, I could have used a transit laser level to quickly mark the heights of each of the posts but I don't own one as they are fairly expensive. On a big job a transit laser level is a necessity ( which I borrow from friends) unless you want to use a water level, which is primitive by todays standard. But it's cheap and dead accurate.

Another thing I didn't do was notch my posts like this:

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That's because the span was so short and I can rely on the shear strength of the lag screws, plus I added two extra posts for even more strength. But on a large span you must notch the posts so that the band boards rest on the notch and the weight is directly transferred straight to the foundation.

Gilberto de Piento
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Re: ffj's Early Retirement (round 2)

Post by Gilberto de Piento »

What I mean by spacers are these plastic spacers https://www.homedepot.com/p/Simpson-Str ... /313810441 or the metal u shaped brackets that sit one the concrete and bolt to the post to keep the bottom of the post from contacting the concrete. Not used for an adjustment. Whether they are useful is probably dependent on conditions. I have never built anything new so I don't know about code.

Sometimes when the post sits right on the concrete it rots. Then the post just keeps getting shorter and shorter until the deck or porch is leaning. For example, I worked on a porch that had been built 30-40 years earlier. The posts looked great except for the bottom which had been losing about an inch per decade. Then you have to jack it up and extend the posts.

ffj
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Re: ffj's Early Retirement (round 2)

Post by ffj »

@Gilberto

I understand now. Yeah, those are for elevating a post off of a wet surface, usually a poured concrete slab. I have a version of them on my house for my porches because my beams holding the porch roof are untreated hemlock.

You have a lot more leeway with treated lumber, especially decks. In a perfect world you would pour an elevated pier, use a Simpson strong-tie, and treated lumber for your uprights. Nobody around here is going to pay for the substantial increase in cost for that foundation system because most decks get replaced every 20 years or so anyway, because either the deck has succumbed to the elements and looks horrible or they want a design change. The method I have shown will easily last 25 years or better which is within spec for a deck.

If I would have used the Simpson U-shaped brackets for the above porch, that alone would have added $1000 just for materials. Then add in the forms for the concrete as well as the extra concrete and labor and suddenly you have a very expensive little porch.

Gilberto de Piento
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Re: ffj's Early Retirement (round 2)

Post by Gilberto de Piento »

Thanks for the explanation!

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