House Painting

We've had problems with the exterior paint on our house, ever since we moved in. I dutifully scrape off the loose paint, apply a fresh coat of primer, then a new finish coat. But the paint blisters again, usually where the old paint has not been removed, but sometimes even the new paint blisters and peels, within months of being applied. I decided to try a different approach this time. I'm taking off ALL of the old paint, sanding the primer residue down to the wood, then applying an opaque stain instead of primer and acrylic paint. This siding is wonderful old growth Cedar, straight grain. It looks so wonderful that I even considered using a transparent stain but there are patches and spots of putty where somebody made a goober and filled it. So we really need the opaque stain.

Here the old paint has been mostly removed and the siding has been sanded, but you can still see some of it, in its blistered condition.

In this photo the entire wall has been sanded, first with a belt sander using 60 grit, then with a random orbital sander, using 150 grit.

The finished wall looks almost like new. The color is amazingly similar to the original acrylic paint.

Cicadas in Western Washington

Yesterday I distinctly heard the sound of several cicada bugs, in some Black Locust trees. I have never heard that sound before in this marine climate. The only way I recognized it is because I heard them in several eastern states where I visited in April of 2018. Now I'm posting this as a time stamp, so I will be able to reference when I heard them, if I ever hear them again. I suspect they may not appear again for several years.

New Concrete Driveway

With the new roof and gutters finished, and plumbing and foundation cracks repaired, we started replacing the driveway. How often do you see a girl running a jackhammer?

The machine they used for breaking up the old concrete was unable to pick up large chunks, so they had to be broken up into smaller chunks.

I tried to capture a big block standing on edge, before it dropped, but this photo is even better, showing the clouds of dust raised by the large chunk of concrete hitting the ground. Theresa stayed away, in the farthest corner of the house and she could both hear and feel the concrete slabs hitting the ground.

The slab was broken into several pieces by that single impact.

Fast forward, after spreading gravel, tamping it down, and putting in forms, it was Friday afternoon and the driveway was ready for wet concrete. But that needed to wait until Monday morning.

That huge concrete truck just barely fit into our narrow driveway.

There were four men working silently while spreading and smoothing the wet concrete. Each knew what needed to be done, so there was very little talking.

Here's a fish-eye lens view of the entire driveway. The first truck was empty.

When the second truck arrived, they started using the wheelbarrow to shuttle the wet concrete up to the end of the sidewalk.

They used incredibly long extensions for smoothing and polishing the surface of the new concrete.

Another fish-eye lens view, showing the entire driveway and sidewalk, smoothed and brushed.

Here the forms have been removed and the workmen were gone. The pouring, spreading, smoothing, polishing and brushing took only about four hours.

New Gutters

While we were working on concrete repairs, the gutter people came to put up our new gutters. They rolled out each new strip of gutter and assembled all of the braces and flashing before attaching it to the house. This photo shows the longest straight run on our house: 38 feet.

Two men attached the gutter to the house. A third installer worked on downspouts and sealed the gutter corners.

Here's a wide angle shot of the rear of our house with the gutters finished. Did I mention: we also have a new roof now. It's aluminum shingles, designed to look like grey slate. In this photo you can see the slightly raised up row of shingles that cover the intake vents. The exhaust vents are not visible at this angle but they're under the ridge cap shingles.

The next day they came back and installed the gutter caps. Those will keep out leaves and other debris, so I will never have to clean the gutters again.

Here's the view of the front of our house, with the new roof and new gutters. The concrete repair is still in progress.

This close-up of an inside corner shows how they handle the increased volume of water coming down a roof valley. First they cut two 22.5 degrees miters instead of a single 45 degree miter, then they added a flow deflector. It's a rubber mat with little bumps that will deflect a single stream of water into multiple smaller streams. Those smaller streams will not overwhelm the stainless steel screen that covers the top of the gutters.

Drain Pipe & Concrete Repair (continued)

The next step in the project is to dig down and repair the second basement wall crack, along with repairing a leaking drain pipe. This photo shows the exposed drain pipe along with the non-conforming connection of the downspout with the sewer line.

I added this photo to show the concrete rubble and the relative location of the hole to our kitchen door.

This repair required the removal of the non-conforming downspout connection, so I decided to cut through the pipe on the far side of the "Y" connection. I used a diamond grit blade on my reciprocating saw. It took a long time and it was very dusty. I kept the blade cool by stopping frequently to dip the blade into a jar of water.

I was delighted with the clean, straight results of the cut pipe.

I replaced the multiple clay pipes with two eight foot long sections of ABS pipe, using rubber unions. Then I leveled the new pipes and checked the height in multiple places with my gallon jug of water and clear plastic tubing (a simple water level).

Once the drain pipe leak had been fixed, we were able to start digging out the second basement wall crack. I hired a neighborhood kid to do most of the digging since I'm not up to that much work these days. We used the post hole digger for the bottom half of this hole. We filled a five gallon bucket, then hoisted it out of the hole using a ladder as a scaffold and a pair of rock climbing pulleys and rope.

There wasn't enough space for my ladder so we dug terraced steps into the hole.

This time I used a grinder instead of a chisel and it went much faster widening out the crack. I applied a patch of waterproof concrete and then four thin layers of tar as before.

Drain Pipe & Concrete Repair

We're removing the cracked and incorrectly tilting concrete, then digging down to the bottom of the concrete foundation, to expose the crack in the basement concrete wall. I painted a coat of tar on it about 25-30 years ago and that kept our basement dry until about 4-5 years ago. This time I decided to chisel out the crack and apply a patch of waterproof cement, then add more tar. Also, I decided to hire a guy who has the right equipment for breaking up and moving concrete.

Here's where the expert with the back hoe started digging the deep hole.

He left a "step" halfway down but I needed to lower down my eight foot step ladder so I could climb in and out of the hole. You can see the old tar patch I put on a long time ago, along with the puddle of muddy water at the bottom. I used the garden hose to spray down the wall, while scrubbing it with a stainless steel brush. Then I had to scoop out the water from the bottom of the hole.

Next, I used a pneumatic chisel to chip out and widen the crack.

Here the crack is completely chiseled out, scrubbed and washed.

While the concrete was still wet I applied a patch of fast-curing waterproof cement. Not pictured is the four thin layers of tar that I applied on top of the cement. Each layer needed about 12 hours to cure. I put an ordinary household fan down in the hole to circulate the air and help the wall dry out faster.

Gutter Removal

We decided to get a new roof and gutters. These old gutters are 78 years old and leaking in the corners, so we finally decided to quit repairing leaks and just replace all of them. This photo shows the beginning of the removal process. That gutter on the rear of our house was hit by a falling tree during a windstorm about ten years ago. It split lengthwise so I glued it back together and it held water for most of those ten years.

The gutters were nailed directly to the 2X4 just under the roof shingles. We repaired the water damage in the corners.

We added a strip of TYCOR as a vapor barrier that bridges between the 2X4 and the top board of siding.

We added a strip of one inch thick cedar fascia board over the top of the TYCOR and painted it gloss white, which hopefully will match the color of the new gutters.

Here's the finished entry with the lighted address and doorbell back in place. I forgot to replace the handrail before taking this photo.

Hedge Removal

We're planning to replace our old concrete driveway and sidewalk. The contractor told me I needed to cut back the hedge so he can walk alongside the wet concrete and smooth it. But we decided instead to eliminate the hedge completely.

The munchkins from next door discovered that the pile of hedge debris made a really cool fort. But when I started shredding it they tried to save as much as possible by taking it over to their front yard. Fortunately their mother caught them and put a stop to it.

Here's the finished space after digging out the stumps.