Another post made me think of some of the frugality we see in construction.
My father was the king of frugality… and what really made him the king is that he could build most anything out of scraps and other odd materials and make it look great. King Midas might be more appropriate.
But the story that will live on foremost is when he built his back porch. Had a friend helping out and when I stopped by I noticed him tapping away at something… upon a closer look he was straightening a nail. I started to give him a little ribbing about his inability to keep a nail straight when he gave me the look that says ‘no, look at what you father insists I do this time” and then he shows me the coffee can of bent framing nails that dad saved from something. He had Glen straightening ever one before using them… lol.
Mind you, dad could well afford new framing nails and even worse, I am POSITIVE he had plenty of straight, never-used nails sitting somewhere.
What is your story?
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I refuse to accept that there are limitations to what we can accomplish. Pete Draganic
Take life as a test and shoot for a better score each day. Matt Garcia
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When I was a kid, my next door neighbors old man was a carpenter.
Always brought home old building materials to work on his house. Had a about 50 stacks of old form plywood and 2x's.
My buddies chore's after school included 1 hr. minimum of pulling and straightening nails.
Of coarse we used all the good lumber and nails for our tree forts.
I often am penny wise and pound foolish in this regard. In my younger days, I hated using any ugly lumber. After about 20 years of that mentality, I flipped 180 degrees and take great joy in using ugly stuff. I've nailed ugly wood up in areas that literally made me laugh when I looked at it. One of my favorites is reusing a stick of lumber that has fifty nails sticking out of it at all angles. I might use a piece like that for backing or a brace and it just tickles me. I guess I'm imagining the horror on someone's face when they see it.
My favorite story was this. We were asked to help out a crew on an apartment complex. The anal foreman needed help to get the top floor punched out and we (a partner and I) were sent up there because they knew we were fast and knew our business. The problem was that this anal foreman had started the lowest levels with braces and pulled them and reused them as braces on each floor. At the end of the job, he had sent up a huge stack of knarly, twisted, nasty, muddy, full of nails and staples, split, cracked, etc garbage for us to do all the punch out with.
Well, I don't know what the foreman was thinking and when I asked where the linear plate stock was to do all the punch out we were told that there wasn't much left and they pointed to the pile of crapola and told us to use what we could out of it. I was happy to oblige as I built cabinet drops, headers, backing and all sorts of stuff with the nastiest lumber I could find. Every time I'd nail up one of those masterpieces I'd laugh thinking about the horror that would come over this anal foreman's face.
We got through that day and got the top floor punched out and of course the foreman was amazed that we could get done so fast. He hadn't walked up there to check things out though...and he probably thought we were going to clean all that lumber before we nailed it up. BAD ASSUMPTION THERE LOL.
I would have loved to be a fly on the wall watching him running around cleaning all the bent nails off the stuff that was nailed up everywhere. I'm sure he was in full blown panic mode.
"The anal foreman" I don't even WANT to know hot in the heck you get THAT job.... I can barely type I am laughing so hard... roflmao!!!
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I refuse to accept that there are limitations to what we can accomplish. Pete Draganic
Take life as a test and shoot for a better score each day. Matt Garcia
Do you 'really' want me to respond to this thread? <G>
See 'Great Moments', FHB Nov 1990 for a starter.
I am sure you could add a lot to this thread... lol
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I refuse to accept that there are limitations to what we can accomplish. Pete Draganic
Take life as a test and shoot for a better score each day. Matt Garcia
Anytime something like this comes up the least you should do is re-post the composite picture showing all your sheds.
http://gfretwell.com/electrical/brick%20shed%20house.jpgThis 10x16 was built mostly from from the dumpster. It is block with pavers on it because I suck at stucco.
That's built like a brick shed house.'Man who say it cannot be done should not interrupt man doing it' ~ Chinese proverb
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Congratulations!
FatRoman receives TimMooney's 'Now That's Funny Right There' Award.
Saaalute!View Image View Image
OK - Not counting time, guess would be that there is less than $100 invested in the TOTAL of these if you deduct concrete floors and composite roofing on a couple of the better structures. Most have dirt or plywood over pt sleepers for floors and scavenge roofing varying from old laminate countertops to flattened car hoods.
Have another shed under construction, forgot to take early pictures, I'll take some pix and post later on a separate thread.
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I saw a really old radial arm saw for saleIt runs on 220 V They want $50 for it on craigs list
Hi PeteDraganic,
Another post made me think of some of the frugality we see in construction.
As mentioned in the past - neighbor up the street was sure I'd only have one 5 gallon bucket of scraps left over when I finished the entire house.....shucks I use those scraps to this day....some of it as simple spacers when I made the suspended/coffered ceiling in the basement.....the spacers keep the drop in ceiling panels from moving around the fancy wood trim....some of the scraps were from the kitchen cabinets.....beautiful pieces of oak.....glue them up to make the top of an incredible newel post.
All of our closet and storage drywall came off other people's job sites.....I've seen a guy cut 5' off a piece of drywall and throw the other 7' out of the door into the yard. Didn't often find those pieces but 4' was common and just right for closets, half bath, pantry etc.
The only nail straightening I do is if I can use it right then......anything else becomes scrap to strenthen the next concrete job. I figure that's about as good a use as any as the bends give more for the concrete to grab hold of.
Pedro the Mule - I even recycle horse shoes into mule shoes
I was the same when I built my house.To start with I designed it to minimize waste. Then the kids (then 3 and 5 years old) would take the offcuts and keep them neatly stacked according to size. It was always to find the length I needed with zero wasted time.Ended up with a 4100 sqft 2-story colonial. No trash was buried, nothing was taken to the dump. The kids did burn some scrap wood in the fireplace when the cold weather set in, but that was it.One trade I did sub out was the drywall. When they were done they left a small pile of drywall scraps, and that was fine by me. I took that to the dump. The last thing I wanted was for them to be using small pieces to infill a wall. Or hiding the scraps IN the walls.
Hi Mongo,
No trash was buried, nothing was taken to the dump. The kids did burn some scrap wood in the fireplace when the cold weather set in,
I kept my cutoffs from the pex plumbing....it's now being used to make manifolds for an experimental solar water heating unit.
One thing I didn't have was quality lighting in the early stages, granted I quickly put together lighting in each room as soon as it was dried in but after work hours up until then were quite strained. So for my next house I'm going to pre-wire some fluorescent light boxes using left over wiring from this house.
Left over fiberglass batting scraps got stuffed into the fiberglass tub walls. Our whirlpool tub stays "hot" for well over an hour.
My opinion is that these are the best and most important things that go into making a house "green". Special paints and such don't mean squat when you send five dumpsters of usable scrap to the landfill.
I missed a good opportunity of building my house square but am giving the plans for the next house a good going over to possibly work that in. We did keep the foundation a simple rectangle and 4' dimensions.
Got any other "green" tips?
Pedro the Mule - Making something from nothing
I didn't go square, but originally designed for a 36' by 48' footprint. The reality of "dang, that's a big house to frame by myself" set in, so I chickened out and shortened it by 2' on each dimension. Good (less materials) and bad (messed with the layout a bit) came from that decision.I framed 24" on center with 2 by 6's, centering the framing layout off the center point of each wall. That allowed me to slide the windows over a touch so one king stud per window fell on one of those 24" lines while still keeping the window layout symmetrical. Didn't save much there, I think it was 22 studs.The roof isn't quite an 8/12. I tweaked it a bit, slightly steeper, along with playing with the depth of the 16" overhangs, so that I didn't end up with much scrap after sheathing the roof. I think it's 22' or 5-1/2 courses of plywood from gutter to ridge, by 50' from rake to rake. I made all my own cabinets and most of my trim, my cut lists and sheet layouts were particularly disgusting, trying to maximize every square inch of every sheet of ply, and every bit of width from each pice of poplar used for face frames.When I did the flooring, 3200 sqft of brazilian cherry and 900' of bamboo in the finished attic, I had my table saw set up so I could add tongues and grooves wherever needed on the ends of the offcuts. I had five whole sticks and one cut piece of cherry left over, and a handful of scraps after doing the bamboo. And no, there are no shorts buried anywhere in any closet floor.Stacked the plumbing as best as I could.Did RFH too. Used 1000' spools to minimize shorts.No new tricky tricks actually. Just a poor boy trying to build a nice house. The interior of my house looks pretty nice, I like the details. The exterior though, is a bit bland. Very basic and bland colonial farmhouse look. I'd like tweak the exterior trim a bit someday.
Hi Mongo,
originally designed for a 36' by 48' footprint.
Exactly my footprint, Full walk out basement basically divided 14' + 20' + 14' gave me the 48' and those inner walls carry up through the main floor and into the top floor. Made for simple footings/lugs. The only thing unusual are the LVL's to get the 20' span for the pool table room and some more LVL's for the cathedral roof span. We put in 10' studs in the basement to get enough room to place mechanicals and still put in suspended ceilings at 8' 3" plus some raised areas for looks. Upstairs we only used 8' but utilized the roof structure everywhere we could to gain volume with cathedral ceilings.
Also used creamy white quartz pulled during the excavation to face the fireplace. Once again high $ look for nothing but mortar.
Our extravagance was a full length porch and a side sun room. Added some real dimension to the outside of a rather plain rectangle.
The roof isn't quite an 8/12.
I ended up with 5 5/8 x 12 as snow load isn't a major consideration here and it's what worked out the best for framing in general
I framed 24" on center with 2 by 6's,
Planning to go that route on our retirement home.....should have here.
made all my own cabinets
same here....used oak due to it's durability and have used a lot of poplar in my office.....looks great, good to work with and a bit more affordable. Framed and built my cabinets in place so I allowed the room to make the dimensions but still found ways to maximize cutoffs such as interior cabinet shelving.
Also poured concrete countertops and finished with a hand trowel in place. Dirt cheap rock hard great looking product that was penny's on the dollar for cost vs. value.....hard work though.
3200 sqft of brazilian cherry and 900' of bamboo
That's gotta be gorgeous.....I found Australian Yellow Knotty Pine....originally was designed to be used as transfer trailer bed....normally that's oak.....they're 1 1/4" thick so no tongue necessary and the wood was quarter sawn then turned end grain up and glued up into panels of two different widths....12 1/2 & 13 1/4 with rabbits for the steel rails. The great thing was that they were 48 feet long so I was able to cut them to room lengths minus an inch and didn't have any butt joints. We get compliments every time someone enters the house....they are incredible. The real chore was lining up the edges......clamped two side by side on saw bucks and ran a power saw between them to cut out any wave & rail guides....unclamp, slide tight together, reclamp, resaw and repeated until they fit together perfect.....installed the first one, then repeated the process with the next board, etc. It was worth it, especially since they only cost me $1 per lineal foot - I think that worked out to .78 a bd ft.
Installed a Decra Shingle Metal Roof too.....$ up front but saves utilities all along and you break even the first time you have to reroof with fiberglass shingles.
Pedro the Mule - There 'til the cows come home
Edited 6/23/2009 9:46 am ET by PedroTheMule
Greetings Pedro.
Large files make it difficult or impossible for some on the board to open seeing the internet connection they use.
Smaller pics also make it easier for all to view in that there is no need to scroll around to view unless attentiveness to detail is the aim of the post.
Thus it is recommended to keep the files closer to a 150KB and below range.
Enclosed is a link to one common free downloadable program many here have found advantageous. Cheers.
24441.75
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Hi rez,
Large files make it difficult or impossible for some on the board to open seeing the internet connection they use.
And thanks!.....I had actually reduced the size of the original interior pic before sending...it was 8 meg.....tried to leave enough detail of the unique flooring for zooming.....initially added it as a link.....did it actually load in the message you viewed or was it a link?
At 10 meg d/l I have it nice but I do remember the dial up days so I had attempted to make is a link instead of auto display......any additional thoughts?
Pedro the Mule - Always willing to learn
They were just the normal attachment click to open.
Hope I didn't sound a pest by bringing up the deal but just wanted to make a one time mention of the situation in the event someone doesn't know.
One time I was stuck working in the backwoods of NewHampshire with only dialup access and ended up not even trying to open any attachments seeing the time involved.
Ended up making pilgrimages to the local library for my permitted 30minutes to read BT. snorK*
The time the smaller files are most important is when requesting information with the pic an intregal part of displaying the question
in that some posters will not be able to add their experience if the files are too large to deal with.
I notice some will post both the large and a smaller for dialups and those in a limited setup by location or equipment.
Hi rez,
Hope I didn't sound a pest by bringing up the deal
Not at all - totally cool....I simply wanted to make sure I hadn't bogged someone down.....I've yet to figure how some posts show the jpg in the message body and others show up linked....?????????
Pedro the Mule - missing something as usual
118444.23
To get the pic in the thread:
First of all, keep it small (100 - 200 kb).
Attach the file, then preview the post.
Click on the attachment to see it.
Right click on the pic and select copy
Use the browser's back button.
Select revise.
Wherever you want the pic, right click and select paste.
You might mention that it only works that way in microsoft explorer. Firefox doesn't work that way.
Yup. With firefox I have to use html to insert autoloading photos.<IMG SRC="" width=500>Paste the url of the photo between the quotation marks. You don't need "width=500", but I add it to define the size of the photo so you don't have to scroll left/right/up/down. You can ether define width or height. Just define one and it'll automatically remain in proportion. You can make it small or large, but 500 pixels works well for more screen resolutions.And don't forget to check the "click here if HTML tags are in the message" before you post.
Hi rez,
Well let's see if I show up this time.....
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Pedro the Mule - my stubborn little arz on da ground
Maybe you need a horse.
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Wow!
That floor is outrageous. The fireplace stone looks totally cool. Lots of texture, very earthy and rugged looking.
As to getting your floor boards to fit together edge-to-edge, I've used this technique to true one board to another, but I don't know it it would have worked for you here;
1) set the boards side-by-side, gaped by 3/4"
2) Put a 1" diameter straight bit on your router.
3) Put a shooting board on your boards to guide the center point of the 1" bit down the center of the 3/4" gap.
4) Run the router down the middle, shaving a bit off the edge of each board. The router will give you a mirror image edge, so the boards should nest together perfectly.
Again, that technique might be tough to execute with your boards.
I did concrete countertops too.
And yup, I still have piles of stone from excavation and lot clearing stacked back in the woods. Out here its all round glacier rock. I terraced my yard in a few spots so I could use up the stone in retaining walls, mostly around the driveway and the pool.
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It's a little tough to make out, but in the following photo, in line with the dining table, I recessed a fire circle into the stone wall.
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Hi Mongo,
That floor is outrageous. The fireplace stone looks totally cool. Lots of texture, very earthy and rugged looking.
Thanks.....the whole house is an eclectic mix that every visitor loves.....come in the front of an old farm house, walk in to find oak stained trim and really heavy rustic floors, pass through to the GR with 23' cathedral ceilings finding a mix of furnishings that range from last summer to over 150 years. The floor plan is simple but the finish keeps the eye looking for another pleasing item.
I love the stonework you've done....what's the indian slate looking material around the pool?
Pedro the Mule - so many ideas I've got to finish this home so I can build another
It's slate but not indian. Indian is more shale than slate. This has held up better than I though it would. If you ever go "slate shopping", hold a piece on your fingertips and give the edge of the tile a quick rap with something metallic. If it rings it's tight grained and should be durable. If it thuds it's more like shale and will probably dissolve after a couple of winters of freeze/thaw.Considering the "frugal nature" of this thread I should throw out that I bought a container of this, used roughly 1900 sqft for the pool patio, then resold the rest locally at enough of a markup to get my stone for free.
After reading your post I thought about some of the people I've known who save everything
There thinking is they "will use it someday"
They have piles and piles of boxes and coffee cans with nails and washers etc
When I was 18 years old I bought a 1950 chevy with a six cylinder
This was back in the 70's
I took a class in college and overhauled the engine
When we took it apart and started looking at everything one piston was different from the others.
I asked my teacher about the discrepancy and he said "this is the way they used to do it to save money"
The engine had one bad cylinder and so they bored it out a little and just replaced the one piston as a way of saving money
In 1953, when my older brother was in high school, he busted a piston in his '41 Ford. He couldn't afford parts to fix it right away, so for a couple of weeks he drove the only V-7 in town.BruceT
Edited 5/20/2009 8:08 pm by brucet9
LoLBack in the good ole days
My wife worked for a production builder, closing 2 houses a week. They never gave frugality a second glance. If something slowed them down they threw it away and grabbed a new one. It was great for me because had the time to untangle that box of RG6 and I didn't mind bending over to pick up the half a box of 1/2" red heads they dropped on the ground. I really like the screws tile roofers use and they littered the place with them. The 16' 2x12 western red cedar boards they always seemed to order 2-3 too many per house have been handy too.
I definitely got to start hanging around more residential building sites.
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I refuse to accept that there are limitations to what we can accomplish. Pete Draganic
Take life as a test and shoot for a better score each day. Matt Garcia
I suspect you are too late. I have to believe in this market, builders are talking the time to move unused materials and use them on the next project. Back in the "go go" days they wouldn't even move a whole cube of block down the street 50 yards. They just put them in the dumpster and ordered new block, delivered onto the slab of the next house.
I have also seen a steel drop in a puddle so deep they lost it, so they just ordered another drop. A week later someone found the original drop and it went in the dumpster.
I ended up with 7 cubes next to my house, a half ton of rebar hooks, 20' sticks, ties and I wasn't even trying hard. When I put on my addition I had free block and steel left over.
I had a guy who worked for me for many years named Lindo.
Lindo had a Chevy/GMC C10/C20 pickup truck depending on which direction you looked at it from. Not sure which brand/model it started out as and he couldn't remember, but it morphed as he replaced body/trim parts.
Lindo and his wife Joanne lived in a nice ranch house. Lindo was often in trouble with Joanne for one reason or another and she would put him out of the house. He saved construction scraps and built a 2 story "Lindo" house in the backyard for those times he was in trouble and locked out of the house. There wasn't a piece of lumber in the thing longer than 3'. I was afraid to go upstairs because the floor joists visible from below were scabbed together 2x6's with about 6"-8" of overlap on 12' or so span. It was one of the most hideous things I've ever laid eyes on, but there was obviously tons of work put into it. He even had running water hooked up from the hose bib on the house. Wish I had a picture of that mess. Oh yeah, Lindo had about 8 dogs and some kind of pet monkey that often rode one of the dogs running loose in that yard as well. I'm sure they were beloved by their neighbors.
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since this thread has crossed into vehicles -- pony engine on old D2 broke a rod - Cat wanted $153, and that was in 1975!!!!!
Had a '57 IH 6 and datsun 1.3l from a '67 in hte scrap pile - pin from the IH and journal from the datsun were the right sizes - cut and welded, put into the D2 cat. worked great!
I can't stop laughing, I'd love to see a picture of the place. A monkey riding a dog, you can't make that s**t up!
Joanne died 3-4 years ago. Lindo was having way too much fun at the funeral. I haven't seen him but a time or two since. The monkey froze to death. I'm not sure if he was given a proper funeral or not, but if he was Lindo probably had too much fun then, as well. I'm not sure what happened to the dogs. What's the update on your project?http://www.quittintime.com/ View Image
I'm laughing harder at this than the last one!
I've been trying to get my cousin, a roofer, to do the tear off. Offered him the work back in March. He says he wants to do it, but he's dragging his feet. I called a guy on the island for a price, he'll look at it tommorrow and quote the job. I'm still hoping for June or early July for you. Do it myself if it comes to it, the tear off I mean.
I was there last Thursday and noticed the guys who did the tear off on the kitchen left the skip sheathing and nailed the 5/8 ply to that. I like the look, not a continous expanse of ply, it's broken up by the 1x3 that was used for the cedar shingles.
I'm thinking I might do that, 4x8 sheets will go quicker. I'll take pictures if your unclear what I mean.
Kevin
Edited 5/20/2009 9:20 pm ET by dockelly
I understand. That's what we typically do - install the sheet goods over the split sheathing.
Hows later in June work for you, maybe early July?
I've got something going on the 1st week in July. Otherwise, I'll make it work.
ok
Sounds like my dad--favorite trick was getting his Rolliflex out to take pics and when the flash didn't go off, hed take the batteries out and rub them on heis jeans! I grew up thinking that camera batteries must cost as much as their weight in gold and was surprised on making a tentative inquiry at a store (expecting to be told, "If you have to ask, you can't afford them") how cheap they were, compared to the hours of frustration and wasted photo ops.
When I was in Mexico we remodeled and old apt. building and that involved chiselling chases in the adobe for conduit and I was given the job of repairing those and fixing lintels and sills that had eroded. They ran out of sand to mix with the concrete (yeah, that's what I was told to use--actually had sand and gravel aggregate and I was supposed to sift out the course aggregate and just use the sand, which I did, using window screen, IIRC), but I drew the line at taking a wheelbarrow and scraping up sand out of empty lots! Here they wanted us to work on the QT because we were volunteers from the wealthy USA and were taking away jobs from unions and locals, yet they wanted me to run a wheelbarrow up and down the streets of Guadalajara shoveling up spare sand!
OK, you convincied me to submit a deck entry to FHB: here is what I sent in, go to the FHB web site to view the pix, I'm too lazy to resize and post them here. Gotta go out back and take some pix of the new shed under construction.
FHB deck submittal follows:
Likely not the type deck FHB had in mind for this contest. Built with the same frugality as the cabin featured in "Great Moments" of the Nov 1990 FHB issue, a guess is that the cost of this deck is the most frugal entry?
Except for the 2 PT 2x6 top rails, nails and some welding rod, a few joist hangers, plus 2 carved log posts from own land, all of this deck is free and salvaged recycled material.
A number of 8 foot PT 4x4 were salvaged from pallets used to ship 757 cowlings to a local aircraft plant, front panels were 1/2 exterior ply panels in the scrap pile of a local woodworking shop. Perhaps the best finds were 4 each 20 foot 3x14 joists, which were found as part of crates used to ship some radio antenna parts. These were treated with preservative secured from 'free piles' at garage sales or waste recycling centers, as was all the paint and polyurethane used.
The deck boards themselves were salvaged from 4 foot standard pallets gotten from the local IGA distribution center. We heated with wood from '74 till 2001, the ash pile out back likely contains a ton of nails. One out of every 4 or 5 pallets would yield one clear 4 foot 2x4.
The deck and overhanding roof is supported by custom welded steel brackets - in the 'old days', when one took an old car body to the scrap yard, you could pick stuff out of the pile which only subtracted from the weight you got paid - scrap price was "zero" some years in the 1970s. The apparent steel tubing is actually cutoff pieces from EMT hanger channel.
The front plywood panels were done by our sons (then teenagers) and depict some of their interests. If one looks close at the routed in designs on the front support 3x14, you can make out the equation sigma*b*h^2/6, used to verify support strength (detail pix).
PS just for youse BT guys - Penta and creosote can still be had if you are discreet at local 'wastemobile' collection sites. Even have scored some chlorodane and once, even a pint of DDT. Just dont let any liberal see you 'collecting' some of the 'good stuff' for use when you drop off your old fluorescent tubes. This paragraph is fiction of course....<G>
My first official construction job was with a commercial contractor in Richmond, Va back in 1971. The company was celebrating it's 100'th anniversary that year. They had an old brick shop building full of huge tools that had once run off belts powered by a steam engine. The tools had all been converted to electric but the wheels and shafts were still hanging from the ceiling. In the front part of the shop stood 2, 55 gallon drums full of bent nails. On rainy days we still had to come in and they paid 2 hours "show up" time. Everyone sat around those barrels of bent nails and hammered them straight until we had our 2 hours in. The old man who ran the shop had been there over 60 years and he told me the barrels were there when he started.
I worked with a guy once who said on one construction job he was on, if you dropped a nail, you had to immediately get down and find it--even if you were on a ladder or the roof or whatever because the boss said they were wasting too many nails!
Im pretty frugal but some might think im wasteful, My dad used to make me take nails out of 2by 4s he brought home, Spent all that time but then when one went to nail you could hardly do it as the wood was so hard!!!.
On Union jobs one could get fired for picking up nails or even getting your own material rather then have a helper do it.
Its a time motion thing where ones time is worth way more then the material.
I dont keep much 2by stuff around if theres nails hidden in it, Go and make a cut , hit a nail and ruin a good blade and you just lost money and time.
If stock is warped i can use it cut short for blocking or cripples but try and keep nothing shorter then 12 inches..
Used to always have a old guy come by every job , look around and exclaim in a loud voice.
Boy do you guys waste a lotta nails!!!!.
I guess they lived when a good nail would buy one a Hawaiian Island woman for the night!!!!.
Come to think of it no wonder they were on there hands and knees frantically picking up nails!!!!!!
Same as some of the others when I was growing up.
My Dad worked in a drop forge shop. He'd bring home wood pallets and 16' long wood shipping boxes.
I spent many a day pulling nails. I remember some of that wood being so rock hard, and the nails in the shipping boxes were cut nails. Yup, we saved the cut nails.
But we built our 3-stall horse barn out of that wood, plus another hay barn.
I grew up outside of Worcester MA and have memories of going into the city in the wee hours of the morning with my Dad and collecting bricks when they were demolishing an old factory building. We'd load up the pickup truck, bring the bricks home, then I'd get the fun job of chipping residual mortar off them and stacking them out back. I was maybe 7 or 8.
I was at my Mom's a couple of weeks ago and there are STILL stacks of bricks down past the barn. I used some to build a chimney for a basement woodstove when I was around 14. But that was it. There are still thousands of bricks there. Not good for much anymore, they were pretty soft.
Worked on a cottage in Quebec once for a old lad who scrougned all the drywall pieces they use to seperate drywall sheets for the forklifts
they are about 2 1/2 " wide and he nailed them in all the closets to save on drywall & we had to tape all the joints and then mud and sand the walls to a professional finish , what an idiot
The front wall was so out of plumb ( about 3 or 4" ) that when you closed the door it slammed enough to shake the cottage ( of course a salvaged door from the local dump )
The old guy shook so much when it came time to pay us (cash ) my buddy grabbed his wrist with one hand and took the money with his other hand !
Years back I stopped at little gas/gift shop in Arizona. Walls were built of 2x4 cutoffs salvaged from somewhere. They were laid flat like bricks, nailed into each other each course, maybe 7 feet high. There were a few posts as I recall, but no 2x4 over 2 feet long.
About 7-8 years ago some family friends were renovating an old barn to be used for weddings, etc. at their winery in Washington state. They had hired an older gentleman who was a "handyman" to do the job. They had a specific deadline in mind, as they already had a wedding lined up for the fall, but this was still a few months out, so they figured he would have plenty of time. After a short while, they noticed that he was progressing very slowly. He was, if fact, straightening and reusing nails he pulled out of some of the lumber in the old barn. And paying him hourly, to boot! They didn't want to fire him, as he was a close family friend, but a couple of weeks before the wedding they became desperate and gave me a call. I came out toting my compressor, nailers and every tool I could fit in my old Ford Bronco and "helped" him finish the job over the next couple of weeks. Got it done just in time for the wedding, including finishing the framing, running electrical, sheetrock, paint, trim and new doors. The poor old guy was in shock at my waste, but I really didn't have time to de-nail the old lumber and straighten the old nails for re-use. They were paying the guy $15/hr, or so, and I think it would have been cheaper to raze the barn and hire a competent contractor to build a new barn considering the time he wasted on that project.
Back when we had more time and money, my wife and I were remodeling a little POS house--our first one.
We vaulted the ceiling in the main living area and my dad, who'd come out to help, noticed all the 2x6 ceiling joists and rafters we were removing were pretty clean and clear.
He suggested I do the 4-500 sf floor by end cutting these boards and laying them in a parquet. He bought me an 80t cutoff blade for my saw before leaving.
Of course!
I planed them so they'd have square edges and set a 1/4" stop on my little hitachi chop saw, bungeed the trigger "ON," and went to it.
Probably about 24 hours at the saw yielded several large boxes of 2x6 end cuts a 1/4" thick. A multiplied count on the finished floor shows we used over 6,000 pieces.
It was - probably still is--a really really beautiful floor.
Now that we have a scanner I'll have to dig up a picture and post it.
I'd love to see a pic of that. was a quarter inch enough to keep the pieces strong enough?
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I refuse to accept that there are limitations to what we can accomplish. Pete Draganic
Take life as a test and shoot for a better score each day. Matt Garcia
It was surprising how strong they were @ 1/4" thickness. You could break one in half, but it took a good 'snap!' to do it.
It was around the time of the 1st Bush election fiasco in FL where they had all the 'hanging chads.'
DW and I would go back to the 'remodel part' of the house and use a sanding block to brush off the checks that were left on back edge of the pieces. We started calling it 'sanding chads.'
I bought a 5gal of this flexible parquet adhesive and laid them all in a running bond pattern, tight to each other. I put plywood straight edges down along each new course, pulled them over tight with a chisel or screwdriver hammered into the floor and pried, then screwed the straightedges to the floor for the night. NExt day, another swath.
I'll dig out photos.
Ok here are those photos.
You can see what the finished floor looked like in the tile photo with my wife.
That was a crazy lot of work--but the material was free!
Wish I had a photo of the saw setup.
Pat
As a DIY guy, that's retired, making the dollar stretch can be called many things...Titewad ;>), building GREEN, frugality on steroids.....
I collected Home Depot culled lumber, and Lowes' cull cart materials and returned stock, and built some raised bed gardens. Then, again for a year before beginning a 16'x32' shed/cabin, wired, insulated, heated and cooled, with a final cost of $12,000 rather than more than three times that if built by a crew...
Cull carts average 10-15 cents on the dollar, so, for $30 paid there was $300 or more in materials. They had bowed PT lumber as well as some of just about everything else, except this radiant barrier.... Local store didn't stock radiant barrier ply or OSB, so any returned was sold for 25cents on the dollar or less, the same with 16" wide rolls of 6" fiberglass insulation... Bought 32 sheets of Hardyboard panels for $10 a sheet with two 4" wide 1/2" deep forklift damage and 16 sheets more for only $30 total, at Lowes' that had the top corner broken off...just right for the gable walls of a gambrel roof....
Bought a Paslode gas nail gun by using Lowes' sale, but an additional 10%off at H.D....then a second one at the yearly sale of the H.D. rental store for less than 1/2 price. Found 5 cases of 3"x .120 round head nail version for it at a yard sale for less than $15 a case and another had five rolls of #30 felt for $5 a roll...
For shingles, I bought fifteen squares of O-corning 30 shingles for just over $12 a bundle as a price match, plus 10% off, to Lowe's ad... Home Dep. ordered them and then let the total be charged for a year with no interest as I paid it off.... three months later thirty minutes of golf ball hail totaled the new shingles... But...the new ones were upgraded with help of the insurance money... Two outside buildings got the upgraded "Kynar" R-panels because the roofing company's volume buying.
Frugality comes is all forms!!! When the insurance company came after the storm, shingle prices were going up, so they opted to pay for the latest price at the time of signing a contract. 30 yr shingles were on a shortage, so the roofing company bid $201.00 a square for installing GAF/ELK "Armor Shield II" with 30lb felt. April is my homeowner's policy renewal date. My 2009 Home owner's insurance was increased 10% in coverage AND REDUCED $503 a year for just adding the hail resistant lifetime shingles... It will take just over three years to breakeven on the additional cost of the Impact resistant shingles, but after that, it's money in my pocket every year... Lastly, by submitting roofing bid to Insurance company for their review and approval, the company sent all but $499 of the loss. With money in the bank, I found a bonded roofing company that agreed to use a credit card for four lump payments.... Reward points bought a $500 Sears' gift card, with enough points left over to combine with old reward points to get three more gift cards worth another $640.... Buying sale/clearance priced tools, running shoes, wristwatches, small digital camera, jeans, and other clothes was made even happier as I used the gift cards on with a "Friends and Family" night sale that had an additional 20% off of 99% of everything in the store...
Key things: Take a day or two off to watch the roofing crew and stop shortcuts. When you find bargain materials, Tarp or Store materials out of the direct sun and wet/cold weather. Don't buy things with a shorter shelflife like tubes of glue/caulk unless you're going to use them within 6 months. Flea markets and yard/garage sales have great surprises, but be careful if buying used tools and equipment because they may give you more problems than usefulness!!
Long live Frugality
weeeell...,
ya, that'll work.
What are you up to these days, Rez?
Just working and staying afloat. Other day bought a pile of what? 70 or so 8and10ft long 2x8/2x10s from a guy that ways tearing out a mezzanine in an old factory.
Today I was getting supplies at ye friendly neighborhood Lowes and saw a pile of unpriced culled cedar that was still too high after inquiring. Half price is no deal.
Been gathering cedar so I'll have a good stash to work from when I get around to interior work. $236 to $118 is just first time around.
I usually figure about a sixth of retail unless it's something I need. Was tempted to pursue the cedar but got too muchshid spread out and I need to get some order to the chaos.
heh heh Junkhound passed on the mobile camper thing and is regretting it.
and is regretting it
AM NOT.... so there..
bah-wa boo hoo.....
Should be a good weekend for garage sales though!
Rez,
If I said "I Found $500.", you'd wonder wouldn't you?
We decided to drive around the lake at mid-afternoon on Memorial Day... It appeared that the city has established 12 zones for large/bulk trash items over the weekend and holiday....
One zone was 8' deep and 70 yards long...My gosh, at the stuff that was there...I found 15 sections, 7-ft. lengths, and 8" in diameter of metal ducting wrapped with foil insulation... I pulled back the flex insulation to find not just straight stove pipe duct, but spiral ducting, just like the type I'm using... Being 8" in diameter, this size of shiny, just like new, galvanized ducting sells for about $4.79 a foot. We left it and headed to the next zone where there was a middle aged couple pulling out ANYTHING metal and piling it in their pickup... I quickly left that spot and went back, stripped the insulation jackets off, and began loading the spiral ducting....I brought home 110 feet....
Below is the same company I ordered my original spiral dust collection ducting, so here's their current data and costs. Buying the exact same ducting I found would currently cost over $500 plus another $200+ for freight and crating fee.....
http://store.oneida-air.com/spiralpipe8x10.aspx
I guess that old saying is right!!!!
"The best things in Life ARE Free." ;>)
Bill
Was in the local dump last week dumping brush with a customer and spotted a frame for a soccer goal that was made of 3" abs
thought about 30 second and we decided he needed it for the addition he is gonna build
As luck was with us we had my gas pole saw on the truck so we cut it all apart and ended up with about 50' of pipe or more
" luck comes to the prepared " LOL
Hi BilljustBill,
Key things: Take a day or two off to watch the roofing crew and stop shortcuts. When you find bargain materials, Tarp or Store materials out of the direct sun and wet/cold weather. Don't buy things with a shorter shelflife like tubes of glue/caulk unless you're going to use them within 6 months. Flea markets and yard/garage sales have great surprises, but be careful if buying used tools and equipment because they may give you more problems than usefulness!!
I came across a deal I couldn't pass up almost two years ago.....don't know if it was a misprint or just some big purchase......HD normally sells 16 oz. cans of Great Stuff around $4 a can.......they had 12 oz. cans for .99 so I thought what the heck I can use that stuff it's great (pun intended)........had a date stamp 2 years into the future so I thought I could use it by then.......bought 6 cases and used one case over the next year......didn't use any for about the next 9 months........uggghhh.....not a single can would work out of all 5 cases.....wife saves and files everything.....pulled the dated receipt, took it to HD and explained that I bought the product with a properly dated shelf life and didn't think I should have to go to the trouble to ship five cases back to the manufacturer.......management said "no Problem".......ohoh....no more 12 oz. cans.....again "no Problem".......they exchanged it all for 5 cases of 16 oz. no cost.
It all depends upon who you talk to.....I've had tools that were 2 days out of their exchange period that they told me to eat dirt on and then something like this......I can't ever make rhyme or reason out of what they decide to exchange.....who knows but this time it worked out!
Pedro the Mule - don't get that stuff in your fur, it's great trouble to remove
That kind of foam in a can won't stay good... There's actually still all the pressure in the can, but the trouble is in the valve after time passes. You right, it's who you talk with, and you did great with the exchange...just got to use that kind pretty soon after it's purchased...
I've found one of those old Freon connections that has a large round ring made to fit over the can and the puncture valve that went into the side of the can.... Been thinking about using that to get to about 2 cases of the DAP, water based foam. It could be washed out when finished, and that type of foam isn't so dangerous as the red/yellow can...
16'x32' shed/cabin, wired, insulated, heated and cooled, with a final cost of $12,000
Ya gotta quit being such a free with your bucks spendthirft, next time get that down to under $1,200!!!
See Great Moments, FHB Nov, 1990.... for similar at $500, but in 1980 dollars. .
Ya gotta quit being such a free with your bucks spendthirft, next time get that down to under $1,200!!!
I wish I could!! The 16x32, 6" thick slab (end rollup garage door framed with four overhead 2x10 headers) to hold a car, and combined with the same pour of the 8'x 32' porch slab cost $3,700...and the 5/8" radiant Koolply/OSB materials, 30 yr shingles to begin with, labor for new decking and roofing, as well as vinyl double pane Pella windows was about $3,000... Those big chunks knock the $1,200 out into orbit, so the rest of the cost of completion spread over 2-1/2 years has been easy to live with.
Heck, what shed/cabin do you know that has 2x12" I-beam ceiling joists on 16" centers, stud walls with I-beam (2x4 with a flat 2x4 on each edge) studs on 16" center, and the gambrel roof using 2x6's with 2x4's on each edge making 2x10" I-beam rafters on 16" centers? Then add in a 1x6" tongue and groove Western Red Cedar ceiling with two new 52" Hunter fans and Canadian made white PVC porch railings with turned 4x4 and 6x6 porch columns.
But I'll keep trying.... ;>)
Bill
Edited 5/21/2009 8:24 pm ET by BilljustBill
That aint a cabin, that is a small McMansion <G>