House updates for the weekend.

What does it take to break a joist? holy cow! If your crawl space is like mine, I don't much like going down there. I tend to have to once a year to put a heat gun on the pipes that feed the kitchen....

From what I've seen, the boards were just poor quality (lots of knots and soft) and at their max length for the span. The house had also settled on that side at one time and the previous owners had it piered and raised to correct it. So I suspect the settling probably caused the breaks originally, they just never fixed them. I fixed one last night but the other two are next to one another and I have to pull all the bridging in that area. Want to brace them up first, but the water lines run down right in the middle of that area, making it a bit more difficult to brace correctly.

Surprisingly, my crawl space is one of the few that don't bother me to get in, very clean, well lit, and cobweb/critter free. It's also well insulated and has a good moisture barrier not giving the critters too many places to call home.
 
Some quick pics of the crawl space. Other than the boards and pink stuff it's a pretty clean place, have the insulation down for repairing the joists and running wires, which I should mostly get done tonight.
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Light is out in the back...sorry for the dim pic
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The sump pump is a future project, not sure it does much good in it's current state. It's only about 12" in the ground and the previous owner left it with the pipe draining back to the pump, not sure any water ever gets pumped outside with no more than it has to pump. The stones are holding down the pit to keep it from floating. :eek: :huh: :dunno:
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I plan to dig out the hole to the right depth and get the pit set correctly and repipe the drain to slope outside. Also need to run a new circuit just for the pump, they have it on the same one as my living room which throws once in a while if too much of the tv equipment is on. :rolleyes:
 

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Some quick pics of the crawl space. Other than the boards and pink stuff it's a pretty clean place, have the insulation down for repairing the joists and running wires, which I should mostly get done tonight.
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Light is out in the back...sorry for the dim pic
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The sump pump is a future project, not sure it does much good in it's current state. It's only about 12" in the ground and the previous owner left it with the pipe draining back to the pump, not sure any water ever gets pumped outside with no more than it has to pump. The stones are holding down the pit to keep it from floating. :eek: :huh: :dunno:
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I plan to dig out the hole to the right depth and get the pit set correctly and repipe the drain to slope outside. Also need to run a new circuit just for the pump, they have it on the same one as my living room which throws once in a while if too much of the tv equipment is on. :rolleyes:


Code around here anyway states that they be on dedicated circuits.

I have two. One in each corner of the basement. same type of basin as you have. they are installed flush to the floor and are separately piped outside to drywells.
Looks like you have a pedestal pump. You may want to change it over to a submersable pump at some time. They tend to be more dependable and allow larger size solids to be pumped.
I was replacing the pedestal pumps or their switches about once a year. In 6 years I've had no problem with the submersibles.
They are hooked into my generator in case the power goes out.
 
Some quick pics of the crawl space. Other than the boards and pink stuff it's a pretty clean place...

Light is out in the back...sorry for the dim pic...

Wow. And you even have lights! After spending another weekend crawling around my crawl space, repairing a leak, I really have to say yours is much better than mine. Every time I go under there, I am reminded of the movie Alien, where they are traversing the catacombs of the ship with their homemade flame throwers. I am telling you there are some scary things lurking under the house. And every time I crawl out of there, I always tell the wife "No more crawl spaces, our next house will have a basement"!
 
Wow. And you even have lights! After spending another weekend crawling around my crawl space, repairing a leak, I really have to say yours is much better than mine. Every time I go under there, I am reminded of the movie Alien, where they are traversing the catacombs of the ship with their homemade flame throwers. I am telling you there are some scary things lurking under the house. And every time I crawl out of there, I always tell the wife "No more crawl spaces, our next house will have a basement"!

Mine is just the right height so that you can't really even get up on all fours to crawl, you have to snake around on your belly. Plenty of dead rodents and big spiders down there, but fortunately that's all I've ever run into.

Plastic on top of big chunks of rock. No fun... But I've been down there once per winter to unfreeze the kitchen pips. I'm hoping my heat tape on the pipes will work this winter. All I should have to do is pull the extension cord out of the crawl space access hole and plug it in...
 
Okay, Brent and Bob, your descriptions of your respective sump pits confuse me.

In your houses are these just pits in the ground, or are they connected to drains? Every sump I've ever seen has been connected to the weeping tiles (aka: perimeter footing drains) so that they collect the water that would otherwise build up against the foundation.
 
Ahh, I was just describing the crawl space.

I don't have a sump pump.

Out here in the desert we have pretty good drainage and very deep water tables....

I'm not really sure why we even have a crawl space instead of it just being built on a slab, to tell the truth...
 
Okay, Brent and Bob, your descriptions of your respective sump pits confuse me.

In your houses are these just pits in the ground, or are they connected to drains? Every sump I've ever seen has been connected to the weeping tiles (aka: perimeter footing drains) so that they collect the water that would otherwise build up against the foundation.


After years of my basement flooding in the spring and summer due to heavy rain, snow melt, high water table and having one sump pit with a pedestal pump in it I had a perimeter drain system installed. Basically they came in and dug a 6" deep by 12" wide all around the floor along the inside walls and connected them to sumps. 18" round by 36" deep. The submersible pumps are plumbed to discharge out through a pipe drilled though the sills, down the outsie foundation, through a trench and into drywells about 30' away from the foundation.
It was expensive but a lost less expensive than digging up the outside of the foundation. The house was built in the 70's and has mature landscaping that would of been ruined.
The only thing I have to be careful of is when the power goes out I have to get the generator cranking or the water will start to come in. That happened this spring when the hutch I was making got pretty wet when I didn't hear the sump alarm.
Al in all it's the best home improvement I've made.

Keeps my shop dry :thumb::thumb:
 
I've actually got two sumps as well, one in the crawl space and one as part of the main basement area. The crawl space pump looks like it was installed later. There's a gravel floor in that area, the pump is there to keep any water below the gravel, which is lower than the floor of the basement. We've got a pretty high water table here. Could probably dig a pond in the back yard and it would be full the next day. Part of my sump project is to install battery backup pumps. I've got a generator if the power is out for too long, but the alarms on the backups would be good insurance if the primary pump wasn't functioning.
 
Could probably dig a pond in the back yard and it would be full the next day.

If your wife reads this you might suddenly find something added to your honey-do list!!! :eek:

(and Sorry, Brent, I meant Darren, not you!)

Bob, back in about 96 we lived in Edmonton in 50 year old house that had been built in a low-lying area of the neighbourhood, with no weeping tiles. We finally had cave and pay the price (Something like $6-8k :bonkers:) to have them put in. But our basement was partially finished, so it was done outside. Couldn't believe how they did it. Our lot was too narrow for digging equipment, so the guy just shows up with a crew of 6 or so guys with about 7 different kinds of shovels (each) and a bunch of plywood to protect the grass. They had the entire foundation exposed down to the footings in one day. I couldn't believe it. Now granted this was a small 900sqft house, but still it was 7ft down, all the way around the house.
 
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If your wife reads this you might suddenly find something added to your honey-do list!!! :eek:

(and Sorry, Brent, I meant Darren, not you!)

Bob, back in about 96 we lived in Edmonton in 50 year old house that had been built in a low-lying area of the neighbourhood, with no weeping tiles. We finally had cave and pay the price (Something like $6-8k :bonkers:) to have them put in. But our basement was partially finished, so it was done outside. Couldn't believe how they did it. Our lot was too narrow for digging equipment, so the guy just shows up with a crew of 6 or so guys with about 7 different kinds of shovels (each) and a bunch of plywood to protect the grass. They had the entire foundation exposed down to the footings in one day. I couldn't believe it. Now granted this was a small 900sqft house, but still it was 7ft down, all the way around the house.

Must have had a bunch of guys like 'The Shoveler'

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If your wife reads this you might suddenly find something added to your honey-do list!!! :eek:

That's alright, Got a buddy that runs the shop at Dean Machinery, he'll loan me the equipment. However, my wife worked in insurance for about 15 years, she won't touch that one with a 50' pole, she doesn't want the liability (the pond or me driving a CAT). ;) :D :rofl:
 
Well, we got the new replacement stove Friday, so hooked it up that night and have to say, I like cookin with gas. :) I just wish since these hood/microwave and stove are the same brand, the exhaust hood would kick on when you turned on the stove, but will get used to doing it.
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Also got the cabinets painted. The areas with the cream color will have doors on them, just wanted them to be brighter inside to see what we've crammed in them. First painted them with the creme color, then black. We plan to lightly sand the edges to allow the cream to show through for the "worn" look (more pics later).
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A little better lighting in this pic...still a cell phone pic though. :rolleyes: I'll get the dslr out and get some better pics once we get the doors on. Have the hinges on order, so will be a week or so.

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Went shopping and found a TV for the kitchen, which will also double as the computer screen for looking up recipes.

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Also got the bridging re-installed where I repaired the joists in the crawlspace and poured a footer in the crawl space for lally column to straighten out the main beam. Will get the column installed next weekend which will help a lot, have about 3/4" drop in the center of the beam. The center of the three joists that make up the beam has a split in it.
 

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