biggerboat's building boondoggle blog

They just announced that the county dump is now closed.

I really want to post some better updates but I'm still phone posting and it's tedious. Should have the computer set up today.

My body hurts from head to toe. Especially my hands.

We've spent the last few days in demo mode. Pulling out walls mostly. Most of our house is cement board and the idea is that it won't mold. The problem is the water still gets in the walls so we still had to cut it about 2' up and pull it out. It is a real bitch to do. I finally found that a grinder with a masonry blade does best to cut a line, then it just pry bars and pulling it out with your hands. The cement dust is unreal. It was so bad that I couldn't follow the chalk line to cut so the cut line is pretty wavy. Minor stuff in the scheme of things.

Anyway, it took 3 days for me to do this. We had a little sheetrock in places and that was easy peasy compared to that cement board. Our other issue is the amount of cement dust in the house. We got shop vacs and went through every inch of the floors in the kitchen area where we walk around the most, then my wife mopped it twice. Even then you can still feel it on your feet when you walk around. It will be quite a while to get us dust-free.

Now that we've finished the walls, we're kind of taking a much needed break today. I literally can't even lift the coffee pot with my right hand it hurts so incredibly bad. I feel really lucky that my back has held up, but everything in my body hurts.

We got our computers up and running so that's good. My wife is going back to work today.

On the bright side, when you have to do this again next year you'll already have a cut line for the demo work!

We have a friend that lives a few blocks from us that is lower than we are. He got clobbered last year and he still hasn't finished the remodel.

He bought some water barrier things that are supposed to keep the water from getting in your house. From what I know, they are pretty effective. However.........they are about 3 feet tall and the water came right over them so his newly remodeled house has to get remodeled again. This probably isn't an isolated story here.

So, one of our issues was getting my wife a car. Hers is toast. I feel really lucky my truck survived or we would have really been screwed.

We were lucky enough to get through to Progressive on Day 1 and they reserved a car for us. However, there are NO rental cars available in St. Pete. and some of the places are just closed now. So, we finally tracked one down at the airport and she got it, but it wasn't under the reservation that the insurance company set up.

The insurance doesn't know about this yet. The person assigned to our claim called us two days ago but we were in the middle of working so we missed the call. We haven't been able to get them on the phone again. I assume we're in a queue somewhere and she will get back. We've left messages and emails. I guess we'll just keep the rental even though the rental place said we couldn't for more than 3 days. I'm sure all of this will work itself out.

We really need to get her a car, though. She's going back to work and needs one.

So, when our kitchen flooded last year because a copper drain line failed, I noticed that all the water lines coming in are copper that come through the slab. They look really really corroded and are well past their intended life span. Since the walls are torn up we've decided to get all new water lines coming in. The guy came yesterday and we should get a bid today. We've used this plumber several times and they've been great so I'll go with whatever they come up with.

Once this is done I'm going to try to tackle the kitchen. I'm not sure I can do this but I'm going to try to brace the granite countertop and pull the old cabinets out and replace them. We are keeping the same footprint.

I'm still researching this. I "think" I can do this but it may be too ambitious.

I forgot to mention this.

We were working (maybe day 2?) and my wife heard someone screaming. There is so much going on here and there are people everywhere so she figured it was just workers or something. After a bit, she realized it was bad. Our next door neighbor was closing the garage door and the had her fingers in between the panels to pull it down. Once those doors start coming down they don't stop. She got all 8 fingers stuck in between the panels and she couldn't get them out. She screamed until one of our neighbors came and lifted the door. All fingers were crushed and she was about to pass out. My wife is pretty good with medical stuff and we have an ER nurse across the street. She ended up being ok but we are pretty sure she's got a couple fractures in the bones on the tips of her fingers.

Then................. the next day I'm in the front yard adding to our trash pile. I hear this scream and a woman is hysterically running in the street screaming. I yelled at my wife to come quick and we rushed over to her. She did the exact same thing only it took the end of one finger off and crushed the others on her hand. Again, we have an ER nurse so we got her settled until the ambulance came.

I don't know how to describe this feeling. Everything you go through is so incredibly overwhelming, but you push through it. But something happens that triggers you and you just break down. With my wife it was the seedy hotel. Seeing this woman screaming in the street did it for me. I had a moment where everything just crashed down on me.

We're both fine now but all of this breaks you (at least for a minute) at some point in time.

Since the cut line is pretty wavy, I'm wondering if cement board works like sheetrock in terms of finish? Put some kind of mud in the hole and sand it smooth.

Wow, rough days for you guys and your neighbors. Bet wishes going forward.

Does anyone there put their house up on stilts like on the Louisiana Gulf Coast or the Keys?

I'm not sure about the sheetrock situation yet. I'll hire that out. I'm not good at it at all.

Ugh, just got the bid for running new water lines. Painful, but we really need to do this. One busted water pipe and we do this all over again.

Yes, people raise their houses. This is one they are working on down the street. If you look, it's a house on a concrete slab. They put steel beams and cinderblock to hold it up. Pretty pricey, about $250,000 for a small house. I doubt we go this route.

yea they got a bunch of those in my area as well. stupid idea you have to go up lots of stairs in and out. and your car gets ruined every big storm anyway.

live above the flood plane.
best of luck.

Thanks Ray

I'm in the process of replacing all the plugs in the house. The water just barely got to the bottom of the box and they don't appear to be affected, but I thought i would do it anyway.

We have aluminum wiring in the house. I've sort of tossed around the idea of replacing it now that walls are half torn out, but that's a ton of work and/or money. It would take me a month to do it and it really doesn't need to be done.

While I was replacing the plugs, I ran across something I had never seen. There's a red wire attached to the top hot screw and a black wire to the bottom hot screw. One neutral on the other side. Hmm.... Glad I googled it. Apparently the red one is attached to a switch that controls the top plug and the bottom is just always hot. You have to break off the metal tab that connects the top and bottom or else bad things happen. I feel like I dodged a bullet on that one.

Bad things wouldn't have happened, the plug just wouldn't have been switched anymore. Are you using devices rated for aluminum wiring for your replacements?

can you post pics?

Those little purple thingies that connect aluminum to copper are already there. As far as I can tell, none were submerged.

Night of the storm

Next morning

Demo

Our trash pile so far.

When you first bought this place, I thought you mentioned redoing the kitchen. A few posts ago, sounded like that was out. Just too much all at once?

On the wiring, I'd be inclined to replace because it seems like I've heard bad things about aluminum wiring. Or at least look into it. However, I have the opposite of experience or expertise with electricity and my opinion should not count.

We are going to replace the bottom cabinets. I'm pretty sure we can match them. I'm going to try to keep from breaking the countertops.

I'm going to let mark chime in on the aluminum wiring. Im pretty sure he's an electrician. It would be really hard to fish wire down th exterior cinder block walls. I'm not sure I'm up for doing that and I'm guessing it would cost a LOT to hire someone to do it. So if the aluminum has more life I'm inclined to keep it.

Thanks Ray,

I've been communicating with Markfnw and we are ok with the wiring. The wires connecting to the actual receptacles are all copper. The copper to alluminum connectors are good. I'm not going to worry about electric issues going forward.

I do have to rewire the dock, though. The breaker was completely submerged, as was the dock light and switch. Not a biggie. Fortunately the control box was high enough to avoid water.

We are feeling a little better about our progress. We are meeting with a home depot rep to order some cabinets. I believe we'll be able to match the old ones, which will also match the upper cabinets. We like them so that's a plus.

There is another storm that appears to be heading our way. There is actually two. The first one appears to be just a rain event. But the second one now has a 70% chance of developing into either a tropical storm or a cat 1 hurricane. We are smack dab in the middle of the cone.

I can't imagine what a hurricane right now does to us. There are tens of thousands of tons of debris everywhere you look. The wind will no doubt scatter it everywhere and another rise in water makes it even worse.

Not looking great as of right now.

There's a lot of talk about "why would you live there." We have certainly second guessed our decision lately.

This neighborhood I live in has never flooded. It's about 50 years old and when Idalia hit last year everyone that's been here a while said that was the highest the water ever got.

The problem we have is how do we even get out now. No possible way to sell right now. Every house for miles has a debris pile in their yard and ours is torn up. I doubt we could get even half of what we paid for it right now, if we could get anything.

For the time being, we are here. We've already decided to try to mitigate future events. We'll be getting water barriers before next hurricane season. I'm going to research replacing the cement board we tore out with something like pvc board and just cover up screws with some sort of trim so if we need to let the walls breathe it won't be so hard.

We've talked about other things as well.

The option to move any time soon just isn't reasonable right now.