Now the Downside
We finished tearing out the water damaged area of the existing structure this morning. By the time we were finished, we had accumulated an impressive pile of debris.
As Hefé drove up pulling the trash trailer behind him, the downside of demo work quickly dawned on me and my partner. The mountain of plywood, insulation, drywall, and wooden planks would need to be carried up to the dumpster trailer. We knew that we were nominated before he even parked.
Carrying a bunch of water rotted trash would normally suck, but as I’ve previously mentioned, this property sits on a steep slope. Hence, every trip to the trailer is a short mountain climb. Another guy from the crew was told to come help us so we were able to make quicker work of it than I had expected.
Our boss bought dust masks for us to wear as we tore out the insulation and such. We were instructed to put our names on them so they can be reused if necessary. I felt that a smiling mouth with bloody fangs was much more interesting than a name. One of my coworkers decided that I needed nose holes and drew them on for me, complete with drippy boogers. Men are easily amused, although I’d never admit it.
After the debris was safely removed, I started working on jacking up the ceiling of the garage to install a new top plate free from water rot. We laid a sixteen foot 2x6 across the top of the ceiling and cut 2x4s that were a quarter inch longer than the actual distance from the floor to the 2x6. I put the 2x4s in at the top and beat the bottom into place with a sledge until they were standing level. You could actually see the ceiling rise up with every smack of the hammer. I continued smacking 2x4s into place every two feet until I had raised the roof on the entire replacement area.
Once the ceiling was raised, the top plate was cut out with a reciprocating saw. We had to leave a couple of chunks in where electrical wires were running through as there is still juice running to the garage and neither myself nor my partner were in the mood to shock ourselves at the end of the day.
We finished cutting out the damaged top plates right in time to begin our roll up. I finished the afternoon at 176 pounds. I’m pretty sure that my double chin is shrinking. I think I may be down to one and a half chins. Ok, maybe one and three quarters.
As Hefé drove up pulling the trash trailer behind him, the downside of demo work quickly dawned on me and my partner. The mountain of plywood, insulation, drywall, and wooden planks would need to be carried up to the dumpster trailer. We knew that we were nominated before he even parked.
Carrying a bunch of water rotted trash would normally suck, but as I’ve previously mentioned, this property sits on a steep slope. Hence, every trip to the trailer is a short mountain climb. Another guy from the crew was told to come help us so we were able to make quicker work of it than I had expected.
Our boss bought dust masks for us to wear as we tore out the insulation and such. We were instructed to put our names on them so they can be reused if necessary. I felt that a smiling mouth with bloody fangs was much more interesting than a name. One of my coworkers decided that I needed nose holes and drew them on for me, complete with drippy boogers. Men are easily amused, although I’d never admit it.
After the debris was safely removed, I started working on jacking up the ceiling of the garage to install a new top plate free from water rot. We laid a sixteen foot 2x6 across the top of the ceiling and cut 2x4s that were a quarter inch longer than the actual distance from the floor to the 2x6. I put the 2x4s in at the top and beat the bottom into place with a sledge until they were standing level. You could actually see the ceiling rise up with every smack of the hammer. I continued smacking 2x4s into place every two feet until I had raised the roof on the entire replacement area.
Once the ceiling was raised, the top plate was cut out with a reciprocating saw. We had to leave a couple of chunks in where electrical wires were running through as there is still juice running to the garage and neither myself nor my partner were in the mood to shock ourselves at the end of the day.
We finished cutting out the damaged top plates right in time to begin our roll up. I finished the afternoon at 176 pounds. I’m pretty sure that my double chin is shrinking. I think I may be down to one and a half chins. Ok, maybe one and three quarters.
posted by fuqstik @ 6:39 PM
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