Hey OG
Created this topic due to an OGer (@Nitt) having HVAC problems needing some advice.
I think this will be good for all OG members as I’m sure we have many members who are part of the “trades” and who can help with a little advice and answering questions.
The OG family is a great community, and a topic like this can help homeowners in need without all the BS and runaround of other forums.
So if folks are in any of the “trades” let’s give a helping hand and support to those fellow OG members who have a problem or ask a question.
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Hi folks, homeowner-by-proxy of an 1895 Victorian in an old New England downtown, my partner owns the house and I do all of the day to day running of things including repairs and maintenance, and figuring out larger projects for ourselves or finding the tradespeople to do them and working with them as needed. I’m happy to see this thread made, I’ve noticed that there’s lots of folks in the trades here and I have already found some good answers here on OG for house stuff.
My skillsets that I could answer questions about are probably:
-DIY/reuse/recycling: I make a lot of stuff out of other stuff instead of buying things, both from scratch and adapting things as a cheaper option. Always happy to brainstorm a solution with the materials on hand with someone.
-Bicycle/small machinery repair: I am a former bicycle messenger and commercial bread baker, in the course of both I’ve picked up a lot of simple mechanical knowledge about basically anything with a chain and bearings, most ovens and mixers, bicycle fit and troubleshooting, storage, and regular/preventative maintenance. I’ve been sort of a facilities guy at a lot of my jobs because of mechanical aptitude, and I love solving a problem.
Old house shit: slate roofs, horsehair plaster, wood floor care and repair, antique furniture restoration and repair, yard drainage and rehab, weird boiler and radiator shit, etc. Old stone and brick foundations and high water tables are a thing we’ve had to do a lot about both now and plans for the future.
I’m looking forward to seeing this thread be a place for some interesting sharing of knowledge and experience beyond the weed stuff we normally talk about. I know we all have day jobs (most of us not in cannabis) unless we’re retired or disabled and those folks have their own knowledge to share from a lifetime of learning. Like a lot of you, I’m not really on any other social media nowadays except OG and Instagram, and I’d love to see Overgrow become even more of a place for hanging out and talking about our lives.
Not to mention when you fix the house you’re fixing up or creating the grow facility for most of us. Here’s an example from my growing journey so far. I always wanted to grow but lived in tiny Queens and Brooklyn apartments where it was never really a good option, plus getting good weed in NYC ain’t that hard when you work in kitchens or as a courier. Both groups are…pretty well connected and believe in the industry/homie deals so I always could get dank ounces without too much trouble. Still expensive and still often not what I wanted, so when we moved out of the city in 2020 I was excited, especially moving home to my state that had legalized home growing. But the apartment we got, while quite large and tall, had terrible weird electrics that neither me or my partner wanted to be running anything on that we didn’t have to, so I waited until she bought a house, which fortunately didn’t take long. The market was going insane and she could read the cards on the table, so we hunted and bargained and waited and eventually got this big old fixer upper downtown at a price she could do. We had the whole electrical system gutted and replaced before we moved in because it was still the original knob and tube wiring, tarred cloth insulated cables and paper sleeves on bare wires between porcelain insulators- beautiful old stuff that’ll kill ya and the insurance company won’t cover a house with when getting a new policy nowadays. Our house wasn’t originally electrified, that probably came around 1910 or so, originally it had gas lamps in all the rooms as both chandeliers and sconces, so there were also capped gas lines everywhere in the walls at eye level and in every original light fixture. Those guys wired me up some 20 amp circuits in the attic and basement to grow with, once I get the attic insulated better I’ve got a lovely 20 amp 4-gang box waiting for me in my grow room up there.
But it was getting our basement patched and sealed up by a mason was the difference between me growing in an attic that is alternately too hot or cold but dry (how I started when we moved in and the basement had half an inch of water in it once a week). I love the attic but I was killing myself with the space heater and then watching my tent hit 100F trying to finish a last round in the spring/summer. After we waterproofed the bulkhead as best we could and had the mason stucco and wire mesh over the crumbling foundation (someone painted the brick upper half decades ago with a non-breathable paint after using the wrong mortar to repoint them 
so it was a flaky ugly mess down there) and he also dug down a few rows of bricks outside and tarred the foundation.
Now I’ve got the Magic Wand Factory- my basement grow area that’s basically two rooms (actually the back wall of two with a doorway between them) and I’m about to put up my third tent, a 2x4 Mars Hydro, so that I can be doing either seed runs or long flowering sativas in there, and I’m growing the best weed I have yet, and some of the best I’ve ever smoked in a lifetime of toking on the finest the East Coast has to offer. My genetics aren’t as on point as some of the elite cuts I’ve smoked, since I’m just popping quality seeds and smoking what comes out, but I feel really good about my environment and facilities, and home improvement made it possible.
Better Living and Smoking Through DIY!
Save the money and spend it on ya girl/guy or some new grow equipment and genetics!
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I gutted and Reno’d and put a basement apartment in a 3000 sq ft Georgian house from 1910.
I’m not in the trades but I do have some knowledge of what I can do, but more importantly I know something I shouldn’t touch when I see it.
I’d say I reno’d it from the ground up but that’s not true because I also smashed up the basement concrete and put in new sewer lines.
I know just a little bit about pretty much everything and will help out if/when/where I can 
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Say no more. I grew up in a Victorian about that age and it is a lot of work to keep up. Even just intricate carpentry, if you have any rotting wood, it can be difficult to find a carpenter willing to do it. Steep roof, designs in the eaves, tons of trim, several colors of paint…
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Great idea for a thread and perfect timing lol.
We bought a 150 year old house in Nova Scotia Canada, that hasn’t been touched for 40 or 50 years apart from new wiring and a heat pump added.
I just started tearing out what will be a bedroom and onsuite bathroom yesterday. Lathe and plaster walls and ceilings mostly some with drywall or beaver board over the top and thin sheets of Mohogany plywood from Taiwan, so it says on the back of them.
I have worked in construction as a carpenter doing drywall, form work, industrial flat roofing, fairly confident in replacing windows, plumbing and electrical, painting and decorating, and I repaired my heat pump, washing machine and dryer no problem, following stuff on YouTube. I will look at any job if it doesn’t require expensive tools and I think I can do it to save money. Although I just go a nice dewalt planner to take a hundred years of paint off the original floor boards all over the house. I recon it will be easier to pull them up and run them through the planner than trying to sand them in sittu.
One wall has 2ft wide inch thick boards running across it that I uncovered yesterday, the wife wants to keep it as a feature but not sure how that’s going to work yet as they are not fitted together well, so I may have to add inserts in places, maybe in a light wood with a smooth finish to contrast the rough sawn of the old stuff, but we will see. I was going to do a thread for myself as a record of progress.
I am always repurposing stuff, which means I am a bit of a horder. Just got a mig welder and teaching myself to use that atm, as I have some water creeks and springs on my property, so I want to try creating some hydro electric as well as wind and solar to become energy independent from the system.
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Yeeee all of that, the roofline starts at 24’ and goes up to about 36-40’ at the peak and is quite steep and windy. Fortunately we have an insane and talented slate roofer who also does masonry and carpentry work when he’s up there with his scissor lift. The carpentry tho- the electricians we used were a family trio working together during the pandemic quarantine, and fortunately Dad is a retired GC who worked on these types a lot, he was able to explain some weird stuff like where they lifted the second floor when they electrified it to make room for the wiring, the whole thing is jacked up on a second set of studs lol. Also the house is like an original house and then a weird attic and side stair addition from around 1920, it’s pretty straightforward as they go but that’s still around a million little sticks. Fortunately ours is just (rough) white, and we’re going to keep it that probably and do trim in black and pink to match our neighbors who have an identical house constructed at the same time and painted it bright purple a few decades ago.
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This is very important, and saying it to tradespeople has gotten me some good work and good lessons from them. I know I always loved hearing from someone when I was getting a package “I know I could have gone and delivered it myself but you guys are the pros and will get it done faster”. Yeah that’s right, I’m fast as fuck, and that crazy ass old Puerto Rican mason fixed up my foundation a lot better than I would have. Horses for courses is definitely the rule with working on your home, I agree.
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Yessir, that’s my plan for the painted boards upstairs and the grotty stained but quite nice old planks in the attic, won’t catch me sanding in the house after cleaning up the electricians work, they gave us a better price since I agreed to come over and clean up every day and afterwards if they just did a cursory sweep for me. Shit took months to find all the plaster dust. I’ll be planing floorboards in my driveway, thank you, especially with all the lead paint I know is under the latex for sure.
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Yeah that’s one of my concerns along with asbestos in the plaster, and any old drywall. It’s expensive to test stuff, so I figure I will just treat it all as if it’s got asbestos in it. Got my P100 mask and face shield, hazmat suit, from a buddy who does toxic crap removal for a company. I am going to rig up my grow tent extractor fan in the room sucking the air out down 40ft of ducting to a box on the ground with a big Hepa filter my buddy is getting for me, he says it will be just as good as they use lol.
My other concern is not finding all the nails before I run them through the planner, and why I got yhe dewalt as you can remove and sharpen the blades, which you can’t do on a lot of others, having to replace them instead, which is vastly more expensive.
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I just had the “well from hell”. It kept tripping the 100amp house breaker, busted out the DVOM and checked the pump, pump was pulling 29.7 amps, not good. Called the well guys, they came out, same thing, pump pulling 29.5 amps. Had them replace the pump, all good for 5 weeks.
9:00 on a Saturday night, pop goes the breaker, again!!! Pump switch contact was “welded” together. Having 5 pinball machines, I’m quite familiar with stuck switches, got it separated, cleaned up, well running again. Uh Oh, tank won’t hold pressure and pump is running every 45 seconds. Had them come out Monday morning, yup, 32 year old pressure tank is bad. Had it replaced. All good right??? NOPE!!!
13 hours later, POP there goes the 100amp house breaker again. 3rd call to the well company. We start tracing back from the well, lo and behold, when I had a new sump pump discharge line installed, they cut the power line to the well on accident. Rather than say anything, they taped it up, and ran the line under the new discharge pipe. Needless to say, now have to run a new power line out to the well pump. The guys felt absolutely horrible, and were very apologetic. I’m not one to bitch, because the pump was 48 years old, new pump tested out at 2.7 amps. Higher pressure then took out the 32 year old pressure tank. What wasn’t known was the cut in the 60 yr old power wire.
They didn’t charge me anywhere near full price for running the new line to the pump, which I gladly would have, no one has X Ray vision to see the line under ground, and all troubleshooting and checks led to a bad pump.
29.7 and 29.5 amps checked by myself and the well guys, down to 2.7 amps after pump replacement.
Having an old house can sometimes hit your wallet at the most inconvenient times, and new parts can take out old parts, it’s the nature of the beast.
All is good now, and it was cheaper than having a new well drilled and everything replaced, which still wouldn’t have shown the cut and taped line.
Next is having the front “hidden” room in the basement dug up, mortar fixed, new drain tile installed and new waterproofing then the only “leaking” spot in the basement will be fixed.
Oh the joys of owning an older house, LOL
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Our well is good but the pressure tank looks ancient and it may leak as the previous owner has a drip tray under one of the pipes. It could be just condensation forming on the pipe but I am not sure yet, something I need to watch atm. Half the basement floor is dirt so it just soaks down into the ground, no dry rot or mold on any of the wood beams down there so it can’t be too bad but a new concrete floor and walls is on the cards, our main foundation is huge granite boulders.
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You didn’t have to use a clamp meter for that? Or did you?
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Hi guys, I have been a floor installer for 30 years, if anyone has flooring questions feel free to tag me…
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Thanks for volunteering, your going to hate me soon lol.
Do you level floors as well as install 
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Yes I do, are we talking jacking up a wood floor or using self leveling compound?
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I know of a certain carpenter with some mad skills @Mithridate if you have any questions in that regard. I was a painter for many years and also ran a spray foam company for a few years as well. Basically, drywall, insulation and paint I’ve got you covered and he’s got the carpentry part covered. Hey 
I see a new forum popping up…. Overbuild the World 
HOMES BY OG!
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Love it @TopShelfTrees1 !!!
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No clamp meter, just positive and negative probes with DVOM set for amps.
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I am open to both whichever will be easiest. It’s an old plank floor with ancient vynil tiles on it atm. It looks like a mogul ski run lol lumps everywhere. If I get up at night for a piss in the dark or I am stoned it throws me off balance and I stagger around banging into things lol.
Can you put self leveling cement on a wooden floor without raising the height too much?
I only have a crawl space under the kitchen so shimming the posts holding up the floor joists will be difficult.
This house was built and added to 3 times with the kitchen going on last so each of the 3 parts floor are at different levels by an inch or two with a slope. I would love to raise all of them and level them out but that would probably be very expensive 
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