New floor

I am in the heat of the battle right now 29 Jul 2017.  There is no turning back now.    I wish I had beautiful pictures to post of the new floor that i am putting in but I am still killing the floor joists right now.  If you have read my blog you know that the house is not on a level foundation.  I am fixing that now.  I am putting new joists next to the old ones to make the floor stronger and also cutting everything to the laser level line.  My summer is almost over and I was running out of time to get the floor done so I quit my teaching job.  Now my floor will get done.  More pics to come later.

New Electrical Service Entrance

If you read my post about the new roof you know all about my service entrance fiasco.  Well, now I have a new one that I installed.  This is a 200 amp panel with solar ready capability.  Provo city was just going to cut my power so I had now choice.  But it needed to be done anyway so I am glad it is done now.

I don't have any paid electrical experience as of now, but I have been doing a lot of reading and watching of videos about electrical work for a couple of years now.  This is the solution I came up with.  I know it is overkill.  This is called throwing money at it.  However, I will never have to rip off Sheetrock to add another circuit in the future.  

I also ran power out to my tool shed.  I have been wanting to do that for years and years but I have never known how.  Now I know how.  I put in some new can lights in my living room.  I ripped out all of the remaining aluminum wiring in my attic.  Now everything on my house is on a grounded circuit.  Not one circuit, of course.

New Roof

Here is the old roof.  Here were the problems:

1. shingles were probably 20 - 30 years old
2. There were like 5 layers of shingles.  It's kind of hard to tell how many layers exactly there were because after about 3 layers all that junk just bakes together.
3. Rafters were sagging at mid- span.  Gee, who would have known a 2 x 4 rafter spanning 14' would sag under 5 layers of shingles and countless snow storms after 80 yrs.  Their solution:  Keep piling on more layers of shingles.  My solution:  See below
4. Soffit was trash.  Birds were nesting in the attic
5. Idiots who framed the addition on the house didn't know how to establish ridge heights.  Result:  roof didn't plane correctly and looked like it was collapsing in valley.
6. Much of the old wood was experiencing dry rot.
7. Tops of walls were not level because house was not put on a level foundation.

Here is my solution.

1. Strip shingles.  I will never shingle over another layer of existing shingles.  
2. Install new 2 x 6 rafters against old rafters.  Giving the roof more strength.  Install 5/8" sheathing over rafters

It was nice to have the roof dried in.  We did get rained on one night before it was dried in but the damage was minimal.  Why is that board bracing the electrical service entrance conduit?  Oh, let me tell you a little story.  The idiots who put up the electrical service just did the minimal, cheapest low quality job they could.  When the guys that were helping me strip the roof went to take off the boards on the rafters the stupid thing started to fall down.  Long story short: I installed a new service entrance.  Now I don't have to worry about it tearing off my house anymore. 

Here she is in all her glory.  With all that unexpected electrical work with the service entrance, I thought it would be a great time to put in soffit lights as well.  

Here is that new service entrance I was talking about.  Installed by your's truly.

 I ended up putting in a new door after this picture was taken.  I wish you could see the new door.  It will probably be in another blog post.

The old lights were in the wall.  I like them better up in the soffit. That j-box cover is there just because I didn't want to replace the siding.  The soffit lights are all on a brand new grounded circuit with brand new romex.  Bye bye aluminum wiring with no grounding wire.  One less chance that my house will burn down now.