Tuesday, August 19th, 2008
Yesterday, I drove over to Home Depot to get two more 5-gallon buckets of driveway sealer and one more bucket of driveway crack filler. After I got sidetracked at the airport (which I wrote about in the previous post), I came back to finish up the driveway.
The only thing I did differently this time was to clean the driveway, fix all the cracks and then seal the driveway immediately afterward. The crack filler instructions say that it should dry for 24 hours, but I have a feeling it will dry just fine.
I will tell you that there is some serious grip with the driveway sealer. I just walked up the the road to the the garbage can and I almost stubbed my toe a bunch of times.
I have to go back to Home Depot this afternoon to return a 5-gallon bucket of driveway sealer and one bucket of driveway crack filler. Overall, I used 30 gallons of sealer and two gallons of crack filler. That should be good for a few years and now it looks like we are driving on a brand new driveway.
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Sunday, August 17th, 2008
Like I mentioned yesterday, this morning’s task was to seal the lower portion of the driveway. I had twenty five gallons of Latex-ite Driveway Re-surfacer on hand and was hoping that was enough. I think I read that each five gallon bucket does around 300 square feet, which isn’t much.
Ok, here is how it went. I started off at about 11:30AM and began by cleaning the entire working area with my spankin’ new pressure washer. If I didn’t have this pressure washer, I would’ve wished that I did. It did a great job.
In the photo above, you can see the dry driveway. I didn’t spray it yet and you can see the dirt on it towards the end. The reason that I cleaned the driveway is pretty obvious…the get the surface clean so the sealer really sticks to it.
This is the cleaned driveway. Lots of dirt, sticks and acorns came off it.
Driveway sealed with five gallons of sealer
My brother was right. Keeping the driveway wet is better than not. The moisture really helps keep the squeegee spreading smoothly. Also, the sealer goes much further. The photo above is after I spread the first five gallons. It did about half the area I wanted to do.
This is a photo of the driveway after I spread ten gallons of sealer on it. You can see that I didn’t get as much covered as the first five gallons gave me. Also, when the driveway is dry, I noticed that the sealer doesn’t get down into the pits of the blacktop. For that to happen, I had to go over it a few times, using up more sealer.
Driveway after fifteen gallons of sealer
The last five gallons of sealer got me the least. It covered the smallest area because the area was dry and cool. The coolness didn’t let the sealer “run” like the others. The good news is that I only used fifteen gallons of sealer for the lower portion of the driveway. That means that I have ten gallons left and I can estimate that I need about another ten gallons.
Tonight, I am going to clean any cracks in the upper driveway and seal them up with the crack sealer. If I run out, I can pick some up when I am buying the rest of the driveway sealer.
By the way, I did this project bare footed. I recommend wearing old sneakers because the blacktop gets hot and the sealer splashes naked feet.
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Saturday, August 16th, 2008
Eventually, all blacktop will crack. It doesn’t matter how good of a job the pavement people did when they came to install that beautiful patch of blackness over what once was a nice lawn. It will crack.
“So what, Jay. So my driveway has a few cracks in it. Why should I care?” you say. Well, let me just tell you this…it isn’t going to get any better. Especially if you live where there is a freeze/thaw cycle.
What happens is this; you get a few cracks in your driveway, from people driving on the edge of the pavement, the blacktop shifting, something heavy on the driveway, tree roots rearing their ugly heads or a bunch of other things. It doesn’t really matter. All that matters now is that there is a crack, or a bunch of cracks in your once very pretty driveway. Now that the crack is there, water is most definitely going to find its way in it. In the Summer, this doesn’t matter so much. When it matters most is in the Winter. In the Winter, the water finds its way into the crack and then freezes. When the water freezes, it expands. Do you see where I am going here? Your small cracks get a lot bigger, fast.
“Yeah, whatever Jay. I’ll fix it one day.” Hey, do you know how much a new driveway costs? Well, the longer it is and the more privacy you have, the more you are going to shell out for a whole new deal. Thousands and thousands and thousands. In my opinion, it’s a heck of a lot better to maintain your driveway instead of paying for a new one, as long as you can.
There are a few cracks in the driveway here. There is one area that needed a bag or two of blacktop, but mostly, these are easy to patch blacktop cracks. It’s easy and actually fun to fix them. Here is what I did today.
I went to Home Depot and I bought a few things. First, I bought some Latex-ite Driveway Re-surfacer. The bucket says this stuff is good for eight years. I don’t believe that. From what I have been reading, it’s best to seal your driveway every two to four years. I also bought a squeegee to spread the driveway sealer out with.
Then, I bought some Latex-ite Trowel Patch driveway crack filler. This is supposed to fill cracks up to a quarter inch. I like to push it, because some of the cracks here are more than that. Mostly though, I think this stuff will do the trick. The crack filler comes in a “loose cement” consistency and spreads like butter. It hardens like rubberized cement. I have to say, it’s pretty cool.
Below is a nice example of a crack that I had to fill in today. It wasn’t too wide and was about four feet long. I would say this is a prime example of what you might expect to see in your own driveway.
First, I completely cleaned the cracks with a garden hose. I sprayed the stream right in there and got all the gunk out.
After that, I got my trowel and started spreading. I made sure to get the crack filler all the way down in the crack. It didn’t want it just hanging out near the top.
The crack filler spreads on brown, but when it dries, it turns black. Also, if the crack is wide, the filler may shrink when it’s dried, requiring another coat.
The company recommends that you wait at least twenty four hours before you drive on it, do a peel out on it or dance on it. Longer if it’s cooler outside. I guess the hotter it is, the faster the crack sealer cures.
Tomorrow morning, I am going to pressure wash the lower portion of the driveway and seal it. I was told that if you keep the driveway wet when you are sealing it, the sealer goes further. We shall see.
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Monday, August 11th, 2008
As I was outside today cutting down some more small trees, the chimney repair guys rolled down the driveway. I thought he said they were going to call to set up an appointment, but this was fine with me. The faster I can cross something off my list, the better.
The job was to repair the crack in the chimney crown and ad a cap. I found a nice site that offers reasons why repairing a chimney crown is important. I have a feeling this is one of those repairs that a whole lot of people ignore. I guess they will be forced to fix things once they start falling apart. Heck, I wouldn’t have even known about this if the chimney cleaning guy didn’t tell me. I did my own research to back up what he said.
Chimney crown and cap
The cap they put on the chimney is stainless steel and measures 13″x28″. It has a lifetime warranty. For the price they charged, it better.
There are some benefits to having a chimney cap installed as well. They are:
- the cap helps to prevent downdraft
- it helps to repel rain and snow
- stops animals from nesting in your chimney
- helps to improve draft
- helps the chimney crown to shed water
- stops or helps to stop the fireplace damper from rusting
With all these benefits, I thought getting a cap would be the prudent thing to do. I am a prudent person.
During a walk last week, I noticed that virtually all the new houses around here don’t have chimney caps installed. I guess it’s not that imperative for new construction. I am still wondering why that is. It is probably the duty of the homeowner to get that done after the house is built. It still strikes me as odd though.
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Friday, August 1st, 2008
When we first moved in, there was a slight chill in the air. I guess it was early May or something, when it still gets chilly at night. I am not too good with the cold, so I got a fire going in the fireplace.
As the fire was burning in the fireplace, I thought to myself, “Hmmm, I wonder when the last time this chimney was cleaned out.” Now, if I was my father, I would be up in the roof looking down it with a flashlight. Since I am me, I let the fire burn and thought about it again a few months later.
It has been a few months. A while back, I got a postcard in the mail from Safeside Chimney out of East Hartford. It included a $20 a chimney cleaning coupon. I decided to call them for a chimney cleaning.
As a side note, if you are thinking about buying a house and keeping it nice, it can cost a fortune. Ok, I said it.
Anyway, yesterday, the chimney guys came. They were scheduled to clean both the chimney flue as well as the boiler flue. I thought this was a pretty good idea to get done in the Summer, since we are not using them all too much. I will admit that we almost overlooked this chore. If this company didn’t send me the coupon, I am not sure I would’ve called. It is quite important to keep these things clean, as they can cause big problems if you don’t.
Man sweeping chimney.
Now, when I told my father that I had a company come over to sweep the chimney, he said, “So, you don’t want to get a sweeper and a few pipes and do it yourself?” That’s the house I (thankfully) grew up in. We did it ourselves and learned the entire time. This time is a little different. First of all, I keep thinking that I am not as limber as I used to be. Second of all, I am probably not as strong as I used to be and third of all, there ain’t no way I am going up on this steep roof to clean out this chimney. You tell me if you would do it…
Looking up the side of the chimney from the outside.
No %$^& way I am going up there. You should’ve seen the guy trying to get down. It would’ve been easier for him to jump into one of the big air things the cops use when someone is getting ready to jump off a building.
The good news is that the chimney was cleaned. The bad news is that he found a crack in the chimney crown while he was up there. To prove this, he brought up the company digital camera. When he got down, he showed me. I believed him, but I still went inside to get the binoculars, just to make sure he wasn’t pulling a fast one. I didn’t know if he was showing me the same photo he shows everyone. Well, come to find out, there is a crack in the chimney crown. Luckily, it is an easy, but expensive repair.
He wrote me up an estimate to repair the chimney crown as well as to install a stainless steel chimney cap. There wasn’t a chimney cap installed. He said that by doing this, water wouldn’t make the crack worse and eventually lead to popping the bricks out of the chimney and doing more extensive damage to the house. Whatever…I just signed the estimate and told them to call me to set up a time to fix it. I will tell you that repairing the top of a chimney was not on my list of priorities.
Here are some photos of the cleaned chimney, from the inside.
Looking up the chimney flue.
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Thursday, June 26th, 2008
Yesterday was pretty fun. I met the tile installer at Tile America in West Hartford. I picked out the tile for the basement and the grout color. I like the grout to match the tile, so the floor doesn’t look like a big checker board. We also ordered up the thinset.
I bought 473.44 square feet of 13″x13″ Classic Wheat commercial grade tile. That’s a lot of tile. I also bought 60lbs of Avalanche colored grout. Lastly, I bought 100 lbs of Ultraflex polymer modified mortar.
The tile guys are coming tomorrow to start the installation. The nice thing is they are going to pick up all the materials before coming here in the morning. They have a truck…I don’t. If I did, trust me…I would be at Home Depot getting the 67 cent per square foot tile. Oh, the price I pay for delivery. I had actually contemplated installing all the tile myself. Then, I thought better of it. I think I would do a good job, but then again, who is going to do my computer work for me that day? I prefer to work at what I do and let others work at what they do. The door installation validated that.
Last night, I had a few small things to take care of in the basement. I had to trim up the bottoms of the door mouldings and apply a crack prevention membrane on parts of the concrete floor.
I used my Dremel and cutting disk to cut through two and a half mouldings. The first two went very well. About half way through the third one the Dremel started sounding like popcorn. I looked down and smoke was pouring out of the motor. The whole thing felt so familiar. Man, it stunk!!! Yeah, I guess I blew up my Dremel. I will have to check my receipt to see if it’s still under warranty. To finish the job, I used my reciprocating saw, which I should’ve used the whole time. It worked great.
After that, I gave the whole floor a nice cleaning. I swept and vacuumed. If there are any cracks in the floor, you need to use some sort of a membrane. I have actually heard of people using tarpaper for this, but I chose to use RedGard. I got two gallons at Home Depot yesterday. The other option was to use Schluter®-DITRA, but I didn’t think I needed that. The only thing that is wrong with the floor is a hairline crack about five feet long. You can hardly notice it. I tried to stay on the safe side.
RedGard is very cool stuff. It has the consistency of yogurt and can be applied with a brush, roller or sprayer. It goes on pink and dries red. After it dries, it’s like a layer of plastic. People use is for a crack membrane and waterproofer. I am sure you can find other uses for it too.
I basically needed to use it for that one crack, but decided to put it around all the concrete expansion joints too. I believe that you aren’t supposed to tile over expansion joints. You tile up to them and keep the joint. From what I am reading, people tile right over everything, while using no preparation and the tile floor lasts for 100 years. It’s only us who analyze the thing to death that have issues. I am going to see what the tile installer’s experience tells me. After all, he is the expert with the picture book of hundreds of jobs.
I’ll take some pictures tomorrow of the installation.
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Friday, May 30th, 2008
I am going to put this one out to the masses. I recently became stumped with what to do with the basement floor. Unfortunately, the stump”ness” came about after I tore the whole thing up.
If you don’t know me all that well, I oftentimes shoot first and aim later. At first, I thought this was bad, but later on, I realized that by doing this, I don’t mosey around over-thinking the whole thing. Since many of my projects come out very decently, I intend to stay this way.
Ok, here goes. We have this finished basement that is very dry. It has a concrete floor that used to have carpeting covering the majority of area and those linoleum tiles covering the rest. There is a dehumidifier downstairs keeping any moisture in the air down to a nice level.
Yesterday, I decided to peel up the linoleum tile and carpeting. This took me a few hours, but it’s all nice and clean now. I cut the carpeting up into squares and took up the underlayment. Everything is now out in the garage. As for the sticky goo, underneath the tiles, I used mineral spirits and a brush to get that up. Then, I used Simple Green to clean the entire floor.
Why did I do all this? Well, for one, I don’t really like carpet. I like hard wood or tile. Dogs like to pee on carpets and dust mites like to live in them. Also, I never like to think about what’s growing under a carpet, especially in a basement. Even thought basements feel dry, there is always moisture coming through the concrete. That doesn’t sit well with me.
The basement floor is in very good shape. It’s dry (as I mentioned above) with no cracks. There is one small hairline crack, but it’s hardly noticable. There are gaps between areas where they poured the concrete.
My initial idea was to tile the entire floor. We pretty much had tiles all picked out. Then, I started doing a little research on the internet. That may have been a bad move. One guy says, “Yeah, go ahead and tile right over the concrete.” The next guy says, “Sure, you can tile down there, just use cement backer board.” The third guy says, “You can’t use cement backer board on concrete.” This goes on and on across any number of websites. It seems like no one knows what in the world they are talking about, but love to give uninformed opinions. I am going to call the tile guy who did the old house for advice.
Since my reading, I have had some other ideas. I thought that we could put down a bamboo floor or laminate. I promised myself that I would never use laminate again, so that’s going to be hard.
What I am looking for is ideas and advice. Will those gaps in the concrete affect the tile? Will temperature differences from outside to inside make the tile crack or pop up? There is going to be a pellet stove down there too, so the temperature will be quite different from outside, especially when it’s a cold January night.
By the way, we don’t mind a cold floor.
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Monday, April 14th, 2008
Ok, I will admit it, the writer’s strike forced me into a torrid affair with reality TV. Actually, Laura started it and I just joined along. I think the only real show we watch is Lost.
My favorites in the reality sector are “Rock of Love with Bret Michaels,” “Hell’s Kitchen” and “America’s Next Top Model” to name a few. Laura is all about the last one, not me…suuuure.
Last night was the season finale for Rock of Love. I was so damn excited all day I could hardly stand it. Now, the show is so stupid and I know that. Bret Michaels from Poison is looking for love. That’s understandable. There were some decent looking girls to choose from and there were some busted up looking freaks. Why they let them through the door, I will never know.
The two finalists were Amber and Daisy. Daisy is a nice rocker girl and 25 years old. She had some issues, but I was still on her side 100%. Amber is 37 and has some control problems. It’s like she was everyone on the show’s guardian. She was always having to control everything and was always yelling at everyone. She really pissed me off.
Have I ever told you I never get my way when it comes to stuff like this? I told Laura that I wasn’t going to be able to sleep if he picks Amber. The final moment came and he picked…Amber. Wouldn’t you know it. Is he on crack? I am so upset. I am just wondering what was going through Bret’s head. Bret, if you are reading this, please post a comment.
Next week is the reunion. Daisy gets in a fist fight Springer style. Life is too short to miss stuff like this.
Yup, college educated Jay Gaulard signing off.
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Wednesday, September 6th, 2006
This is a funny story and hopefully one I can keep short. I seem to have developed a knack for writing too much. See, there I go again.
The Red Oak tree is now gone. A flourishing garden is beginning to grow. There is only one more slight problem. A Red Maple with a rotten base remains. We get nervous about these trees because of the winter wind. Every time I heard a gust of wind last year when I was sleeping, my eyes would pop wide open because I was expecting a big “Crack” to follow. It never happened, but I really would like to get a good night sleep this go-round.
This tree wasn’t nearly as difficult to take down as the Oak. There were more, but smaller branches on this one. I said that I would do it slowly with a pole saw that I recently purchased. Sounds weird, but hear me out. I don’t have a wood chipper so I am forced to drag anything that I cut down all…the…way back in the woods to the rear most part of the property. That is about a 2 acre walk. It isn’t fun. I was determined to cut this tree down by myself because I had experience…yes, experience. I used to work at SavATree in Bedford Hills, NY when I was 18 years old and also C.V. Trees for many years after that. I knew how to climb and was actually quite good at it. I just didn’t have the right tools (ropes, saddle, spikes) anymore. But what I did have was my new chainsaw and pole saw.
To start things off, I extended the pole saw to it’s full 14 feet length. Then I took off about 5 of the lowest branches. I dragged them all the way back in the woods. This lightened up the tree. The next day, I took off about 5 more and dragged them back. Hmmmm, I was feeling motivated. I went back to cut some more. The pole saw really wouldn’t reach any more branches that easily. I was really motivated to get this tree on the ground because I had more pressing projects to get to. I had an idea…
I went into my basement and got my 15′ rope and tied it to the handle of my chainsaw. Then, I tied a knot at the other end of the rope. I put my 13′ ladder up against the tree. I climbed the ladder with the knot end of the rope in my hand and the chainsaw on the ground. I grabbed the lowest nub of wood that was about 15′ off the ground and climbed up to the lowest crotch of the tree. I sat there and then pulled up the rope with the chainsaw attached. I put the knot through a higher crotch so it was hanging. Then I climbed up the uppermost crotch and pulled the chainsaw to my hands. I started the saw and cut about half the branches off. I was on a roll. Then, I cut a pretty big one off and it landed on its end and fell backwards, knocking the ladder down. Hmmmm, that was a problem. Now I was up about 25 feet with no way of getting down. Oh well, I have been in worse situations. I kept cutting and about after 5 minutes all the branches were on the ground. I climbed down a bit to the lowest crotch and cut some more. Then came the challenging part…getting down. I lowered the chainsaw to the ground and let go. Then, I hugged the tree with my legs and the inside of my arms. I slid all the way down and looked at myself and smiled. Some scratches, but what a ride!
Now I had a nice big stump sticking out of the ground. I cut that bad boy down to watch it bounce off the ground and land perfectly where I wanted it.
I cut the wood up to give away to Paul and called it a day. I should’ve known the pole saw thing was never going to work. Why do I bother trying to do things slowly?
I guess this story wasn’t all that short after all…
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