The place had an old toilet that has apparently been there since the 1950’s. If you look on the inside of the tank lid, they usually have a date stamped in there showing when it was manufactured. Or molded, I guess. Mine said November 23 1954.

Anyway, it stated acting up a couple weeks ago. Things like slow flushes, or no flushing. I put about 10 bucks worth of draino into that thing with no help and was worried it was the drainage vent pipe that sticks out of your roof, because apparently if that gets clogged then not enough air gets in and you’re going to have problems with all your plumbing.

The toilet working when it felt like it and sometimes having to help the flush along with a bucket of water, got old pretty quick. So I called a local plumbing company yesterday. By the way, if you have a company and you have company vehicles, get a web site and slap your URL on it. I never heard of a local company called Halco until I saw one of their vans parked in the supermarket across the street. It had a web site on the side, I took a look, liked what I saw and they got my business.

So the guy showed up, a tall fella named Dave who was pretty nice. He took a look at the old crapper and explained to me that the rinse holes where water comes into the bowl were probably clogged and not enough water was getting in after every flush, which is why it didn’t always go down. He went on to suggest it be replaced. Now replacing the toilet was one of the things on the long to-do list, but since it worked, I figured it what the hell, lets just put a new cheap $5.00 plastic seat on it and use it for the time being until it came time to re-do the bathroom. Well, it lasted about 2 months. So I didn’t feel too bad about giving up a few hundred bucks to have it replaced.

This is the only picture I’ve got of the old toilet, because I really wasn’t expecting it to be replaced. This is the lid. It was an ugly light pink “Standard” brand toilet that used 3 gallons of water.

Dave took the old thing apart and hauled it away. About a half hour later, he returned with a brand spanking new Gerber Aqua Saver that only uses 1.6 gallons of water. That will hopefully save some pennies on future water bills.

It’s got some sort of double flush technology. If you just hit the handle and let it go, you get a quick flush. Good for light stuff, like liquids. The water inside the tank doesn’t fully go down before it starts to refill. Truly an “aqua saver”. If you need a stronger flush, then pushing the handle and holding it down for a few seconds will drain even more of the water inside the tank which produces a constant flushing action that doesn’t stop until you let go or the water inside the tank is fully gone, whichever comes first. Cool. The old one would pretty much drain the entire 3 gallons of water on every flush.

Check out that new toilet shine. Total cost: $455.00. That included the labor, removal/disposal of the old toilet and cost of the new toilet, which I didn’t get an exact price for, but the official Gerber web site shows it retails for about $150.00. The seat wasn’t included, so that was probably another $25. It’s a good thick sturdy Bemis seat and not a cheap $5.99 plastic thing. $455.00 was about $155 more than I planned on spending when it came time to replace the thing, but I guess it could have been a lot worse if there were problems with the pipes, which is what I originally feared.

Stuff I learned from Dave the Plumber:

I now know how to remove and install a toilet by just watching how it was done. It’s really isn’t as hard or as dirty as I thought. It looked like the hardest thing was removing the old rusty screws, since they were on there for years. Also cutting down the new screws after securing the new toilet to the floor so the plastic screw covers could go on was a bit of a challenge. That took some time to carefully cut with a saw, without scratching the porcelain.

He said that those 2000 flushes type of cakes that make the water a pretty blue are actually bad for toilets. They tend to sludge up and clog up the system. In fact, I’m pretty sure that’s what happened to the old crapper. It seemed to be working fine until I put one of those blue things in the tank. It started acting up a couple weeks later. Figures. He says the white tabs that are just bleach are the best. You wont have to worry about blue sludge that doesn’t fully liquefy clogging up the rinse holes of your crapper. Oh and if you have to have blue water, then apparently those bottles of blue liquid that you tip over and attach to the inside of the tank are better than tabs, since they’re liquid based anyway. They just don’t last as long.

Apparently a lot of older folks that have older model 3 gallon toilets don’t like them removed when there are problems. So they’ll have plumbers like him in there cleaning every little hole and checking everything. Dave said the old toilets were really built to last even though they hog up a lot of water. That probably explains why mine was still kicking for 50 years. I asked if 3 gallon toilets were better and he said yes, because naturally more water will produce more flushing power. Even though the newer 1.6 gallons have special features and new technology to produce good flushes, it’s still not the same as the older models. He said some older models are like a classic car with a V8 engine that was built to last, and newer models are like new cars that are souped up. They’re both good, but it’s hard to match those old classic engines on newer cars.

Dave said toilets with floating cup fill valves are better than toilets with the big floating ball that sit on top of the water. I actually read this in one of the home improvement books as well. Something to do with better water control and they don’t break as easy. He said if he buys a new toilet with those floating balls, he rips that out and replaces it with the cup system instead. The old toilet had one of the float cups, so someone put that in at some point.

Crap.

Not Crap.

These images are from the HGTV site. Henry Harrison shows us how to replace a floating ball with a fill cup. It looks pretty easy to do.

Dave ran down the best toilets. Apparently Gerber made toilets for the commercial market but now do residential. He says they’re very good and go out of their way to use those fill valves instead of the ball things, which they don’t make in-house and have to buy separately. He thinks that says something about them as a company. The real expensive top of the line toilets are American Standard and Kohler.

Finally, plumbers make a lot of money.

If you’re going to purchase a home, maybe you can learn from some mistakes I have made. This is an ongoing list. More things will be added as I remember them or as they come up. It was last updated on March 1st 2005.

1. Realtors are not your friends.
This might piss a few people off. Especially Realtors (hi guys). However, it needs to be said. I don’t care how nice they seem, how many times they offer to drive you around and look at homes, take you to lunch, send you gifts, cards, etc. Their main purpose is to sell houses. Unless you’ve got a special “buyer’s Realtor” that you hire, the ones at the local offices work for the sellers. Even if the seller is represented by one person and another person represents you. They both ultimately get paid by the sellers. It is in their best interest to sell the home for the sellers so the sellers can give them their cut of the loot. I’m not going to trash the Realtor we used, since she was ok. However, there are a few things I wished she mentioned or didn’t leave out. I’ll probably never know if she just didn’t know, or if it was done on purpose.

2. Ask for utility bills.
This one probably wouldn’t have done us any good since the sellers used this place as a rental and apparently never lived here. Looking at bills is a good way to estimate what your general costs of electricity, gas, water, etc would be if you made the purchase. If the sellers try to say they don’t have them, kindly inform them that they can call the local utilities and get copies of old bills or maybe even a yearly summary. High heating bills are a pretty good sign of little to no insulation or a bad heating system. This will suck if you live in an area that gets cold during the winter.

3. Bring marbles (or a level).
If you’re buying an older home (like one built in, oh lets say 1850), chances are it’s got some lopsided floors that you might not notice right away. This is apparently caused by settling over the years. This place has a few of those that need to be fixed. I actually read in a book how “part of the charm of old homes is that there isn’t a level floor in them”. “Charm” my ass. It’s annoying, trust me. It’s probably also very costly to correct. Anyway, putting a marble or a ball in the center of rooms and seeing if it moves can give you an idea if a floor isn’t even. Of course a good long level will accomplish the same. Most good home inspectors should test for uneven floors, but check in case they don’t. Speaking of home inspectors……

4. Not all Home Inspectors know what they’re doing.
It’s a good idea to hire one of these people before you buy a place. They usually charge a couple hundred bucks, but it’s money well spent. That said, the guy we hired was a dumbass. He missed a lot of stuff, played down any potential problems as “normal for an old home”. Looking back, I wondered if he actually knew the sellers or something. Anyway, if I had it to do over again, I’d ask around more, look at more inspectors and ask for references, etc. The guy we got (after the Realtor tried to convince us how inspectors are “thorough”, like it was a bad thing or a big hassle - scroll up and see tip #1 again) missed a lot of stuff in his report. The main things being the false wall in the basement that was hiding potentially serious foundation problems, and the fact that the place basically has worn out and/or no insulation. We did get a few grand shaved off the asking price, but it probably should have been a lot more.

5. Flood zones
If the place you’re looking to purchase is anywhere near a river, stream, creek, pond, whatever, find out if it’s on the FEMA flood hazard maps. If it is, then you’ll probably have to pay extra for flood insurance. We got hit with this as a last minute surprise. The sellers swore up and down that they never had to pay flood insurance. The Realtors said things like “I live right up the street and don’t have to pay it”. Well thanks, that makes me feel a lot better for having to fork over an extra $400 a year for flood insurance, on top of the $450 for regular insurance. You can find out if crooks in the government (who probably never ever stepped foot in your area) consider the property a flood risk because of aerial maps that show water nearby due to some law or whatever that started in 1994. Even if the body of water is blocks away you should still check. This house is on a hill where any water clearly flows down the street and becomes someone else’s problem, but they still say this property is at risk. Go figure. Flood maps can apparently be found at local libraries or you can order them for some money. Or you can do what I did and just type in the address at the FEMA Flood Hazard Mapping site and find out instantly (and for free) if it’s a flood risk. I typed in a few addresses of surrounding properties and for some reason they weren’t in the flood zone even though they are literally a 90 second walk away. If you get hit with this, you can apparently also dispute it. The Realtors and brokers tried to do that with info they got from the city showing that there hasn’t been a flood around here for as long as they could remember. They didn’t have any luck and gave up after a couple weeks. The bank pretty much insisted that flood insurance be purchased for the loan to go through. Asshats.

That’s all. For now….

So this place had some cracks on the basement floor, but it didn’t look like too much to be concerned with. I figured it was caused by settling and the inspector we got was no help (more on that dumbass at a later time).

Then it rained… a lot. Surprise, water was coming up through the cracks into the basement. Not a lot, but it just kind of bubbles up when there is a lot of rain outside. I didn’t know that was even possible. I mean I’ve heard of leaks through windows and the sides, but cracks in the floor? Thinking about it (and obviously looking at it) now, I suppose it makes sense that water can get all the way under a house and rise up through cracks. It’s just not anything I’ve personally seen before.

Anyway, hindsight being 20/20, the water damage on the homemade support beam someone made should have been a nice giveaway that there were water problems. Lesson learned.

That beam is a whole story in itself. It looks like someone chopped down a small tree out back and put it there in 40’s or 50’s. As the first picture shows, the water through the cracks have slowly taken its toll on it. That pathetic excuse for floor support needs to be taken down (or just kicked over, since it’s loose) and replaced with a steel post or some sort of screw jack. I looked into it already and found out that the local Home store has them for about 40 bucks and up (depending on sizes). This guy says it’s pretty easy to install extra floor support and fix a sagging floor. We’ll see.

Back to the leaky floor. Last month, I bought a small can of some cancer causing stuff called DRYLOK FAST PLUG at the Home store for about 4 bucks and put it on the cracks when I first noticed small leaks. That’s why the cracks look covered in the first image above.

The stuff is a powder that you mix with water to make like a cement, and there really is a big cancer hazard warning on the back of the label. It’s supposed to plug cracks and stop water leaks. I thought the amount I put on was enough, but obviously not because it rained again this week and water came right through in some spots. Since it seemed to prevent water from coming up in a few other spots, I went back and bought a 10 gallon can for about 12 bucks. When the water stops leaking through and the floor dries up a litle more, I’m going to try patching it again. This time with a much more generous amount.

Hopefully that’ll stop the leaks until I can hire someone to come in and lay a new layer of concrete over the entire basement floor to even the whole thing out.

January 19th 2005 Update:
The wet cracks dried up over the weekend so I put more of the DRYLOK stuff on them. Since it’s about 5 degrees below 0, it’ll probably be a while before it rains to see if the second application actually worked.

I hate wet basements.

I think the basement will be the bane of my existance for a while and also cost the most. Joy.

July 20th 2005 Update: Well the leaks seem to be plugged up for the most part. There is still a little bit of water coming in here and there, but I haven’t been mopping up any puddles in months. There are still issues with the damp basement, but for the most part, these cracks in particular have been sealed up. Drylok is a good product. I recommend it to anyone who needs fast drying/water stopping hydraulic cement.

The attic creeps me out. It stretches from the front of the house to the back, but it’s basically just a crawlspace thing with no standing room unless you’re a child or Mini Me. The only way to get into it (if you aren’t a squirrel) is a tiny opening in the ceiling. In fact, it took me quite a while to even find how to get up there because the opening is almost hidden as a ceiling tile. It’s about 2 feet wide and a foot and a half long.

I’ve been up there twice, but haven’t gotten in very far because, quite frankly, it looks kind of scary and I don’t like how I can’t really see past a certain point, no matter how much light I shine in that direction. There are also squirrels up there crashing for the winter that I don’t feel like coming face to face with at this time.

On my first trip up, I just got up into the opening and looked around but didn’t move much.

This is the view from the opening. That crack looking stuff is actually some Plaster of Paris. I don’t know how long it’s been up there or why. There was also a lot of wood, old windows, screens and some glass. I damn near fell out of the opening when I flipped over a stack of wood and had a creepy painting of a little girl staring back at me. That was a bit unnerving.

From what I gather (and I’m no expert), it looks like something from the early 1900’s and appears to be Easter related since the girl looks to be dressed in an Easter bonnet and is holding a chick. It’s in a nice fancy frame, however time has taken its toll as the frame crumbles in my hands if I handle it too much. This discovery ended my first attic adventure last month.

I went back up yesterday to clear out all the old wood and try to cover up the hole where the squirrels were getting in. It gets pretty noisy up there at times (like the rodents are moving furniture) and I figured all that scrap wood and junk laying around was the cause of it.

After removing the wood, I found out that most of the floor boards in this section of the attic lift right up. That’s odd but not surprising. I suppose they were really never nailed down. This is the only part of the attic that actually has a “floor”. There looks to be that cheap ass fluffy insulation stuff between the main beams past what I like to call “the void”.

I have yet to crawl into that area since one of the two loose floor boards that lead into it actually bent in half when I lifted it up. Don’t want to try my chances with that yet. Also, falling through a ceiling isn’t exactly my idea of a good time. Maybe in the future.

Nonetheless, I never got around to nailing up the little hole the squirrels were coming in because I got distracted by some interesting discoveries hidden behind one of the floor boards. I found an obviously old framed picture of some guy, a couple framed needlepoint looking things, an old picture of a home that might be one up the street, and a bag of money.

Ok, no bag of money. The other stuff will be discussed in a post tomorrow.

So in the “parlor” section of the house (I just refer to it as part of the living room since they’re both connected), there was an interesting piece of woodwork that looked like a fake fireplace. I didn’t understand the purpose of this thing. Obviously it (was) a mantle, but why have the hole/outline/whatever in the center of it if there was no intention of it ever being a real fireplace? I thought it looked dumb and that a huge bookcase/library setup would look better in that spot. So out it went.

Before:

The thing came off of the wall all in one piece and very easily, since it was basically just nailed on. My only concern was for the gaps at the very bottom that it left behind. I don’t know if they make that kind of baseboard/trim anymore. However, since a set of bookcases were going in that spot, it wasn’t much of a worry so I just covered the holes with a couple pieces of scrap wood that were cut to fit.

Now the walls in this room were covered by some ugly beige wallpaper, which was stripped down. The center of the mantle was also papered and I found an interesting surprise behind it.

It looks like people who papered the wall had signed that spot. There is one name I couldn’t make out, but it said May 1928. The big one in the middle says Papered by Chae (or Elise) H. Bell - Sept 29 1936. This woman might have been an artist, considering she drew a whole ribbon outline around her signature. Above her name is another signature that is blurred, but what I could make out looks like the same handwriting as Ms. Bell. I couldn’t make out the month and day, but it looks like she re-papered the walls again in 1949. Then last, but not least, we have someone named “E.M. Van Inuragen”, who papered the wall on October 12th 1960. I assume he (or she) was the last, because the paper sure looked like it was up since the 60’s. Information about this will come in handy soon when I hit the local library and museum to see if they have any info about previous occupants. That’ll be documented in future posts.

Anyway, the wall was washed, spackled, sanded and primed with white paint. No color has been decided on yet, so white the room will stay until then.

After:

The library/bookcases are Sauder (Mission Collection) and were purchased at furniturebuzz.com for $358.75, including shipping.

Despite the headaches I got putting those things together, I think it looks a lot better than that mantle. They will look even better with books and plants on them and I’ve also got enough room for one more bookcase if I need more storage space.

The first major job was ripping out a really nasty rug covering the staircase. I used a rug cutter thing and a hammer. Most of the time was spent carefully getting the damn strips of wood with nails popping out that held it into place, without damaging the wood or cutting my fingers. Well, I did get cut; several times in fact, and there were a few dents and dings in the wood when it was all said and done, but nothing major.

Before:

Shot of the thing before it was torn to shreds and tossed. I thought the carpet was white or beige that obviously became dirty over time, but when it was ripped out, the creases of the rug revealed that it was actually a light baby blue type color. Ignore the ugly wallpaper. That’s going to get torn down and tossed soon, too.

After:

Not bad. I was honestly expecting something horrible like cracked or split wood. I mean why else would someone cover up some nice wood with a carpet? Anyway, they need a scrubbing and wood polish, maybe even a re-staining eventually, but I think it looks a lot better.

That said, I found out pretty quick why someone carpeted them. The steps are nosy as hell now with all sorts of squeaks. Another problem for another day.

“How is the house coming along?” “Can I see pictures?”

Cranky Old House was born in January 2005 as a way to journal progress for family and friends, and give me some extra motivation to get things done. I’d also like to help out others who may be in a similar situation and could probably learn a thing or two from the horrendous mistakes I have made, and will continue to make.

FAQs
Q: Who runs this site?
A: My name is Joe. Hi.

Q: Who is fixing up the house?
A: Mostly me, and various hired contractors that I hope don’t rip me off too much.

Q: Do you know what you’re doing?
A: Sometimes…

Q: Why “cranky old house”?
A: According to dictionary.com, “cranky” is defined as:

1. Having a bad disposition; peevish.
2. Having eccentric ways; odd.
3. Full of bends and turns; crooked.
4. Working unpredictably; erratic.
5. Rickety; loose.

Oh yeah, I can easily use just about all of those to describe this old house.

Q: What happens to the house when it’s fixed?
A: I’ll take a nice long vacation somewhere, assuming I’m not (more) dirt poor by then.

The house is actually a retirement home for my almost-60 year old momma, who looked on the bright side of things here a little too much when she first saw the place in the Fall of 2004. The bright side of the road to the basement of the poor house can be blinding. I’m just hanging around for a little while to help fix it up.

On the flipside, she’s getting too old for brutal NY winters and might move south to North Carolina in a few years with her best friend when they retire. Two old widowed yentas and their fleet of cats on a farm in the Carolinas. Hey, let me call CBS. I smell a reality show. She’s also getting too old to deal with lots of little kids running around breaking stuff and getting into everything (a main reason for the purchase of this place and the move). Currently the homes on each side of this one are empty and I’m sure if they get sold or rented to folks with large families and there is suddenly a lot of little hellians running around, the time table for her to bolt for a quieter location would speed up. Anyway, because of these situations, I’m also thinking about the resale value of the place and hoping we can at least break even, if selling it ever becomes an option.

Q: Can I stop by for a tour?
A: Sorry. It’s a private residence that is occupied. Maybe I’ll post the address some day, if it ever goes up for sale. Until then, you can find out more about the house by clicking the house info link at the top of any page.

FEEDBACK
I have comments turned on with almost all posts, so feel free to post your thoughts/advice/questions there. See the Feedback page for more informaton, guidelines, etc. I reserve the right to delete and/or edit any crap comments.

CREDITS
Unless otherwise noted, the pictures on this site are mine. Any future pictures and video clips will probably be mine.

This site is powered by Wordpress. If you want to start a blog/journal, then look into Wordpress. It’s free and very powerful web publishing software. I had this site up and running in a day. Then again I’m a web geek so getting scripts and running so quick probably comes naturally. Click on the link at the very bottom of this page for a link to their web site.

CHEAP PLUG
I do web design, programming, script customzing and other geek crap for a living. If you need a web site, or some sort of online solution like a database or customized search engine, hire me. I’ll hook you up with something nice… without robbing you blind. References available on request.

Since the place was apparently a rental that hasn’t been used since the late 90s, the outside was in pretty bad shape. Chipped and peeling paint galore. The strange thing is the house has vinyl siding but only in some areas, like whoever started it never bothered to finish. Go figure.

(Taken before the wood was scraped and painted)

Anyway, the painting was actually done before the purchase as part of an agreement with the seller. Some guy was hired to scrape and paint the parts that weren’t covered with the vinyl siding. I think he did a crappy job, but he was cheap and you get what you pay for.

Nonetheless, it looks better than it did when it had peeling paint everywhere. Even if some of the windows don’t open (painted shut), he slacked on a second coat at the rear of the house that is out of sight, spilled drops of paint on some windows, didn’t fully scrape off old paint in some areas before painting over it (for that wonderful bumpy look), and didn’t clean up all the paint chips that were scraped off.

The windows need to be replaced anyway and I’d like to finish the siding, so the paint is (hopefully) just a temporary cosmetic thing.

Total Cost: $500. Seller forked in $500 for a total of $1000 for the guy who did the crappy job.

The mailbox on the house was old, rusty, very small and pretty damn ugly. It was one of the first on the list of things to be replaced, but finding a new box to fit in that spot (which is only about 12 inches wide) was a bit of a challenge. A trip to the local Home Depot was a bust, as their offerings were either too big or just as ugly.

Before:

After doing some searching online, I found a couple sites that specialize in mailboxes; including….(wait for it)… mailboxes.com. They have quite a selection and I decided on a simple Traditional Black Decorative Black Mailbox.

At the size of 11 inches wide, I was a bit worried about the fit on the tiny wall, but it worked out well and was a nice tight fit.

After:

In closing, I have to say, this is the best mailbox I’ve ever used. It’s bigger than it looks, very sturdy, and it holds damn near everything put inside without the need to fold anything or leave the lid wide open. Very nice. For an extra $15.00, you can get a security lock add-on. I’m cheap so I didn’t get that, but it’s good to know there is something that can be added on there easily without buying a whole new box, if there are ever issues with stolen mail. You can get it with or without the holes in the front, which are there so you can easily see if you’ve got mail or not. However, this model also came with a “privacy plate”, which a thin metal slate that you can attach on the inside to block the holes.

Total Cost: $50.00 + Shipping

One Sunday in December, I was coming in from the store and really noticed how crappy the house numbers looked, especially when compared to others in the neighborhood. Actually, a lot of those suck too, to be quite honest. A house across the street just got a nice makeover, but for some reason they have yet to change the old tiny house numbers next to the new door and new mailbox that literally look like stickers out of a cereal box. Actually, they’re the type of numbers about an inch tall that you stick out on a mailbox out by the road or something, not on a house. Anyway, where theirs look too small, the ones here were big tin plate looking things that were nailed on and pretty rusty.

Before:

After spending way too much time looking into all sorts of fancy custom made plaques at mailboxes.com, I ended up getting cheap black plastic numbers from the local Home store. All the nice plaques were all just a tad too wide for the post I wanted to hang it on and I figured it would look pretty stupid.

Anyway. this was a simple task. I removed the old tin numbers (without slicing off a finger) and used some spackle to fill in the dents I made in the wood while trying to dig out the rusty nails with a screwdriver. Then I put a couple coats of white paint over the area after that dried to cover the pleasant rust outline the plates left behind. This actually took a few days because I had to keep waiting for it to dry and slap on multiple coats to try and match up the existing white paint (I was using cheap white primer). After about 3 days with no house numbers, I finally laid out and nailed the new numbers up.

After:

Oh yeah. Slick, effective and cheap. I wish everything was like that.

Total Cost: $12.00