June 30, 2009
Fixing the roof
After weeks of rain and more and more leaks forming in the back section of the house, I could no longer justify waiting another week for a change in the weather, and dedicated one Friday morning to replacing the roof section.
Here's the sad "before" shot. Sheets of tin shaped into tiles, full of cracks and ill-fitting overlaps.
In the lead up to the Friday I banked some time in lieu and scheduled a day off. I measured, remeasured and double checked my re-measurement to ensure I had the roof section dimensions right, and contacted Hancock Speedway to order the Colorbond. After several iterations of visiting or calling, being told they'd call back, and not hearing from them again, I started to gather that this is not your average customer-service orientated business. No bother, I'd just have to push the order a little. So I faxed through a plan, received a quote and placed the order without bothering them too much with consumer-level questions. That's when I found out that the material wouldn't be ready until 1pm on the Friday in question. Given I was to pick R up at the train station at 4pm and head straight to Tamworth, this was the first spanner in the works. Hiding my frustration at not managing a single returned call in the weeks beforehand, I convinced sheetmetal guy to take pity on my plight and he stated he could have the material ready by 9am.
I woke on the Friday morning to clear skies, and began carting tools up on to the roof as the sun was coming up. By 9am I had removed the 30 million bent, rusty, "intricately" placed nails from the existing roof and thrown the old sheets in a pile in the backyard, exposing the guts of the roof. That's when it first started raining.
Scouring the local hardware store's shelves for the biggest tarps I could find, I loaded up with the temporary protection and covered the bare roof as best I could using fragments of old tarps and plenty of bricks. The tarps did a great job of catching the rain, helping it drain into large, heavy pools before dumping through the roof and into the house below.
It was well and truly time to gather the new material to start providing some proper protection, so I headed down to Hancock's to pick my order up. After another painful lesson in businesses not particularly customer-service orientated, the sheetmetal lady found my order and asked where my vehicle was. I pointed to my car, but suggested that I'd probably be better off with the loan trailer I'd organised, given the order was over five metres long. Somewhat surprised, sheetmetal lady obliged and found me trailer boy.
Trailer boy helped me hook the trailer up in the rain and then in broken English (English was probably his first language, but not exactly his strong point), directed me to park somewhere down there. I parked somewhere down there, and waited for something to happen. Eventually trailer boy came out and mumbled something about the trailer. In the trailer were some stands that formed a ladder rack over the trailer. I began to install them into their slots, and this seemed to satisfy trailer boy, so I continued. Trailer boy then reappeared driving a fork lift and carrying what looked awfully like five and a half metres of Colorbond sheetmetal. He lowered the load onto the trailer frame, mumbled something about screws and then disappeared. He returned, passed me a bag of screws, and turned to leave.
"Ah... am I right to go?", I asked. mumble "yah" mumble he eloquently replied.
I looked at the metal on the trailer and realised all seven sheets were in the same bundle, and figured I could throw the screws in the car and finally get out of the rain and the road of the couple of other customers, who had patiently been waiting for this charade to move on. It occurred to me that I had no idea how secure the fork lift placed load was on the rack though, so I thought it best to at least tie the sheets down. I had a few bungee cords in the car, so grabbed a bunch of them and encircled the sheets, terminating as best I could on the tie-down point free zone of the rack.
At this point my phone rang, and some bloke called Steve was asking how to get into my place. I thought about how the rain was currently having no problem at all entering my place, before I suddenly realised I'd also organised a pest inspector to visit on the same day. I apologised and said I'd be home in 10 minutes. And finally, I carefully drove out of Hancock's.
As I was gradually slowing for the first set of lights, 50 metres out of Hancock's, it occurred to me that I couldn't see the load in the mirrors to check how it was travelling, due to its elevation on the racks. I needn't have worried, since seconds later as I was approaching a standstill, there was an almighty bang and seven sheets of Colorbond entered the car through the back window.
I popped the hazards on and jumped out to inspect the damage. Naturally, as I was planning on pulling the metal out of the window, the car started to roll back down the road. This is the first car I've owned where I've let someone else do the maintenance (it's a requirement of the warranty). Given the handbrake gets worse every time it is serviced, I'm not real excited about the arrangement. Anyway, I caught up with the car, jumped back in, hit the brakes, turned the engine off, put it in gear and returned to planning a way to get the metal back on to the racks. It was about then I realised I was the rubber-neckee on the road this time, as 20 drivers slowed for the lights, each peering out their windows at the strange man playing with his trailer in the rain.
With a few well timed grunts, I managed to extract the sheets from the back seat and heave them back on to the racks. I grabbed a few more bungee straps from the back of the car and rigged up some restraints to the front and back of the load. Then, with ever so gentle movements, I drove home.
By great fortune and generosity, two friends were waiting at my place to render assistance for a couple of hours. First I sorted the pest man out, marking the areas I thought might need some attention inside the house with a nice thick trail of the mud and water I'd collected so far that morning. Then my assistants and I managed to unload the trailer, and I talked them through the worksite and the plan of attack I had in mind. With a burning desire to be in two places at once, I then left them both while I took care of a little smashed window problem.
It turns out auto service shops just get glass repair shops to do the work anyway, so I started down the list in the phone book (literally the phone book - I was too wet to use the computer! I knew those books would come in handy for something other than stands one day!). After several wild goose chases, I finally turned to the big shop, O'Brien, who had just the window I was after. The friendly O'Brien lady was so sincere, you'd almost believe she'd never heard of someone smashing a car window through their own negligence before!
"Oh no, how did that happen?"
"Um, some sheetmetal slid off a trailer and into the back of my car."
"Oh you poor thing! That's no good. When would you like it fixed?"
"Ah... it's kinda raining and there's a hole in my car and I'm driving to Tamworth in 6 hours. Is now okay?"
"Oh yes of course, let's see what we can do for you. I'm going to call local O'Brien lady and see when they can fit you in."
I was then put in a teleconference with the two ladies who debated about when the job could be done. Local O'Brien lady was pretty adamant that they were all booked out for the afternoon, but with some pleading on my behalf by call centre O'Brien lady, local O'Brien lady conceded that if I was to get the car to them immediately and leave it with them for the afternoon, they might get a chance. That was all the invitation I needed, so I ended the call and then badgered one of my assistants to meet me at O'Brien while I returned the trailer. As fortunate would have it, O'Brien was a few shops down from Hancock Speedway.
I belted back to Hancock's with the trailer in tow. After I unhooked the trailer, a friendly senior trailer man came to give me a hand, and I related my mishap with the window. I then tested my luck by ending the story with "don't suppose you have any insurance or anything that covers something like that?". He asked which guy loaded it and tied it down. I told him young trailer boy had loaded it, but it hadn't been tied it down, except the few bungee straps I wrapped around it. He recalled that it should be tied down with some procedure, so it comes down to who tied it down and was well worth checking with fat desk man. We finished with the trailer and he lead me in to see fat desk man and related the story. Fat desk man wasted no time in raising his voice and proclaiming that it's the fault of you (pointing at me), the person that tied it down. "That's why we don't get involved in tying it down!". I apologised for upsetting his breakfast (it was getting on towards 11am, but I figured a man like that wouldn't let that stop him), thanked friendly senior trailer man and got out of there.
At O'Brien reception lady came to do the damage report but suggested I might need to get the panels beaten out first. Politely, but with some haste I assured her it was fine, that that was a plastic cover, not a metal panel, and that it is on the outside, and the window is on the inside. She accepted that explanation and carried on with the paperwork. For some reason reception man also wanted to assess the damage, and remarked that I might need to get the panels beaten out first. I pointed out that the window frame actually had superficial damage, that he was referring to a plastic cover that is on the outside, and the window needs to be done first. Ah yes he said, so it is. We negotiated a 3pm pickup time, ensuring that I could get the car at that time regardless of the state of the job, and belted back to the house.
My assistants then showed me how they were actually knights in shining armour and had managed, while I was dancing around on the phone in the house below, to unpack the sheets and raise several of them on to the roof ready to be put into position. It was reasonable straightforward then, albeit rather cumbersome, to cut a section for the chimney, slide the first sheet into place and smack the first screw home. With a couple more screws in place, we took a moment to assess the fit. I'd started at the end of the roof with the longer sections, and the first 5.4 metre length of Deep Ocean Colorbond corrugated roofing fit like a glove.
It was nearing midday by that stage and my assistants literally had a plane to catch. They helped me raise the remaining sheets on to the roof, were compensated for their critical contribution only by my sincere thanks, and left to pack their bags.
The other two longer sheets slid into place without too much trouble, but while drilling through the sheets the bit became snagged between the two layers and snapped. No problem of course, I'll just grab another one from the 96 million bits I've bought over the years. Except that I couldn't find any. Every bit set I found had the same gap where the smaller bits were supposed to be. Back to the hardware store for a refill and another exhibit in the case for having my own garage in the future. I was to break another four bits before I got the knack of lining up multiple sheets mid-drill.
Not long after I finished screwing the second sheet in place I realised the amateur mistake unfolding. From my observation post on the roof I could see four or five other corrugated roofs, and based on the unanimous evidence from my committee of four or five, I realised I shouldn't have screwed the first seven or eight screws into the valleys of the corrugation. It makes a lot of sense really, given the better leak protection and more tolerance to flex that screwing into the mountains gives. I was glad this realisation hadn't occurred to me 180 screws down the track instead.
Next up were the shorter sheets. They slid neatly into position but hung about a handspan over my intended edge. Disappointed, I nevertheless continued, since the alternative was a tarp, and the overhang only obscured a fairly superfluous gutter, draining instead on to the existing corrugated iron of the lower roof section. A few days later I redid the measurements and discovered the sheets were in fact 170 millimeters longer than requested and quoted on the packaging note. When I rang up Hancock's to ask if there is any simple method of fixing up the overhang now that the sheets have been laid, I was told that I was lucky it was only four sheets that came too long, and that the roofies would just trim a roof's worth with tin snips. Mildly curious why someone in the trade would snip 20 millimeters at a time, instead of using one of the far more practical and neat tools available, or even get the material cut to size in the first place, I nonetheless just resolved to bank another lesson, and be happy that the overhang was not critical.
By 2:30pm I had all the sheets into position, a few screws in each sheet and filled a few of the gaps around the edges with silicone, and it was time to pick the car up. I quickly packed the tools up as best I could, did some hurried preliminary packing for the Tamworth trip, and scrubbed my bloodied and silicone covered hands. As I was about to jump on the pushbike to race down to O'Brien, they called and happily announced the car would be ready to pick up... at 4pm. R's train arrived at 4:06pm, and it didn't take too much calculation to figure this was a non-ideal situation. When I explained that I really would like the car earlier, and asked if he could cancel the work so I could pick it up, he replied that no, they've already progressed too far and have had to take the cover right off. I could just imagine the conversation between glass guy and receptionist lady,
"Shouldn't the customer get those panels fixed before we replace the glass?"
"Nah, he reckons the cover is on the outside so the glass will go on the inside"
"Oh look, we have to take the cover off the outside to replace the glass on the inside! Hmm, that's going to take a while."
I asked the bloke on the phone whether I could pick it up any earlier, and he replied, "okay, it'll be ready by 3:30pm". Beauty. I spent another 20 minutes packing some belongings and preparing for the drive-by loading that was about to take place, and then jumped on the bike headed for O'Brien.
At O'Brien I did my best to shake the rain off, loaded the bike in the back of the car and entered the shop to pay. I noted on the way past that the job looked excellent, a nice clean window in place and all the glass fragments cleaned up. It was clearly nearing Friday afternoon chaos in reception and when someone finally became available to take my money I had my speech to thank the team for accommodating my hurried plight well and truly rehearsed. Payment, like a jab with a needle, didn't take too long, and receptionist lady finished by printing a receipt. If I had realised that it would require searching for spectacles to read the date from her watch (despite the extra large print day clock above the computer) and even some assistance with some computer function, "Baaaarry! How do I get past this screen?", I could probably have done without the receipt. But my desperation for each minute was hardly to be expected and with the transaction complete I thanked them for going out of their way for me, jumped in the car and high-tailed it home.
At home I put some left-over Thai in the microwave for two minutes, giving me a deadline for showering and dressing. I then grabbed the food, the bags lying in my room, filled my pockets with essentials and blasted out the door. Travelling under the speed limit, of sound in air, I met R at the train station, threw her in the car and then boom, we were off to Tamworth! I was about 4 minutes late picking R up, but apologised and explained we'd make the time up because I'd printed off this map of an awesome shortcut through the Hunter Valley. It was a good plan, but it would have been better if I had remembered to pick the map up from my bed at home. It could still have been a good plan if I had not have lost count of the roundabouts on the Newcastle Link Road, and accidentally ended up on the Freeway North. Not to worry, with a quick detour up the Freeway I caught back up with my intended route and thanks to some unexpected sign postings, managed to follow it faithfully all the way to the highway.
Apart from a kilometre of coal train at Scone, the trip was otherwise fast, and by calling in some organisational favours on the way to make up for my lack of preparation, we arrived for a sensational show in Tamworth only ten minutes late. On stage to make it very, very worthwhile, was the talented Kyle Raftery. You should check him out - he's much better on a ladder than I am.
Posted by LightYear at 12:04 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
May 24, 2009
Project DR Lancer
As circumstance would have it, this arrived at my place the other day, for a total of $300.
I figured it might be a cheap way to get my sister into her first car, and she tended to agree. It was a recent write off, so the first job was to assess the damage.
Obviously the bonnet, headlight, indicator and left guard were rooted, but the bumper look salvageable. What use is a perfect bumper on a first car anyway? Inside, the frame surrounding the light was mangled good and proper. Once I had the guard off it was obvious the frame inside the guard was bent in, crushing the air resonator box and fuse box.
I started the repair by removing all the panels from the front so I could measure and compare the damaged side to the good side.
And then began a scientific and sophisticated method of pulling the bent sections out.
The results from the first pull were impressive. With many cycles of gentle tugs and measuring, I had the important mounting points back within 10mm of the other side.
From here I started the hammer work, belting the frame in all manner of directions to try to match the shapes back up, and using a hydraulic jack to lever the heavy parts upwards. Finally, it was time for the first trial fit.
In the fading light I started to bolt everything back together and glue the cracks in the plastic. I finished for the night leaving some parts in traction for the glue to dry, the indicator waiting to pop back in, and the rest of the front end looking very neat indeed.
This morning I'll popped the final parts together and get some photos of the finished product.
Cost so far has been:
Car: $300 Light: $150 Indicator: $38.50 Guard: $150 Bonnet: $220 Total: $858.50
Posted by LightYear at 9:31 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Tips I may be bullshitting you
Not to be out done by the charlatans of the world, I have my own bag of tricks that are sure fire signs that I'm bullshitting you. Here's ones to look for:
- I'm wearing a tie. A tie is like a mask that hides deceit behind faux professionalism. I've developed a mistrust of ties, and in particular, never trust myself in a tie.
- I start a story with "During my travels through". I probably haven't travelled through that location and it probably has nothing to do with what I'm about to say, but it does give it an air of authority!
- I have a microphone. There's something about the giddy power of voice amplification that lends itself to telling porkies.
- I say "I give up". I actually mean you should give up because I'm going to wait until no one is looking and then work single-mindedly to win.
Posted by LightYear at 1:44 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
May 23, 2009
Tips for Bullshitting
It seems there's no want for examples of fine bullshitting in the world around us. What occurs to me is the brazen techniques used across the board, that no doubt given the right audience, actually prove convincing. I think I might be allergic to bullshit - every time I see it some dash of bullshit in a piece of communication, I can't help but completely disregard the entire piece. Here's a little list I've collected, of ways to bullshit:
- Polarise the argument. Establish an us versus them mentality, preferably where them is "society", the government, or those not privy to the bullshit exposition. Few will challenge the assertion that all of society has been teaching them the wrong thing their whole lives, and that you're there to save them. Bullshit alert: "Still struggling with your normal saw? That's because everyone has been doing it completely wrong by pushing the saw instead of pulling it. Use this new 'pull'-saw instead."
- Throw in maxims, but take them entirely out of context. People like the familiarity of a maxim, and don't seem to mind when they're highjacked to mean something entirely unreasonable.
- Make comparisons to a few household name geniuses, claiming they knew it all along, and therefore, all the geniuses in the world have known the bullshit all along. Make sure the genius is dead, so people wont bother to check if they hadn't anything to do with the argument at all.
- Use graphs in appallingly asinine ways. Graphs have a way of suggesting scientific rigour without requiring it. The axes need not make sense and there does not need to be data relating to the graph. Extra tip: the word "exponential" can mean just about whatever you want it to mean, when describing bullshit with a graph.
- Make words up. For extra points, combine two words into one, instead of using "and" or some other basic sentence construct. Extra bonus points if your made up words form some barely pronouncable acronym.
- Claim nonsense statistics, especially when describing non-quantifiable data. Many people don't know what a denominator is let alone care that a statistic is worthless without one. Therefore, you are free to claim that 70% of wind is air, or something equally meaningless.
- Use "order of magnitude" when you mean a lot. Bonus points if the metric you're refering too isn't even quantifiable. Bullshit alert: "We are living in a world where technology is changing by an order of magnitude every ten years"
Posted by LightYear at 1:22 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)
May 5, 2009
Fixing the garage
While I'm keen as mustard to actually improve this house, having a house that is more than 80 years old does mean that the occasional weekend is taken up just putting bits back where they should be. Last weekend I had a chance to put the end beam in the garage roof back where it should be.
Before I put the gutter up, rain off the roof used to drain straight on to the wooden beam running the width of the garage. The beam was fairly rotten and not entirely rectangular any more, but I managed to get the gutter up anyway. The extra weight of the rain carrying gutter however, was too much for the weakened beam and it had started to separate from the rest of the roof.
Here's what it looked like once I had it down.
I considered sanding it back to the good wood and reusing it, but a quick trip around the corner to the Mitre 10 had me convinced that for less than $40, I was better off carrying a brand new one home! The new beam measured 45x140x3900.
The old beam was secured to the wooden frame of the garage by pairs of 70mm nails, which were really struggling for traction in the old timber. The friendly Mitre 10 bloke recommended some monster allen head wood screws. I'm pretty confident the garage will fall over before this beam comes loose.
Getting this 3.9m beam up into position was only a little less difficult then actually pre-drilling and then screwing it into place while it balanced there. I ended up hammering a bunch of nails part way in to provide rest points for the beam, and then pulled some tricks out of Kyle's book by balancing on the ladder, resting the beam on my shoulder, the bolt in one hand and the drill in the other.
You'll see it was important I actually got a photo of my nice new beam, because the next step was to put the facia and gutter back on, entirely obscuring my work. Getting the facia into place proved even more difficult than the beam, since there was no where to place supporting nails, and the facia had a terrible habit of bending and threatening to snap in two.
Nonetheless, the facia and gutter was much more secure with a solid new beam to nail to, and the job was done quicker than I expected.
Posted by LightYear at 12:26 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)
April 4, 2009
Fixing the microwave oven
Some of the keys on my microwave stopped working recently. In the past this has been fixed with the timeless technique of forgetting about it and hoping for the best. This time the problem was more stubborn.
It's a fairly simple unit, so I pulled it apart looking for gremlins.
Here's what the keypad looks like from the front, and from the back.
The green flat flexible cable (FFC) on the left is the connection to the keypad. The keypad itself is a sealed unit, so I figured the problem was in the connection.
First I tried removing the FFC, blowing in the connector, wiping the connection pins and reseating the cable. With some pressing and probing, a few more keys started to work, until I happened upon the correct combination of presses and prods to get all the keys working. By the time I had it all back together however, less keys were working than before I took it apart.
From there I tried a bunch of stuff I was sure would fix it. I used various sprays on the electrical connections and cleaned the surfaces with sharp instruments. I even wedged a piece of plastic in to increase the pressure of the low-insertion force (LIF) connector, and trimmed the FFC so the connector gripped a fresh section. But the response of the keypad was getting worse.
Finally I bit the bullet and ran out to Jaycar to buy this $30 conductive pen.
My aim was to reapply the conductive pads that sit on the end of the FFC. Somehow the tiny pads allow electrical conductivity between the pins in the connector and the tracks within the FFC. It was surprisingly hard to be neat with the pen, but by carefully alternating between the pen and an X-Acto knife, I was able to create large, consistent pads on the end of the FFC.
This time, after the conductive ink had tried, as soon as I replaced the keypad in the microwave, all keys worked perfectly.
Long story short, a $30 conductive pen could save you a $200 microwave.
Posted by LightYear at 2:58 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
March 31, 2009
Companionship
I have been spending a considerable amount of time in front of the computer over the last few weeks. Normally this makes for a fairly isolated existence, given the level and length of concentration involved. By an uncanny culmination of coincidences however, I've had a constant source of companionship.
My secondary monitor is an old CRT that spews out a fair bit of heat up through its vents. It also has a reasonably flat top that provides a high shelf in my room. Add to that the fact that I'm at home a lot these days, and that my cat is terrified of the new cat of the house, and you have a recipe for many hours of cat-on-monitor.
It's quietly comforting, and often amusing to have this sedentary companion keep me company:
And not to be out done, the big bully cat has her own interpretations on comfort:
Posted by LightYear at 10:28 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
March 27, 2009
Metering Musing
In 10 years time, most households will have a display in their home that reports on the current and recent utility usage (primarily electricity, water and gas) within the home. Such devices are already available and the development and interest is exploding. The cost to install the hardware in new homes will become trivial, and retrofitting will become more accessible. The applications are both obvious and far-reaching, and the implications for awareness of domestic energy consumption are impressive. More esoteric applications include charging or rewarding individual house occupants for their power usage, or compiling real-world application efficiency reports.
In 10 years people will find it hard to believe that people were so ignorant of their household energy usage footprint 10 years ago. Like cars that report their own fuel consumption, houses that report their own energy consumption will change perceptions.
Today, when I check the water meter I figure if the digits are changing, I have a leak to attend to. If I check the power meter and nothing is changing, I figure it is broken.
In 10 years time this wont be the case.
Posted by LightYear at 2:38 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
