Day Four: We Just Caused Ourselves Major Trouble

We arrived back at the house around 8:00 A.M.  We both knew that our most productive hours would be the first two...our bodies would simply shut down in the heat after that.  Our goal for today was to remove the remaining six posts that held up the wheelchair ramp.

The house at 8:00 A.M. this morning.  Six posts remaining!

But oh, did we have a surprise waiting for us!

The reason the first five came out more easily than these was simple...these remaining six were stuck in CONCRETE!!!  Oh, the surprises that come with a "new" home!  This was NOT a welcome surprise.

We used a couple of different methods for removing these posts.  The first involved me screwing in a 2x4 to the side of the post.  I would then take a carjack and jack up a brick directly below this new board in the side.  If all went well, the post would start raising.  This wasn't a perfect method, though, and often the post would start raising to the side (from a lopsided force on one side).  But it worked well on three of the posts.  So we still had three left.

Removing the first of six posts.  The concrete was NOT a welcome surprise.

One of the posts broke below the ground, and frankly, that was FINE by me.  My dad would constantly encourage me to just take that chainsaw and do ALL of the posts this way.  But as I always say to him, "Dad, a job that is worth doin' is worth doin' right!"

But that DID make some more work for us.  :)  The last two posts we tried a different trick.  Last night I had watched a video on the internet for creative ideas to remove posts stuck in the ground.  One guy suggested using a long board for leverage.  So instead of the jack, I pulled a 16-foot board from the old pile of deck wood.  With Dad's "I don't think this is going to work" in the background, we both lifted up on the long piece of wood, and wouldn't ya know it, the pole lifted RIGHT out of the ground!!!  It was amazing!!!  Leverage at its best.  I think we were both kind of amazed.

Of course, we had to try this on the last one, too, but Dad had felt some strain on his back on the last one, so it was up to me.  I simply couldn't get it up myself.  So I had to resort to the jack again.  That board ended up breaking below the ground, too.  Well, removing nine out of eleven isn't bad, I guess.

To be honest, with the heat, I wasn't overly disappointed that the board broke.  That made my decision rather easy about removing it...it would stay in the ground forever.

We cleaned up the sidewalk which was covered with everything imaginable.  Underneath the wheelchair ramp sat around six inches of dirt, a broken concrete birdbath, several disintegrating shingles, a barrette, a house key (probably dropped through the cracks), and plenty of rocks.  The sidewalk was a mess!!!

The concrete was covered with rubbish!  The dirt was five to six inches deep here (perfect for filling the holes!).

But once again, I was just so happy that the sidewalk and step still existed!!!  We filled up the large hole in the yard from a couple of weeks ago with this dirt...along with the several holes from removing the posts.  It was kinda nice having free dirt!

The sidewalk looks great!  I removed some more overgrown ivy, and I'm pretty excited for a good rain to clean the sidewalks and have all of the dirt settle into the white rocks.  I really think this walkway could look pretty sharp!

Due to the heat, we moved inside.  We would never know just how much that decision would affect us!!!  Yesterday, we had messed around with the dishwasher (and got it working), and today we decided to tackle the kitchen sink and garbage disposal.  The disposer itself did not work (at first), but after using the proper tool, we were able to get it to spin.  Because wires were just hanging out from the bottom, Dad, being an electrician, wanted to clean up the wires below the sink.  So he suggested putting in a junction box for the wires.  Fine by me.

Below the kitchen sink.  We wanted to clean up the electrical wires just hanging around.

If we only knew what lay ahead.

The drywall screws that we had were too short to go through the cabinet and the drywall and hit the stud, so I went outside to grab some old deck wood screws that were longer.  Much longer.  After finding the stud, I screwed the first screw into the junction box.  I didn't tighten it down all the way and then screwed the second screw into the bottom hole.

I then took the old disposer wires and fed them through the side of the junction box.  I was bent over down below the sink with my face a short distance away from the box.  POP!!!  A large circular blue arc was accompanied by a loud pop, a tinge of smoke, and me screaming and jumping back.  Oh my, was I shaken up.  My heart was racing, and my chest hurt.

Little did I know but when I had screwed in that first screw, I had chosen the one area in the stud where live electrical wires were criss-crossing through.  The junction box had then become hot, and when I closed the circuit with the other wires, the box shorted out.  Thankfully, I had been using the screwdriver properly when I installed the box, and I was holding the rubber around the wires when the short happened, but wow did that shake me up.  Also thankfully, the circuit breaker tripped (as it should) and closed off the wires.

But boy oh boy, did we now have a LARGE project ahead of us.

The junction box in the lower left with the long screw that penetrated a live wire.

After crawling in the crawlspace, we determined that all of the wires fed through the walls.  Out of sight and out of us being able to work on them.  This project was going to be huge.  Sigh.

Everything else now paled in comparison.

The entire afternoon wasn't altogether unproductive, though.  I was able to pick up a 10-month-old washer and dryer set for $350 (originally over $800), so that was good.  I also had the wild idea of wood-filling the termite holes in the hardwood rather than replacing the entire piece.  After filling in the holes, I was quite pleased with the results.  I used large splinter pieces from the outdoor deck to fill in the big hole before I then filled it in with wood filler.

Here's to hoping that all works!

The old termite damage.  I had the wild of idea of just filling in the gaps rather than replacing!

The damage after being wood-filled.  I'm pretty pleased.  There were several holes, but this was the largest.

The "new" washer and dryer.

So the good news is that the front yard looks sooooooooo much better!  The sidewalk cleaned up magnificently, and I am excited about it how it will look after a good rain.  I have a working dishwasher (I had allotted $400 to replace that) and a nice washer and dryer for cheap.  I'm also thrilled about the floors.

A rather successful day!  The front looks sooooooo much better!!!  A free and clear sidewalk!

The bad news (and it's really bad) is that we now have a very large electrical issue to address.  We will have to tackle that in full tomorrow.  It's my last day to work on the house this week!