Casa de las Ratas 6/29/2002

Casa de las Ratas Week 22

up to June 29, 2002

Manny the Gopher killer. He whacked it with the claw of the hammer...
Rat Crew 2, Topos 0

Last week Chris the City of Chino Hills Building Inspector came out to see our work. He was enthusiastic about our progress and gave us a completion sign-off for the re-roof permit. As for the combo inspection for framing, rough plumbing, rough electrical and rough HVAC, we passed with flying colors except for two minor corrections. One to cut back the wood around the heater exhaust to 1" clearance. And the other to fix a leak at the flashing around one of the soil stacks where Allen had coupled to a weird old pipe. That has been fixed. The guys screwed up the flashing around the heater exhaust when cutting back the roof sheathing so as soon as I get a new heater "B" flashing roof-jack, we'll have that done. Otherwise, Chris thought our work was really great.

Pictured here is the special wiring Gary put in the 1st bedroom closet for the future AV system. You can also see the bathroom rough plumbing on the other side of the wall.

The Rat House will be 21st Century compliant.

The hubs for the satellite dish and ethernet will be located in the 3rd bedroom closet.

The whole house is wired for satellite/cable and ethernet.

Very cyber.

Here you can see all the wiring for the kitchen. Provisions have been made for disposal, dishwasher, electric-start gas stove, and exhaust hood as well as numerous convenience outlets for blenders, toasters, etc.

You can see the former window over the stove has been filled in.

Behind the second bathroom's bathtub, on the outsdie of the house in the back is the main breaker-box. You can see the home runs Gary has put in here for all the house mains wiring.

Paco and Toto continue their stripping and sanding duties. Here you see the boyz working on the 2nd bedroom closet from the inside and the outside.

Oh yeah. There is my lovely 4 ton AC condensor. Jerry's AC is the best!

Poor Paco. The sanding never seems to end...

Meanwhile, Manny and I got all the chicken wire lath in shape. Building Inspector Chris gave us the go-ahead for the first coat of stucco scratch coat.

And this is what we will cover up today. The little metal grey thing propped up against the wall is a 12" x 12" access door for the bathtub that we will install on the outside wall here.

Let the Scratch Coat begin!

Meanwhile that front window ledge was getting sorrier by the minute. Toto was standing on it to do something and it started collapsing. I was aware of the termite infestation in the framing under this ledge, but had not done anything about it. Time to attack this mess...

Pictured here, the tiles have been lifted off. The framing substructure is nasty.

The wood was pretty well eaten.

So it was off to Chino Lumber one more time to score some treated 2 x 4's. Manny and I rebuilt a frame inside the ledge, put on a layer of building paper and K-lath. Mortar was mixed up and the tiles were put back on in 3 large sections. Good as new.

Go back to week 1 at Casa de las Ratas

Week 2: more cleanup and roof replacement.

Week 3: the big dumpster comes and the hot mop boys will show up.

Week 4: fixing the valleys, new kitchen subfloor

Week 5: prepping the roof, framing in the kitchen, ripping out more floors...

Week 6: Replacing a ridge board, new tiles on the roof, more paint, why not?...

Week 7: Let's get the roof finished! And destroy more stuff inside!

Week 8 & 9: Final touches on roof, removing all the old hard conduit/black pipe, filling yet another roll-off dumpster.

Week 10 & 11: Rough plumbing finished, electrical started, more tools acquired, and a big header installed

Week 12: Kill that old rear bathroom, level the yard, cast some concrete.

Week 13: More electrical work, HVAC installation finished, get ready for drywall.

Week 19: More painting to brighten up the Rat House. More window prep.

Coming up next week at Casa de las Ratas