Jim Katen

I know I can google that stuff, but I thought it might make for an interesting discussion. 

I freely admit  that I haven't attended to the study of telephone history as much as I should have, so I found this curious. The seller of today's 1912 house found the attached buisness cards inside the walls of an older structure on the property.  He believes that the older structure was a cabin that the builder lived in while constructing the main house. It's his contention that the business cards pre-date 1912. This seems unlikely to me because I doubt that telephones were in widespread use at that time. Of course, given the gaping maw in my knowledge of this subject, I could be wrong. The middle card shows a graphic of a candlestick phone without a dial - that probably narrows the date range. 

I'm also curious about the phone numbers. When I was a kid I remember neighborhood telephone exhange numbers that begin with neighborhood names, but they always used the first two letters of the exhange name followed by a single numeral, then followed by a 4-digit number. The numbers on two of these cards seem to have just 6 digits. And what's with "Sunnyside Central Farmers 7 X"? Did you just pick up the phone and ask the operator for "Sunnyside Central Farmers 7 X"? If so, why not just ask for "A Osterback."? There couldn't have been that many A. Osterbacks. 

And while we're at it, what's up with "Wood Saw." Two different reps? Two different eras? 

While I think it's hardcoat stucco, I otherwise agree with Mike. Like so many building defects, this is a failure where multiple trades don't properly resolve their work with each other. In this case, the gutter guy, the stucco guy, and the roofing guy didn't successfully integrate their jobs and the result is a leak right at the spot where they all come together. 

I suggest pulling the gutter, then having the roof guy come and remvoe a few tiles so that everyone can see what's going on in that corner. Bring a water bottle to pour some water on various suspect areas and you should find the leak pretty quickly. Once that happens, don't let anyone convince you to fix it with caulk. 

The roofer can't fix it. You need a stucco contractor to fix it. They'll need to cut back the stucco to about a foot above the roof, install building paper, lath, & weep screed, and lay in new stuco. 

The roofer did the best he could with what he was given. 

Any decent wood shop with a planer and shaper could manufacture it from scratch for you. If you're lucky, they might even be able to do it without the planer if they can find off-the-shelf clapboards with the right bevel and thickness. 

Finding the wood stock will be the trick. You really want vertical grain for a product like this - preferably old growth. 

What a fucking moron. 

Can I say that? 

5 hours ago, Kristie Brown said:

@Bill Kibbel Thanks so much Bill! I guess my next question is what are the risks, knowing that it was done this way? What kind of damages could occur?

Water can wick up behind the stucco and rot the wall. 

The installation in your picture is dead wrong, but it's not the roofer's fault, it's the stucco installer's fault. 

I'm sorry to hear that. Thanks for letting us know, Jim. 

Rational reactions to a rotten world. 

I had something similar in my room when I was very small. It was from a later period - the '50s, with a cowboys & indians motif. Haven't thought about it in decades. 

On 5/1/2024 at 4:07 PM, Bill Kibbel said:

Thanks Jim, but blissfully ignorant is easier.

Ain't it the truth? 

Those look like a lot of fun. I've got to admit though, the first thing I thought when I saw the cover was, "Jovrnal? What a bunch of pompous asses." 

I'd love to see this site grow and stay relevant, I'm just not sure what that would look like. The internet has changed . . . 

I can only speak for the way efflorescence behaves in my corner of the woods. When I see a band of it, with "uneffloresced" brick beside it (as is the brick at the upper left side of your 2nd picture) then it's a pretty safe bet that you've got water entry above that part of the wall. That might or might not be a bad thing, but it's definitely not a good thing. 

Quick tip to make your writing more engaging: Never start a sentence with "There is." When you do, that sentence is entirely unnecessary. Instead of saying "There is <thing>." Just jump right into whatever it is that's a problem with this thing. For instance, you might write:

There is much efflorescence (white powder) at the east and back walls of the building. This is typically caused by excessive moisture coming into contact with the water soluble salts in the brick and/or mortar.

You can brighten it up even more by getting rid of two-for-one phrasing and unnecessary modifiers: 

There is much efflorescence (white powder) at the east and back walls of the building. This is typically caused by excessive moisture water coming into contact with moving through the water soluble salts in the brick and/or and mortar.

Finally, get rid of the passive voice:

At the east and back walls of the building, water entering and moving through the brick has caused efflorescence (white powder). 

If you hire the plumber and watch him work, you can write off the cost as "education." 

With the exception of the clotheslines, that could be today's lower Manhattan. 

I like all of them. 

In the deep recesses of my mind, I recall something that Mike Casey wrote about this. Sadly, I don't remember the details, but I think it had to do with chlorine attacking the rubber on valve washers and O-rings. 

I'm also unfamiliar with that valve configuration, but I'd start by unscrewing the Phillips head screw at the base of that plastic stem and see if the valve comes out from there. 

I totally agree with Les. For many years this site challenged and sharpened me. 

Interactions on Facebook and other modern internet sites dull my soul, so I avoid them. 

What's the object in the left foreground, between the butter churn and the washtub? 

16 hours ago, John Dirks Jr said:

I had an Evel Knievel lunch box.  I dented on the edge because I thought dents were cool.  I used to like dents in car fenders too.  For some reason I thought it looked cool.  Battle scars I guess.  Weird huh?

You would have liked my old neighbor, back in Connecticut. She had a side business where she'd "age" other kids' new blue jeans by tying them to the rocks between high tide & low tide and leaving them there for a few days. 

I suspect a cheap element. It's just a coil of wire that gets hot when a 240-volt current passes through it. There's not much the oven can do to make it fail. Try an OEM one next time. 

Why do you put pneumatic tires on these things? The one that I had was constantly getting flat tires. No matter how often I patched the tubes, they kept leaking. 

My partner made one with rigid wheels - they never went flat. 

On 3/15/2024 at 1:52 PM, hausdok said:

I know that because I'm able to use my right little finger while typing again (something I hadn't been able to do for about 7 months)

Well, that should help with your "colon" as well, eh? 

I used the metal versions 40+ years ago. In the early 2000s, I placed a garage slab at my own house and found that they had been changed to plastic somewhere along the way. The metal ones pretty much stayed put as the concrete was placed, but the plastic ones tended to bow outward when concrete was placed on one side, causing the finished joint to have a slight curve. 

Frankly, I'm amazed that these aren't used everywhere. I rarely see a concrete slab without control joints around here. 

On 1/19/2024 at 12:50 PM, J.Doug said:

We put on new wall thermostat.  Where can we buy parts if we figure out what needs replacing?

In the old days, I'd suggest Graingers. 

Nowadays, you can find pretty much anything you need on "the internet."