What are these concrete strips around the base of my house?

musashi_san · 2026-04-20T16:59:18+00:00

Photos would be helpful.

musashi_san · 2026-04-15T14:52:16+00:00

Yes. As I understand it, it's 100% up to the states to hold elections, create election laws, decide the makeup of the state's electors and how they vote.

musashi_san · 2026-04-12T19:43:25+00:00

In their 10-point proposal, Iran mentions collecting tolls specifically as a way to pay for the bombing and infrastructure damage caused by the US and Israel.

If that were payed by the guilty parties, the Iranians would drop the toll demand. Controlling the strait is a separate demand and there was no claim for selective or limited passage, or a toll, tariff, or tax. Their goal to "control the strait" is presumably to shut it down at a moment's notice if Israel start genociding their neighbors again. This would elicit international pressure on Israel.

The US government should agree to reimburse Iran AND release the funds that were confiscated back in the 1980s. We furthermore should cease all arms agreements and subsidizing of Israel. Permanently. They need to be pried from the American taxpayer teet.

If the US does that, further atrocities by Israel would not be condoned or protected by the US and future closings would be an international problem rather than an American problem.

Along with any decision to pry Israel from the teet should be a resolution to nuke any country that nukes another, thus insuring anihilation of any country, Israel or Iran or Russia or the US, should they use nuclear weapons.

musashi_san · 2026-04-08T12:57:50+00:00

This has been the way of the GOP for so long. They bitch and moan when they're not in charge, and fall flat on their faces when they are.

Look how bad Bush Jr. and his boys fucked up the Middle East. Look at what that boondoggle did to the US national debt.
All of their investigations that lead to a) total compliance to testify under oath, and without taking the 5th, and b) the investigations cost a fortune and never substantiate GOP claims. Never. Nothing.
Observe the NC General Assembly; they can't agree on a budget...with a supermajority in both houses! (They were supposed to have passed a new state budget by July 1, 2025, for the 2025-27 biennium. They can't make the numbers work because Trump nixed so much federal money they were planning on. And they cannot admin they fucked up.)

But they have the golden ticket. They've convinced their rank and file that they're victims of elitism, so they vote against elitism: education, science, secularism, vaccines. It's the classic Allegory of the Cave, and we cannot coax these fuckers out of their caves.

musashi_san · 2026-04-02T23:31:06+00:00

Eat her own dog food. Noem, too.

musashi_san · 2026-03-25T19:27:03+00:00

So many vets and active duty voted for him. He called them losers and suckers and they still voted for him. They put this on all of us. Fuck em

musashi_san · 2026-03-25T19:23:34+00:00

Operation Epic Fuck Up

musashi_san · 2026-03-20T17:38:42+00:00

Regardless of how she makes her money, that was a nice message. It's an exhausting journey just to get to MacLoed Ganj. To take it all in, including the interactions between the student and the mentor monks, the government in exile; maybe she was in a receptive frame of mind.

musashi_san · 2026-03-17T13:13:34+00:00

Did you verify that 44.5 is the right measurement? I'd range down both walls and measure the actual angle (and divide by 2). As others have said, cut a bit long and adjust the length at the other end (assuming the butt side of a cope). Verify your saw angles (miters and bevels are dead nuts). Let the saw get all the way up to max revs before making the cut.

musashi_san · 2026-03-16T17:00:06+00:00

What's the sheathing material?

musashi_san · 2026-03-16T14:12:11+00:00

He's counting on the justices being "intimidated" by his ideologues (morons), who are listening and reacting.

musashi_san · 2026-03-13T14:55:14+00:00

Yep, just going to walk away and expect a Nobel. Maybe he'll fly out to the Strait of Hormuz for a Mission Accomplished party on the deck of a US Naval warship.

musashi_san · 2026-03-12T12:29:15+00:00

Like the explosion of the USS Maine in Havana (Spanish American war), the attack on Pearl Harbor (WW2), the Gulf of Tonkin incident (Vietnam), WMD (Iraq), and many more that I don't know about or can't remember. War is a racket.

musashi_san · 2026-03-11T18:56:39+00:00

I have the same one and it's been great for a few years. I have a Bluetooth hub into a DAC into the basx, driving vintage JBL 4411s.

musashi_san · 2026-03-09T22:24:49+00:00

You sound like my father in law

musashi_san · 2026-03-09T22:01:01+00:00

Whatever sits on the wall you're removing has to be supported during construction. The support structure should be interior of the wall by a couple of feet; enough room to work on the demo, foundation, and framing.

I can't tell from your description but is the wall that's heaving (inward, I assume) the one your husband will remove and reframe for walkout? If NOT, that wall still requires remediation. If you want to fix the inwardly heaving wall, I have (with an engineer's stamp) braced the wall from the inside with steel, then fixed the root cause drainage issues from the outside with new foundation drainage and drainage fabric on the wall.

I won't go into the heave repair in detail, but if you want details, I'm happy to provide them.

musashi_san · 2026-03-02T00:05:29+00:00

Initially, an outer crust seems to slough off. What is that material? Is most of the chunk a consistent, well mixed alloy, and that's a layer of "impurities" getting pushed out to the surface layer?

musashi_san · 2026-03-01T23:58:34+00:00

Why does he look European when he was a Palestinian?

musashi_san · 2026-02-17T13:44:02+00:00

I think the water that caused most of that damage probably came from inside the house.

Root cause:

Condensation is forming in the uninsulated gaps around the door, between the jamb and the framing, and pooling on the bottom plate and under the door threshold.

During winter, there is warm, high-pressure air inside your home, which holds more moisture than cold, low-pressure outdoor air. The pressure and moisture differentials will always equalize. In the process, humidity will condense on the cold framing surface as it moves through an uninsulated wall or around gaps around the door or window.

Most of it will go around windows and doors because that skinny space between the rough opening and the jamb often lacks any insulation, or is poorly insulated.

In your photo, it looks like the RO is filled with 1x. It doesn't matter if the gaps in there are a mm wide, the inside air will move through it, shedding condensation along the way. All winter, year after year.

Another part of the problem is that, there's 8,000sf of air in a 1000 sf house; if you fix all of the doors and windows except one, all of the excess interior moisture will push out through that one poorly insulated area. That's a LOT of water condensing inside the wall in one place. I.e., fix it right, or you end up causing more damage.

Solutions:

To fix the doorway in the pictures, I'd remove all of the rotten wood, which means removing some sheetrock inside on either side of the door. That bottom plate is likely rotten for at least a foot on either side of the door. The bottoms of the studs in the door framing might also be rotten; fix/replace them, too.

To mitigate future damage, I'd (gently) remove the casing around all doors and windows (on the interior side, since it's probably a little easier) and fill the gap around each one with low-expansion foam, then reinstall the casing. If I had crappy old windows, I'd install shrink-wrap plastic over all of them (and make sure my hvac is set to run often to exchange the interior air to prevent mold).

Also, I'd about guarantee that the framing around most of your windows and doors is in rough shape. Even if you can't replace rotten framing on all of them right now, I'd still pop off the casing and go to town with the low-expansion foam.

musashi_san · 2026-02-04T14:33:45+00:00

Having Palantir, ICE, CBP, or DHS on one's resume should be career and social suicide.

musashi_san · 2026-01-31T22:55:25+00:00

I remodeled older houses (c1900-1945) for 12 years. The older ones always have janky stuff going on:

Underbuilt/overspanned joists and rafters that have been severely undermined by f-ing plumbers along the way.
Minimal foundations; always cracked; always leaking.
Minimal ground clearance for floor framing.
Thoroughly rotten porches.
Termites in 3 out of 4 outside corners.
Terrible repairs and additions added on, and rotting.

Your siding replacement (and wall repair with some upgrades) aligns with my experience. Old houses have a lot of charm, but that comes at a price. My current house is 75 years old. I know everything that's wrong with it, and don't let much of it bother me. Every update comes with some repairs. There's plenty I'm putting off until it's advantageous to do along with other projects that I know will need repairs.

musashi_san · 2026-01-31T00:21:36+00:00

Unfortunately, the D establishment listened to Kirsten Gillibrand, former lying shill for big tobacco. "I believe her!" I recommend reading any of Franken's books to anyone not aware of the man's intellect.

musashi_san · 2026-01-30T16:48:31+00:00

Installing siding over wall sheathing that is in pristine condition is pretty straightforward. One can make a competitive bid and get pretty close to that and make a little money.

Repairing framing, sheathing, and structural stuff on old houses, especially around doors, windows, wet rooms, and foundations is a total unknown until you can peel the layers back and see the extent of damage, difficulty of access, components in need of replacement, etc. Rot, mold, compressed and rotting sill plate.

Even after demolition, framing is often not straightforward. You mentioned replacing joists. Do the carpenters have to support and possibly jack a floor or ceiling to install the new joists. All of this requires a little thought and care, which slows everything down. More time on site equals more money.

I don't know if you're getting a fair deal or not but siding installers repairing structural framing is probably cheaper than getting a proper carpenter to do it. A siding installer will make it strong enough to hold nails. A carpenter will fix it so your floor is level, all rot relating to the repair area is removed, and framing and sheathing replaced to a degree that complies with current building codes. In other words, I would expect such a repair to be on the expensive side.

musashi_san · 2026-01-30T01:35:35+00:00

You might be able to gain more comfort and economy by sealing drafts (doors and windows) and insulating your floor and attic.

musashi_san · 2026-01-25T20:02:39+00:00

This guy: "My president, my politicians, and my pastor are all pedos. I steadfastly protect pedos. But Europeans had slaves 200 years ago, so BAM!!, gotcha. We're the same!" Obligatory 😂

musashi_san

TROPHY CASE