JV_IL

I work for a company that serves municipal customers water infrastructure needs including valve repair, valve and hydrant assessments, unidirectional hydrant flushing (udf), leak detection, GPS/GIS and system mapping. Our division works throughout the US, while our parent company operates 100s of other companies worldwide that together strive to serve any water system (and other infrastructure related) needs.

My role is to build out our F550 service vehicles with the hydraulic dump vacs, hydraulic valve turners, generators and cord reels, Koehler motor based power packs, truck toolboxes, powerwashers and reels, arrow boards and strobe light setups. I am also responsible for maintaining, tracking, and purchasing all of the other tools used by our crews across the country including leak detection listening devices and correlators, line locators, drill driven gearboxes used to exercise main valves, jackhammers, partner saws, and a variety of other truck and shop based tools.

I've been "rebuilding" my small ranch home in Northern Illinois since 2012. I bought it in 2012 for 50k, I owe about 25k on it, and when its done it will be worth $130k. Although I don't see myself ever selling it. Renting it to someone trustworthy someday, but not selling it. This project has taken such a long time for a variety of reasons... 1) I'm doing many things for the first time so I research various ways to do things until I am convinced that a particular strategy is the best one 2) I spent the better part of 2 years travelling for work when I was in field operations 3) my original plan was to refresh the house but keep the overall layout original. To be honest, I was trying to do as much as possible without getting a permit. At some point, I received some money through an inheritance and decided that I was going to get a permit and I was also going to redesign the entire layout of the house. Basically, the version of the project I am working on now began in mid 2014.

I am currently (Spring 2018) almost done with the interior. All that's left is my 2nd bathroom (all plumbed, framed and powered-working on building my first ever walk in shower), the finished flooring throughout the house, the kitchen cabinets, and the baseboards and door/window casings.

The house is practically new. I paid someone to do the roof and all new sheathing and vents as well as installing a new furnace and AC unit. I moved my electrical service and upgraded it from 60A to 200A. I removed all the romex and rewired everything in conduit. I replaced every piece of gas piping, every drain and vent line, every water pipe, every return and supply duct-all to fit the new design. The layout is so different than it used to be that I supported the ceilings from the inside and removed the exterior front and rear walls and reframed and reinstalled them with all new doors and windows. I put an electric tankless hot water heater in. I completely encapsulated the crawlspace and installed,a radon system, interior French drain and sealed storm sump and pump). I installed all the r13 insulation bats in the walls and r30 bats in the attic with an additional 1.5ft of blown insulation on top of that. I've run 3 cat6 wires to each room (6 in the living room) and left 3 spares in each the attic and the crawlspace. In the living room I recessed a 70" TV into the wall with in-wall front left,right, and center speakers. The rear left and right are also in-ceiling speakers. Both bathrooms have bluetooth controlled speakers in the walls with volume/power controls on the wall. I've installed a set of outdoor speakers under the front and rear soffits. All of the speakers and Cat6 wiring connect to a centralized media cabinet hidden behind a spring loaded drywall access panel that sits behind the media cabinet. I did all the housewrap and siding, put a sliding door in the back bedroom that has built in blinds. I bought a used aluminum brake and bent and installed my own fascia and installed the soffit and sufficient soffit venting. I removed and relocated the bathroom and kitchen and added a second bathroom. My complete rough in has been inspected and approved by the city. I've been slow enough to have let my permit expire several times but the city has worked with me and has actually been pleasant to work with. The permit is good for the same amount of time regardless of whether you're a contractor and crew of tradesmen or just a single homeowner working around his work schedule and all of life's other obligations so I'm glad they have offered me relatively inexpensive extensions. I realize that my house will be worth 10s of thousands more just because my work has all been done legally. I used to view a permit as a hassle, but I don't anymore.

I'm sure there's a lot of other things I've done over these last several years, but I've rambled enough about it.

I've always been mechanically minded, but believe that you really need to do your homework before attempting to tackle a lot of diy projects that are not part of your normal tasks. I believe a good tradesman is worth spending good money on, and I know my limits. But I like a challenge, learning, and collecting good tools. There is so much nuance to so many of these tasks that it would be easy to make serious mistakes just by going with what seems to make sense. Theres almost an art to the actual research process. There's been many times online where I've seen two guys do something in a significantly different (and contradictory) way from one another. Often, both seem well respected and have successful businesses. In some cases I've seen them actually call each others methods out as incorrect on YouTube videos.

I've done my best to select which methods to utilize by considering first the credibility of the source, second whether the logic behind the method is convincing, and if a conflict still remains, Ill sometimes take the best parts of various methods in order to avoid as many pitfalls as possible. None of this makes me fast. But I do strive to be thorough.

The Terry Love forum has helped me answer a great deal of questions already along the way. Today I've decided to join and post my first question.

I can't believe I just wrote this much and I can't believe anyone will read this far. Sorry if you did make it this far...its probably been a boring ride.