I'd love to see some vids of your projects...
Been following the thread from the start
If you have the time for the editing etc...
For that matter they don't have to be 5 star quality...
Sure.. give us the grand tour..
Great looking job thusfar Swire..

The short version of the grand tour takes about 45 minutes when I've given guests tours.  There is so much history in the house itself...something that I really haven't covered much here because I'm using the house as my main workshop, so almost everything inside is a disaster.  The pictures on page 1 are the best pictures of the inside right now.

The house projects are never a simple project, one task will usually end up requiring work on 3 to 5 other components of house.   For example sealing up the sunroom's flat roof.  It turns out the electrical running to the room is bad and the ladder rafter on the end needs to be re-supported.  Both require pulling up more of the roof sheeting.  I'm not sure what electrical I want ran through ladder rafter, which is closed on the bottom, so I have to plan all future electrical and network work for outlets, cameras, and lights before I can redo the electrical.  I can't close the roof up 100% until I figure all those additional projects out and complete those tasks.

Working outside I can generally complete a task with at the most involving one other project.  So I've been doing a lot of work outside, since I can actually complete those tasks.

Here is one of the updates that I've been wanting to do for awhile.  The first picture was taken in Feb 2018 with leaves off the tree you can see most of the property and get a decent view of the creek.  Now all that is visible is the center part of the back yard and the rest is all green leaves.

Feb 2018



July 2018 - Not the exact same angle but either way you aren't seeing much this time of year.

Just a pair of cheap leather gloves that I tossed afterwards.

Either I've developed a tolerance after being broken out for 6 months straight the other year or I've figured out how to scrub the oils off better.  The key is using a degreaser soap and scrubbing instrument within 2 hours of any possible exposure.  After moving that I took a bottle of the foaming Dawn dish soap into the shower and used a washed cloth to scrub from head to toe.  Not a single reaction to the vine and I actually drug that into woods, moved it around trees, and found a good spot for it.  Leaves and the vines were hitting my head, ears, and arms.

I'm still swamped with things and very behind on updates.

Good news is I had a guy from the Department of Natural Resources come out and look at all the trees on my property.  I wanted to get a better understanding of what I had and what I could do with them. I have 5 walnut trees over 28 inches diameter that 16 foot boards could be cut out of.  But due to the location he said I would have to pay a tree crew to top the trees before any logging company would be interested in taking the trunks.

Bad news is just the other day I found signs of termites in another part of this house.  This is the part of the 1870 addition where they kicked the front wall out and extended the room by about 5 feet.  They didn't dig a crawlspace, just put the boards on rocks near the ground.  All the rain this year has kept the ground wet and apparently the termites found a way in.  I tapped the 1870 baseboard and it rattled like cardboard.    So I get to pull up all the pavers in front of the house, dig a 6 inch deep trench and do a soil treatment around that section of the house.

It is this section of the house that sticks out.

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Here is a different angle of the area that I wanted to dig up in order to do a termite treatment.  Seems simple enough just remove pavers and dig down 6 inches...but remember on this house there is no simple project.

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Remove pavers complete.  Dig down 6 inches....NOPE!  Surprise concrete!!!!  *sigh*  I sort of like that there is concrete poured but at the same time I can't do a termite treatment because of it.  You can see all the moisture on the side of the stucco.  Everything that is dark gray or green is holding moisture.  Part of that is due to the 2nd story roof not draining properly, hitting a first story roof, and then running down the side of the house.  The pavers and dirt were actually holding the moister against the house where it was able to travel under the bottom of the stucco and start loosening it from the house.  One simple termite treatment just turned into 3 major problems and 3 smaller problems.

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Inside the house here is the sign that pests are destroying it.  It may not be termites, it could be more of the powder post beetles but the waste material is fairly course like termite.  You can see the plaster on the wall is cracked and you can tell it has been patched at least once before.  That is due to the water problem outside making its way inside.

I will have to resort to treating the inside of the house and hitting the boards from the basement.  Hopefully that will slow things down until I either buy a rotary hammer drill so that I bore holes through the concrete and inject the termite treatment or I bust up the concrete.

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I have pictures from about a month ago that I still need to get put up.  I have way too many irons in the fire right now and feel like I'm behind on everything.  I'm hoping to get caught up on some things this weekend and hopefully I will have time to post some proper updates.

I've barely set foot in the project house recently.  I have several new irons in the fire right now but hopefully the result of them will be more time to work on the house.  Plus there was heightened tensions due to a situation going on, I just stayed away hoping that things cooled down.

I did a quick walk through the property today.  The mosquitoes were really bad so I didn't spend much time there.  I did find these two hanging out on top of a brush pile.

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I've let the back yard go, for a couple reasons.  I finally got back around to cutting it.

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Between the constant rain, crazy neighbor, getting married, and a stressful job the project house has taken a back seat this year.  Sometimes, as you said Life Happens.  I'm still working on more changes.  A job interview coming up for a job that is mine if I want it.  To facilitate even more opportunity I started my own company that will as a subcontractor under one of the authorized state contractors. Assuming everything works out as planned the new arraignment of starting my own company, managing being a subcontractor, and using that to work a new fulltime job will actually be about 80% less stressful that what I am doing now.  Also the company is setup to incorporate my drone and digital marketing.  So now I am a legit licensed business with a liability policy that covers flying my drone for aerial photography.  I've been a bit busy this year.

I can get a drill and make the hole.  They use some type of pressurized sprayer to inject the solution into the ground.  I'm not sure what PSI would be needed or if it is something that I can run through a pressure washer to get the pressure up.  Other than that one spot I think the rest of the house is ok.  The fix for that spot requires changing part of the second story roof edge to redirect water.

I doubt they would provide any type of warranty without doing an entire treatment.  They charge by the perimeter linear feet which would make a full treatment very expensive, a minimum of $5,000 from general numbers I was given.  I have the chemicals and can do a treatment myself...I just have to find the time.  I've already taken some action to stop the bugs from eating the house.  I'll be putting together a comprehensive plan for down the road.

There are two approaches for 2 different types of bugs.   The first for termites is a ground treatment around the entire perimeter.  A six inch deep trench is dug and then a solution is mixed and poured in it.  The chemical can be purchased off the shelf at Lowes, Rural King, and maybe Tractor Supply or online.  It takes about 32 ounces for 4 gallons of water which treats 10-13 linear feet of the trench.  A 32 ounce bottle of the chemical is around $20.  That will give you a rough idea of the cost to treat it yourself.  https://www.ruralking.com/bayer-advanced-termite-carpenter-ant-control-concentrate-quart  There are different chemicals that could be bought at https://www.domyown.com/

The other approach is for killing off fleas, mosquitoes and other bugs that might try to get into the house from the surface.  That chemical is called Bifen.  It comes in 2 strengths 7.9% and 25.1%.  It is added to a backpack spray or can be put in a conainer that connects to a garden hose.  Then it is sprayed on the outside of the house and around windows.  It can also be sprayed on the under side of foliage to kill mosquitoes.  It has a residual property of 30+ days outside and 60 days inside.  The big box stores sell a bag of granules for yard fleas and ants, it is the same chemical but only treats the surface of the ground.
https://www.amazon.com/Bifen-Insecticide-Bifenthrin-Equivalent-Talstar-PRO-Pint/dp/B00C4Y286O/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1539279619&sr=8-2&keywords=bifen

A couple more weeks and my schedule will be a lot less hectic and I will have more time for the house.  I did fly the drone today and took some pictures.  This is looking from the middle of the back yard down to the creek.  Other than mowing the grass a couple times I really haven't done anything to the back yard and gardens.

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The crazy neighbor may be gone.  I hope so, no more fumes filling the entire back yard or a mentally ill man walking around holding his Glock while staring at people.

The creek will only be visible from the flat roofs of the house, in my long list of "nice of haves" A deck on the roof so I can get that exact view that the drone has would be awesome!

How sacrilegious would be it to turn a an original window built in 1812 into a door to the roof?  The lower window sill is completely rotten and leaking water into the house.  So I need to do some major reconstruction either way. The window sill rotted enough the storm window frame shifted and the storm window is broke.  Not even sure where the original house window frame is.  So I could spend $500 to repair the window or spend $500 and put in a door that access to the flat roof and future roof deck.  

The window straight ahead is one that I would consider turning into a door.  The window on the right is in the stairwell and won't work.  That whole roof structure area needs to be modified as it is.  There is a gap in the subsurface and not it appears the flat roof right under the window is leaking down inside the house.   Attached File

One of the project houses I looked at years ago had a permanent deck mounted over a nearly flat roof addition.  That addition was mostly destroyed by water and mold everywhere.  No easy way to patch the roof when you can't get to it.

In this situation I know the ceiling inside under that window is drywall.  There is a hole in it and I can see part of the roof decking.  It might be another room that I need to go gut in order to get at the bones and then rebuild it to accommodate my new plan.

ETA: I will redo this post and add more details.  I was on the laptop that I used to inspect the well and wanted to post a quick screen shot.  I will have video and pictures of the project.

I finally started work on the well project.   The history is that a hand dug brick lined well was carved down through the bedrock 50 feet.  At some point it was capped and a casing put in place.  The property had an old hand operated well pump when I purchased it but the pump was rusted and would not work.  I pulled it out and the pipes had holes rusted completely through all over it.  Earlier this year I tried to pull a water sample but at 25 feet I hit dirt.  I left it alone until now.

Today I build an very simple air lift pump.  It uses pvc, compressed air, and water.  I put together 3 ten foot sections of 1 1/4" pipe, ran the air hose into it and down the side of the pipe, and fasted a couple bolts as agitators to the end of the pipe.  Then blow compressed air into it.  The air expands and pushes the water/dirt upwards.  That is method I was using when I broke through the dirt layer.  It looks like debris from the well hole collected on the surface of the water and bridged over.  The air lift pump worked and after about 5 feet of dirt the pump broke through.

This is a picture of the blockage that I found in the well casing at 25 feet.

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A quick video of the air lift pump pulling up the silt at the bottom of the well.



Around 6 hours later the water was coming out clear.  The air lift pump does not move much water and takes awhile.



Some pictures.

My "well inspection" camera.  I cheaper IP camera connected with a long network cable.  
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The air lift pump equipment.  Very simple.

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The water samples.  The one on the left was at 40 feet first thing in the morning.  The middle are at 50 feet.  The one on the right was after I injected air into the well and was able to get down another 4 feet.  It was collected as I first started pumping all the silt up.  The other bottles had time to settle.

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The bottle on the left is the 54 foot with silt bottle.  The bottle in the middle is from the exact same depth and position just hours later.  The right is an unopened bottle of water from the store.  The well water has air bubbles in it but is clear as the store water.

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ingenious solution Swire  :thumbs-up:

Added two videos and pictures.

The well project was not on my immediate project list; however, as part of the neighbor situation the timeliness of testing the well water for chemicals became a priority.

I'd be all OCD about getting that dirt and crap out of there, SOMEHOW.

but that's just me.

That is what I need.  One of those collapsible metal strainer things and when you pull on a center rope it will expand.  i doubt they make any in a 4 inch size though.

I really need to get a qualified person to inspect the well with an under water camera.  Then once I know what I'm dealing with under the surface I can have them come clean out the well proper.  What they do is similar to the method that I did, except they use a ton more air volume and shoot the water straight of the casing.

But if I'm just going to water the garden with it some dirt in the water isn't going to be a problem.  The main concern and the bump in priority was to gain access to the water in the well.  I've done that.

I had bought a cheap well water test kit a year ago. It went through a winter in the unheated sun room so I'm not sure if any of the tests are valid.  One test requires adding water to a vial that has a power in it.  It turns people and in 2 days if it is still purpose there is no harmful bacteria in it.  At 24 hours it is still purple.  The tests for pesticides came up negative.  I will still have a proper test before drinking anything from it.  If I can use that the water the gardens without paying the city for water and sewer that would be a good thing.

I need to run my camera down the well again to see what it looks like now.  I had added some water to the top of it so I could suck it out.  I'm hoping I got most of the stuff sitting on top of the water and what remained became water logged and sank. The top part of the pipe has all sorts of nasty organic matter stuck to it.  It also looks like there is either a break in the casing or they never built it right in the first place.  About 5 feet below ground there is a gap 2-4 inches all the way around the casing and I can see tree roots and such. I have video of the well casing/shaft.  It looks like once they hit bedrock they just bored through it but that doesn't match the history of the well.  So I'm not sure what is really going on.

That water at 54 feet was clear after hours of pumping.  I will pump the well again before I pull the pipe up.  As for the government, they don't seem too fond of wells.   The state agency offered to come out to inspect the well and test the water.  I'm debating on if I should allow them to do that.  Reading various websites it sounds like they are watch and regulated now and each well is supposed to be registered.  There is a map of all the known wells and mine is not on it.

http://water.ky.gov/groundwater/Pages/gwdbwr.aspx

Data management and support staff review all submitted well construction records for compliance with the state well construction regulations. Well inspection, spring inventory and analytical data are also reviewed. Upon review, section staff compile the data provided and these data are then scanned electronically and maintained in the DEP Consolidated Groundwater Database (GWDB).
The GWDB currently contains data on more than 76,000 wells and springs located throughout the Commonwealth, with approximately 3,000 additional wells and springs being added to the database annually.

Do you know if the state would just tell me it is unsafe or would they require the unsafe well to be permanently capped?  That would be my only concern, once they knew about it if that some how gave them the authority to test, inspect, and permanently shut it down.

I don't want to constantly monitor that water, so I wouldn't plan on using it for drinking.  It is part of the Royal Spring Aquifer which is constantly in the news for bad things leaking into it.  The Lexington stock yards were situated over it and was contaminating it.  They moved the stockyards, even closer, so that problem is still there.

The one massive trailer park had their own sewage plant which was broken more than it was functional, letting the sewage leak into the cities water supply.  They wouldn't let them rebuild a new sewage plant, the options were shut the trailer park down (which I preferred) or extend city water and sewer 5 miles out and connect the trailer park to that.  They are extending the city water and sewer out there.  Like you said, they want you dependent on the government for water and sewer.

So you believe some government are being honest when they say "I'm from the government and I'm hear to help"?  Most of the government agencies are setup to be helpful; however, you get the people running the show that make it all about how they want to either change the world or save the world.

Proper samples have now been taken in the correct containers supplied to me by the independent lab.  If the chemical does show up at toxic levels then I will most likely involve the government agency and ask them to investigate further.  It is possible the chemicals don't even show up in the water and it is possible it is saturated.  I also took two soil samples but might only have one tested.

The safe water test requires someone to review it in about 30 hours with the Holiday that isn't going to happen.  I will have to submit that sample next week or at a later time.  The cheap home test kit that I had changed about half way between purple and yellow, indicating there may be some harmful bacteria in the water.  I would call it inconclusive but the fact it was a sold negative is concerning.

This is a picture of my properly collected water samples in the approved containers.  Behind it is an antique hand crank cistern pump.  It uses a chain of little cups that extend into the cistern and brings up the water.  I do not have the chain of cups for it.  In addition to the 54 foot deep water well there is also a 15 food deep cistern carved out of the bedrock behind the house.  The water is crystal clear and you can see all the way to the bottom.  The water must seep in through the bedrock and is probably safer to drink thank the well water.

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Going through the memory cards on the trail cameras that I have up.  This is a new creature to capture on camera.  It is near the bridge by the creek.

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Beautiful place - I love old style homes with character

That double / double yellow line out front would have made me keep looking however.

We didn't have much for fall colors this year.  The leaves didn't start changing until the end of October and then we had several days below freezing and they dropped.

Fall Colors 2018

Fall Colors 2018

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LUEJc3-8noQ

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I've still been focused on work and getting a company established so I haven't done much.  I need to do an additional test on the well water and then get the pipe capped until I figure out what to do with it.

Oh, one update is I purchased a concrete table and benches.  I put it behind the house and when I went to level the dirt I hit brick.  I remember that were some bricks back there at one point but it has always been grass since I purchased the house.

Surprise, free brick patio.  The brick was just put down on dirt and they settled.  So I get to pull the whole thing up and redo it at some point.

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Sort of.  The bricks were just laid on the dirt years ago with no base what so ever.  They are very uneven and the entire thing will need to be pulled up and redone properly.  Yet another example of complete one task and find three more when it comes to old houses.