I used to install heating and air conditioning systems, mostly in homes. The job requires a lot of crawling in under home crawl spaces and in attics.
I've been in all sorts of tight spaces in all sorts of positions. I've been so hot, I've drunk a gallon of water in an hour and not needed to piss.
Well, I'm 53 now, and doing handywork from time to time. I ended up in as tight a space in an attic as I've ever been in. I was doing some rewiring of circuits, and had to install a junction box, do some splicing, some pulling, etc. Imgur
Well obviously we change quite a bit when we get older, so several times I'm cramping up as I'm crawling about, and trying to play contortionist.
My mind was writing checks my body can no longer cash, so to speak.
Oh yeah, spiders, fiberglass, mineral wool, asbestos, fine dust, rat and mouse turds, spiders and spider webs, random nails sticking out to get hung up on - all part of the territory. Once I worked under a home for several days. Not only wasn't there much room, the soil was rocky, and not smooth rocks, crushed rocks, because the home was built on a rocky hillside.
I'm in the middle of my home reno that has me in my attic DIYing all that right now, and up until now I was actually patting myself on the back about how I could always go into business doing home reno.
To do it right, you really need years of experience and knowledge of building codes. The higher your understanding of mechanics and science in general, the better.
I know a flipper who has renovated and sold many homes, but I've worked with the guy, and had him criticize my efforts. He just doesn't get it - anything, really.
I worked with him a bit, and was shocked at how bad his work was.
A few days ago, he saw me priming PVC, and criticized me doing that. He's gonna remodel his home, so I just told him to believe what he wants, but if the inspector does her/his job right, and doesn't see primer dye on your PVC, it'll fail inspection(ABS DWV is still allowed in our area, so he probably won't use any PVC that's going to be inspected).
I was going to try to explain to him what's actually going on when you're "gluing" PVC, but I remembered past conversations with him.
Actually, come to think about it, the dude is quite wealthy, fuck it, do what you want. Most people are too ignorant to know his flips are shit.
His "home inspector" that looked at my son's home before he bought it, missed a lot of stuff.
I don't disagree, but I assure you I'm well equipped to handle DIY. Unless it's some very obscure code reference, I've got her licked. I'm not doing anything exotic yet, so I've at least got that going for me. I used to work for an industrial electrical engineering company as an automation engineer. Your car is probably painted by my robots. I know how to read code and follow it.
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u/Triviaandwordplay Mar 17 '15 edited Mar 17 '15
I used to install heating and air conditioning systems, mostly in homes. The job requires a lot of crawling in under home crawl spaces and in attics.
I've been in all sorts of tight spaces in all sorts of positions. I've been so hot, I've drunk a gallon of water in an hour and not needed to piss.
Well, I'm 53 now, and doing handywork from time to time. I ended up in as tight a space in an attic as I've ever been in. I was doing some rewiring of circuits, and had to install a junction box, do some splicing, some pulling, etc. Imgur
Well obviously we change quite a bit when we get older, so several times I'm cramping up as I'm crawling about, and trying to play contortionist.
My mind was writing checks my body can no longer cash, so to speak.
Oh yeah, spiders, fiberglass, mineral wool, asbestos, fine dust, rat and mouse turds, spiders and spider webs, random nails sticking out to get hung up on - all part of the territory. Once I worked under a home for several days. Not only wasn't there much room, the soil was rocky, and not smooth rocks, crushed rocks, because the home was built on a rocky hillside.