Used Material

[desdawg]

I ran across a guy yesterday tearing down some buildings. He has some trusses, probably 3/12 pitch with a 19' bottom cord for $10/each. All they lack is the building that goes under them although that is laying there seperated into it's individual parts too. I suppose........

[glenn kangiser]

Possibilities, desdawg.  Sometimes I have to turn down stuff that is given to me as I have to dig another flat spot.  I was offered a trailer load of trusses last year.

[desdawg]

I picked them up yesterday and a pile of plywood to sheet them with for $60. There is a huge pile of 2X4 studs there too that I can get for 60 cents apiece. They really don't want to have to haul that stuff so are almost giving it away. I suppose they were paid for demoing the buildings so this is gravy for them. There are lots of power pole fence posts too that I could put to immediate use. Of course all of this makes work for me. And the material list is incomplete so I have to add to it to actually finish projects. And I have to store this material up out of the termite zone until I decide what to build with it. It's not easy being a collector of fine things. Lots of nails to pull too. Being just 8 miles away and at bargain prices makes it hard for me to resist.

[desdawg]

I didn't resist, I bought it all! I will have enough to add 900 sq. ft. to my house and a double car garage and I will still have a lot left over. Now I have to get it moved, cleaned and stored. I didn't realize just how much there really was there. I will have a few real busy days.

[glenn kangiser]

Good job, desdawg.

[lonelytree]

Used is good for the pocketbook and the planet.

I got 2 used windows for $80. They were installed a year ago and did not meet egress for the room they were in.

I am looking at some cedar flooring. 3" thick T&G. It has 2 sets of grooves. Free.

[glenn kangiser]

That sounds like nice stuff.

[desdawg]

I hauled 30' bottom cord trusses for the house, 25' for the garage, also some 19' and 18' for? projects I haven't dreamed up yet. Sheeting is a mix of OSB, plywood and T-111 siding. There are close to 800 2X4's in varying lengths, 2X6's, 2X8's, 4X6's, power poles cut to 7' for fence posts, railroad ties and the list goes on. I gave $1500 for the whole shebang. And I will be pulling nails for the rest of my natural life.
The first step is to get it all hauled, semi sorted and stored up out of the termite zone. That is what I am working on now. Home Depot may close my accounts for inactivity in the future. Not really, they will still get the interior finish items.
The guys who did the demo were pretty good at not tearing things up. I am guessing waste at about 25%.
Lonely Tree, free is one of my favorite prices. When I go to Nogales shopping the shop keepers on the Mexican side always say "Come on in Senor, it's almost free." Gotta love it. I won't be able to go anymore unless I get a passport.

[glenn kangiser]

Imprisoned in your own country if you are opposed to having an electronic bug in your passport, eh? desdawg?

Papers Please.  Welcome to Germany.

[benevolance]

Thank God I still have my Canadian passport...

When it runs out I will likely forego getting another with ID from both countries and status I do not need a passport to travel back and forth....That computer chip is scary stuff.... But you know it is in no way any more invasive than a cell phone which identifies you and it is traceable...They can send a signal to your phone from the cell tower and triangulate your position (wow sounds like Star trek there)..People that have satellite TV well they can monitor your tv use and tell when you are home and it is turned on...I suspect they can do the same with internet (do not know for fact.. IP addresses are traceable and such)..Anyone that has a bank card suggests themselves to monitoring they know when you withdraw cash and where... they can keep tabs on you... anyone with a car with a nav system is the same thing as the cell phone... you are connected to the satellite so they at the same time know where you are at all times.

I do not have a bank card....But I am addicted to the internet... no chance of me getting a nav system ever...I will always drive old cars.... always...But every store we enter in we are on video tape.... traffic intersections are photo graphed....So this passport thing is not like the first invasion of our privacy....Just seems par for the course...

People are so clueless as to how advanced the systematic surveilance of the citizen has gotten....

Some conspiracy theory guys think it is to incriminate us...I think it is all about the money...If they know where we go what we buy what we spend money on they can maximize their profits by coming up with mathematical formulas to sell more product based on knowing everything we do.

I equate this to things as small as buying gasoline...Here in the south it is harder to pay for gas with cash...You have to go inside and pay first with cash to get the pump turned on...And if you are filling up then you have to go back get in line and get your change...It is ten times easier and faster to swipe the card...which I refuse to do...


And while they cannot outlaw cash exactly (some apartments try to outlaw cash) they can make it cheaper and easier to pay electronically...Which for the huge majority of people means they use the stripe all the time...

Like the subjective visa commercials where life is a party and everyone is happy swiping the stripe... the music stops and everyone starts crying when one guy tries to pull out his wallet and pay with horrible nasty cash

[glenn kangiser]

They can even turn the mic on on your cell phone or computer and listen to you if they want.  All you can do is leave it all behind to get away.  Turning it off may not even turn it off.  We are dealing with very sophisticated machines that may not be totally under our control.

Criminals have already been apprehended with the cell phone trick.  There are no limits on what they can use it for in reality.

[benevolance]

i have no illusions of privacy...I mean look on google earth and they have satellite feed of the car my wife drives in the driveway beside the house....

The only thing we can do is move to the wilderness and build our house near huge trees... which obstructs the satellite photos..That and dish the net the phone and electricity... live in the woods...

of course almost nobody could do this...So any that do are not worth bothering with... less than one percent of one percent

[desdawg]

George Orwell wrote the book "1984" where all of this was hypothesized in his story. I guess he missed by 24 years. Actually I don't think I am important enough to require too much monitoring. When you consider the number of people in this country not many are that important. But you two I would definitely keep an eye on! 
The majority of the building material is now here on my property. The demolition contractor sent one of his employees to work with me for a day getting things stacked and sorted. How nice was that? If this material was purchased new at a lumber yard I think I would be looking at $10K easily. But it is not new and needs to be cleaned so I have my work cut out for me. Still it will wind up being a pretty good payday. Now I need to spend some time drawing plans. I roughed out a floor plan just to get an idea of how I could use some of that material for my addition and some rough quantities. But to actually draw something acceptable to the building department will take a while.
Upward and onward as they say. I have done it before and I can do it again.

[glenn kangiser]

Thanks for the vote of confidence, desdawg.

If going to the building dept. you more than likely will need to get engineering on the trusses.

[desdawg]

I was wondering about that too Glenn. I will show them on the plans as engineered trusses and hope I can skate by somehow without actually producing the engineering. I will have to see how it goes.

[lonelytree]

I just scored 2 big crates. Upon disassembly I got:

2 - 4X8 sheets of 3/4 plywood (with 4 screw holes in it)

19 - Perfectly straight 2X4 studs (and 3 that are usable in a pinch)

26 - 2X4X40

16 - 1' X 8' X 3/4 plywood pieces

and a bucket of used nails.....

2 other crates yielded a bunch of very nice 3/4 X 12 pine. About 60 feet of it (after cutting off all nail holes).

[glenn kangiser]

Good deal.