Number 85 - To see a tree asmiling.

I know what your saying. Measure, cut, fit...yeah, right. Find that very difficult for some reason.

Removing wallpaper is a bitch on a good day. Winter i'll be working on the kitchen and dining room. By spring everything should be prepped for paint. I say 'should'...but ya know. Then all the exterior doors need repainting (from a brown color to white) Gonna be a long winter.

My goodness, you girls are really go getters. Me?? I just plan. hehehehe

Stradee, hanging doors is a two way deal. It may be perfectly plumb closed - but, like you say, about halfway open it isn't plumb - that's why it's dragging the floor of the deck (Now I'm assuming the deck is level with the house. That's important to check) If both house flooring and deck are level with each other - then the problem is the half open door plumb. That can be fixed easily by taking either top or bottom hinge off -- plugging the screw holes and moving the new screw hole whichever way (in or out a tiny bit) to make the door swing level both closed and opening. Doors are fun. If you like cursing and swearing at everything in sight or sound. Naaaa, doors are easy, just gotta check that plumb when it's closed AND when it's halfway open. A simple adjustment of only ONE of the hinges will fix it.

Good luck.

Cabinets are another matter. Usually it's a two person job. Only thing you gotta do is find the studs........ Normally, they can be found easily at a local country bar - but ask for references...... Grin

A stud should have a prescrew hole drilled to get a good grip. That's where another person comes in handy. Helping to hold the cabinet in place while the prescrew hole (correct size drill now) is drilled. It helps a lot to have the cabinet sitting on something to keep it at the right height - then screwing it to the stud is a lot easier. Oh, and make sure it's level.

Now let's see you do some work - other than mere planning.

sumac, Awww do I haaaaave to?????? Ok..........

Stradee, wallpaper is more easily removed with a (heat gun) -- it looks like a hair blow dryer and is the same size - except it can get temps up to 600 to 700 degrees. So, when you use it on wall paper you must control the heat so the house doesn't burn down. You can rent these guns - so, if you decide to do this ask the man to show you the controls and what is best for wallpaper. Sure makes life a lot easier.
I've done a lot of wallpaper and find it enjoyable to do. PLANNING is 90% of the project. PLANNING is 90% of ANY project...........Grin

PLANNING is WORK........... Bigger Grin

Aww dan, you are so sweet, thanks.

The door is hooked to the jam...it's one piece. Metal. There's no way to take the door off the hinges...the entire unit must be removed. It is a very stubborn listing door that won't straighten up no matter what i've attempted. I even placed a lever underneath the door and hammered the hell out of it and it didn't budge.

God, can't believe how upsetting repairs are! There i am in the forest where everythings quiet and serene cussing out the damned door. Good God

Dan, i'm not to concerned about removing the wallpaper. It's so thin all i need is a hairdryer and paper stripper. It's the work i don't feel like doing. LOL

Now if i can contain myself from taking a sledge hammer to the damned door, i'll be accomplishing something. grrr

sue, kudos for hanging the cabinets! Good job!

See, the thing is, we know how to do the stuff, it's just that sometimes the stuff doesn't cooperate! So please don't go anywhere Dan! We need your ear and expertise!

going nynite now

have a good evening dan and sue

Hey, been there - seen it - done that.
With THAT kind of door ((after making sure the DECK is level with the house)) you must remove the entire door and RESET it making sure the plumb is good both closed and open. I know it sounds like a big job - but you will be surprised to find it isn't. I've done it with one piece metal doors in just a few hours all by myself. But, if you have a friend whose set doors before it would be nice to invite that person over.
These doors are set with screws --- it may be possible for you to remove most of the TOP screws - loosen the bottom screws and with the door half open move the top IN towards the house a smidgin. You may then drill NEW screw holes near the OLD ones and that will give you the strength for the door to stay in place. Then tighten all the other screws and see if it works. If not then you'll have to take the whole thing loose the reset it. You don't have to actually remove it from where it is - just remove the retaining screws --- reset the plumb BOTH ways closed and half open --- drill new retaining screw holes near the old ones and your set.
It's that simple.

I started buying old fixer uppers in the late '70's when things were much better in the housing market. In fact I had to use a race car to see the house and get to the realtor before the other guy --- it was a competitive scene for real. After landing one of those old babys I would work at my day job - then go to the house an work there till I got too tired. It usually took me approx 3 to 4 months to get them in shape - then I would sell. I never got less than 100% return on each house. Most of the time I would get much more. At one time in Tacoma, WA I had five of the houses going at the same time. So, for a little background, THAT'S where I learned the in's and out's of doing things on a house.
And, as you mentioned, I came to expect that NOTHING cooperated. I just learned the hard way to PLAN how to fix the stuff..........hehehe --- slipped that one in.

OH, back again, I forgot to mention about the door thing - there are usually spacers around the door frame so be careful to replace them in the same place. Their real boogers to work with.

Have fun.

The door jam is plum to the house. Picture just the door. Now look at the top of the door. From the hinge side, the top of the door slants gradually about a quarter inch.

The hinges arn't regular hinges where you can remove a pin, then remove the door. Everythings welded, and the spacers are also metal and connected to each hinge.

Sooooooooo, i gotta find someone who knows construction, because the prob isn't a huge one...just that i have no clue how to manuver the metal hinges so the door will raise a tad and straighten up at the top.

Dan, thanks. I'll figure something out. You've been very helpful...

I've done quite a bit of remodeling too, and i'm at the stage in my life where planning is always a lot simpler than implementing. (laughing)

The deck will last a few more years, painting keeps exterior wood protected from the elements, and the house hasn't cracked like an egg (yet). Figure I'm ahead of the game today. God knows about tomorrow though.

Stradee, the entire door with it's frame is the same as if you had ordered a wooden door with frame --- same thing. Because it's metal don't think of it as different. It's the same thing. It's installed the same. The only side to be careful about is the hinge side of the door frame as it attaches to the house. If there was no deck there when the door was first installed the guys would just make it plumb when it was closed. That doesn't mean it's plumb when half open. If the deck was installed later -- now we have the problem of --- IS the door plumb when it's half open?????? The original builders did not take this into consideration......... They just wanted to get the door in and get out.
You can check the lateral plumb with a good long level - you know the door is ok when it's closed. Put a level on the hinge side of it and see. With steel doors that can be wrong. The whole thing is a unit. It can be installed unlevel and still close and seem to be ok. Check the level of the hinge side closed --- and then check the level of hinge side when it's half open. I bet you have a door that was initially installed not level.
Good luck.

checking in

still clicking and reading along

love the clickers

Don't go away. We'll be good.

HURRAY!!!!!!!!!!

Ok, i've solved the problem. We can forget about the metal frame cause there are three metric screws connected to the door from the hinges, so all i gotta do is loosen them and i've asked a person in the neighborhood if he'd help me remove and then replace the door. He said yep.

The skill saw will shave off the excess metal from the bottom of the door. No more drag. Doesn't matter whats plum or isn't plum cause the door will have lost a tad more than a quarter inch in length (at the drag point) and that's the way it's gonna be.

Ya know dan, each time i look at the house and try to make a repair, i find something else the 'builders' forgot or rigged. It's damed depressing. Course the place is 20 years old and been sitting in the mountains just as long...and i gotta tell you the weather and canopy of trees will eat at a house unless there's constant maintenance. However, if the original work was done correctly it sure would be a lot easier to make necessary repairs.

The front porch is metal (hurray) and gets a lot of sunshine year round. The back of the house where the decking is (go figure) and the damned back door, there isn't much sunshine at all during the year. A few hours in the morning during the summer, and not much during the winter, so the area retains dampness. There's moss on the retaining wall all year.

Anyhooo, the door saga is almost at an end. Thanks so much for all your suggestions, dan. Very helpful.

Beth, always good hearing from you.

Sue and all, have a good evening. Tomorrow i visit daughter and attend my adopted granddaughters birthday party. My God, she's in Junior High School! Seems like yesterday we were getting together her moms baby showers for both her and her sister who is now a Sophmore in H.S. God, where does the time go???

Ok, a neighborhood man --- don't forget to ask him what his favorite beer is!!!
(((I am kidding of course............)))

That's great!!! The F'g door is about to be history............. Love it.

Now, you only have one more thing to do. Next full moon go outside and howl.......!!!!! At the end of the Howl you have to say in more somber tones "leluya"

Then it's all over.

Great going.

We also have another tree asmiling at you in particular for your voice in the wild. These trees talk to each other ya know.......... Grin

Back again,,,,,,,,,, Oh, I forgot to tell ya, if you cut off the bottom of the metal - you will expose the WOOD part of the door to the elements. It should last you about five years before the rot becomes evident.

Damn, sorry, but I had to tell ya.

Hey!! Checking in - clicking still and reading along!!!

You are the Wildclicker.......... We love you too.

There's a tree asmiling at you now.

Not to worry...the neighborhood guy will be paid with dollars.

The door has metal strips. One encloses the door, the extra underneath the sealing is for weather stripping. That's where i'll be shaving the metal. Won't affect the protecting metal surrounding all sides of the door.

Ok, howling and somber "leluya"s. Should seal the deal.

Maybe a prayer that the metric fittings will also re-connect to the door. sigh

Yes they do! The Cedar tree smiles after it's daily bath. Says "thanks" by sending wonderful perfume through the windows. The pines luv dustings with water also. Singin'

They're sending a 'nynite' and sweet dreams to all the wildclickers

Glad that your door issue with the deck is going to be resolved soon. I have a 60 year old house which,, while remodeled at some point in the kitchen, still shows its age re settling. The codes were different then and one corner has slipped slightly off the foundation. All I have is a low crawl space as they didn't require much height underneath back then. I am sure that if I put a golf ball in various locations that it would roll. I have a problem with the front door.

All clicked this morning.

Please read. This article highlights a new development in banking that is a very good sign for the environment.


August 30, 2010
Banks Grow Wary of Environmental Risks
By TOM ZELLER Jr.
Blasting off mountaintops to reach coal in Appalachia or churning out millions of tons of carbon dioxide to extract oil from sand in Alberta are among environmentalists’ biggest industrial irritants. But they are also legal and lucrative.

For a growing number of banks, however, that does not seem to matter.

After years of legal entanglements arising from environmental messes and increased scrutiny of banks that finance the dirtiest industries, several large commercial lenders are taking a stand on industry practices that they regard as risky to their reputations and bottom lines.

In the most recent example, the banking giant Wells Fargo noted last month what it called “considerable attention and controversy” surrounding mountaintop removal mining, and said that its involvement with companies engaged in it was “limited and declining.”

The bank was a small player in the sector, representing about $78 million in bonds and loan financing for such companies from 2008 to April of this year, according to data compiled by the Rainforest Action Network, an environmental group tracking the issue.

But the policy shift by Wells Fargo follows others over the last two years, including moves by Credit Suisse, Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America and Citibank, to increase scrutiny of lending to companies involved in mountaintop removal — or to end the lending altogether.

HSBC, which is based in London, has curtailed its relationships with some producers of palm oil, which is often linked to deforestation in developing countries. The Dutch lender Rabobank has applied a nine-point checklist of conditions for would-be oil and gas borrowers that includes commitments to improve environmental performance and protect water quality.

In some cases, the changing policies represent an attempt to burnish green credentials in areas where the banks had little interest, and there is no indication that companies engaged in the objectionable practices cannot find financing elsewhere.

Still, banking analysts and others suggest that heated debate over climate change, water quality and other environmental considerations is forcing lenders to take a much harder — and often uncomfortable — look at where they extend credit, and to whom.

“It’s one thing if your potential borrower is dumping cyanide in a river,” said Karina Litvack, the head of governance and sustainable investment with F&C Investments, an investment management firm based in London. “But if they’re dumping carbon dioxide into the air, which is not exactly illegal — what do you do? Banks are in kind of a quandary, because they are competing for business, and if they get holier-than-thou and start to play policeman, they risk allowing other banks to take that business.”

Environmental risk has been on the radar for lenders since the 1980s and early 1990s, when courts began forcing some measure of responsibility on banks for the polluting factories, superfund sites and other environmental problems that had, to one degree or another, been facilitated by their financing.

Congress passed a law in 1996 that limited the exposure of lenders on this front, but since then, most major banks have developed environmental risk management divisions as part of their commercial banking due diligence efforts.

Now, the rise of murkier issues like global warming, along with increasing scrutiny by environmental groups of banks’ investments in many other industries — like oil and gas development, nuclear power, coal-fired electricity generation, oil sands, fuel pipeline construction, dam building, forestry and even certain types of agriculture — are nudging lenders into new territory.

“We’re taking a much closer look at a much broader variety of issues, not all of which are captured under state and local laws,” said Stephanie Rico, a spokeswoman for the environmental affairs group at Wells Fargo.

Ms. Litvack, of F&C Investments, pointed to large protests last week by many climate activists outside the Royal Bank of Scotland in Edinburgh. At least a dozen protesters have been arrested in demonstrations against the bank’s financing of oil sands development in Canada.

The Royal Bank of Canada, meanwhile, responding to intense pressure from environmental advocates denouncing the bank’s financing of oil sands projects, hosted 18 international banks in Toronto in February for “a day of learning” on the “regulatory, social and environmental issues” surrounding the oil sands.

Globally, banks and environmental advocates are seeking to make things easier by developing best practices and other voluntary standards. Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase and Morgan Stanley helped initiate the Carbon Principles, which aim to standardize the assessment of “carbon risks in the financing of electric power projects” in the United States. Several international financial institutions — including HSBC, Munich Re and others — have formed the Climate Principles, which aim to encourage the management of climate change “across the full range of financial products and services,” according to the compact’s Web site.

In the United States, mountaintop removal mining has become both increasingly common and contentious, as coal companies vie to feed the nation’s appetite for inexpensive electricity. An expeditious and disruptive form of surface mining, it involves blasting off the tops of mountains and dumping the debris in valleys and streams below.

A report published in May by the Sierra Club and the Rainforest Action Network estimated that nine banks were the primary lenders for companies engaged in mountaintop removal mining in Appalachia, and that they had provided nearly $4 billion in loans and bond underwriting to those companies — chiefly Massey Energy, Patriot Coal, and Alpha Natural Resources — since 2008.

The Rainforest Action Network, which has headed a campaign to highlight financial institutions with connections to the mining, said this month that the policy shifts were chipping away at the financing.

Citing Bloomberg data, for example, the group noted that Bank of America — listed as recently as 2008 as one of the “syndication agents” on a $175 million revolving line of credit to Massey Energy — has eliminated that and all other connections to the company. The group also pointed to JPMorgan, which had previously underwritten $180 million in debt securities to Massey, but no longer has any financial ties to that company. In May, the bank said it would be subjecting all future engagements with companies involved in mountaintop removal mining to “enhanced review.”

Some environmental groups have criticized that and other policies as providing too much wiggle room — and whether any of it has any real impact is an open question. Mining industry representatives say such policies often fail to consider laws already in place requiring coal companies to limit their environmental impact, and to restore former mine sites when they are finished.

Carol Raulston, a spokeswoman for the National Mining Association, an industry group, said that most of the policies in question position the banks to phase out lending over time — and only to companies that primarily engage in mountaintop removal mining. “Companies are still getting financing for their projects,” she said.

Roger S. Hendriksen, the vice president for investor relations for Massey Energy, suggested that environmentalists were overstating things, and that his company was having no trouble securing financing.

“While some banks no longer provide financing for companies conducting surface mining, there are many who will,” Mr. Hendriksen said. “We have and will continue to replace their services with alternate bank providers with little difficulty.”

But Rebecca Tarbotton, the executive director of the Rainforest Action Network, said in a published statement that the banks’ moves nonetheless send “a clear signal that these companies have a high risk profile and that other banks should beware.”

“Bottom line,” she added, “as access to capital becomes more constrained it will be harder for mining companies to finance the blowing up of America’s mountains.”