I’ve been working in construction for the past 11 years at this point with a few years before that in a part time role. I’m more than happy to lend whatever knowledge or insights I may have about work, life, or whatever.
I will be checking in sporadically to see if there are questions.
EDITED WELL AFTER QUESTIONS STOPPED: I’m still active-ish on Lemmy, so if you happen to find this and have a question, I will likely still get back to you.
When do you DIY vs call in another carpenter?
Pretty much always DIY, only asking for help when I’m doing something that will take an important piece of the house out of commission for longer than a day. (like when replacing kitchen cabinets) definitely want that done within a day.
What do you look for when you’re buying a house?
First and foremost, any evidence of water damage/leaks. It’s amazing how simple it is to fix a ton of issues quickly and easily, but water damage is a beast that just makes everything worse.
Every basement of every old house I loved is either dank or has calcium build up on the foundation.
Is that just how old basements are?
I think it depends on location and age of the home. A lot of the oldest homes in my area are dirt floor basements, so the natural moisture is very expected. Newer ones are a bit less wet overall, but many still have issues from erosion over time. There isn’t as much calcium build up in my area, but it’s safe to assume that if it’s common in your area, it’s probably widespread.
Do you have to fix other people’s DIWhy? If so, what’s the number one “repair” that you get to repair?
Thanks for the AmA
Generally I get to clean up some other carpenters issues most of all. I’ve completed work that someone else has started more often than just getting to do the work from start to finish. Either they were not doing things well enough, quickly enough, or and most often, taking advantage in both time and money of the person they are working for. I’ve heard of some tradesmen making really crazy aggressive comments when being let go. One of the people I worked for had told me that when she let the previous guy go, he made it a point to inform her that he had an open carry license.
As for the type of work… Poorly installed floors, drywall, and doors are the most common.
Did you noticed any Change in importance of wood as a Material over the years?
Things have been fairly stagnant material wise since I’ve started. There are metal studs and ceiling systems, and they have their uses and caveats to usage. I prefer to work with wood when possible though it’s interesting to do housing rehabilitations and see the old wood we used to use. The new quickly grown lumber cannot compare to the older woods.
Besides the usual hammer, power drill, basic hand tools, duct tape, etc, what are a few tools or items everyone should consider having around the house?
It’s not really a ‘carpenter’ thing, but a decent pair of channel locks are great for many things.
Toothpicks are also something most people don’t think about, but they can be wonderfully useful for when you have unscrewed pretty much anything as a filler to make sure the screws grab.
I’ll edit if I think of other unconventional items that are good to have on hand.
What’s your favorite joint to make?
I wish construction carpentry had joinery as a normal part of it these days, but for the most part we use fasteners (nails/screws) to join the lumber. On the rare occasion I have a reason to make nice joints, it’s usually very simple.
On the side though, I really like the looks of the various Japanese joints, and everyone appreciates a well fitted butterfly.
I mitered some fascia boards today. Got it right the first time! Compound miter on the corner fit perfectly with no gaps.
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Some of those compound miters still throw my head through a loop. The one that really gets me way too often is connecting quarter round on the runner of longer staircases. Somehow dealing with something that’s around a 45 degree angle instead of flat just throws me off way too much. I need to practice more.
The hardest one was an 11:12 so it’s much harder to visualize which side to cut compared to a shallower pitch. My saw can do up to 50 degrees and I made some cuts at 42.5 and some at 47.5. LOTS of pencil marks haha
My family home needs a lot of furnitures (book shelves, study table, bedside table or cabinet)
Do you have tips for me?
Second hand items are a marvelous resource. I can’t compete with anyone who are just looking to offload a house full of furniture.
So very true.
Here in Europe, the large old stuff is incredibly cheap. I recently bought a 17th or 18th century full oak wardrobe. The screws it did have were all hand made. Next to no screws, all splints(?) and stuff like that. Don’t know the English terminology.
But it’s dark wood and large. Scares people off. They also don’t realise antique cupboards are very often easier to take apart than Ikea furniture. Paid just 100 Euros/dollars.
Also bought a family member a 19th century nutwood veneer antique beidermeier style cupboard. Once again, large cupboard. Almost flawless. Seller had previously tried to sell it for a few hundred, but no one wanted it. Bought it for thousands back in the day. Desperate to get rid of it as they were downsizing. Too large for the flat. 30 Euros. Absurd really.
The only problem you do occasionaly run in to is woodworm, scrapes and moisture. Obviously I avoid woodworm, but scrapes and moisture are something I’ve learnt to deal with. Polish, beeswax, etc. But that really scares people off, because they don’t realise how resistant high quality wood is to damage, and how easy it is to fix with some dark wax and elbow grease. They’re used to Ikea flatpack MDF crap. Do they even use MDF? Last time it was even cheaper and thinner crap.
Only disadvantage is how fucking heavy some of it is. Especially the oak stuff. Really does your back in. The wardrobe I mentioned earlier must have inch thick oak doors. The doors alone are almost 6 foot heigh.
I’ve got a solid-wood, antique (circa 1930s, I guess), huge built-in pantry/cupboard (4’ wide, 8’ high, drawers on the bottom third and shelves with glass doors above) that I found on the side of the road for free because the owner of the house it was originally installed in just didn’t want it anymore for some reason. It’s crazy what folks throw out these days.
I’m lucky I own a utility trailer (which was also free: I bought a used car private-party and the seller insisted I take it too), or I’d have never been able to get it home.
Ikea filling is quite literally sometimes cardboard: Ikea Linnmom desktop (€13)
I’ve been using one of those cardboard desk tops for over a decade now. It’s sagged in the middle just a little bit and the surface has some bubbles from condensation on my drinks over the years, but it does still do the job. Kinda impressive for how cheap it is, TBH.
How did you get into it?
I had a neighbor who was a carpenter and was willing to give me a job for a bit. I spent a lot of time doing very minor things, most of which had very little to do with carpentry. After that I applied for a decent amount of carpenter airbrush jobs online, though most wouldn’t accept my previous experience.
So I ended up taking a practical test at the local union apprenticeship school and managed to do well enough to get asked to join.
Do you think carpentry is a worthy skill to invest in learning for purely utility (repairing your own house or building the occasional shack).
I’ve been thinking about learning carpentry to be able to fix and modify my own house due to issues with contractors and the cost. Additionally it’s a nice back up in case I get laid off or my current trade is somehow replaced/obsolete.
Being handy in general is a wonderful skill to have. From doing simple household tasks like changing out a light fixture to doing minor (or even somewhat major) plumbing work and just being involved in all the bits and pieces of working on buildings really opens up opportunities to save a ton of money on random little things that would otherwise be quite expensive.
It sort of sounds like a joke but I have already encountered being “too useful”. I work and specialize in computer repair. I work on the hardware and electronics which also apply to many other things so I find myself fixing remotes, mice, coffee machines and even the dishwasher. Additionally I am capable of doing IT work on the software side too. I can also cook pretty well too.
What all of this has cumulated to so far is being bugged for absolutely EVERYTHING. My mom has nagged me about things from, logging into email, 2 factor authentication, cracked screen, broken remote, stuck espresso machine, hanging a painting, cooking something, building her computer, setting up her desktop short cuts and managing all the passwords for her different accounts. It drives me crazy but also I want to avoid the hassle of getting a contractor to come over and charge 200$ for a 20 minute job. Or some hack from geek squad charging 100$ to set up some icons on the desktop.
Unrelated note but geek squad ALWAYS upsells you on everything. A setting accidentally disabled in windows? Well now they’ve got to install McAfee or Norton and probably a VPN too, oh and throw in an arbitrary password manager to squeeze another 500$ out of you. Now this is a fairly rare and egregious scenario but it’s always stuff like this that makes me avoid getting work done by others. It’s rarely as simple as “fix my cabinet hinge” and often the problem is exaggerated. Instead of replacing a 10$ hinge they’ve convinced you for a full remodel, cause “those are all on their way out anyways, might as well go for a full makeover”.
I know I’m ranting at this point but this sort of attitude has convinced my mom to pay for so much random work she doesn’t need. She almost paid like $10,000 for a new garage door, motor, and install because the little rubber installation was breaking down. I begged on my hand and knees that she didn’t need this and that the 20 year old garage is fine, just replace the rubber trim and thankfully she listened. Another contractor we had could do it and it was only 100$, including materials. Another time she bought this $1400 laptop because she was convinced she needed the best one and the one she had was 4 years old (it was HD IPS screen, touch screen Thinkpad with SSD and built in pen). She got it but barely notices any difference because it has the same features and the loaded quad core i7 doesn’t friggin do anything cause she just uses the damn thing for email. It’s literally my fucking career to work on and build computers and she doesn’t listen to me 🤦.
There are a lot of predatory types out there who are all too willing to go way above and beyond anything that’s needed to pad the bill. It’s really frustrating to hear stories like that from all of the various specialists. Whether its mechanics, handyfolk, or IT repairs… there are way too many who will happily overcharge for a simple fix because they can see a chance to get paid.
Being able to assess whether if a job is worth investing in a tool or hiring a contractor to do it is good too.
I hired a handyman for $50 to cut a big tabletop in half longways when I could have just bought the same tool for the same price.
In some places there are even things called ‘Tool Libraries’ where you can rent out whatever kind of tool you’d need for a job. Which can save even more over just buying it.
Though if you wanted a perfectly straight cut, there are specialized tools for doing just that which cost quite a lot more than just $50.
The contrast to this is knowing how to use the tool well and the difference between a $50 and $500 tool. Sometimes the cheapest version of a tool wielded badly is a lot more expensive than a pro with the high end version. Not to mention filling up a garage with things used only once years ago!
Thank you for your AMA. I just moved to a new country with my elderly mother and there is so much to do in the house, things from building an entire kitchen, cleaning the gutters, to figure out where the freaking switch of a light is. I’m pretty handy but never to the level of a professional. People like you are so precious and difficult to find. Thank you for doing what you do. Sorry, I’m a bit overwhelmed, oversensitive, and tired AF ATM. Buy really, thank you. I wish I had someone like you in my life
Thank you, and I hope you’re able to find someone in your area that is able and willing to help you with your mother’s house. It can be very overwhelming at first, but the most important part of any job to is get priorities together and break it down step by step so it becomes manageable.
Rank in order: painter, plumber,.electrician, deckhand, roofer, carpenter.
Nah. Each part is integral to getting the job done (though deckhand is generally a different type of job altogether).
For example while I can paint I can’t do it nearly as efficiently as an experienced painter. Same is true for each of the trades. I can do a decent amount of each of those trades but when it comes to certain more advanced topics, I’ll gladly let a professional come do the work.
Plumber, electrician, roofer, carpenter, deckhand, painter
How do you ask for something atypical? I need to have a door mounted but keep getting dismissed to call a handyman. If it were that simple I would have done it years ago. I have a steel frame embedded in concrete, so is that even still a carpenter? It’s actually an interior door and I have a door that matches the older style in the rest of the house, but needs to be tweaked to fit, as does the frame. Who do I even call and how do I get them to take it seriously?
There are a few sad reasons why you’re having issues getting someone and why they keep pushing you to get a handyman. 1. It’s a small job that is tedious to do and requires just enough expertise that most general carpenters don’t really want to mess with it. 2. It’s a short enough job that whoever you’re talking to would see it as a loss for income on the day. They cannot justify pricing out mobilization, travel time, etc for a maybe 2 hour job. Depending on how much it needs to be tweaked, any handy person with a couple tools should be able to handle it but because of the perceived issues with the job, many will flat out deny it.
Door work is one of the most tedious because it’s immediately apparent if something is slightly off. You’re putting a rectangular block into a rectangular hole, any small defects are VERY accentuated by the nature of it, which is why many people do not want to get involved with a door that needs tweaks. (which is one of the things I’ve been dealing with at work this past week. Welded steel frames in plastered walls and just having to make the door fit… no matter what shape the frame has moved itself to.
Definitely one of my concerns - whether it needs welding and whether a carpenter is the right person
While there are plenty of folks who are skilled in those and are also carpenters, this sounds like one of those jobs you would need to have a good amount of pictures and a description and put it on some odd job website to see what kinds of offers you can get and for what type of work they are willing to do.
Do you prefer frame or finish/trim?
What’s something you do to help the next guy in the process?
I like it all tbh. There’s something to be said for putting up walls, joists, and the roughs of a building, but it’s also enjoyable to spend some time getting a bit more precise for finish work and making all the various joints fit together seamlessly. And seasonal changes are always a factor too. At the moment I’m doing mostly finish work on the job, being indoors with most things ready to go and the heat turned on. Sadly, it’s not going to last for the whole winter, so I’m going to get whatever work will come to me after this comes to an end.
Edit: Realized I didn’t answer the second part. For finish work there isn’t much of a next guy on that work, but I generally try not to finish nail the ever loving mess out of my trim so that the painters have an easier time with their work.
But for framing… There are SO many things. The single easiest and most important thing on a wooden building is crowning your lumber when applicable. It doesn’t take very long, but it saves so much time and effort from everyone after you, and can extend the life of a floor pretty significantly. It helps walls align more nicely from stud to stud, and just makes things nicer… The other main thing is a no brainer, but checking everything for plumb, level, and square before locking everything in place is a timesaver in many ways. Other smaller stuff is making sure that all surfaces have nailers for the next layer, which is much easier for a framer to put in than the poor rocker who may only have a screw gun.
What’s a high quality wood to build a media rack?
Pretty much anything under the label of ‘hardwood’ is what you’d likely want. Honestly you don’t even need that for something like a media rack, but if you’re willing to pay for some nice wood, it can really add something special to the space it occupies. As for which one you’d want, that’s entirely up to you. Maple and Cherry and lighter colored, ebony and walnut are darker, and there are plenty of everything in between. There are also plenty of interesting grain patterns that you can look over that can really make a piece pop. Burled wood like this doesn’t have a uniform grain, but instead looks like the wood has waves or bubbles running through it and depending on the piece can look absolutely amazing.
I want to extend my garage another 15 feet deeper so I can fit a cnc machine and wood tools. Do I really need an engineer to make plans for this or can I do it on my own with AutoCAD? I have experience in construction and foundations, I wouldn’t do it myself if it was a part of the house but I also don’t want to spend $30k+ having someone else do it. I can guarantee you what I will build will be a far better job than the original builder did.
At the very minimum, it’s a good idea to check the local laws and regulations for expanding your garage. Most people can get away with interior improvements without needing much in the way of official documentation, but something as overt as adding 15ft on the back of a garage gets noticed. It’s always a good idea to make sure you have yourself covered in any situation.
