Fun Weekend for a Handyman

I have known Bob and Carol for about 20 years, and they still live in the same house they did when I met them. They also still have the same carpet in their basement they did when we met. This is where the fun begins. Bob and Carol invited me over for steaks on the grill Friday night, of course I went. After dinner Carol punched Bob and said, “Have you asked him yet?” Bob was supposed to ask me to help him remove the old moldy soggy carpet from the basement. Carol had purchased new carpet and was having it installed on Tuesday. Only one problem, the old carpet needed to go before then.
The fun job of carpet removal started at six a.m. on Saturday morning. Now the only good reason to get up that early on Saturday morning is to go fishing, but that is not what we were going to do.
As a handyman one thing I have learned over the years is to work smart. There are hard and easy ways to do everything. At this stage in my life, I will choose the easy way. Here is the easy way to remove that old carpet:
Cut the carpet into strips about two to three feet in width. Roll up the strips and put it in garbage bags.
Here is what you will need:
1-A razor blade knife
2- Heavy duty garbage bags (I like the leaf bags)
3- A yard-stick
4-Duct tape (optional)
Start at the short side of the carpet, folding the carpet over onto itself, about three feet to start. If this is too heavy to handle, make the next cut shorter. Step on the fold, so it flattens out; this makes it easier to cut. Cut the carpet at the fold. Let the remaining carpet lie back down. Now fold the padding over onto the carpet you just cut and cut the padding. Now you have the cut carpet with the padding on the top, just roll them up and stick them in a garbage bag. If the carpet is hard to handle, you can duct tape the roll before you put it in the garbage bag. Just keep repeating this until you are done.
After the carpet is removed, clean the floor with bleach and water solution. Make sure you let the floor dry completely before the new carpet is installed.
With Carol’s help, Bob and me had the job done by noon. That left plenty of time for the important things in life, like fishing.

Weep Holes Continued

In the residential industry as a handyman, you will find a mix of brick and block (solid masonry) homes and brick veneer (wood frame and brick) homes right up to the early seventies. If no weep holes are present, check to make sure that the house is frame. If it is frame it will have a sill plate. If it is brick and block, it will not have a sill plate, the joist will be resting on the masonry. The very old brick and brick houses have weep ropes. The brick and block houses do not have weep holes. But the brick veneer houses should have them, of course, depending on the contractor that built them.
Having weep holes over the windows and doors will help provide better ventilation in the wall cavity. . If you have weep holes down at the bottom course of brick, then you have wall ventilation. I am referring to brick veneer. But if it is a brick veneer house and it does not have weep holes, this only tells me that I need to look for signs of moisture, because the conditions are right for moisture. Keeping in mind that gutters, overhang, and proper exterior drainage should also be considered.
Personally I would not recommend weep holes as a cure for moisture. In some cases this cure could be worse than the disease. You could end up just creating potential points of water penetration if you tried to add the weep holes now, after the fact. The reason for this statement is that weep holes are only the part of the back brick venting that you can see. But for back brick venting to do its job, it needs flashing, the vapor barrier to counter it, and the brick to be back parged every six courses (between wall tie heights). Okay, the point is always look for moisture, with or with out weep holes. Because even if you see weep holes it does not mean that they were installed correctly for back venting..

Handyman Weeps over Brick

As a handyman I have receive a lot of inquiries about the use of weep holes in brick veneer houses. The concerns range from “Do we need to add weep holes to protect our house from moisture?” to “If the house does not have weep holes, then there must be a structural problem.”
When I started my apprenticeship as a brick mason in the late sixties, weep holes were standard in the commercial industry. However, residential construction evolved at a slower pace. We see them more and more in new construction but less in older homes.
Well, let me go back a step. The colonial vintage houses were solid brick (no framing) and they had weep ropes coming from the lower courses of the wall and over doors and windows to wick moisture out of the wall. It was not until the twenties that brick veneer became a construction practice. The brick industry warned the public to be careful when buying a house, because there were “fake brick houses” being built. But as the early seventies rolled around, brick veneer became the industry standard for houses.

Finishing up the Butterfly Patch

Okay, now for the fun part we get to use mud, drywall mud that is.
Apply compound to the outside edges of the hole. A small putty knife works great. Get a nice even coat of drywall mud around the area to patch. How carefully fit the butterfly patch in the hole. Make sure the drywall patch does not go past the face of the old drywall. Take the small putty knife and run it along the paper you left on the butterfly patch until the mud squeezes out,



and the paper looks flat. Now all you have to do is mud over the whole patch with the large trowel, and allow it to dry. With a knife blade, scrape off any dried chips. Lightly sand the patch then apply another layer of mud if necessary.



Remember to sand once again prior to painting or wallpapering. Bare spackling on any wall repairs should always be covered with primer before paint or wallpaper.

Okay, that's the butterfly patch, now I am going fishing.

Repairing drywall with Butterflies Part 2

A few more small steps and we will have a nice butterfly patch.
Take the new piece of drywall and hold the paper you left on back with your fingers.
Now with the patch covering the damaged area, take a pencil and mark around the new drywall. Make sure that you mark the patch so you can put it in the hole you made, the same way you had it on the wall when you marked it to make the hole. Now score the marks you made around the damaged area with your razor knife. Take a hammer and tap the inside of the score marks. After the drywall breaks, trim the lose drywall with the razor knife. Now that the hole has been trimmed,

Repairing Drywall with Butterflies Part 1

I learned this patch as a butterfly patch, but I have seen the same patch called a “hat patch” and a “top patch”, but all use the same method. The only difference I have noticed is that most other methods teach you to cut the damaged drywall out first and then cut a patch to fit. The butterfly method I learned is the opposite, we cut the drywall first then take the cut piece of drywall and trace around the damage. This way you do not have to make persist measurements. To figure out what size to cut the drywall, you will need to roughly measure the damaged area,

and add three inches. The butterfly patch can patch a hole from two inches to twelve inches. After you measure the widest part of the damage, add three inches to your measurements and cut a new piece of drywall that size. This cut does not have to be exact. To cut the drywall, but the finished side up and score the cut lines with the razor knife, break at scored marks. Now put the finished side of the drywall face down and score the back of the drywall all the way around about 1.5 inches.


Now peel the 1.5 inches of drywall off the paper and try not to ripe the paper on the face of the drywall.



Now you are ready to mark the wall

Butterfly Tools for the Handyman

Doing occasional repairs around the house is much different then being a professional Handyman. One difference is the repairs a homeowner makes, may take a day to complete, and a professional Handyman may be able to complete the same repairs in a few hours. Another difference is the tools.
As a homeowner, the tools you use are for occasional repairs, you are not using them every day to make a living like a professional Handyman. So with that in mind let’s go dig in the garage and the junk drawer to find the tools we need to make a butterfly patch. First we will need to find something to measure with, like a tape measure or ruler. Next on the list is a small putty knife. You will also need a larger putty knife (drywall trowel).
A professional drywall trowel is expensive, and something you would need if you repaired drywall for a living, but in this case a cheap plastic version will do the job just fine. The trowels come in different sizes, but I recommend either an 8’’ or a 10” trowel”. You will need a hammer, a small one will work. The last tool we need is a razor knife; I prefer one with a new blade. Now to make the patch, we will need a scrap piece of drywall about three inches bigger then the hole we need to repair, the thickness of the drywall does not matter when making a butterfly patch. The last thing we need is a small bucket of drywall mud.
See pictures for tools and supplies

Butterflies are Fun

Repairing drywall does not require a lot of tools and can be fun, that’s right I said fun. Okay let me explain, I taught a free home repair clinic for the Neighborhood Works Program, and drywall repair was one of the most popular classes. The butterfly patch was one of the class’s favorites. After a butterfly patch class, it was common for the attendees to tell me how much fun repairing drywall was for them.

I think that when a homeowner can learn to make some small home improvements on their own it feels like a large accomplishment to them. Drywall repairs can be rewarding to a homeowner, because with some effort you can see a major improvement. I also feel that a homeowner must know there limitations on what repairs they can do and when it is time to hire a professional Handyman.

Tomorrow we are going to dig around the house to find the tools we need to learn the butterfly patch. See you tomorrow.

Handyman Discovers Butterflies

I agreed to take the job that Friday morning, and if I was going to have it paint ready by Monday I needed to start right now. I started counting holes and making a list of materials I needed, then I went straight to the building supply. I had allowed myself an hour to get the materials and had arranged for my helper to meet me at the apartments. The way I knew to patch holes of this size was using backing boards and drywall tape and exact thickness of drywall to match the existing wall. I had made a list to repair the holes using this time consuming method. I know there are other methods now, but this was 1978 . I was standing in line to order my material behind an older guy, from the dried drywall mud on his clothes, I assumed he was in the drywall business, I was correct. To make a long story short, we stared talking and I told him the whole story of the hole repair. He said that I would not stand much of a chance getting the repairs completed by Monday using the repair methods I had in mind. He said he knew a way to patch holes of that size and larger without much measuring, no drywall tape, and I could use any thickness of drywall for the patch. That day I learned something that helped me finish the apartments on time and a drywall patching method I used and taught others for thirty years. He showed me how to make this patch and called it “the butterfly patch”. This was the easiest way I had ever seen to patch small and large holes. Over the years I have seen the same type of method used, but called a “hat patch”, but you know a butterfly patch by any other na,me is still a sweet way to patch drywall.

The Painters came in on Monday, Ernie paid me, and I went fishing.
You know what I always say “all is well that ends with fishing”.

Holey Experience for Handyman

There are two things I remember about that day in May, one was when I saw the condition the vandals left Ernie’s apartment building. The other happened later that day when “Charlie Hustle” Pete Rose of the Cincinnati Reds got his 3,000th major league hit. I confess, I did not live in Cincinnati at the time, I lived in a city on the east coast that did not have a major league ball club, and it was hard back then not to be a fan of the “Big Red Machine”.

That morning I met Ernie at the apartment to give him an estimate on the repairs. Out of the ten units only two had escaped the vandals. What I found was evidence of someone going crazy on the apartments with a pool cue. All of the light fixtures in the eight apartments were broken in pieces on the floor, fortunately no windows were damaged. The biggest problem was all of the 3 to 6 inch holes that had been knocked in the walls with the pool cue. Every sheet of drywall had at least a few holes. I found the pool cue sticking through a wall with one end in the living room and the other end in the bedroom.

It was Friday morning and Ernie had a deadline to get the painters in Monday. I told him that there was no way that could happen. He said that the insurance company had estimated the repairs based on removing and replacing all of the drywall in the eight units. He continued to tell me how much the estimate was and what the insurance company was going to give him. I was standing there thinking, “that is a lot of dead Presidents”, and before I could say anything he made me an offer. His offer was; that if I could patch the drywall and have it ready to paint on Monday, he would give me the whole insurance check. Patching the drywall was going to be a lot cheaper then removing all of the old drywall and putting up new, and I could make a lot of coins, but Monday did not give me much time. Yes, you are correct I did take the job, and thanks to the butterfly everything worked out great.