Are you able to get a peak inside the second stud cavity then? I really do think that wall is just there for esthetics (to provide and end for the base and upper cabinets on the left and a transition to the shallower cabinets on the right), but since you do have a bore-scope, and if you want to cover your butt 100%, it would still be good to just drill a small hole into the second cavity and take a peek.

Yes you're right, I'm just being lazy haha. I'll drill a hole and see. Thanks man.

Ok hopefully last few questions about this fawking wall. What's the best way to remove the cabinet and wall? BFH?

The cabinets are fastened to the walls with screws which were most likely installed before all the shelves and drawers (and lastly countertop) were added to them. You can probably still spot the fastening screws if you look carefully around inside the boxes, but emptying them will likely make access easier for their removal (as well as the countertop). After the cabinets are removed, I would recommend scoring the tape joints in the sheetrock with a new (sharp) rock knife blade along all inside corner edges (i.e. at ceiling and walls) before you take a shot at the rock and studs underneath. This will prevent tears in the paint as well as paper skin on the surrounding rock surfaces. Ideally, you want to dissect it piecemeal more than just mongo-ing it with a BFH, as the patchwork efforts later are often directly proportional to the collateral damage you may cause.

Oh, I forgot to mention, the surrounding flooring may or may not also be impeding the toe-boards of those cabinets (if there are any), so care should be taken there so not as not to damage the remaining flooring unnecessarily.

Thanks for the response. I'll report back.

I've been seeing a lot of articles / blog entries bemoaning the plight of Federal workers who aren't getting paid right now due to the shutdown.

Most of them follow along the lines of "I don't know how we're going to pay the rent," or "we're going to have to decide between buying groceries and making the car payment" or some variant thereof.

Serious question: is "not having enough money saved up to easily cover a few months' worth of living expenses" something that normal people with jobs typically do?

Yes.

And no, I don't know why.

--Ian

Gotta keep up with the Jones's. That means maxed credit, no savings and lots of useless gadgets/car payments. I feel no sympathy for any of them.

This^^^^^

What did you expect from a good percentage of government employees? Conservatives?

I remember when my wife and I bought this house we're living in and sought qualification for the loan they told us we qualified for some ridiculously high amount of money. We bought a house that was less than a third of what we qualified for and paid it off in 15 years. Now if I become injured and unable to work the house is paid for. And we have savings and 401k. We choose to buy our vehicles used and pay cash for them. I like flashy shit just as much as the next guy but really like the feeling of security of owning my stuff outright.

When I was younger I lost my job, went broke and in debt and refuse to go back. I learned my lesson. I also have short term and long term disability insurance in case I'm unable to work, and term life insurance for my wife to be cared for if I pass early.

But everybody should have at a very minimum 3 months income saved as an emergency fund. A lot more than that if you are being responsible.

Happy new year!

(almost midnight over here..)

Happy new year, and may you not be dragged from your home in the night by the military.


As to the above, I just cannot fathom not having cash on hand sufficient to cover a significant period of unemployment, or a major unforeseen expense. Heck, within a year of getting my first "real" job in my early 20s, I'd saved enough to cover at least a few months' rent should something happen. And no, I wasn't pulling down the big bucks. I was a grunt engineer working an entry-level job for entry-level pay. I was also driving a 10 year old Pontiac, living in a tiny apartment, and basically not spending a dime that I didn't absolutely have to.

That is self control, and it is not talked about in school anymore. Don't think, Feel. It is much easier to control a person's emotions than to change the way they think. So, don't teach anyone to think, teach them to want.

I'm not a prepper but during Hurricane Season I've generally got food, water, and fuel ready. If I lived in a place that was prone to blizzards, earthquakes, or riots I would be likely to prep for those things as well. Maybe it's a Boy Scout thing or that I was raised by people who prepared for adversity.

http://bsatroop485.com/wp-content/up.../prepared1.png

The family in FL do the same thing. At the beginning of each season, they stock up on bottled water, batteries, canned & boxed food, toilet paper, and all the other stuff you'd want during either an evacuation or a shelter-in-place scenario. It goes onto a couple of dedicated shelving units in the garage. A few large gasoline cans also sit on the shelves, though they cycle through those throughout the year as lawnmower fuel. At no time is more than one can not 100% full.

If, by the end of November it's still there, then they consume it (rather than buying new) during the off-season.

That's not prepperish, that's just good common-sense in an area where lethal weather does, in fact, occur on a regular basis. I'll never forget after Charley butt-raped Charlotte Harbor in '04, talking my stepfather through constructing a cable to plug the generator into the dryer socket*. I can only imagine what that must have looked like, one house with the lights on and the ceiling fans operating, drinking cold drinks with ice, while everyone else was in blackness and stifling heat. They've since added a portable room air-conditioner to the stockpile.

* = note that this is hilariously dangerous, not just to you, but also potentially to linemen working to restore power if you forget to open the main breaker first.

I'm making a resolution. My new year's resolution for 2019 is to not make a new year's resolution. It's such a great resolution because it's a self fulfilling paradox; by making it, I'm simultaneously breaking it. Way easier than making a resolution about dieting or exercise or something else that requires self discipline that I know I'm going to have to put a lot of work into before breaking it.

New year, same me; still AWESOME!

You must have a different definition of the word, or you find the electric chair to be a favorite party activity.

I guess my definitions here cover three points on the spectrum:

1: This is dangerous in a way which is non-intuitive, and therefore this special guidance is warranted.

2: This is dangerous in a way which should be obvious to any skilled worker, but OSHA requirements dictate that I post this sign.

3: This is so obviously dangerous that, if you do not recognize it, you deserve to be removed from the gene pool. However, your own incompetence does not justify the deaths of those who are unaware of how stupid you are and yet find themselves in harm's way due to your idiocy.


My stepfather is a real estate broker and my brother-in-law is a very talented finish carpenter. You would be justified in assuming that they both have some basic familiarity with residential electrical wiring and the safety standards surrounding it.

And you would be wrong.

I have to say that any lineman worth his salt would know full well not to trust the lines to be free of backfeed in this day and age of solar power generation. That's just SOP anymore. Not saying it would be dangerous, just somewhat more expected than not. Also, I'm not sure how much power you would actually even net from a generator if you left your main breaker closed, assuming the surrounding grid was down, what with all the likely shorts and/or current 'requests' in the neighborhood. It would be like running the furnace at full tilt with the windows and doors wide open.

Totally understood. Just that in my line of work, we plan for the worst-case scenario. In this instance, that would be all loads open. Is that likely to happen? No. But when people's lives are on the line (no pun intended), you assume the worst.

I'd like to hope that any lineman worth his boots would know to ground a "down" line prior to touching it. But in disaster scenarios, people don't always follow the book.