Anne posted a comment to my fireplace renovation post, asking what tools we used to remove the "decorative" lava rock surface. The short answer: a hammer and a chisel.
We had NO idea what we would find under the rock. We took a wood chisel, pushed it against the grout, with the chisel angled towards the underside of a rock and tapped, tapped, tapped until the rock broke off. The grout - rough cement - was fairly soft and didn't take too much force to break it. We were just being very delicate at first. Once we got one stone off, we used the opening to get the chisel under the surrounding stones. We broke down and bought a chisel for stone surfaces (with a metal guard to prevent whacking the hand holding the chisel). Getting them off the stone fireplace face was the easy part.
The outer edges of the stone were applied directly on the drywall. Hard stone on soft gypsum makes chiseling impossible. We tried delicately removing the stone, but gave up. We cut the drwall alongside the stone and snapped it off, drywall, stone, and all. Then we had to patch the drywall.
I believe that code requires a 1-foot zone of non-flammable materials around the fireplace sides and 16 inches along the top (if you tackle this project, consult your code enforcement department and a fireplace expert!). In any event, we didn't want to create a fire risk, so we used cement board instead of drywall. It's harder to work with, but it can handle wet mortar and heat.
We cut the drywall back to the middle of the nearest studs, to give us a place to nail the cement board in place. The surface underneath the lava rock was not even - the builder used the mortar to level the surface AND to attach the stones. So attaching the mortar board was a challenge. We mixed up a small batch of concrete patch (some high-tech version that was fireplace compatible) and slopped it onto the fireplace. Then we slapped up the cement board and screwed it into place. The original idea was to tile over the fireplace, but the uneven surface would have to be completely evened out. We would have to lay an even bed of cement to prep the surface for tile (to even it out) - well, heck, that's half the job of stuccoing it. So we decided to just do stucco. Then we attached lath (wire mesh) with spacers, to support the stucco finish.
Demolition was the easy part. There was a risk we would cause serious damage, because we had no idea what was under the rock, how it was attached, etc. But we hated the lava rock (or, as I called it, the spider habitat and dust collector). We had tried painting, but painted grout lines look like crap, and painting just the stones - not the grout - was a very slow, laborious job. We were willing to pay a contractor to remodel it, but the contractor couldn't quote a reasonable price without knowing what was underneath. So we looked at the demo as starting the job for the contractor - though we ended up finishing the job, too.
If you consider tackling a fireplace remodel, be prepared to learn about flammability - this is NOT a job you want to screw up. Have funds available to hire a pro if you need one. Get help if you need it and be very careful to ensure the final result is safe. And be very, very gentle on the first stone - the firebox and chimney are probably made of brick, too, so a heavy hand will damage the brick structure of the firebox - and that could make the fireplace unusable and unsafe.
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
Sunday, March 07, 2010
Universal health care, or universal cost shift?
When I had Champus health insurance (for Active Duty military and families), I required specialized physical therapy. My PT had advanced degrees. Each appointment took an hour - a real hour, not a psychiatrist's 45-minute hour. My PT maintained an office in San Francisco, a business license, PT licensing, etc. She paid rent, malpractice insurance, utilities, continuing education, taxes, all of her own benefits, and licenses - out of her reimbursements - before she saw a dime of income. Champus reimbursed $25 per one hour office visit. (I paid the other $100+ out of pocket.) That's government-run health care.
In some areas, government medical reimbursements amount to a fair wage for medical providers. In other areas, government-funded patients (whether on Medicare, Medicaid, Champus, etc.) have precious few providers to choose from, as providers have opted out altogether. Providers who feel that government reimbursements run too low - they can opt out, or shift the cost onto their private-pay patients. Many shift the cost to private payers.
Government also mandates that hospitals treat emergencies without regard for the patient's ability to pay. Hospitals shift those costs to private-pay patients, too.
As Baby Boomers approach the age of Medicare eligibility, the government faces a mounting problem - health-care costs are projected to increase per service, growing life expectancy increases the lifetime services used per patient, and a whole bunch of new patients are expecting the Federal government to start covering their bills. Massive tax increases are always unpopular. Reducing services for the elderly makes lawmakers look like heartless thugs. But declaring bankruptcy is not an option, either.
The proposed solution to the mess is to force citizens onto the rolls of private health insurance, which would increase the cushion of cash available for absorbing cost-shifting from under-reimbursement for Medicare. Meanwhile, insurance companies get a quick influx of cash, which makes them feel all warm and fuzzy about the lawmakers who passed the bill, and voters get to believe that the government has "done something" about health care.
The problem with this "solution" is that 1) it's unAmerican to force citizens to purchase something from private companies; 2) it does nothing to address the genuine problems in the system that have caused enormous medical-cost-inflation and will continue to cause enormous medical-cost-inflation; and 3) it does nothing to solve the Medicare tsunami, except to shift the blame from elected officials (tax hikes) to private insurance companies (rate hikes).
In some areas, government medical reimbursements amount to a fair wage for medical providers. In other areas, government-funded patients (whether on Medicare, Medicaid, Champus, etc.) have precious few providers to choose from, as providers have opted out altogether. Providers who feel that government reimbursements run too low - they can opt out, or shift the cost onto their private-pay patients. Many shift the cost to private payers.
Government also mandates that hospitals treat emergencies without regard for the patient's ability to pay. Hospitals shift those costs to private-pay patients, too.
As Baby Boomers approach the age of Medicare eligibility, the government faces a mounting problem - health-care costs are projected to increase per service, growing life expectancy increases the lifetime services used per patient, and a whole bunch of new patients are expecting the Federal government to start covering their bills. Massive tax increases are always unpopular. Reducing services for the elderly makes lawmakers look like heartless thugs. But declaring bankruptcy is not an option, either.
The proposed solution to the mess is to force citizens onto the rolls of private health insurance, which would increase the cushion of cash available for absorbing cost-shifting from under-reimbursement for Medicare. Meanwhile, insurance companies get a quick influx of cash, which makes them feel all warm and fuzzy about the lawmakers who passed the bill, and voters get to believe that the government has "done something" about health care.
The problem with this "solution" is that 1) it's unAmerican to force citizens to purchase something from private companies; 2) it does nothing to address the genuine problems in the system that have caused enormous medical-cost-inflation and will continue to cause enormous medical-cost-inflation; and 3) it does nothing to solve the Medicare tsunami, except to shift the blame from elected officials (tax hikes) to private insurance companies (rate hikes).
Friday, March 05, 2010
Save or pay down debts?
Today I saw yet another article advocating that people put extra money to paying down credit cards before saving. The logic is sweet - credit card interest rates run 6-36%, so the rate of "return" from paying down a credit card is higher than you can get on savings.
Still, I disagree. Remember the scene in It's a Wonderful Life, where the bankers close with two one-dollar-bills left to their name, and have a honeymoon party for the dollars, telling them they'd better go make some babies, quick? Savings actually does breed.
Savings creates a habit of saving. Once a balance adds up to something meaningful for you (for the poorest savers, even a $10 balance becomes a significant chunk of money), you want it to keep growing. It becomes a reminder not to spend more than you need to. Financial psychologists talk about creating an anchor - a mental reference point against which one evaluates all other expenditures. Savings creates an anchor point based on how much one has saved - a far, far lower anchor than, say, the limit on a credit card. The saver remembers how long it took to save that $100, $500, $5000 balance, and that memory gets balanced against the desire to purchase an expensive luxury.
Furthermore, savings is a reliable source of cash in a crisis. Credit cards can cut limits, close accounts, and raise interest rates - making the credit card less reliable in a crisis. If a crisis hits - an unexpected major repair bill, for example - most consumers are better off pulling the money out of a savings account. Put it on the credit card, and it becomes a stepping stone to creating a habit of putting expenses on the credit card.
Credit cards can resemble the little shoe box of tax receipts - out of sight, out of mind - and one more receipt not filed, one more expense not paid off, eh, it's just one more. But one more withdrawal from a savings account - we take note. We develop affection for our little savings accounts of love, the little financial leprechauns that are meant to take care of us in our time of need. It hurts to hurt them. And spending money we can't afford should hurt. It says, hey, that's the third time we've withdrawn savings this month; we've got to change something. Credit cards don't say that until the balance (or minimum payments) hurt, and, then, it's a mighty big problem to solve.
Building a savings account is like eating healthier or exercising. It reconnects us with the big picture around our money. It teaches us about the positive effects our financial life can provide, in addition to the negatives. Credit cards' positive feedback system is like crack or heroin - it can give you joyous experiences (big purchases, vacations), but those positive experiences destroy your financial insides. Credit card interest is like rotting teeth, the balance like a cancer, slowly eating away at your financial future. It's so bleak, it can create a craving for one more high; one more won't matter. The feel-good times with credit cards are when we do things we shouldn't do. The feel-good times with savings happen when we do things that are good for us over the long haul. Open up the statement - look, it's up another hundred dollars! Cancelling cable becomes worthwhile, as we see the positive outcome grow and grow.
Once a person (or family) has 3 months emergency savings established, that's the time to start whittling down the credit card. But I think a family should keep putting at least a little money into the savings account, even just $5 or $10 a month, to keep the positive-feedback loop going, keep putting at least some financial brain energy to building a better future.
Still, I disagree. Remember the scene in It's a Wonderful Life, where the bankers close with two one-dollar-bills left to their name, and have a honeymoon party for the dollars, telling them they'd better go make some babies, quick? Savings actually does breed.
Savings creates a habit of saving. Once a balance adds up to something meaningful for you (for the poorest savers, even a $10 balance becomes a significant chunk of money), you want it to keep growing. It becomes a reminder not to spend more than you need to. Financial psychologists talk about creating an anchor - a mental reference point against which one evaluates all other expenditures. Savings creates an anchor point based on how much one has saved - a far, far lower anchor than, say, the limit on a credit card. The saver remembers how long it took to save that $100, $500, $5000 balance, and that memory gets balanced against the desire to purchase an expensive luxury.
Furthermore, savings is a reliable source of cash in a crisis. Credit cards can cut limits, close accounts, and raise interest rates - making the credit card less reliable in a crisis. If a crisis hits - an unexpected major repair bill, for example - most consumers are better off pulling the money out of a savings account. Put it on the credit card, and it becomes a stepping stone to creating a habit of putting expenses on the credit card.
Credit cards can resemble the little shoe box of tax receipts - out of sight, out of mind - and one more receipt not filed, one more expense not paid off, eh, it's just one more. But one more withdrawal from a savings account - we take note. We develop affection for our little savings accounts of love, the little financial leprechauns that are meant to take care of us in our time of need. It hurts to hurt them. And spending money we can't afford should hurt. It says, hey, that's the third time we've withdrawn savings this month; we've got to change something. Credit cards don't say that until the balance (or minimum payments) hurt, and, then, it's a mighty big problem to solve.
Building a savings account is like eating healthier or exercising. It reconnects us with the big picture around our money. It teaches us about the positive effects our financial life can provide, in addition to the negatives. Credit cards' positive feedback system is like crack or heroin - it can give you joyous experiences (big purchases, vacations), but those positive experiences destroy your financial insides. Credit card interest is like rotting teeth, the balance like a cancer, slowly eating away at your financial future. It's so bleak, it can create a craving for one more high; one more won't matter. The feel-good times with credit cards are when we do things we shouldn't do. The feel-good times with savings happen when we do things that are good for us over the long haul. Open up the statement - look, it's up another hundred dollars! Cancelling cable becomes worthwhile, as we see the positive outcome grow and grow.
Once a person (or family) has 3 months emergency savings established, that's the time to start whittling down the credit card. But I think a family should keep putting at least a little money into the savings account, even just $5 or $10 a month, to keep the positive-feedback loop going, keep putting at least some financial brain energy to building a better future.
Friday, February 19, 2010
Remodeling the fireplace
We have been doing some remodeling. Ideally, we'll end up with a completely new and different house. Realistically, we'll end up with a prettier house, hopefully one that is a little more usable and a lot more pleasant.
One of our projects is a fireplace remodel. We have icky 70's lava rock facades on two fireplaces. We're going to re-do them both in stucco. We started on one. We tore off the lava rock, which was just a veneer mortared over the fireplace brick and some of the Sheetrock. Now we have a flat surface to stucco, and we built a wood frame to serve as a form for the stucco. We screwed up lath, a metal mesh for the stucco to stick to - it becomes a part of the stucco, and helps attach the stucco to the fireplace. Next step, add some bonding agent and put up the scratch coat.
For the other fireplace, we won't bother removing the lava rock around the fireplace. We'll just stucco over it. Above the fireplace, where the lava rock extends to the ceiling, we'll remove the rock, because the room just isn't big enough to carry the enormity of that floor-to-ceiling stone, and a regular wall above the fireplace makes it easier to hang a picture, big TV, or whatever.
Our fireplaces are those inefficient old things hanging off the side of the house. For maximum efficiency, a fireplace should exist inside the house, with the chimney running through the living space so it can dissipate heat inside the heating envelope. We can make the fireplaces more efficient by adding a fireplace insert, but my dream would be to replace them with a wood stove or a real fireplace on an inside wall. My uber-dream would be a katchelofen located right in the middle of the house.* I can dream. :-)
One odd thing we discovered as we prepared for stucco - a clean fireplace is a beautiful thing. We don't want cleaning-splatter all over the new stucco, so we scrubbed the fireplace as an intermediate step. The fireplace extends off the side of the house (think chimney climbing up the side of a house - the firebox is in that chimney, outside the room, which is why it's inefficient). With the firebox cleaned, the brick lightened up nicely, and we can see the depth of the fireplace more easily. It visually expands the room two more feet - that is, it makes the room feel a little bigger because the furthest wall you can see is now the back wall of the fireplace, which is actually outside of the house. When it was all dark and sooty, it looked more like a flat plane, even with the interior wall.
* Does dreaming of efficient home improvements make me a major geek? If so, I'll go one geekier: Solatubes. If you go to a model home, you'll find super-bright light bulbs and lots of clean windows with the curtains open. House porn pictures often feature walls of windows, photographed during the day. Light, bright rooms look great and feel great. A solatube is a tubular skylight, 10 or 14 inches in diameter, with a super-reflective tube that maximizes natural light gain during the day. They're designed to minimize heat gain while maximizing free sunlight inside. $400 installed, $250 DIY, and it brings sunlight to a dark room, closet, or hallway. With an optional lightkit, it can replace an existing electric light and provide lighting after the sun goes down. With an optional dimmer (a baffle that rotates to block light), you can put a solatube into a TV room and close the "curtains" (the baffle) for movie watching during daylight hours. The bells and whistles double the price, but I really, really want a solatube in the kitchen so it looks and feels terrific. Another one without the bells and whistles would make the master closet brighter (and, gosh, I'm always wearing one navy sock and one black sock because I can't tell the difference in poor light), and one in the hall will make the whole house feel brighter. Though $400 each is a chunk of cash, it's cheaper than adding a window - and TONS cheaper than adding a window in my stucco-sided house.
One of our projects is a fireplace remodel. We have icky 70's lava rock facades on two fireplaces. We're going to re-do them both in stucco. We started on one. We tore off the lava rock, which was just a veneer mortared over the fireplace brick and some of the Sheetrock. Now we have a flat surface to stucco, and we built a wood frame to serve as a form for the stucco. We screwed up lath, a metal mesh for the stucco to stick to - it becomes a part of the stucco, and helps attach the stucco to the fireplace. Next step, add some bonding agent and put up the scratch coat.
For the other fireplace, we won't bother removing the lava rock around the fireplace. We'll just stucco over it. Above the fireplace, where the lava rock extends to the ceiling, we'll remove the rock, because the room just isn't big enough to carry the enormity of that floor-to-ceiling stone, and a regular wall above the fireplace makes it easier to hang a picture, big TV, or whatever.
Our fireplaces are those inefficient old things hanging off the side of the house. For maximum efficiency, a fireplace should exist inside the house, with the chimney running through the living space so it can dissipate heat inside the heating envelope. We can make the fireplaces more efficient by adding a fireplace insert, but my dream would be to replace them with a wood stove or a real fireplace on an inside wall. My uber-dream would be a katchelofen located right in the middle of the house.* I can dream. :-)
One odd thing we discovered as we prepared for stucco - a clean fireplace is a beautiful thing. We don't want cleaning-splatter all over the new stucco, so we scrubbed the fireplace as an intermediate step. The fireplace extends off the side of the house (think chimney climbing up the side of a house - the firebox is in that chimney, outside the room, which is why it's inefficient). With the firebox cleaned, the brick lightened up nicely, and we can see the depth of the fireplace more easily. It visually expands the room two more feet - that is, it makes the room feel a little bigger because the furthest wall you can see is now the back wall of the fireplace, which is actually outside of the house. When it was all dark and sooty, it looked more like a flat plane, even with the interior wall.
* Does dreaming of efficient home improvements make me a major geek? If so, I'll go one geekier: Solatubes. If you go to a model home, you'll find super-bright light bulbs and lots of clean windows with the curtains open. House porn pictures often feature walls of windows, photographed during the day. Light, bright rooms look great and feel great. A solatube is a tubular skylight, 10 or 14 inches in diameter, with a super-reflective tube that maximizes natural light gain during the day. They're designed to minimize heat gain while maximizing free sunlight inside. $400 installed, $250 DIY, and it brings sunlight to a dark room, closet, or hallway. With an optional lightkit, it can replace an existing electric light and provide lighting after the sun goes down. With an optional dimmer (a baffle that rotates to block light), you can put a solatube into a TV room and close the "curtains" (the baffle) for movie watching during daylight hours. The bells and whistles double the price, but I really, really want a solatube in the kitchen so it looks and feels terrific. Another one without the bells and whistles would make the master closet brighter (and, gosh, I'm always wearing one navy sock and one black sock because I can't tell the difference in poor light), and one in the hall will make the whole house feel brighter. Though $400 each is a chunk of cash, it's cheaper than adding a window - and TONS cheaper than adding a window in my stucco-sided house.
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