COMMENT OF THE DAY: HOW TO JACK YOUR OWN BUNGALOW “Dude, it’s easy, just get a 20 or 30 ton bottle jack, the kind you can buy at any auto part or hardware store. . . . To raise a stack, just start a new one right next to it. I like to use the solid concrete blocks that [are] half the height of the normal ones. Pile those up to close the height of the jack, and then unscrew the thingie in the middle of the jack to bring it up to the beam. It’s a good idea to put a small piece of scrap wood between the jack and the beam, or otherwise you can make a little jack-shaped hole in your beam- probably not a big deal. Anyway, jack the beam up until you are able to put a shim in there- steel shims are nice, but hard to find, I just use wood for the smaller ones. Then you can let your jack down, and reset- the new stack your jack was on will have pushed itself down into the ground more than the house will have gone up, so you’ll need another shim or two under the jack before you start lifting again. Procede like this, adding more or larger shims, or concrete-block half pieces, until you get your floor the way you want it. . . . Important thing to keep in mind as you work is that the existing locations for the concrete blocks are already sitting on 80 years worth of soil compression. If you start a new stack somewhere else, and you don’t put some concrete down 3 or 4 feet, that new spot will sink over the next couple of years. So, just keep all the existing stacks, though you can add new stacks to cure a sag. On my house, when adding new stacks, I didn’t pour any concrete, I just dug down about a foot about put a 16″ x 16″ wide piece on the bottom, using a dollar-store level to make sure it was sitting in there flat. Ok, the redneck way to do this process is to lower the house, rather than raise it. Sure, this is easier but also moves your house that much closer to termite-ville, and closer in time to the moment when the beams are sitting directly on the dirt, which is kind of the dead-man-walking state for a wood framed house. And if you never raise your house, that day is a matter of when, not if, in this city of mud. . . .” [Patrick, commenting on Brick on the Inside]
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COMMENT OF THE DAY: HOUSTON’S EXTENSIVE PARK SYSTEM “Look at all of those parking lots! I always get so depressed when I look at views of Houston from above…..” [Merrie, commenting on Four New Houston Metro Rail Routes, As Seen from Above]
COMMENT OF THE DAY: BUILD MORE WACKY MANSIONS LIKE THIS, PLEASE “. . . We need more of these. Think of all the design professionals and landscapers and carpenters and the rest that were employed to build it and then maintain it. Hell, the construction crews were probably large enough to fill one of those suburban developments that is now a ghost town.” [jost, commenting on You Love the Knight Life: Rivercrest White Castle Retreat]
COMMENT OF THE DAY: BEFORE RICHMOND HALL WENT LIGHT AND QUIET “. . . The building was the original Weingartens grocery store. Then in the 1960’s /1970’s it was the Texas Opry House. Then in the early 1980’s it was the Parade Disco (yes,the Parade Disco of New Orleans Bourbon Street, fame or infamy, depending on how one looks at it). The place rocked . . . Monday nights was punk rock night and it was real punk, not the poseur “punkâ€. But Friday & Saturday nights was gay disco. Some of the best music ever. Then the Menil converted it into [Richmond Hall] . . . it houses Dan Flavins awesome light sculpture.“ [Tim, commenting on Chipperfield Sculpts the New Menil: Goodbye, Richmont Square]
COMMENT OF THE DAY: THE SAVOY HOTEL IMPLOSION YOU MISSED “I was across the street watching the tear down on and off for the 3rd day. They had a little trouble with the elevator shaft and the chimneys. Apparently the building was built pretty solid…2 foot thick brick walls. Yesterday they etched part of the bricks in the back and about half the building came down all at once by itself, rattling the ground and putting up a huge dust cloud. Part of the fire escape fell on the parking garage next door though.” [K. Brink, commenting on Emergency Demo: The Savoy Hotel’s Final Weekend Stay Downtown]
COMMENT OF THE DAY: ON THE CASE OF THE DEMO FIRES “Chron.com reports “Unoccupied home [in 5100 block of Wipprecht] burns in NE Houston.†Wonder if that was the demo.” [GoogleMaster, commenting on Daily Demolition Report: Wipprecht Gammage]
COMMENT OF THE DAY: THE TOWNHOME EFFECT “A lot of people would think twice with the townhome next door, I know I did. Cherryhurst is a nice area but has evidently let whatever deed restrictions it had slide. This will hurt prices there in the long run as older homes are replaced with townhomes. Apart from the aesthetic, which is subjective, great neighborhoods aren’t build round townhomes. It probably already has hurt this seller.” [sidegate, commenting on Swamplot Price Adjuster: Your Cherryhurst Neighbors]
COMMENT OF THE DAY: WHAT’S IT WORTH TO YOU? “. . . Personally, I think that dollar-per-square foot calculations have a value slightly above worthless but well below useful. Nor do I think that ‘comps’ are particularly meaningful. Obviously, others do not think the same. Regardless, if the seller can get what they want for the property, so be it. It probably won’t affect me, at least in the short term, in the slightest. . . . Heck, I think that most real estate (whether here in Houston or elsewhere) is vastly overpriced, and that the market has a long way to fall before housing prices become more reasonable in relation to household earnings.” [Random Poster, commenting on Swamplot Price Adjuster: Your Cherryhurst Neighbors]
COMMENT OF THE DAY: APARTMENT MODEL SHOWINGS “If ‘Nudist sundeck + 1 hired model –> 100% occupancy’ was the case, then the Core (on Washington Ave) and Bel Air (on Allen Parkway) and many others in the similiar ‘scene’ and price range would be at 100% occupancy too. But they are not. BTW, the Bel Air pool is really really nice!” [irfan, commenting on Taking More Than Half Off at Those Apartments with the French Quarter Look]
COMMENT OF THE DAY: NOT MUCH HAPPENING SOUTH OF CLEAR BROOK LANDING “. . . Beamer Road is a special case because of the Brio Superfund Site. There was a waste processing plant that had disposed of a great deal of material from various refineries by dumping it into earthen pits. That was not standard practice; this was Houston’s Love Canal. The Brio site has been contained to prevent additional seepage through the groundwater, but the pollution that’s there would be far too expensive to remediate. So yeah, unless your friend got a chunk of that sweet sweet settlement, he’s probably **** out of luck.” [TheNiche, commenting on Comment of the Day: Where the Townhomes Ain’t]
COMMENT OF THE DAY: WHAT LIES BENEATH “. . . roads go over top of petroleum pipelines all the time with an agreement & bond to protect them. Citie$, countie$ and large entitie$ do it all the time. The whole of the Woodlands Town Center, including the regional mall there, is built atop a pipeline, which runs alongside the foundation of the Anadarko Tower. Even Lake Robbins, though it’s not at all deep, is on top!” [movocelot, commenting on Comment of the Day: Where the Townhomes Ain’t]
COMMENT OF THE DAY: WHERE THE TOWNHOMES AIN’T “One of the things I love about this city is how much of it is downright rural, just a few miles from downtown. Huge lots with little houses, people keeping horses and riding them along the bayous.” [Miz Brooke Smith, commenting on Neighborhood Guessing Game Over: All’s Well on That Tidwell]
COMMENT OF THE DAY: WHERE’S OUR TANIGUCHI? “What’s the hold up on this thing? It’s still a vacant lot. In the past few weeks, utility work on water/sewer has been done on the street, but not sure if it’s associated with the Asia Society construction. Groundbreaking was in Nov. 2008??? It’s already Sept. 2009 and no sign of construction.” [David Hollas, commenting on More Images of the Asia Society Headquarters Design]
COMMENT OF THE DAY: WILSHIRE VILLAGE LOGIC “I am really amazed at this debate. The principle is very simple. The land is too valuable for the revenue generating capacity of existing structures. You can’t rent those spaces for enough money, no matter how you remodel. This is definately a high density project and could be high-rise site in a better market, where are you going to find north of 7 acres in an area like this? The Fiesta across the street is in the Cohen family, so that could be in play. The Cohen family is surrounded by real estate guys. The real shame here, is that you have complicated personalities that probably prevented any new construction during a time in which it would have been viable, so now they are trying to market a property in a climate that almost no one can get financing that would make a deal work. A new project would have provided comfortable living space in a convenient and desirable location, with maybe even a mixed use component. You tear down 40+ year old properties, that have a great deal of deferred maintanence, for marketing purposes, and now they can showcase those beautiful magnolia trees, which I hope they can preserve as many as possible, but it has to make economic sense. I am sure that if someone will make a fair market value offer, and they are a credible buyer, they would sell. Death to rumors. The dirt could be as much as $100 a foot, if you turned back the clock 2 years. It is special so may still demand it.” [Alexander, commenting on All Cleaned Up and Ready for Sale: What Can We Get for Wilshire Village?]
COMMENT OF THE DAY: A BOOST FOR THE BOLIVAR BUYOUT? “A large part of Bolivar is going to be turned into a nature preserve. FEMA is buying out many of the properties. . . . I suppose that buyout was made easier by the rate of foreclosures. . . .” [Raj, commenting on Where the Action Was: Houston Summer Foreclosure Map]