Reason #224,921 NOT to buy a used older trailer

Two words: heat tape.

It's a good thing.

 

Hey "double-jointed, midget, contortionist" pretty much describes what they expect mechanics to be anymore. I hate working on modern automobiles especially since I tend to repeatedly drop things anymore.

Ditch the copper pipe and use cpvc glue together pipe. Maybe even run it in a more accessable way. Its cheap enough to replumb a whole house without hurting your wallet horribly. Even if its against local code, probably doing your own plumbing repair is also. No bogey man is going to do the double-jointed somersault looking for it. Heck back in college, I lived in trailer and used piece of heater hose and two hose clamps to repair frozen cold water pipe in one of those inaccessable places where you'd start a fire trying to solder with a torch. Hey it worked and the rubber was very forgiving of freezing.

 

repiped my houses (trailers with large additions and full roofs added... silly I know, but its a tax stratagy. solid home, trailer taxes!) with PVC. I ran the pipes on the ceilings where the heat lays. I can reach all my pites wherever they are. It looks funny but after a while you dont notice it.
its worth not having 5/8 copper lines frozen in my walls anymore.

 

Most commercial buildings run everything in the ceiling... and its usually a drop ceiling. The advantages are that everything is extremely easy to get to... I suppose the disadvantage is the noise from some of the plumbing, although some sound barrier/insulation may cure that. For those folks considering upgrading those older homes with 10 foot ceilings... perhaps a drop ceiling on the first floor would make for a very smart and easy installation. I have no idea if this would pass code.

cheers,

 

Corgitails, you are taking the wrong approach. Abandon the old pipes and use pex and go thru the floor. On the underside of the trailer insulate the pipes extremely well and you should be good to go. Pex can usually tolerate a freeze without bursting which is another major plus.

 

Codes? we dont neeeeeed no stinking codes! PTOOIE!

A building inspector would need a crash cart in my house to get his heart beating again.
my house.. my property... bugger off.

(ok I did put everything up to code but becuse I wanted to.. works better)

 

Codes do have their place.

Say your neighbor likes to collect used automobile tires and has a couple of hundred gracing their yard. During summer you cannot go outside because they make perfect mosquito breeding chambers. You neighbor thinks it is fine to have an outhouse built over a ditch which runs to your fish pond. Great for them. Each time it rains hard it self-flushes. However, for you... Again your great neighbor likes to buy old junkers with the thought of eventually fixing them up for use or resale. They now have a dozen or so also gracing their yard. You want to sell your property. A prospective buyer drives by, sees your neighbor's place and doesn't even stop to look closer. Your neighbor thinks it a great idea to have a large hog lot next to your property line and, of course, upwind. Sorry, there are not county zoning codes to prevent it.

A greater public good vs individual rights issue.

Ken S. in WC TN

 

Pipes along the ceiling! I don't think i would bragg about this. It is not that hard to do it right. It sounds like a bad case of the lazzies to me. You must have one fine woman to put up with that kind of stuff. Does she really go for the tax deal? You are a lucky man. Most women are alot smarter than that.
Mike

 

Hey, I'm a woman and, if having the pipes run along the ceiling keeps them unfrozen, I say put them up there! Judi

 

This is a proven health hazard for whole neighborhood, so probably not bad idea.

Again your neighbor is doing something that affects your health even though many municipalities do same thing on a collective scale. Boy that Mississippi water must taste good down in New Orleans.

Now we are in a gray area. If the junkers are leaking fluids into ground, you might have an argument. However in my opinion you have no right to dictate to your neighbor what he collects that is not directly harmful to you, nor what color to paint his house because you cant tolerate that particular shade of off white, or that he must have a cover on his kitchen waste basket because you cant stand the idea of him not having one. My opinion, dont move next to neighbor if you dont like what you see there now. If new neighbor starts collecting those awful lawn knomes, then by all means move. Or if you dont like looking at the American flag and he likes to fly it then you should move. Sounds rediculous right?, but all the things I mentioned have been enforced in various communities. How much power over your neighbor is too much? I'd rather have a neighbor that lets me have few junkers and I let him have lawn knomes and plastic pink flamingos than live with the Nazi like thought police trying to make us all conform to some idiot dictators whims. Build a fence if you dont want to look at your neighbors eccentricities. Your perceived property value is not something guarenteed by the constitution.

 

We run our Pipes on the inside,still have a little freezing problem but its just minor problem.

We went looked at a house yesterday for sale,nice house but neighbors had a bunch of Junk Cars.That alone lost the sale of the house.

big rockpile

 

The problem is they get way out of hand. I can understand codes that affect my neighbors (to some degree) but when I lived somewhere where other people could see my place they had a cow about anything I did. I had to get special permission for a repair person to enter the gate. I built a beautiful deck on my home and they called the county - guy came out with his. ($&&$( measuring stick. At one place in one corner of the deck is was 31 inches high instead of the regulation 30 inches high. I grabbed a shovel and threw a shovel full of dirt under his stick and he went away. Put a propane stove in a garage and they made me get a thermostat that was a lock out thermostat - new rule by the way in WA - it would prevent the heat from going on if it was colder than 60 degrees!!!!! Of course if I was putting it in a greenhouse that rule would not apply and if I insulated the whole thing to R21 in the walls and r30 in the ceiling then I could take off the thermostat. Have you tried to buy R21? There is R19 and then stuff that won't even fit in 6 inch stud walls! I bought the silly thermostat - took a half day of calling to find a heating company who even knew what I was talking about- put it in, the guy approved it and I ripped it back out as he was driving away!!!

Had one code guy in Denver come three months after the fact to "Approve" the hot water heater I had Sears install. Had to take off work to meet him - he took one look at it and asked me if it was electric or gas!!!!!! I told him if he didn't know that was his problem. Bullt another deck in Denver and had a stop work order put on it because a neighbor complained - she could only see it if she got a ladder to peer over the fence and through her thick row of cedar trees! Of course is was completely legal again, but they put a stop work order on it anyhow until I came home to meet them. She complained to them that it blocked her view!!!!!!! An 18inch deck!!!!

In all of these cases of harrassment I went to the county first to "do the right thing" and check on needed permits. Phooey! I haven't found a place yet with stuff "built to code" including my current place so what is exactly getting enforced?


Codes are turning out to be like everything else in government - beaurocrats justifiying their jobs by making inane rules and harrassing the law abiding among us. They won't bother the dumps down the street - too much work!!!

They won't bother your neighbor - that's too much work, they are too busy hassling the responsible people.


Phew - I am better now. Pushed the wrong button early in the morning!

 

Oh thank goodness - if they come after my pink flamingos they are going to have to drag me off to jail!!! I agree about the moving part - right now I am situated such that no neighbor can see me or what I am up to and like it just fine. My flamingos are safe for another day. :haha: By the way, I just turned off the timer on my outdoor Christmas lights this weekend. It's dark and dreary all winter and I like to see the colored lights on the trees outside at night. What a sense of freedom! :haha: :haha: :haha:

 

As long as it doesnt pose a heath haxzzard like an outhouse or mosquitos, mind your own beezwax. "safe" im my view of construction the codes fall short, and often a non code method is safer/better.

"Right" and "functional" are usually on oppsite ends of the scale.
Lazy? well you put the pipes in the floor and in the walls and then call me when they freeze, leak or something and you have to remodel the whole area from the dammages. "pipes on the cieling" doesnt mean you have to see them, most are hidden or camoflaged. The ones that aint.. they are pipes, get over it. :haha:
the woman I had was and is to anal to live a functional lifesyle. She still visits quite a lot, but she dont live here anymore.. it wasnt the pipes that drove her out it was the other stuff... dog hair... small house... long commutes to work.. racoons fighting outside in the early Am. The pipes she actually thought were primitivly charming and paid them nomind at all.
"most women are smarter than that?" I dunno if to be amused or offended.

"the tax deal" saves me thousands of dollars a year. Build your new "correct" home here and the taxes will bury you. My trailer portions are skinned over, you cant see them or know thay are there, unless you open the side storage room door then you see part of the front... saved my butt when the tax commisair came to photograph my "new home" I insisted it was the same house, she showed me a picture from 1969.. she said "this isnt a trailer" so I opened the big door and showed her "the trailer".
She laughed and ripped up her new tax report. "sure is the same structure.. no changes" was her only and last words to me.
you can give the state rent for a nice new or "proper" building.. I'm not that proud or anal.

Thank you judi... Some women get it!

being a free soverign citizen and master of my own estates, I care not one flying fig what my neighbor thinks of my "stockpile". let him errect a stockade fence if they dont like it. I Have a dozen cats, I have no mice or rats. I run a clean tight ship.
let the neighbors run your life? Nyet, comrade, no goot.

One day they will come for me, and with their citation book they will shove their nazi state life control tactics down my throat and then my fine fellows, if they think I am half of my rocker now....
The courthouse shall flow with the paperwork filed agaist the commie tightasses.

keep it clean, safe and more or less neat, and they have no business dictating what you can/cannot do.



the state constitution of PA that superceeds ALL local laws and ordenances states says..
Inherent Rights of Mankind
Section 1. All men are born equally free and independent, and have certain inherent and indefeasible rights, among which are those of enjoying and defending life and liberty, of acquiring, possessing and protecting property and reputation, and of pursuing their own happiness.

My home my happines my stuff. If your only whine is that it is an eyesore, thats a relitive statement. i may think your ugly wife and kids are an eyesore, i cant complain about you flunting them in public. :haha:

"the right of the individual shall be protected so long as it doesnt interfere with the status quo" thinking is what makes our lives miserable, dont stand for it.

deb you shoulda told the man with the measuring stick where to shove it, you will file the proper tax reports on your own, you cont need the local socialist babysitter.

I put the pipes on the ceiling becuas its functional, i runthe wiring in overcoded conduit pipe on the ceiling because its SAFER than running bare romex thru a wall for mice to nibble the jacketing off it.
My structure wont fall from a wall fire from a hidden wire, there are none. It wont suffer massive water dammage from hidden pipes, there are none and there are more shut off valves than needed in varuois places.
its ABOVE code, safer and functional...
they still would have a problem with it. Believe it or not, around here if you use conduit pipe rated ABOUE "home use" its in violation of code for a home. "Make it safe but only as safe as we say safe is"
:no:
Fithy socialists.. commies all. Of course I havent the inteligence to know whats safe... How bold of me. Of course let me abide by the codes written by snot nosed engineering studednt who have hands as tender as a schoolgirl because they never actually used the material.. they have the specs on paper thats MUCh better...

Please help me, I cant take care of myself with out someones codebook.

Anal retentive clueless twits.

Ok.. whew.. I'm done now I feel better.. thanks ken now I can relax the rest of the day!
:haha:

 

Amen! When the time comes to rewire or replumb my place they are all going to be run through conduit outside of the walls. I wake up in the middle of the night hearing mice scratching and wonder when they are going to hit a wire and there's not much I can do about it other than tear out the walls. To me it's much safer to run them in coduit outside of the walls and much easier to make adjustments, expansions, repairs, etc. Now me - I would paint the conduit some bright color to liven up the place a bit.

 

:worship: You Said It! :yeeha: Make the pipes hang firmly a few inches from the ceiling and they make a great place to hang your drying herbs, drying flowers, drying clothes during rainy days and I dare any mouse or rat to chew through that! My brother and his family lost a house to a wire fire because some yahoo nailed the sheetrock to a stud through a wire ten years earlier. :waa: Their dogs and cats survived, but were burnt in the ordeal. :worship: The firemen rescued them. Fires make me skittish and the thought of that happening again spooks me terribly. My sister told me about a town that made it illegal to put even a mop in the garage. You can't even put a hoe in there. It has to go into your garden shed. Only a car can go in the garage. Another town won't allow you to own a pickup truck. No matter how nice looking it is, it has to go...permanently. Just a couple of years ago, a man in the next town had to take down his flag and flagpole because it upset one of his neighbors. A neighbor down the street had to take down a playfort because his kids could see over the privacy fence of his next door neighbor. Another town around here dictates what kind of fence you can put up and how tall it is. If it's even half an inch too tall, it's gotta come down.
Give me land where I have to drive to go see my next door neighbor and I'll be a lot happier. Judi :yeeha:

 

Oh, I have a better one yet - in Denver (where I am from before landing here) they had a big drought a year ago. The water department prohibited watering lawns, fining people who did. Then the development started to fine the same people for having brown lawns!!!!

 

We have a Liberty mobile home. The waterpipes for the kitchen run directly beside the ductwork. My water starts out warm for a few seconds, but no frozen kitchen pipes. We have heat tape on the pipe where it enters the home. That died one year and my poor hubby was under there in below zero weather trying to thaw it. My brother-in-law had his pipes freeze... he rents one of those torpedo heaters and sticks it under his home to thaw them.

As for code... my friend is building a house.. his porch light is not permitted to be beside the door, it must be above the door. He also has to have 8 smoke detectors in his house. This is a small home! I can't believe it. Hey, if we're willing to take the risk with 2 smoke detectors and you think that's stupid... well, then we'll improve the gene pool by removing ourselves... just let me alone! New code coming to my township - will increase the average home price by $700-800. oh yippee skippee... again... wonder what the Ingall's would have had to say to our present day "codes".