Jeff Matthews

Now you can try out the "slot port" over in powered subs. http://forums.klipsch.com/forums/672484/ShowPost.aspx []

After all this time, tofu finally figures out what to do with the gap... []

The how-to's on one are a wee-bit more obvious than those for the other.

Good luck on your LaScala audition, tomorrow! You know, you could build a pair for $200! []

Here's a crummy pic the seller posted of my KHorns. They were in a garage full of clutter and not set up. I just love the soft, syruppy color...

Okay, I'll borrow my friend's dig cam and upload. Corns were actually covered with Cane grills. My cat scratched them up some years back. When I finally decided I wanted to replace the cloth (which I have not done yet), I took off the tattered grill and whoa!!! - decos! I need to clean them up. KHorns. Still no grills. I've got a house to destroy first. The birch is beautiful, though.

Mine are decos! []

Yeah, I have thermal break. Double-pane, double-glass thickness, bla.. bla... bla...

See all those windows? Home Depot's quote for cheap vinyl ones was $13k. I got them in the best aluminum grade for $7.5k and put them in myself. I can assure you putting them in was easy. Maybe an hour a window on average.

After 2 (We've done more since this)

After:

Before 2:

Before (You can double click on pics to see them full-size):

My numbers excluded labor. At $10/hr., a helper could have that 50' trench dug in a day. $70-80. Whack!!! WHOAAAAA!!!!!! All I see is you all saying it can't be done, while I'm down here laughing because I'm doing it. I've got photos to prove it. I also forgot to mention the $5k in mahogany/beveled glass doors we added that weren't part of the budget. One set of double doors and 2 side doors. Very nice.

Rick, add another $250 for concrete if you want real deep footings. That's another 4 yards, which is quite alot. Snow loads translate into a bigger board. Instead of 2x6 roof rafter, you'd go with 2x8's. That's nominal, too. As far as heat, I assumed she had heat and was going to probably branch in to her duct system with a new duct that would cost her about $30. You're only talking 208 additional square feet to be conditioned. Maybe she doesn't have central heat/ac... If so, I don't know what you all do up north. Frost lines, snow loads and such make people want to stop thinking about it and just tell themselves "it's too involved." It's really simple. More load/bigger wood. Find out what you need, and price it out. You can usually tell what you need by looking at a friend's house. When you actually stop and count it up and price it out, it's not that expensive. I am saying this from some reasonable experience. I am taking a 4500 sq. ft. house and gutting it to its skeleton, replacing part of the skeleton, and putting it all back together - somewhat reconfigured. I had a budget set up for about $150k. That was to allow me to accomplish much less than what I've been able to do by doing the work myself and getting some helpers. Here's what I've been able to add so far to the original scope and stay within budget: 4 ac/heater systems with all new copper and ductwork, (This was a $12k add) double-paned aluminum thermal-break windows all the way around, (This was a $7.5k add) replace brick with limestone in front, add limestone chimney on right side, add 2-story limestone wall on left side, add about 12 limestone columns for wrought iron fence in front. (This was a $22k add where I hired the stone-guys direct to do this) 250' of wrought iron fence, with automatic gate (This sucked, I'll never weld that much again - a $5k add) new crushed asphalt driveway - about 200' x 15' average (a $2k add) Lots of extra beam work (???). Again, these were things I was NOT going to do to in order to stay within that budget. I am actually going to stay in budget despite all the extras. I am almost down to the "sheet-rock-it-all" phase, which leaves re-doing kitchen, baths and floors. I've still got about $60k or thereabouts in the budget left. To give an example, I have a bid from Home Depot to install Hardi-Plank for $31,830. That's when I decided to become a week-end warrior and get some helpers. I've got about $4k into Hardi-Plank and am about half-way done. That includes paying the helpers $10/hr. It just depends on how much desire you have to take on that kind of work, and whether the desire outweighs paying alot more to have someone come in and get it done real fast and get out. I'll add this. Knowing what I know now, if I could have lived in our other house and knocked this one down, we could have built it all new much faster and for marginally more money. Ripping out old and retro-fitting is definitely a time-killer.

Dean, I agree Who gets some wild hairs, but I don't think his logic is that bad. I think what he's saying is that when they mastered the recording, they mastered it with a set level of distortion in various areas based on what direct radiator play-back sounded like. I can't vouch for that theory, but that's what I think he means. Thus, following his reasoning, the producers expected a sound that contained the added distortion, which is taken away and cleaned up by horns. Therefore, horns are alleged to produce a cleaner sound than the producers wanted. I don't know any producers to run this theory by, so hmmmmm.

Yeah, that's right. But not a house - a room. No kitchen, no bathrooms, no new HVAC, no plumbing, no nothing. Just a dried-in room with walls/windows and carpet with a few electrical outlets and some lights in the ceiling. Yep! Show me where my calcs were wrong. I'm listening.

Even instruments cause distortion. What would you think of rock if all it ever had was acoustical guitar? There must be distortion for variety.

I agree with Who. There's no doubt distortion is a good quality at the right levels.

Not load-bearing. That's a fact. Build a little box out of cards (4 walls and a ceiling). Tape them together. Now, remove one of the walls running parallel to the ceiling. It still stands! Hmmmmm. Whaddayaknow? Also, the prices you're talking are vastly inflated - unless you want to pay someone top dollar to do it. Take, for example, raising the slab on the 13x16 porch to even it out across both rooms. Let's say you're raising it about 2-feet. 13x16=208 square feet. Let's round to 210. 210 divided by 3 (because slabs are 4" thick) equals 70 cubic feet. 70 divided by 27 (to convert to cubic yards) is well less than 3. So, round the "well less than 3" up to 5 to account for the perimeter concrete beam of the new slab, and you have 5 yards. Concrete is what? $70 a yard? That's $350 in concrete. Add another $350 for form boards, rebar and sand. You need a vapor barrier if there is not already one there, so add another $150 (which has to be on the high side). You have $850 into the new slab. I bet you thought that slab would be in the ballpark of $5-7k. Then, when you frame a wall, it is all out of 2x4's. The rule of thumb is 2x4's on 16" centers will call for one 2x4 per linear foot when you add the top and bottom plates. Your perimeter is 16+13+13=42. Round up to 50 for grins. 50 2x4's at what? $2.50 ea.? There's $125 in lumber for all your walls. You could easily use 2x8's in the ceiling as joists. You'd need about 15 of them to put them on 16" centers. They're probably $15 ea for 14-footers (that's a guess). So there's $225 for ceiling joists. Rafters can be 2x6's. Figure $150 tops. 1/2" ply for roof decking. Figure not more than $200. Roofing felt and shingles should not be more than $300. Windows are between $150 and $250 ea. $250 buys high quality 7' x 3' windows. What? 3 of those? Insulation. Less than $200. Drywall. Less than $100. Electrical wire. Less than $50. Hardi-plank siding is not more than $500. There you are, all built-up, dried-in and sheetrocked. It's ready for trim boards, paint, carpet or other flooring. Adding all the tab so far gives..... $3450. How much on flooring, paint and baseboard? $45k? [] Oh, you want to do BOTH rooms? Double it. $7,000. I doubt you'd need to redo the slab in the good part of the room, so you can deduct for that. Higher ceilings just means longer 2x4's. Add 30% to the cost of 2x4's for a 10' ceiling. With the slab savings, you've more than covered the high ceiling.

Opaaaaa!!!!! [<)] [8]

$50K? Please make your check payable to me in certified funds. I'll be there next week. No way $50k. As to the load-bearing issue, think back to my photos. We had to put a beam in because the wall was perpendicular to the joists. The joists must rest on something that is pependicular. If you have a wall that is parallel to the joists, you can just rip it down. A parallel wall does not support the joists. The way the porch is tied in with a shed roof tells me right away it is likely on a gable - meaning the rafters that hold the roof decking are also parallel to the joists. Therefore, the rafters are supported by only the exterior walls that run perpendicular to them. Just because it's an exterior wall does not make it load-bearing. It's just they had to stop the house and close it in somewhere. On the fireplace, once the flue and chimney is removed, you have a little framing in the attic to complete the rafters so you can fill in the hole left behind and then deck with new plywood. No big deal either. Plus, you'd need a batch of shingles to match and some roofing felt. The big issue is the 2 steps down. That would run you a fair amount of concrete. If the porch is not already on slab, you take all the decking out, dig a 1-foot wide perimeter trench to pour a 1-foot deep concrete beam. Form up the trench high enough to meet your existing slab. Fill with sand up to 4 inches less than level with the slab. Put plastic vapor barrier, set rebar, and pour in concrete. Fun, fun, fun!!! You could rebuild all of the exterior walls to the porch, too, if you think they're that bad. Wood is cheap. Then some insulation, siding of choice and drywall. Okay. Okay. This is too much. Your point is well-taken. This kind of stuff is what I am presently doing, though, on our old fixer-upper. It's quite fun, and I've gotten way more done while still remaining within original budget when we bought. I mean WAY more. I guess my point is, what you're saying you need to do would probably cost you $5k in materials. Where's the other $45k going? BTW: Don't ask me to do it for $5k to challenge me. [] I'll tell you how it's done for $5k, though.

For a subwoofer? That would seem a bit much. How about just a normal subwoofer?

The more I read it, the more it is seen that to demo that wall is probably nothing. You're talking a 13' span, which you could easily accomplish with 2 2x10's and no steel in the middle. You don't have a second story up there with people jumping around and heavy furniture. Heck, you could even go 2x8 or 2x6 for that matter, but 2x10's would be my choice - or even 2x12's because wood is cheap enough, and it'll be concealed in the attic. Trusses should be a non-issue. I bet they run parallel to the wall to be removed, so you'll never even touch them. That leaves the way the roof of the old porch was tied-in. You describe it as a shed-roof. A shed roof starts high on the end connected to the house and pitches downward to the outside wall of the porch. Nothing fancy there. If that's what you have, the part of the porch roof that ties into the house is probably on a gable. You won't touch it either. I'd bet that wall is non-load-bearing and could be removed with no structural consequence at all - meaning you don't even need a beam - just rip-and-go. That is, unless you show me that I've misunderstood what you wrote. I never would have known this a year ago, but ripping a whole house down to its skeleton has taught me alot.

Not nece-celery! The same principles should apply. If the joists run parallel to the exterior wall, you could take it out. It's done all the time by people who add on rooms. I know I could do it on my place with impunity. You'd need to account for the direction the rafters in the roof run as well. That's all.