Enough of COVID...what are you doing to the house?
- Thread starter mimico_polak
- Start date
Plumber guy we hired has 4 vans 6 guys and pretty much all he does is remediate KiTec properties. It’s the gift that keeps on giving says he . Figures he will retire and they will still be pulling this out of houses .
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I ran 3/4" copper for airlines in the garage. When I'm old I can pull it out and sell it to fund my retirement. Try that with pex.
By then, battery powered tools should exceed the capabilities of air tools and be affordable.
I missed my calling by not going into the trades. I will guide my kids toward the trades as it seems the population is getting less self-sufficient, and will be a huge market for it.
Buddy's plumber said that his favourite are old people that need a sink, toilet, or something silly changed. $150-250/call cash. Does a few of those per day on top of his job, and they take less than 20-30min for the most part.
I wonder if I can convince CRA that RESP money used to purchase tools and a work truck counts as education related expenses.
Probably not...but the schooling should be eligible.
That's not enough. I'll need to find expenses that can be eligible. Trade school isn't that expensive, is often covered by your employer and may be picked up by government if number of people in trades is becoming a problem.
Can't you just take out all the money after the first year anyway? It just gets taxed at the kids' tax rates.
You're more aware of this than I am, so can't comment more. Although I have heard/read of parents using their kids RESP as their own personal investment vehicle, take out the cash under the kids names, and the kid gets taxed at a much lower rate.
Tax depends on what it is used for. Anything up to ~$20K per year, govt doesn't question where it went (normally). Over that and government may ask for details. There are three pools of money. The money you put in, the money government put in and the growth. You can pull your money at any time with no tax (as it was after tax money). If you pull your money instead of using it for school, government pulls their money. On the growth, if government accepts your expenses, they get taxed at the kids marginal tax rate. If there is extra money when they are done or if government rejects your expenses, those withdrawals get taxed at your rate plus 20% (eg. ~70% tax rate for many people). If you have RRSP room and there is extra money, you can transfer up to 50K and avoid the 20% hit.
Very messy...but can someone shed some light on this? Trying to figure out the layout of my walls and depth.
Primarily trying to figure out if there is a wall/footing below the garage that is even with the basement underneath the lower part of the house? The purple colour is what I'm curious about most.
Or (as per the blue "Shorter footing") is there only a short footing there that does not extend to the same level as the basement?
Primarily trying to figure out if there is a wall/footing below the garage that is even with the basement underneath the lower part of the house? The purple colour is what I'm curious about most.
Or (as per the blue "Shorter footing") is there only a short footing there that does not extend to the same level as the basement?
sburns
Well-known member
My guess on the short footing, your house is a side split of some sort which has small sets of stairs to each level. There probably is or was a crawl space, which quite often get dug out and turned into full heights. This could be why you have a short wall. But I don't think you would want a living space under the garage and structurally I think that is a no no.
Thanks. Not sure if I have a short wall (blue), or a full wall (red/purple). That's what I'm trying to figure out as I have no way to check without digging.
I have heard that some of the side splits in the areas have dug out (by either builder or owner) crawlspace, and some have it just blocked off (such as us).
Don't want to live under there, but wouldn't mind to dig out a crawlspace for some much needed storage space. Ideally it would be the full height (red / purple) and I could dig it out and have a shop / storage built under there.
I think you're right. I don't expect a purple wall (you should be able to see it/probe it if there is a gap between slab and asphalt). I expect the footing on the blue side to be ~4' deep instead of ~8' for the green wall.
As for converting dirt under garage to space, I doubt it. Most garages are poured slab on grade ~3" thick. That's ok for a fully supported slab but no good to span the space unsupported. If you broke up the garage slab, dug, installed appropriate support and repoured (or used coreslab), you can probably do it technically. Whether code/inspectors/finances allow that approach is another question.
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Agreed. I’ve always defaulted to tried and true copper but it’s not getting cheaper. Pex likely has some convenience but for my small jobs not really worth switching.
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The crawl space may actually be at the back of the house below the +1 room.
But without digging...I have no clue how these walls are, and to dig I need to get rid of the concrete surrounding the house. Damnit Kevin.
Anyway, the primary question is whether I would/could waterproof the front of the house as well. If there's no wall there...there's really nothing that can be done, and if the water is making it's way under the garage and then to the lower part (green) then I'm SOL as there's no way to waterproof the exterior walls that are under the garage.
I don’t have the details immediately on hand but there are programs where you can take a trade course and by the end they’ve paid ~$3k for your tools going forward
Not a bad gig. I can poke for the details if anyone is interested
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I would love to go back and get into the trades. HVAC specifically.
But I can't afford to go back to $20/hr for years while I build up my skills and clientele.
If I could do it p/t and weekends, I'm sure I could convince the wife to be on board. But I don't want to diverge this thread again.
