Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion The Water Cooler For you woodworkers...

I have some lag hooks that I'm going to install in my ceiling joists in the garage. They're rated for 250 lbs and threaded so I can screw them directly into the wood. I'll be using this to hang some exercise rings for the family to use.

My coach has used them in a previous gym and he's confortable w/ their use and my use will be less strenuous.

My question is this, is it OK to drill a pilot hole to ease screwing it in? Or will that weaken the attachment? It's about 2" long, maybe a 1/4" in diameter.

I would like to see you drive it in without a pilot hole.

Personally, I'd prefer to drill through the joist and use a threaded ring setup with a washer/nut on the other side. But...yes, if you are installing lag screws, you'll absolutely need a pilot hole.

And they'll take their maximum load best by being installed toe in (perferable) or both toe out, not perpendicular to the drilling surface.

I think I had that DVD.

F'in funny, Bob!

I'm at my best when filthy innuendo is involved. I know, I know. That makes me, like, soooooooo unusual here.

Must have been an instructional DVD, like the Marilyn Chambers series .

There's a Marilyn Chambers series??? I have loved her since her first Ivory Snow box.

She seemed so much more like she meant it, all of it, than most of the others. I've always hated a "phoned in" performance. Especially in porn.

I just like porn LOL. 'Tis the youth in me I guess .

No, it's not your youth. It's just 'cause you're a guy. My first thread ever here was a (joke) porn thread. I just wanted to see how many reactions I got. I think it was a few pages worth. You ARE just another one of us. Don't even try to get over it.

Thank you, sir. Is there a charge with that ?

Yes. Give me all of your adult pay-site passwords.
Otherwise (and JP mght agree), I can't help you.

This is what I did when I put up rings in my daughter's room since I could get to the joists in the attic. I didn't want to drill into the ceiling joists in case I really messed up with the drilling and compromised the structural integrity of the joist, so I used joist hangers to attach some cross-members between the joists and then drilled into those. This had the added benefit of distributing the load across two joists.

Reminds me of a "don't" from the IB forum:
http://home.comcast.net/~infinitelybaffled/NotchedRafters.jpg

That's nothing. My folks bought a farm house in the 70s and renovated it. One of the first things my dad did was put an 8" I beam across the basement because the previous owners had cut chunks out of a lot of joists to run additional heating ducts. He had no idea why the house did not fold in on itself.

That is scary. I am always amazed at what some people can get away with. I know if I were ever to do something like that (which I never would anyway), the house would collapse on me. I guess it works for them because ignorance is bliss?

Upon examining the joists where I tore out the ceiling drywall in the floor I'm working on I've discovered where someone had notched out 3 joists in order to install a plastic hose leading away from a bathroom ceiling fan. The funny part is, the hose is only about 3 feet long and exits into a hole that leads to the underside of the bath tub in the floor above. Stupid! Stupid! Stupid!

I'll probably add another joist at this location. It's hard to say how long it's been this way. This house is 60 years old. I'm almost afraid to remove more drywall. Don't know what I'll find.

Owners aside, if you can tolerate how he heaps praise upon himself, you guys oughta watch Holmes on Homes on the HGTV network. The things that some "contractors" (and I use the term loosely) do to houses in the guise of "improvement" is UNBELIEVABLE.

You are so right, Jack. I see it every day. I once did work in a 1980's townhouse. If someone were sitting on the 1st fl. toilet, they could actually feel it move when someone walked across the livingroom floor. NONE of the floor joists was attached at either end!

In a 100+ yr old house this summeer, I found, in the corner of a 2nd floor room, "a" 6 x 6 post that was actually 4 randomly dimensioned pieces, aboout 20-30" each, just sitting on top of each other. Not one toenail.

A mid-high-end architect house from the 50's. New addition to the kitchen. Where the new ceiling met the wall, NONE of the drywall had been attached anything. The whole side of the ceiling/wall joint was free-floating.

Far more common and worse: deferred maintenance.

Brian, I believe for starters it looks like you have an illegal electrical junction box in that pic as well, it shouldn't be hidden in the ceiling. They should have mounted that box so the front opening would have been exposed on the ceiling and then used a cover plate over it.

You're bang on about the electrical.

But then, I once convinced a client in an 80 yr old house that they needed sconces above the new mantel I had just made for them. When I dug in to start making holes for the electrician, I found that there had already been sconces there. The boxes were there, so were all the wires. They were merely secured with electrical tape, on a still live circuit. They had just slapped plaster over them and called it a day.

I'm sure they'd been like that for decades and the house didn't burn down. There are lots of instances where existing code violations aren't really gonna cause any serious problems. You just have to be sure which ones they are and asses the risks. intelligently.

I'm going to be rewiring that entire room with new 12 gauge wire, and putting in additional circuits for the HT, so those old boxes will be going away.

As an aside question. Is there any reason to even have an exhaust fan in a bathroom, that only has a toilet and a sink? I'm guessing not. I think the exhaust is only to exhaust any steam and water vapors coming from a shower. I have one in the upper bathroom, but I never use it.

Bob, I think I should just pay you to go through my place looking for issues that I may not know of!

Two words - burrito night.

Bren R.

Isn't that what the doctor is for?

I want Bob to handle my basement. JP can handle my attic.

Straight line alert: Get at it, boys!

That's awesome!

I like how this derailed into This Old House...

Fortunately, my joist is part of a flat roof Eichler and there's nothing up top except 1" redwood ceiling boards and 2" of sprayed foam insulation. We had to undertake the roof replacement because the previous owners installed a roof mounted A/C and placed it above the kitchen area w/ ZERO roof enforcement. Let's just say that part of the roof had a lot of puddles.

I thought that was what strawberry scented spray was for.

Funny, I looked at that IB sub pic and thought, oops, the problem is that he didn't leave any room for the woofers.

Mike Holmes was in my neighbourhood a couple of streets over from me, about 10yr ago, to cure someone's basement flooding. The houses here at that time were barely 7-8 yrs old. I really wish there were someway to blacklist these shoddy contractors and get them out of the business altogether.

Creepy... the one in my bathroom right now is Glade Summer Berries, so close.

Bren R.

[quote=CatBratAs an aside question. Is there any reason to even have an exhaust fan in a bathroom, that only has a toilet and a sink? I'm guessing not. [/quote]

Depends on what you served for din-din.

As Mike notes they just change the name of the company and continue on their way ripping people off.

I used to watch Mike all the time. Is he still making new episodes?

Pilot holes are required. All these rated lag type devices have a recommended hole size, but I usually just eye ball it and use a bit two or three sizes smaller than the shank (non threaded part). Start too small, try to thread it, and if it feels like you're about to twist it too hard, go a little bigger.

The real problem is making sure you use the right type of eye-let. If it is not shouldered, you can not side load it. If you do, it will either break or pull out.

That sounds like something that would be included in a booklet that comes with the DVD Bob mentioned earlier in the thread .

Cam, Mike has a new show, Holmes Inspection. It is virtually the same only you get to watch him do his inspection thing and make comments about how the inspectors are now the bad guys for not picking up on the shoddy work. He has deffered the actual contract work to Damon who now runs the crew.

Thanks, Jay.