Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire The things found in old houses

Be careful if you plan on diluting it. Always add acid to water, not the other way around. Adding water to acid will cause boiling and spitting and other nastiness. If I wanted to get rid of it, I'd pour it slowly down the the drain as intended while running the water (not if you have a septic system).

Sulfuric acid is still a common drain cleaner. It's safe for most metal and plastic pipes, but it shouldn't be used on stainless, chrome, aluminum, or galvanized - so be careful you don't mess up a stainless steel sink or decorative fittings.

We used that stuff years ago when commercial drains were lead and bronze and emptied into cast iron soil pipe & clay tile pipe. We chased it with baking soda by the pound water by the gallon. That was in the 50's, the newer stuff would get eaten alive by it.

Found this in the walls of my house (first built in 1866, and added on to as the years went by). It's from when newspaper was glued on inner walls for insulation, and keep the wind out. Found a lot of other articles too...

Bro! Awesome find!! I renovated a home built in the mid teens in Houston and found a classified section that someone was willing to trade a CAR for a typewriter!!

Shiplap walls covered with wallpaper.....full 2x4's for studs. Pine heart floors. Solid.

If one buys one like this it helps to know construction, or have deep pockets.

That's COOL!

Talk to a paper conservator locally and have them deacidify the newsprint, and you can then frame it or whatever.

In our first home, to get to the basement you'd have to go into the garage, then through a door and down a flight of stairs. This became a PITA for things like laundry, especially when it was cold out.

I built a "hallway" so we didn't have to go into the garage anymore to go down stairs. When I was pulling apart the plaster/lathe heading down the stairs to put up sheet rock, I found a set 4 adult molars. Wierd.

VA - as for your leak - Fastest and simplest thing to check first is the plumbers putty between the tub and trap. That putty gets old and flaky over the decades. If you can unscrew the top of the drain and the pipe and replace the putty with new, it might solve your problem without cutting out the ceiling. I've fixed several leaking tubs this way for customers. It takes less than 1/2 an hour. If it doesn't work you haven't lost anything.

when i was kid growing up in Kingsville TX my brother and i found a bunch of newspapers from the 1930s and 40s in an abandoned farm house. some had story's from WW2. wish we would had saved them , but being young kids had no idea as to their value.

Found a search warrant in Austin (on S. Congress) from the '30s. Gambling paraphenalia. Roulette wheel, numbers game etc. Remodel.

My dad had 4-5 shoeboxes full of old baseball cards from the 50's and 60's.

His four kids used every one of those cards to make their bicycles sound like a motorcycle!

I cannot imagine how many rare and valuable cards were destroyed.

Best advice yet.

dump it down and old drain
and keep them flowing like new!

Use the acid to form a pickle works really well when tanning hides....

I actually needed something in AK a few years back to save a hide... went to napa and got a container of battery acid.... worked like a champ...

Store in a safe place. Useful stuff at times...

when we moved in to our 1900s home 2 year ago (originally built and owned the Brownings) we found:

--a box full of gold jewelry, most with personal inscriptions
--a box full of coins from around the world, about 23 countries
--a child's grave in the SW corner, including headstone
--a letter on UT Senate letterhead signed by Frank Browning conveying the combo to the built-in vault to the new owner

(the inscriptions on the jewelry allowed for tracking down the granddaughter / owner)

Yep.

I know I'm not the only "old chemist" on the 'Fire, as some have posted already, but conc. H2SO4 is a damned useful chemical by times and damned difficult to get hold of anymore.

Contrary to popular belief, conc sulfuric is not as dangerous to human tissue as the supposedly safe "lye-based" (i.e., strongly alkaline) drain cleaners. It is actually very useful for clearing severe drain clogs, although using a good power snake is probably a better choice.

I don't know that I'd keep it around, as I don't practice home chemistry any more. It's safe enough to slowly pour it down yer terlet, though, flushing every 1/2 cup or so.

Well said, Doc.
I would much rather get con H2SO4 on my skin than KOH or NaOH(both strong bases).
However, con H2SO4 is hell on clothes and shoes-I work with the stuff almost every day, so I know.

I found some pretty cool old bottles, one was bottled Dec 25, 1925. There was a few "Prescription" alcohol bottles that are from around prohibition time.

No acid drain cleaner though.

I use several acids quite a bit for work. Peracetic is my least favorite to handle. The stuff will melt your nose hairs, DO NOT inhale!

Get a drop on your skin and it turns white and starts to smart pretty good.

Peracetic is nasty from what I hear(I have never worked with it, myself).
Hydrofluoric is another "fun" one.