The Roof arrives....

From mid December until Christmas we installed a metal roof. It was a lot of work as this is our first metal roof installation. Funny, we haven't had any rain lately. There is still a lot of flashing and gasket installation that needs to take place but we are close. Our goal was to have the house dried in by the new year but it looks like early to mid January will be the date. Soon after this we will install the solar hot water panels. The masons have begun placing the brick skirt around the West and South side of the house.

Windows and siding are coming up. We have been collecting the windows from recycle yards and Craig's list and have most of what we need. There are a few pieces on the East and North elevations that will be custom made with glazing units from a local supplier. We are also waiting for the roof vents to arrive. These will be located on top of the roof at the East and West ends.

Framing cont.

Framing

Clear skies ahead

In early November we were able to start framing. We had some great carpentry help from DBG and Seaside Homes and things are finally taking shape.

You guessed it, more rain.......

Late September......

Bring on the tarps again! More rain in the forecast and we have insulation under the front floor that can't get wet. This is image is quickly becoming the norm around the construction site. We are trapped between a Christo and Jeanne-Claude exhibit and a perpetual fumigation project. And did I mention the mud!

A cold corner post...

We have some help coming this weekend to begin framing but we need to pour one more footing for the corner post that will support the roof in the back. The footing will need to set up for a couple of days before we set the post and the weather man is calling for cold weather all week. We cut out the deck and demo'ed part of the brick walk to make way for the form work. I don't want to pour the concrete when the temp is falling so we prepared everything at night and poured early in the morning. We heated the water on the stove, mixed the concrete and immediately covered everything with insulation and clear plastic. We are supposed to have sunshine for two days so I am hoping for a little green-house effect here!

The Slab..

Radiant piping installation

After finishing the floor framing up front we began installing the radiant floor system in the back. We backfilled the foundation first. The layers above the compacted back fill include a vapor barrier, 2 " of rigid insulation, wire mesh and #4 rebar. We are placing the pex piping within the concrete slab instead of below it to control the thermal lag time in the concrete. We will not be able to hold heat in the slab as long, but we should be able to control the temperature fluctuations in our region this way. We are also using regular strength concrete (as opposed to lightweight concrete) because of its conduction properties. If our calculations are correct, we should be able to prevent any overheating in the late winter months. The four line of pex in the front of the picture are for two future loops that will heat the floor in phase 3 . The white piping will be connected to the wood stove and will provide back up heat during times of low sunshine.

Water.....again

Wouldn't you know it. Several days of straight rain! We continued to demo the front of the house to make room for the floor framing. The wall with the electrical panel has been braced up and will have to float over the new floor for a while until we are dried in. At the beginning of the project we had a disconnect box installed to control the power when necessary. For now we have brought the tarps back and built tents over the front and back of the house.

The foundation goes up

Mid September....

The foundation is underway. The front of the house will have a traditional crawl space to match the existing house. The electrical panel is located inside the portion of the house that is being demolished. This will require some strategic demolition on our part so we can maintain power in the house during construction. The back will have an elevated concrete slab that will eventually have radiant heating pipes. In order to maintain ventilation under the existing crawl space we have located several pvc pipes under the concrete slab that connect to foundation vents at the perimeter. We drilled several test holes through the existing wall to make sure the new concrete floor lines up with the existing wood floor. Keep your fingers crossed.....

Early September -08

The footing is in! I was up until 2:00am finishing the forms and tying rebar trying to beat another storm that was moving in. We called in the inspection that night and DBG was able to get a concrete truck to the house by that afternoon. That night the rains returned and filled the trench back up . We now have a water cured, high strength concrete footing! (Note the tarp standing by.....)

Water.....again

August -08
As we prepared the footing for a concrete pour a tropical storm moved through the area. In an attempt to keep the water out of our footing trench we put tarps around three sides of the house. Much to our dismay the water got in and although our house looks like a spaceship here, it looked like castle (complete with moat) the day after the storm. Needless to say it was a long night.

We received our permit and began digging the footing in late summer.

Phase 2

Phase two is finally underway!

This phase will include a new front porch, eight more feet of bedroom space and some additional living room space. These study models show a few early options.

End of Phase One

A brief history.....

These windows were all recycled from a local building recycle yard. If you do some research on performance characteristics and don't mind a little variety you can get some quality windows for a fraction of the cost of new ones. (And this was before we had Craig's list!) Now, with a little persistence you can find almost anything you need. The south wall has larger windows while the East and West walls are made up of small windows like these. We still get more heat gain from the East than we anticipated. We hope to correct this in phase 2.

We used particle board with oak trim for the stairs. We liked the particle board so much we cased some of the windows with it. It's hard to deal with the edges but when a stain is applied it looks great! The kitchen cabinets were plywood, garage type cabinets that we reconfigured to hold a sink basin.

A brief history continued.....

With all the infrastructure issues resolved we were able to frame the interior. The two core walls shown here house all the plumbing and mechanical systems as well as the stove, refrigerator, washer/dryer, a desk and storage. We fabricated the collar ties from recycled steel bars from a local junkyard.

The city inspectors and the Health Department got involved. Apparently the previous owners had tried to re-route some of the drain lines to the back yard. The outflow pipes in the septic tank and grease trap were broken and would not drain properly. Luckily, all this happened with rain water and we were able to correct the situation before installing the new plumbing lines. We have set up our plumbing system so that in the future we can separate some of our grey water and reduce the burden on the septic system. This has to be coordinated with the Health Department and will be discussed in detail later.

WATER !!!

After the first significant rain storm we had a mess! The crawl space was flooding and some of the water seemed to be coming from the existing drain pipe. We had no idea what was going but water was pooling in two locations on the north side of the house by the septic tank.

Saving the flooring...

Once the roof was in place we started removing the flooring in the new 'core' area of the house. This 'core' would include the wet areas, vertical circulation and would be finished with slate tiles. The remaining pine floors were kept in tact and replaced as needed with the our salvaged boards. This turned out to be a lot of work but was well worth it in the end. While the floor was open we added insulation, 60 mil poly and cleaned up the crawl space. We were almost ready to start framing!

A brief history continued.....

The roof was sagging and curved along the ridge line. We had to jack up the ridge and pull the walls into plumb with a system of cable come-a-longs and wood braces. We were able to get most of the sag out and some of the curve. The new ceiling would be a cathedral and current energy codes required R-30 insulation. Once the roof was straightened we had to extend the rafters down to accommodate the required insulation and air space. Our budget would not allow us to have a metal roof in this phase so we had asphalt shingles installed. This was one of the few things we contracted out and it was worth every penny. It took the workers 1-1/2 days to remove the existing roof and install the new roof. (The cost at the time was about $1.15 per sf installed.) This would have taken us at least 2 weeks as we were only working at night and on the weekends.

A brief history continued....

After cleaning out the interior we began removing and rebuilding the damaged areas. The existing bathroom was rotten. The floor joists had been destroyed by water and were now infested with termites. The girder and rim joist along the exterior wall also need replacing. We stabilized the exterior wall and replaced everything. This same scenario occurred in the back of the house where the hot water heater was kept.

Happy Holiday's to all.

The following is a brief history of the project which started several years ago.

At the time of closing the house was uninhabitable and needed quite a bit of work. We found significant damage from water,termites and what appeared to be smoke/fire damage in some of the roof framing members. A quick check with a level showed some of the walls out of plumb but the floor was relatively level. A structural engineer surveyed the house and indicated that the foundation was solid would support the work we were proposing. We had little information on the septic tank but it appeared to be working based on a survey of the drain field. We closed on the house with an additional construction loan and set to work. All the infrastructure in the house would have to be replaced.