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.