3-21-2010

Loose ends, treated boards, and new walls

Today was not only the best day so far this year to be outside but I was able to take a half day off of work to clear up some loose ends from the weekend.  I was joined by Doug and Lynch about noon and the work started from there.  I do have to say it is much easier to work in 60 degree weather rather than raining 40's, as if I was the first person to have that ephifany.
Anyways, the reamaining porch wall had not rotted the same way as the other side and was still bearing quite a lot of weight.  With a single jacking post the pressure was taken off that particular side and there was a "wonderful" realization.  The three seasons room is actually not tied into the rest of the house.  Even the header boards end where the brick starts.  This is/was bad enough, but that wasn't the end of it,   appartently the colums were notched into the headers.  So while I sawed off the posts flush with the ceiling the rest of the crew started making frames for windows I found on craigslist.  (They were pretty much the best find going since they are double pane, 3'x6'3", and were only $15 apiece).  In the pictures posted from the weekend the large gaps in the column spacing will be framed in windows.  So the room will still be a sunroom, but a better insulated and supported one.
Once the colums were cut out two more boards were faced onto the overhead beams and two new colums were placed in the corners.  The space was secured on the bottom after the old untreated rotting baseboards were torn out and replaced with treated new ones.  This left more or less one thing to do, put up the temporary sheathing, pack up and go get a beer.  Happy St. Patrics Day!

Here's to say a thousand words

...And we are all still alive.

This weekend was probably the most in depth project that has been undertaken and hopefully any following will be less dangerous. With the aid of Doug, Lynch, and Amber the addition of the house was stripped of windows and then jacked up half an inch allowing for the rotting uprights to be sawed out and replaced with built up 2x6 columns. While this reads like a small feat on paper is truly epic in person. With four clashing personalities and of course the potential for half a house (literally) to fall on us if done incorrectly. The placing of the header beams for the the jacks and the physical raising of the house is not an experience that I would like to repeat in the near future. I am glad that I did not have an idea of how poorly the porch was supported prior to getting into the jacking. Even if the original posts were completely rigid, plum, and new, there were only about half as many as should be required for the spans they were covering. Once the first one came out though when the secondary bracing was in made everyone stop and consider what in fact was holding the house up. Half of the post was rotted to to the point where it had the strength of a sponge and the remaining part was lending itself to be the habitat of thousands of carpenter ants. What it came down to is that maybe, (and I mean maybe, because they were not resting on the foundation but on floorboards) four 2x4's were holding up the sun room. It does explain why the second floor has been sagging so much though. We used two pressure treated 4"x6"x12' beams as headers for the jacking posts and while Lynch and myself braced them in the air Amber and Doug screwed the posts into place and plumbed them. The most nerve racking point of the day though was when the jacks were put under full loading, the 4x6 held next to my face was forced out of a two and a half inch bow. This cause a good deal of argument from all sides, the beams, floor joists, columns, and of course between the four of us. (Well...more of me overstepping my bounds and yelling a lot) The house did get raised though and every new column that went in the chances of the floor above crashing down became less. When the jacks were removed as it turns out there was very little pressure on them, because every post that was put in was hammered into place. So, despite the volume of our (my) foul mouthed swearing at each other (everyone else)...we did not dislodge, hit, or knock out any of the supports, bring down a house, or physically injure anyone significantly. With that said it was a soaring success of a weekend and I greatly appreciate that Doug, Amber and Lynch, put up with working with me on this project because it was not easy.

Raising the Floors

With a composite beam of three 2x10 boards and basement jacks the first floor was stabilized and more or less leveled. Since this took much less time than anticipated various ceilings, walls, and trim were removed. After the last dumpster load of material ripped out of the house I mentioned to Doug that "It really wasn't possible to tear more things out of the place" I was distinctively mistaken. Since I cannot get a burning permit for my scrap wood getting rid of it is quite slow and another dumpster may be on the horizon. Hopefully by the first few warm days of spring the whole place will be framed, just in time for my home tax credit which will be probably used to pay an electrician. The goal is to have it more or less done and liveable by October 2011.

Actually Building the Building

That is correct, new walls and new floors have been put into about 20% of the house. It isn't much in the long run, but it marks the first point where work being done is constructive for the first time. Since October (the last post) work had more or less continued in the same fashon of ripping things out and making plans for the new layout, so I decided that no real new posts were necessary. What used to be the kitchen is now framed in and will be a rental room/home office. The old wall dividing the house was mostly loose uprights connected to floor joists which had been sawn through at varrious places. Once the old wall was ripped out a new frame with a double header 2x10 was put into place a foot or so out from its original location. The entrance is framed and will still be more or less an entrance to the house though the stairs will no longer have the same locations. The original stairs to the basement will be used and the interior window in the entry room will become a door to the basement stairwell. The stairs to the second floor will be moved to the three seasons room and be an "L" type. There are still details to be worked for the design and layout, but in the next few weeks I will scan in scaled plans which are most representative of work being done. Work will resume next Saturday and I believe that the goal will be to reinforce the basement with framing matching the framing of walls above and jacking up some of the sagging floors.

And he is back like thunder, or at least October rain

Well I am back working on the project after a vacation, injury to my hand and general laziness. However, work proceeded thanks to my main contractor (Doug) who has voluntarily and graciously taken roughly two+ hours out of his day for the past three months to make sure that things didn't stall in my absence. I have decided to take a modular approach to the gutting the remainder of the house in order to keep focused on the ultimate goal. It will proceed room by room now and the next space wont be tackled until everything is cleared, clean, and torn out of the previous. Hopefully this will allow me to see measurable progress as more and more rooms become finished. Finally, There is a new milestone which falls somewhere between hopefully and maybe as far as being met. The goal is to have the whole house cleaned, gutted and prepped for reconstruction by the end of October...