Well, the house needs some help with the roof. Believe it or not, the roof was a key part of the whole house project, until the basement got out of control and we decided that we didn't want our (miserable lying SOB) contractor on top of our house. Yesterday was the first day both warm enough and with the sun high enough to do a little melting on the roof of our one-story back room, which of course is on the north side of the two-story house. We have had ice dam problems in the past, years ago, which caused water to back up and find its way into the roofing and eventually into our back room, dripping through the suspended ceiling. We understood that the suspended ceiling was to hide a number of sins in the plaster ceiling and the space between the roof and the ceiling. We last roofed 20 years ago; that, plus the use of heat coils on the edge of the lower roof, seemed to put a halt to the problem.
This winter has been unpleasant. Not horribly snowy: although it snowed about 15 times in December and a few in January, only one snow exceeded two inches and most were under one inch. But December and especially January were well below average in temperature - where's the global warming when you need it?!? -and we ended up with a considerable snow-and-ice pack on that back roof. Melting up near the house couldn't make it to the edge where the coils had made passageways, so when hearing the surprising and dismaying drip drip drip onto the floor of our back room, I grabbed a wastebasket and got a bucket. I took off the lovely glass lampshade from the ceiling fixture, which was only half-full of water that had trickled down the fixture... and taped the switch into the off position.
Then I went into Laura's old room upstairs and removed the inner windows, then the outer storm/screen. Thank goodness this is easy. I went out onto the back roof with a snow shovel and a little hand axe - for gentle tapping - and cleared snow away from the suspected leak site. Wendy stood inside and watched me, cajoling me to come back in. She had the phone in hand, the better to dial 911 in case my natural klutziness won out.
This was all made harder as Laura and Ross were home, and we were all dressing to attend the wedding of one of Laura's good friends. But all went well: I got the window reinstalled, and we all got ready in time. I repeated the exercise today, to make a better water pathway as rain is expected Monday and Tuesday. I have a ladder that used to be high enough to get me onto the back room roof, but after the house project, we sit about 18" higher than before and, with my fear and hatred of ladders, I can't make that work. Add a new, taller ladder to the house project expense.
Oh, and add about $1300 for our trusted occasional project contractor Eldon to go into the basement and augment the shoddy and insufficient green board and sill that the original schmuck installed, then insulate the boundary. Our new basement got down to 43 degrees F, when the outside temperature was -10, and we ended up using a fan to blow upstairs air into the basement to restore a few degrees to our floor.
And the roof still needs doing, and Laura and Ross will be married this fall... good thing I LIKE oatmeal 3 times a day and am learning to deal with cheap wine.
Eldon Hilson is a local handyman, carpenter and contractor whom we have hired from time to time to handle small projects around the house. He's the ultimate Norwegian bachelor farmer, who lived with his parents well into his adulthood and may still do so (he's my age or beyond). He has been known to delay jobs while he worked with 4-H kids on their projects. Wendy once hired him for work on our porch, and he showed up with a bill for a job he'd done 3 years previously. On a couple of our jobs, he'd finish up except for one or two last trim pieces, which we still hold onto and call "Eldonboards," and hope to get him to nail down someday. But he's honest as the day is long, and a skilled carpenter, and a good source of local gossip, so we feed him coffee and doughnuts and continue to bring him in at need.
Except that we wanted the basement done in one year, we probably should have hired him in the first place.
Showing posts with label Living at Home. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Living at Home. Show all posts
Sunday, February 8, 2009
Monday, August 4, 2008
Up In The Air, Part 12
I was going to start with a few reflections about our New York trip. But my fingers are so numb that I have to get this out before they seize up.
It has to do with dirt. 12 yards of black dirt, plus some sand for a base for the brick walkway, and the black dirt appears to be several yards short of what's needed. That came today, and the guy who delivered it helped spread some of it out in the general areas where it is needed. He used a Bobcat or something. We have several days ahead of us involving rakes, shovels, wheelbarows and cussing.
The numb fingers, and the aches in hands, arms, shoulders, neck, back, abdominal muscles, hips, and legs come not from the dirt but from the painting we got done before the dirt showed up.
The front of the house has a new porch, and all the rest of the house has new wood around where the house met the new foundation. Even considering the poor restoration of grade done by the contractor, much of that wood was about a foot or less off the ground. All this new wood needed primer, and all of it needed exterior latex in the house color. We wanted to get all this paint on the house before the dirt showed up, so we wouldn't have to screw around with that issue later.
The net result is that I did two 3/4-laps of our house on my back, trying to paint the underside and the new sill trim. Laying on sand, clay and the odd rock, doing situps to dip the brush, trying to hold a ten-inch-long brush so it could get under an eight-inch-high board, holding my head up with my off hand, pounding in the paint with the brush so the rough-cut cedar would be entirely covered, all done twice in two days (all right, Wendy did one side one day, but I did a lot of both coats of the lower portion of the porch skirting), all of this has stressed muscles and joints that haven't been called upon in decades. Sunday in particular threatened rain, so I kept after the painting as long as I could. Do you know how you sometimes get stupid, dogged in the pursuit of something - in my case, completion of this task - beyond reason or comfort? Rain finally came in the night, after the paint had set up.
The soil we had gotten from the contractor, and what was left of our yard, is clay and sand. Everybody says, "oh, that'll grow a lawn, that'll hold the moisture," but we need some black dirt and some organic material if we hope to restore a garden area. We ended up with many yards less of dirt and yard than we began with; there was no effort to restore original grade, much less to deal with the fact that our house is now a foot and a half higher than it was. The clay and sand kick up in the rain, leaving quite a coating on the lower reaches of our house. The gray block of the new foundation now appears tan, which helps it match the paint (Benjamin Moore's "Waynesboro Taupe"). The mess today reflects the success of my weekend efforts, as the paint appears to be holding up, and justifies the extra ibuprofen. Once we get the black dirt around, and some vegetation established, the amount of dirt kicking up will be reduced by a gazillion per cent. We'll also work with drip rails and, eventually, with gutters and downspouts. The way this project gobbles up money, we should consider gargoyles.
We have much painting to do, including our back entryway, parts of the porch skirting more than 12 inches above the ground, and the porch itself, including way too many railing spindles. Some of this already has primer, but we have a ways to go. We have to put stain on the porch decking and the steps, and decide whether to paint the risers (the vertical part behind the step) in the taupe or stain it to match the treads. Then we have to choose how much, if any, of our trim color to use: pillars only, pillars and handrails, or none at all. We have selected a green stain for the stair treads and the deck, and our trim is a cranberry red, so we could accidentally find ourselves in a Christmas house.
This must all be done before somebody screens off half of our porch. Our contractor has this in his bid, but we don't think we'll ever see him again, so we may have some time to rethink the screen issue. The porch looks fine now without screens, but the dog and the cat enjoy being on the porch during the day when we're gone, and this can't happen without the screened area. Hey, I also enjoy the reduced bug traffic in the screened area, as anyone who recalls my blog of a couple years ago will recall.
Good news: last night's significant rain did not put any moisture into our basement. This was one of the points of the whole exercise: a dry basement. More good news: running two dehumidifiers, we are getting the new-concrete moisture out of the basement. Better yet: the washer is hooked up to its plumbing, and the dryer is vented.
Bad news: although the dryer 220 outlet is still around, the cord to it is almost completely severed. The washer needs about a 20-foot extension cord to reach a working electrical outlet. There's a crack in the exterior of one concrete block, which we can say was the doing of the contractor, even after the original and best concrete guy (not the ass-clowns brought in by the contractor, because the original guy wouldn't come because he wasn't getting paid, who made a hash of pouring the concrete floor and did sloppy work of putting in the last blocks) fixed the interior cracks in his work, which may have been caused by the contractor's early and sloppy backfilling of dirt against the new foundation. And we have several stringers, holding up our dining room (or not, as it appears) that seem to be floating free rather than supporting the house by resting on a beam.
While I was crawling around my house on my back, I noticed a great many areas which seem to me to be waiting for a whole bunch of foam insulation at the least, if not the tender care of a quality contractor who might have done some repair during the construction. Our old house has varying degrees of wood integrity around the lower edges, and it looks like some more help is needed. Then there's the issue of "code." The contractor wielded the word like a magic cape, which was more like a screen behind which he got by with a whole bunch of inferior work. "Code says..." and, you know what? Code says something different, if not opposite. My main questions: did he not know, or did he lie like a rug?
I'm putting the whiskey down now, as I have to go to work early tomorrow, but I have a vague sensation that it's a handy thing that we know some attorneys through church. Shopping list: some George Dickel (#12 Tennessee Sippin' Whisky), some Anisette (unless Hasan manages to bring more Raki than is permitted; ouzo is also good but don't tell that to a Turk), and some Capzaicin rub.
It has to do with dirt. 12 yards of black dirt, plus some sand for a base for the brick walkway, and the black dirt appears to be several yards short of what's needed. That came today, and the guy who delivered it helped spread some of it out in the general areas where it is needed. He used a Bobcat or something. We have several days ahead of us involving rakes, shovels, wheelbarows and cussing.
The numb fingers, and the aches in hands, arms, shoulders, neck, back, abdominal muscles, hips, and legs come not from the dirt but from the painting we got done before the dirt showed up.
The front of the house has a new porch, and all the rest of the house has new wood around where the house met the new foundation. Even considering the poor restoration of grade done by the contractor, much of that wood was about a foot or less off the ground. All this new wood needed primer, and all of it needed exterior latex in the house color. We wanted to get all this paint on the house before the dirt showed up, so we wouldn't have to screw around with that issue later.
The net result is that I did two 3/4-laps of our house on my back, trying to paint the underside and the new sill trim. Laying on sand, clay and the odd rock, doing situps to dip the brush, trying to hold a ten-inch-long brush so it could get under an eight-inch-high board, holding my head up with my off hand, pounding in the paint with the brush so the rough-cut cedar would be entirely covered, all done twice in two days (all right, Wendy did one side one day, but I did a lot of both coats of the lower portion of the porch skirting), all of this has stressed muscles and joints that haven't been called upon in decades. Sunday in particular threatened rain, so I kept after the painting as long as I could. Do you know how you sometimes get stupid, dogged in the pursuit of something - in my case, completion of this task - beyond reason or comfort? Rain finally came in the night, after the paint had set up.
The soil we had gotten from the contractor, and what was left of our yard, is clay and sand. Everybody says, "oh, that'll grow a lawn, that'll hold the moisture," but we need some black dirt and some organic material if we hope to restore a garden area. We ended up with many yards less of dirt and yard than we began with; there was no effort to restore original grade, much less to deal with the fact that our house is now a foot and a half higher than it was. The clay and sand kick up in the rain, leaving quite a coating on the lower reaches of our house. The gray block of the new foundation now appears tan, which helps it match the paint (Benjamin Moore's "Waynesboro Taupe"). The mess today reflects the success of my weekend efforts, as the paint appears to be holding up, and justifies the extra ibuprofen. Once we get the black dirt around, and some vegetation established, the amount of dirt kicking up will be reduced by a gazillion per cent. We'll also work with drip rails and, eventually, with gutters and downspouts. The way this project gobbles up money, we should consider gargoyles.
We have much painting to do, including our back entryway, parts of the porch skirting more than 12 inches above the ground, and the porch itself, including way too many railing spindles. Some of this already has primer, but we have a ways to go. We have to put stain on the porch decking and the steps, and decide whether to paint the risers (the vertical part behind the step) in the taupe or stain it to match the treads. Then we have to choose how much, if any, of our trim color to use: pillars only, pillars and handrails, or none at all. We have selected a green stain for the stair treads and the deck, and our trim is a cranberry red, so we could accidentally find ourselves in a Christmas house.
This must all be done before somebody screens off half of our porch. Our contractor has this in his bid, but we don't think we'll ever see him again, so we may have some time to rethink the screen issue. The porch looks fine now without screens, but the dog and the cat enjoy being on the porch during the day when we're gone, and this can't happen without the screened area. Hey, I also enjoy the reduced bug traffic in the screened area, as anyone who recalls my blog of a couple years ago will recall.
Good news: last night's significant rain did not put any moisture into our basement. This was one of the points of the whole exercise: a dry basement. More good news: running two dehumidifiers, we are getting the new-concrete moisture out of the basement. Better yet: the washer is hooked up to its plumbing, and the dryer is vented.
Bad news: although the dryer 220 outlet is still around, the cord to it is almost completely severed. The washer needs about a 20-foot extension cord to reach a working electrical outlet. There's a crack in the exterior of one concrete block, which we can say was the doing of the contractor, even after the original and best concrete guy (not the ass-clowns brought in by the contractor, because the original guy wouldn't come because he wasn't getting paid, who made a hash of pouring the concrete floor and did sloppy work of putting in the last blocks) fixed the interior cracks in his work, which may have been caused by the contractor's early and sloppy backfilling of dirt against the new foundation. And we have several stringers, holding up our dining room (or not, as it appears) that seem to be floating free rather than supporting the house by resting on a beam.
While I was crawling around my house on my back, I noticed a great many areas which seem to me to be waiting for a whole bunch of foam insulation at the least, if not the tender care of a quality contractor who might have done some repair during the construction. Our old house has varying degrees of wood integrity around the lower edges, and it looks like some more help is needed. Then there's the issue of "code." The contractor wielded the word like a magic cape, which was more like a screen behind which he got by with a whole bunch of inferior work. "Code says..." and, you know what? Code says something different, if not opposite. My main questions: did he not know, or did he lie like a rug?
I'm putting the whiskey down now, as I have to go to work early tomorrow, but I have a vague sensation that it's a handy thing that we know some attorneys through church. Shopping list: some George Dickel (#12 Tennessee Sippin' Whisky), some Anisette (unless Hasan manages to bring more Raki than is permitted; ouzo is also good but don't tell that to a Turk), and some Capzaicin rub.
Friday, August 1, 2008
Up In The Air, Part 11
Let's see, where were we? Oh, yes, beginning to have doubts about the ability and integrity of our contractor. It's been a little over two weeks since the last round, and since then, he billed us as if he had completed the work except for porch screening that should wait until wood can dry and we can paint. We have not finished paying, as we believe and can show that he has left some things unfinished and has sadly underperformed on some others.
The plumber (oops! a separate bid, contract and payment) has completed his work. We have all new piping in the basement, new sewage pipes, a new toilet in our back room, a new water heater, two faucets outside (up from one), a basement washroom roughed in so one can be added later, and laundry hookups. We could, if needed, run the washing machine. This all seems to work well and we are satisfied with the plumber.
The same can't be said for the dryer, as neither the heating guy nor the electrician (golly! two more separate bids and contracts!) have come yet. The dryer needs to be vented out the basement wall, probably through the sill, and the 220 receptacle needs to be reset. That may come next week or the week after. The heating guy (yes, it's a guy; we got a bid from our contractor's choice, but then got and accepted a bid from the guy who's taken care of us for about twenty years and who installed our current, and continuing, furnace and air conditioner) will begin his tasks next week; this includes almost all new ductwork as well as resetting the appliances.
We have not heard from the electrician about a quote or a start date, but this is a guy recommended by both our plumber and our heat guy; the contractor apparently hadn't considered the need for electrical work. We need exterior outlets, redone porch lighting front and back, new outlets and lighting in the basement, plus a couple repairs in the house that we might as well get done as long as the guy is here.
What is galling is that the contractor gave us a bid, didn't mention these needs or that additional cost might come up, and then sets us up for well over 30% in added expense.
It is also time to begin re-establishing our yard. We have to re-lay our brick sidewalk, redistribute some of the dirt the contracor brought, pitiful in both quality and quantity, and spread a great deal of additional dirt (even more added expense). Then we get to move back some of our garden plants, and begin growing lawn in about 2/3 of our yard. Most of the hedge and all of our trees survived, or so it seems, but we had a large hydrangea, drying out but still alive, that had been dug up and was waiting to be replanted, possibly split. This got hauled away with construction rubble. Worse, we still have some construction crap that was not hauled away, and that will go on our checkoff list if and when we get to walk the project with the contractor.
We're half hoping at this point that he settles for the short payment and disappears.
Now for today's good news. When we stopped at Trader Joe's in Woodbury, MN, on the way home from New York, I bought a six-pack of Vienna lager from Trader Joe's Brewing Co., San Jose, CA. As it happens, Gordon Biersch, the brewpub operators who make one of my all-time favorite beers, Gordon Biersch Marzen, have their growing bottling operation in San Jose, CA, and I had some hope that Trader Joe's beers were coming out of that plant. I finally cracked a chilled one tonight, and a visual from the cap and the bottle rang a bell. The letters T and J in the logo surround a shock of barley drawn a certain way. Damn, that looked familiar...and sure enough, the G and B surround the same shock of barley. Oh, yeah. Gordon Biersch. I had an email from Gordon Biersch today (mostly restaurant coupons; the closest so far is in suburban Chicago), so confirmation was too easy. Better yet, the Trader Joe's Vienna Lager, an amber beer, offers a malty, slightly caramel taste and enough hops to balance it out. $5.99 the six pack; $1 beer isn't cheap for home, but it's cheaper than most of the super-premiums. I did run into a special on Colorado Kool-Aid (Coor's Original Banquet Beer): a case of 24 16-oz cans for $15.99. This, ice-cold, will be perfect on a weekend of painting and yard work in 90-degree temperatures.
The plumber (oops! a separate bid, contract and payment) has completed his work. We have all new piping in the basement, new sewage pipes, a new toilet in our back room, a new water heater, two faucets outside (up from one), a basement washroom roughed in so one can be added later, and laundry hookups. We could, if needed, run the washing machine. This all seems to work well and we are satisfied with the plumber.
The same can't be said for the dryer, as neither the heating guy nor the electrician (golly! two more separate bids and contracts!) have come yet. The dryer needs to be vented out the basement wall, probably through the sill, and the 220 receptacle needs to be reset. That may come next week or the week after. The heating guy (yes, it's a guy; we got a bid from our contractor's choice, but then got and accepted a bid from the guy who's taken care of us for about twenty years and who installed our current, and continuing, furnace and air conditioner) will begin his tasks next week; this includes almost all new ductwork as well as resetting the appliances.
We have not heard from the electrician about a quote or a start date, but this is a guy recommended by both our plumber and our heat guy; the contractor apparently hadn't considered the need for electrical work. We need exterior outlets, redone porch lighting front and back, new outlets and lighting in the basement, plus a couple repairs in the house that we might as well get done as long as the guy is here.
What is galling is that the contractor gave us a bid, didn't mention these needs or that additional cost might come up, and then sets us up for well over 30% in added expense.
It is also time to begin re-establishing our yard. We have to re-lay our brick sidewalk, redistribute some of the dirt the contracor brought, pitiful in both quality and quantity, and spread a great deal of additional dirt (even more added expense). Then we get to move back some of our garden plants, and begin growing lawn in about 2/3 of our yard. Most of the hedge and all of our trees survived, or so it seems, but we had a large hydrangea, drying out but still alive, that had been dug up and was waiting to be replanted, possibly split. This got hauled away with construction rubble. Worse, we still have some construction crap that was not hauled away, and that will go on our checkoff list if and when we get to walk the project with the contractor.
We're half hoping at this point that he settles for the short payment and disappears.
Now for today's good news. When we stopped at Trader Joe's in Woodbury, MN, on the way home from New York, I bought a six-pack of Vienna lager from Trader Joe's Brewing Co., San Jose, CA. As it happens, Gordon Biersch, the brewpub operators who make one of my all-time favorite beers, Gordon Biersch Marzen, have their growing bottling operation in San Jose, CA, and I had some hope that Trader Joe's beers were coming out of that plant. I finally cracked a chilled one tonight, and a visual from the cap and the bottle rang a bell. The letters T and J in the logo surround a shock of barley drawn a certain way. Damn, that looked familiar...and sure enough, the G and B surround the same shock of barley. Oh, yeah. Gordon Biersch. I had an email from Gordon Biersch today (mostly restaurant coupons; the closest so far is in suburban Chicago), so confirmation was too easy. Better yet, the Trader Joe's Vienna Lager, an amber beer, offers a malty, slightly caramel taste and enough hops to balance it out. $5.99 the six pack; $1 beer isn't cheap for home, but it's cheaper than most of the super-premiums. I did run into a special on Colorado Kool-Aid (Coor's Original Banquet Beer): a case of 24 16-oz cans for $15.99. This, ice-cold, will be perfect on a weekend of painting and yard work in 90-degree temperatures.
Sunday, July 13, 2008
Up In The Air, Part 10
Just when we thought that our contractor had run away to Iowa - he had - and would be seen no more, he showed up! We have had some progress on our house project, and although there's much still to do, we can see an end.
The last of the concrete block is in and the windows are in, so the basement is sealed. Ah, but no: there's some trim and insulation and exterior finish that needs to be put in, as I can see daylight along the seams between block and wood . I'm not sure Larry knows that, but he will be shown. A good deal of dirt needs to be returned so that the grade can be established, sloping away from the house, and window wells can be set.
We still have no front porch, but the new entry at the back door now has a door and window and can be closed. Since the old storm door from the back is gone, this is a good thing; the new door has no screen but the window in the entry does. We will have a kind of vestibule. Of course, Wendy hates the thought of a white door, and Larry hung a white door. All our other windows and our other storm door are dark brown, but he apparently missed that detail; the new window doesn't even match the new door but is almond, almost the color that he'll need to paint the new clapboard when he hangs it on the back entry area. And it has the little trim that makes the glass nine-pane, which none of our other windows are; we can't even saw that out, as it's embedded between the panes of glass ("No dusting!").
Then, on Thursday, they were re-doing beams in the basement, and the sewerage pipe from our back toilet was in the way, so they broke it off. That's not all bad: the plumber is coming tomorrow, and will be re-doing much of the water supply and drain/sewer pipe, as well as replacing the back toilet. But it might have been better had they told Wendy, who was home at the time. It's just fortunate that we sometimes let the first whiz sit ("first yellow, let it be mellow; second or brown, flush it down"), or the guys would have gotten a shower they deserved but would not have enjoyed. The plumber does face a bit of a challenge... then there was the hole where that pipe entered the main house sewerage pipe. What about the upstairs toilet, the sink, the shower, the dishwasher? Wouldn't all of that water come spewing backwards out of that hole? Did you know that you could stuff such a hole, cover it with a plastic bag, tape the bag to the pipe, and things would be OK? Ah, but no: it held for a couple days, but has started to drip, and there's no knowing whether it will hold or blow with the next few flushes. Another hazmat challenge for the plumber, I'll bet.
The washer, dryer, freezer and furnace are back in the basement. Although none are connected, they can be. The plumber is to bring the new water heater and a laundry sink, and make the appropriate new hookups, and we may be back in the home laundry business as soon as Tuesday. Since each trip to the laundromat has cost about $9, that will be nice.
Still to be determined: where the central air conditioner will sit and where it will be connected through the wall to the heating system, the ducting for which is also still to be determined. Also, the dryer vent and the furnace vent duct (the PVC pipe out the side of the basement that has replaced chimneys in many homes) need to be situated, and the plumber needs to run a pipe or two outside for hose hookups. So our foundation and/or sill will need to be breached in a few spots.
Then, the building of the front porch is to occur Monday. Wendy will be watching that like a hawk: she has made it clear to the contractor that it must look good, not half-assed. Good round trim, not 2x4s, finished-quality skirting, full steps, animal-proof screening, quality ceiling, etc., and the porch should convey the same look as the old one did, which suited the house. I think this will be the piece that determines our level of satisfaction, although I'll be watching things like dampness in the basement, sags and cracks in the house beyond those we've already had, etc.
The new basement steps are interesting. The flight is longer, since the new basement is over a foot taller, and the incline is slightly less steep, a good thing. This means, however, that there is slightly less headroom where the stairs nip under the first floor: I need to duck a bit, and I'm well under six feet tall. There's also less room at the bottom, just enough space to turn. The back of each step is open, which I believe will be enough to keep the dog out of the basement. We can return the cat's feeding to about the fourth step.
It will take awhile to develop the new basement habits. If the space proves congenial, I may take our couple pieces of workout stuff down there. I mostly ignore the equipment anyway, and Wendy absolutely hates one piece, so the idea of a basement gym space seems like a winner, as we can then spread out the seating in our back room. I can also have the option of getting some exercise while I wait for the last rinse and spin. We will need to get a few more sections of shelving and other storage fixturing, as we had some crappy old wood built-ins that left with the rest of the old basement. And I think that some things may not go back down at all but head for a thrift sale, or Goodwill, or the dump. It looks like some of our sill storage along the stairs has survived, and we may even end up with more; this has served as canned-goods pantry space and a holding area for beverages. I think we'll take our time settling in: we won't do anything until we know the job is done, and then proceed slowly, letting the space tell us what will work.
The next update will probably come after the plumber is done and the porch is up.
The last of the concrete block is in and the windows are in, so the basement is sealed. Ah, but no: there's some trim and insulation and exterior finish that needs to be put in, as I can see daylight along the seams between block and wood . I'm not sure Larry knows that, but he will be shown. A good deal of dirt needs to be returned so that the grade can be established, sloping away from the house, and window wells can be set.
We still have no front porch, but the new entry at the back door now has a door and window and can be closed. Since the old storm door from the back is gone, this is a good thing; the new door has no screen but the window in the entry does. We will have a kind of vestibule. Of course, Wendy hates the thought of a white door, and Larry hung a white door. All our other windows and our other storm door are dark brown, but he apparently missed that detail; the new window doesn't even match the new door but is almond, almost the color that he'll need to paint the new clapboard when he hangs it on the back entry area. And it has the little trim that makes the glass nine-pane, which none of our other windows are; we can't even saw that out, as it's embedded between the panes of glass ("No dusting!").
Then, on Thursday, they were re-doing beams in the basement, and the sewerage pipe from our back toilet was in the way, so they broke it off. That's not all bad: the plumber is coming tomorrow, and will be re-doing much of the water supply and drain/sewer pipe, as well as replacing the back toilet. But it might have been better had they told Wendy, who was home at the time. It's just fortunate that we sometimes let the first whiz sit ("first yellow, let it be mellow; second or brown, flush it down"), or the guys would have gotten a shower they deserved but would not have enjoyed. The plumber does face a bit of a challenge... then there was the hole where that pipe entered the main house sewerage pipe. What about the upstairs toilet, the sink, the shower, the dishwasher? Wouldn't all of that water come spewing backwards out of that hole? Did you know that you could stuff such a hole, cover it with a plastic bag, tape the bag to the pipe, and things would be OK? Ah, but no: it held for a couple days, but has started to drip, and there's no knowing whether it will hold or blow with the next few flushes. Another hazmat challenge for the plumber, I'll bet.
The washer, dryer, freezer and furnace are back in the basement. Although none are connected, they can be. The plumber is to bring the new water heater and a laundry sink, and make the appropriate new hookups, and we may be back in the home laundry business as soon as Tuesday. Since each trip to the laundromat has cost about $9, that will be nice.
Still to be determined: where the central air conditioner will sit and where it will be connected through the wall to the heating system, the ducting for which is also still to be determined. Also, the dryer vent and the furnace vent duct (the PVC pipe out the side of the basement that has replaced chimneys in many homes) need to be situated, and the plumber needs to run a pipe or two outside for hose hookups. So our foundation and/or sill will need to be breached in a few spots.
Then, the building of the front porch is to occur Monday. Wendy will be watching that like a hawk: she has made it clear to the contractor that it must look good, not half-assed. Good round trim, not 2x4s, finished-quality skirting, full steps, animal-proof screening, quality ceiling, etc., and the porch should convey the same look as the old one did, which suited the house. I think this will be the piece that determines our level of satisfaction, although I'll be watching things like dampness in the basement, sags and cracks in the house beyond those we've already had, etc.
The new basement steps are interesting. The flight is longer, since the new basement is over a foot taller, and the incline is slightly less steep, a good thing. This means, however, that there is slightly less headroom where the stairs nip under the first floor: I need to duck a bit, and I'm well under six feet tall. There's also less room at the bottom, just enough space to turn. The back of each step is open, which I believe will be enough to keep the dog out of the basement. We can return the cat's feeding to about the fourth step.
It will take awhile to develop the new basement habits. If the space proves congenial, I may take our couple pieces of workout stuff down there. I mostly ignore the equipment anyway, and Wendy absolutely hates one piece, so the idea of a basement gym space seems like a winner, as we can then spread out the seating in our back room. I can also have the option of getting some exercise while I wait for the last rinse and spin. We will need to get a few more sections of shelving and other storage fixturing, as we had some crappy old wood built-ins that left with the rest of the old basement. And I think that some things may not go back down at all but head for a thrift sale, or Goodwill, or the dump. It looks like some of our sill storage along the stairs has survived, and we may even end up with more; this has served as canned-goods pantry space and a holding area for beverages. I think we'll take our time settling in: we won't do anything until we know the job is done, and then proceed slowly, letting the space tell us what will work.
The next update will probably come after the plumber is done and the porch is up.
Wednesday, July 2, 2008
Up In The Air part 9
45,000 pounds. 22-1/2 tons. Ten yards of "mud."
They poured our basement floor yesterday. At roughly 4,500 pounds per cubic yard, that's how much concrete it takes to make a floor about 4" thick, in a space about 23' x 40'. No wonder there are a couple cracks in the sidewalk where the cement truck sat.
I'm not sure when it's safe to go down there and take a gander. Certainly nothing happened today, and I'm betting against any activity tomorrow. But I might toss a ladder through the egress window opening - I hate ladders, and I'm no good on them, and they kill my knees - and crawl down there for a look-see. This means, of course, that our old basement stairs were - mercifully - ripped out and new ones have yet to be built.
I'll want to be sure I know where the floor drain is, and the sump pump pit, and the roughed-in bathroom, and the laundry drain. I'll want to see if I can discern, without spilling a lot of water to test it, if the floor slopes toward the floor drain. And I'll want to call out some spots for ceiling fixtures (light) and duplex or fourplex receptacles (power).
The contractor will need to lower most of the appliances and the furnace through the egress window opening to put them in place. I want them to put in the stairs, and take the dryer down the new stairs, to see if it's at all possible to get such down and up for future appliance needs. The dryer is the lightest of those items that would need to go up and down the steps. Otherwise, there will need to be some permanent accommodation made at the egress window.
They also blocked up all the remaining openings in the foundation walls, except where the two lights (windows) and the egress window will go. All right: an egress window is the escape from the basement in case we or a future owner put a bedroom down there. I don't know what's going in those, or exactly what if anything will be done for window well and drainage. I know the egress window will require either a cover, or gutter at the roof, to keep water out of such a well.
A few treated boards need to be stuffed in between the block and the old house sill, and some sill repair still needs to happen. The plumber has much to do, as does the heating guy: almost all the sheet metal is being replaced and rerouted. Former cold air returns will now be heat vents and vice versa. Then the furnace needs to be hooked up to gas and power, and the central a/c unit needs to be reconnected and recharged. We've run out of luck on that score: days in the mid 80's leave the house pretty warm. The plumber will do a new supply line and reconnect everything, rescue one toilet, and get us a new water heater.
We still need to call out where the furnace and dryer will vent, and where the water connection will come out for garden hose, etc. This is our chance to get the hose hookup where it should be, near the back door. We might even be able to aim the furnace vent (in older times, chimney; now, PVC pipe out the side wall. Where's the elegance?) and dryer vent at the water connection, to help keep it from freezing.
Then comes the rebuilding of the front porch, the finishing of the back entry, and the fixing of the concrete outside the back door (perhaps these last two should be the other way around). This is where I recall that the contractor said, "four to six weeks," and we're finishing six weeks. The contractor needs also to do a make-good on a couple support beams and to have a look at some of the settling cracks and issues - for example, our kitchen counter has moved from 1/8" to 1/2" down the walls and pulled away from the wall by 1/4", although all the cabinets seem to be fine under the counter. The guy's truck bears the legend "Done Right the First Time," and we're not entirely sure.
When the house is done, we can begin to consider the yard and garden. Wendy thinks we can try to regrow the lawn by seed, and I can give that a go, but only if we get a lot of dirt in here to get the grade we need. We also get to redesign the garden spaces, the front walk (house to public walk), and - if we can scrounge enough brick - a patio-like space for a yard table.
Enough of that. Time to wander off-topic.
$4 gas is making itself known on the highway. I have said that I am now driving a little slower, let's say about 70 on the Interstate. This is down about 3 or 4 mph from my previous habits. At old speeds, I used to be passed regularly, about half the time by Minnesota cars and about 10% by even-faster Illinois cars. Today, for example, I was passed only by a motorcycle; I passed an Acura from Minnesota and a BMW from Illinois!
I have a bit of a fall-back position. My employer offers a stock purchase plan with after-tax dollars that gets us company stock at a bit of a break (discount from lower of current or previous buy-period price) and, although that's still attractive (bless me, I don't work for Circuit City, whose business and stock performance is so abysmal that Blockbuster walked away from an offer to buy the company), I could cover about half my monthly commute by pulling out of the program. Not yet, maybe, but a pad is a pad.
If you know me, you'll wonder when I might say something about beer. Here's one to try, but you may need to get west of Eau Claire and east of the Twin Cities to find. The Rush River brewery of River Falls, WI, makes two fine beers. Their "Bubblejack" IPA is tasty of the type, but to my mind their star is the "Unforgiven Amber." This is beautiful to look at and better to put in your mouth. Amber to copper, lovely head, full but not too thick, full-flavored but not cloying, good finish but not lingering aftertaste.
This is where I speak heresy. I drink wine. Sometimes I drink booze. Now, I seldom drink more than one of these flavor families per night, although a little nip of something is nice if not too many beers have preceded it. Generally, if I start with wine, I finish with wine, and if I start with a wee nip, I might well finish with another. Beer is wonderful: if I start with beer, and behave myself, I can finish with a shot; if I start with a shot, I can finish with a beer or two.
But I understand why old men drink straight booze, or wine. It's a cut to the chase issue. They have to pee less often; they may have to wake less often for that purpose. I have a healthy set of prostate problems, and as a beer-drinking man I may be up three or more times a night to drain. Most times, I can get right back to sleep, unless an unsettled house project weighs on my mind. When I drink wine, that might be down to two times, and if I sit with my friend George Dickel (not mentioned in George Thorogood and the Destroyers, "I Drink Alone" but it should have been), I might get by with the 12:30 whiz. The other night I tried drinking a glass of limeade (non-alcoholic) as the only beverage; I was tired and my liver needed a night off. I was still up twice, so I voted to not worry about abstaining. The longer I can stretch things between waking to pee, the more and better I dream. Since I believe that dreams, among other things, vent some pent-up issues in the subconscious, the more I dream, the more I like it. I feel better after dream-filled sleep, even if I don't recall much about any of the dreams.
George Dickel "Original Tennessee Finest Quality Sippin' Whisky" No. 12. Not to be mistaken for No. 9, Sour Mash Whisky. That's drinkable, after a fashion, for those who prefer sour mash. No. 12 is, to my mind, similar to a bourbon and better than Jack Daniel's, which generally costs $5 more per 750ml bottle. From what I have found on the net, the company has been up and down, has sold a few times including recently, has been in and out of production, et., etc. It still tastes as good as it did 40-plus years ago when I first learned about it in the alley behind Conkey's Book Store (Appleton, WI). As long as the recipe is true, the whisky will be honest with you. Hell, it's booze: if you have too much, it'll kick you in the ass, make you behave stupidly, and make you ill. But if you can manipulate such a liquor, get enough that you reach the land of pleasantness without flying past it, George Dickel is one of the more tasty ways to arrive there without making your wallet ill .
I am wondering how the new basement will be in regard to temperature. Our old basement ("Other people have basements. We have a cellar." - our daughter, in her early teen years) was, among other things, cool. It was a great place to hold beer and wine, in what I always called "cellar-cooled" temperatures. In winter, the sill along the stairway to the basement was a great place to keep good beers, as they were ready to drink at about 48-50 degrees, and wine from the basement was at about the same temperature because it was near the old floor. I will need a whole year, starting as soon as they tell me they're done, to calibrate the storage temperatures of the new basement and what changes in refrigeration and holding spaces will be needed to provide the happiest beverage moments with the least energy. I may have to go through some room-temperature George until I have some results to report.
They poured our basement floor yesterday. At roughly 4,500 pounds per cubic yard, that's how much concrete it takes to make a floor about 4" thick, in a space about 23' x 40'. No wonder there are a couple cracks in the sidewalk where the cement truck sat.
I'm not sure when it's safe to go down there and take a gander. Certainly nothing happened today, and I'm betting against any activity tomorrow. But I might toss a ladder through the egress window opening - I hate ladders, and I'm no good on them, and they kill my knees - and crawl down there for a look-see. This means, of course, that our old basement stairs were - mercifully - ripped out and new ones have yet to be built.
I'll want to be sure I know where the floor drain is, and the sump pump pit, and the roughed-in bathroom, and the laundry drain. I'll want to see if I can discern, without spilling a lot of water to test it, if the floor slopes toward the floor drain. And I'll want to call out some spots for ceiling fixtures (light) and duplex or fourplex receptacles (power).
The contractor will need to lower most of the appliances and the furnace through the egress window opening to put them in place. I want them to put in the stairs, and take the dryer down the new stairs, to see if it's at all possible to get such down and up for future appliance needs. The dryer is the lightest of those items that would need to go up and down the steps. Otherwise, there will need to be some permanent accommodation made at the egress window.
They also blocked up all the remaining openings in the foundation walls, except where the two lights (windows) and the egress window will go. All right: an egress window is the escape from the basement in case we or a future owner put a bedroom down there. I don't know what's going in those, or exactly what if anything will be done for window well and drainage. I know the egress window will require either a cover, or gutter at the roof, to keep water out of such a well.
A few treated boards need to be stuffed in between the block and the old house sill, and some sill repair still needs to happen. The plumber has much to do, as does the heating guy: almost all the sheet metal is being replaced and rerouted. Former cold air returns will now be heat vents and vice versa. Then the furnace needs to be hooked up to gas and power, and the central a/c unit needs to be reconnected and recharged. We've run out of luck on that score: days in the mid 80's leave the house pretty warm. The plumber will do a new supply line and reconnect everything, rescue one toilet, and get us a new water heater.
We still need to call out where the furnace and dryer will vent, and where the water connection will come out for garden hose, etc. This is our chance to get the hose hookup where it should be, near the back door. We might even be able to aim the furnace vent (in older times, chimney; now, PVC pipe out the side wall. Where's the elegance?) and dryer vent at the water connection, to help keep it from freezing.
Then comes the rebuilding of the front porch, the finishing of the back entry, and the fixing of the concrete outside the back door (perhaps these last two should be the other way around). This is where I recall that the contractor said, "four to six weeks," and we're finishing six weeks. The contractor needs also to do a make-good on a couple support beams and to have a look at some of the settling cracks and issues - for example, our kitchen counter has moved from 1/8" to 1/2" down the walls and pulled away from the wall by 1/4", although all the cabinets seem to be fine under the counter. The guy's truck bears the legend "Done Right the First Time," and we're not entirely sure.
When the house is done, we can begin to consider the yard and garden. Wendy thinks we can try to regrow the lawn by seed, and I can give that a go, but only if we get a lot of dirt in here to get the grade we need. We also get to redesign the garden spaces, the front walk (house to public walk), and - if we can scrounge enough brick - a patio-like space for a yard table.
Enough of that. Time to wander off-topic.
$4 gas is making itself known on the highway. I have said that I am now driving a little slower, let's say about 70 on the Interstate. This is down about 3 or 4 mph from my previous habits. At old speeds, I used to be passed regularly, about half the time by Minnesota cars and about 10% by even-faster Illinois cars. Today, for example, I was passed only by a motorcycle; I passed an Acura from Minnesota and a BMW from Illinois!
I have a bit of a fall-back position. My employer offers a stock purchase plan with after-tax dollars that gets us company stock at a bit of a break (discount from lower of current or previous buy-period price) and, although that's still attractive (bless me, I don't work for Circuit City, whose business and stock performance is so abysmal that Blockbuster walked away from an offer to buy the company), I could cover about half my monthly commute by pulling out of the program. Not yet, maybe, but a pad is a pad.
If you know me, you'll wonder when I might say something about beer. Here's one to try, but you may need to get west of Eau Claire and east of the Twin Cities to find. The Rush River brewery of River Falls, WI, makes two fine beers. Their "Bubblejack" IPA is tasty of the type, but to my mind their star is the "Unforgiven Amber." This is beautiful to look at and better to put in your mouth. Amber to copper, lovely head, full but not too thick, full-flavored but not cloying, good finish but not lingering aftertaste.
This is where I speak heresy. I drink wine. Sometimes I drink booze. Now, I seldom drink more than one of these flavor families per night, although a little nip of something is nice if not too many beers have preceded it. Generally, if I start with wine, I finish with wine, and if I start with a wee nip, I might well finish with another. Beer is wonderful: if I start with beer, and behave myself, I can finish with a shot; if I start with a shot, I can finish with a beer or two.
But I understand why old men drink straight booze, or wine. It's a cut to the chase issue. They have to pee less often; they may have to wake less often for that purpose. I have a healthy set of prostate problems, and as a beer-drinking man I may be up three or more times a night to drain. Most times, I can get right back to sleep, unless an unsettled house project weighs on my mind. When I drink wine, that might be down to two times, and if I sit with my friend George Dickel (not mentioned in George Thorogood and the Destroyers, "I Drink Alone" but it should have been), I might get by with the 12:30 whiz. The other night I tried drinking a glass of limeade (non-alcoholic) as the only beverage; I was tired and my liver needed a night off. I was still up twice, so I voted to not worry about abstaining. The longer I can stretch things between waking to pee, the more and better I dream. Since I believe that dreams, among other things, vent some pent-up issues in the subconscious, the more I dream, the more I like it. I feel better after dream-filled sleep, even if I don't recall much about any of the dreams.
George Dickel "Original Tennessee Finest Quality Sippin' Whisky" No. 12. Not to be mistaken for No. 9, Sour Mash Whisky. That's drinkable, after a fashion, for those who prefer sour mash. No. 12 is, to my mind, similar to a bourbon and better than Jack Daniel's, which generally costs $5 more per 750ml bottle. From what I have found on the net, the company has been up and down, has sold a few times including recently, has been in and out of production, et., etc. It still tastes as good as it did 40-plus years ago when I first learned about it in the alley behind Conkey's Book Store (Appleton, WI). As long as the recipe is true, the whisky will be honest with you. Hell, it's booze: if you have too much, it'll kick you in the ass, make you behave stupidly, and make you ill. But if you can manipulate such a liquor, get enough that you reach the land of pleasantness without flying past it, George Dickel is one of the more tasty ways to arrive there without making your wallet ill .
I am wondering how the new basement will be in regard to temperature. Our old basement ("Other people have basements. We have a cellar." - our daughter, in her early teen years) was, among other things, cool. It was a great place to hold beer and wine, in what I always called "cellar-cooled" temperatures. In winter, the sill along the stairway to the basement was a great place to keep good beers, as they were ready to drink at about 48-50 degrees, and wine from the basement was at about the same temperature because it was near the old floor. I will need a whole year, starting as soon as they tell me they're done, to calibrate the storage temperatures of the new basement and what changes in refrigeration and holding spaces will be needed to provide the happiest beverage moments with the least energy. I may have to go through some room-temperature George until I have some results to report.
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
Up In The Air, part 8
All right, there wasn't a seven. But the last entry was actually #7, under an assumed name.
This one will be short, if I stick to the topic. The plumber has done his below-concrete work: setting the floor drain, roughing in the drain connections for a future bathroom and for our laundry area, rerouting the sewerage pipes. The contractor has one more footing to set, and he says the floor will be poured on Friday (rain and other wetness issues permitting). Next week will be at best a four-day work week, with July 4th coming on Friday, but a four-day work week would be a record; nothing happened today, and our contractor has become enamored of moneymaking opportunities in the rebuilding of Iowa ("it hurts to see the devastation..." Hah!) so I'm not counting on much moving forward tomorrow or Thursday.
We have a wall clock with lovely chimes that Wendy is fond of. The chimes stopped a couple of months ago, and when we took the clock down to avoid its falling when the house went up, we took it to a repair shop. It came back today, and I'm waiting to re-learn how to ignore the bonging in the wee small hours. UW-Stout's clock tower has bells that chime the quarter-hours every day, but they don't begin until 7 a.m. and they quit after 9 p.m. I don't know how to make this clock do that. My father used to tell how he hated the cuckoo clock at my grandparents' cottage: it would sound once on the half-hour. He would wake in the night and hear one cuckoo, and, not knowing if it was 12:30, one a.m. or 1:30, or some other wee small half-hour, he would lay awake until he heard two or more cuckoos.
As the house settles on its new foundation, it's finding some new alignments. This results in a door here and there that needs to be planed at the top or bottom, a crack in the plaster above doorways or in corners, etc. I'm not sure we'll ever open a couple of casement windows or our pocket doors. Nothing big has fallen yet, no falls of concrete or new gaps to the outdoors. A couple of folks have said, "sure, now it's setting on a level square foundation and before, who knows?"
Tomorrow will be another journey to the laundromat, my third. This one won't be quite as fierce as the last one, when I did seven loads. But my wife always rips on me for having a healthy supply of underwear and socks, not to mention khaki pants, and that sufficient wardrobe may get us through to the completion of plumbing and the return of the appliances to the basement.
At worst, I may need another yellow polo shirt for work; I've been trying to put off the need for a new one, as the dye lots have changed considerably and the new shirts are about the color of the inside of a pumpkin.
This one will be short, if I stick to the topic. The plumber has done his below-concrete work: setting the floor drain, roughing in the drain connections for a future bathroom and for our laundry area, rerouting the sewerage pipes. The contractor has one more footing to set, and he says the floor will be poured on Friday (rain and other wetness issues permitting). Next week will be at best a four-day work week, with July 4th coming on Friday, but a four-day work week would be a record; nothing happened today, and our contractor has become enamored of moneymaking opportunities in the rebuilding of Iowa ("it hurts to see the devastation..." Hah!) so I'm not counting on much moving forward tomorrow or Thursday.
We have a wall clock with lovely chimes that Wendy is fond of. The chimes stopped a couple of months ago, and when we took the clock down to avoid its falling when the house went up, we took it to a repair shop. It came back today, and I'm waiting to re-learn how to ignore the bonging in the wee small hours. UW-Stout's clock tower has bells that chime the quarter-hours every day, but they don't begin until 7 a.m. and they quit after 9 p.m. I don't know how to make this clock do that. My father used to tell how he hated the cuckoo clock at my grandparents' cottage: it would sound once on the half-hour. He would wake in the night and hear one cuckoo, and, not knowing if it was 12:30, one a.m. or 1:30, or some other wee small half-hour, he would lay awake until he heard two or more cuckoos.
As the house settles on its new foundation, it's finding some new alignments. This results in a door here and there that needs to be planed at the top or bottom, a crack in the plaster above doorways or in corners, etc. I'm not sure we'll ever open a couple of casement windows or our pocket doors. Nothing big has fallen yet, no falls of concrete or new gaps to the outdoors. A couple of folks have said, "sure, now it's setting on a level square foundation and before, who knows?"
Tomorrow will be another journey to the laundromat, my third. This one won't be quite as fierce as the last one, when I did seven loads. But my wife always rips on me for having a healthy supply of underwear and socks, not to mention khaki pants, and that sufficient wardrobe may get us through to the completion of plumbing and the return of the appliances to the basement.
At worst, I may need another yellow polo shirt for work; I've been trying to put off the need for a new one, as the dye lots have changed considerably and the new shirts are about the color of the inside of a pumpkin.
Friday, June 20, 2008
As Long As We're Down Here...
The hits just keep on a-comin'. The financial hits. The basement floor hasn't been poured yet, so there's still time to bring in the plumber. We're getting new toilet piping, partly to repair an old problem with the way one toilet sat on the pipes and partly to reroute the pipes now that they're running through open space rather than along a wall. We're getting a new supply pipe, taking a different path from the meter to the water heater. And, oh yeah, a new water heater, since our current one seems to be about half-full of mineral in six or seven years. And new connections from the basement supply to every water-using fixture. A new floor drain, plus new drains and supplies for the laundry. And, since our new basement could be finished at a later date, it's a great time to rough in the hookups for a future toilet, sink and shower. It all makes sense, and it all costs money.
What it probably also means is another night in a motel, although the plumber says his goal is to get us one toilet and one sink by the end of his day digging up the pipes.
Then there's the heat, and the air conditioner. Almost all of our old sheet metal ducting came out, and from all appearances it should have. But this means all new sheet metal, and the heating guy wants to change cold air returns into heat vents and vice versa, and we haven't seen his bid yet, nor do we know how much of that was part of the original. It appears that our furnace and our central air unit will be all right to re-install, the second mercy shown by this project. The first mercy: we've had no weather below 48 degrees at night and only a few days over 80, so the absence of heat and A/C hasn't been a burden.
We hope to have concrete poured by next Friday, maybe sooner. After that, the plumber can get back in to mess with supply pipes, and the heat guy can start cutting metal, and the washer and dryer can get down into place, and they can block up the places where girders held the place up, and install the windows, and build the new stairway. I'm guessing that we have about three weeks to go.
Then they can come into the house and start patching cracks where the house settled slightly differently on the new walls. And finish rebuilding the porch. And get at the roof before the snow flies.
It appears that early retirement is not going to be an option.
What it probably also means is another night in a motel, although the plumber says his goal is to get us one toilet and one sink by the end of his day digging up the pipes.
Then there's the heat, and the air conditioner. Almost all of our old sheet metal ducting came out, and from all appearances it should have. But this means all new sheet metal, and the heating guy wants to change cold air returns into heat vents and vice versa, and we haven't seen his bid yet, nor do we know how much of that was part of the original. It appears that our furnace and our central air unit will be all right to re-install, the second mercy shown by this project. The first mercy: we've had no weather below 48 degrees at night and only a few days over 80, so the absence of heat and A/C hasn't been a burden.
We hope to have concrete poured by next Friday, maybe sooner. After that, the plumber can get back in to mess with supply pipes, and the heat guy can start cutting metal, and the washer and dryer can get down into place, and they can block up the places where girders held the place up, and install the windows, and build the new stairway. I'm guessing that we have about three weeks to go.
Then they can come into the house and start patching cracks where the house settled slightly differently on the new walls. And finish rebuilding the porch. And get at the roof before the snow flies.
It appears that early retirement is not going to be an option.
Friday, June 13, 2008
Up In The Air, Part 5
Not much visible has happened in the past few days. By peering through the openings in the basement where the girders still protrude, I can see that some of the interior drain tile has been laid, and there are a few odd 2x4s that appear to be getting ready to help hold us up until the microlam beams and posts are in and the girders are out. When that will be is as yet unknown.
Outside, concrete footings have been poured for the pillars of our front porch, the roof of which is still with us, resting on temporary posts on the girders. I think that will eventually come off and be rebuilt. I used to have a hammock chair screwed into a beam of the old porch roof; the hook pulled out of the beam and pulled part of a ceiling board down, and I landed hard on my keester. I wouldn't be sorry to see that board and beam replaced.
And we have an enclosure at the back door. We have had an open porch, with a step up about halfway along it. We collected snow, rain, snowment and blown oak leaves, but it was light and airy outside the kitchen door. The elevation of the house has changed; we are about a foot and a half higher, and by the time a floor is established on this new porch we have a couple of steps outside and a step up onto the porch. We have walls that weren't there before. There appears to be a big window coming (maybe 3'x3') and a door, which needs to have a lot of glass. The north wall doesn't have a window, but it will need at least a narrow one so we can see the garage. The immediate benefit is that we now have our back door available to use for the first time in two weeks; Lucy the dog is pretty happy.
Wendy won't like it. She fears that the back entry will seem to be a cave, and although the window will help, the door and the addition of a north view will be crucial to the final acceptance of this change. The enclosure is important, since the basement now extends beneath the back entry and a porch enclosure will keep rain and snow off of what amounts to the basement ceiling.
The enclosed area is long and narrow, so its main benefit will be weather protection rather than storage of any kind. We have no plans to finish or insulate it, although that may come later; I envision the eventual new door as being open most of the time except in crappy weather, and our current storm door staying in place. But, although most of our weather systems come in from some variant of the west, a lot of the actual rain and snow blow from the east or swirl around, and it will be a very nice thing to not get nailed by cold wet right outside the kitchen.
Wendy is out of town, and on her trip home she ran afoul of closures of the Interstates due to flooding. She found her way onto a detour that was awfully slow, and then lucked into finding another detour that has aimed her toward home rather than making her backtrack. The southern part of the state is coming out of the rain but continues to suffer from flooding. Iowa gets the news, because theirs is worse, but we have some raspy conditions. See an earlier rant.
Tiger Woods seems to be recovering nicely from his knee surgery. Tim Russert died today. The weekend is upon us. Enjoy.
Outside, concrete footings have been poured for the pillars of our front porch, the roof of which is still with us, resting on temporary posts on the girders. I think that will eventually come off and be rebuilt. I used to have a hammock chair screwed into a beam of the old porch roof; the hook pulled out of the beam and pulled part of a ceiling board down, and I landed hard on my keester. I wouldn't be sorry to see that board and beam replaced.
And we have an enclosure at the back door. We have had an open porch, with a step up about halfway along it. We collected snow, rain, snowment and blown oak leaves, but it was light and airy outside the kitchen door. The elevation of the house has changed; we are about a foot and a half higher, and by the time a floor is established on this new porch we have a couple of steps outside and a step up onto the porch. We have walls that weren't there before. There appears to be a big window coming (maybe 3'x3') and a door, which needs to have a lot of glass. The north wall doesn't have a window, but it will need at least a narrow one so we can see the garage. The immediate benefit is that we now have our back door available to use for the first time in two weeks; Lucy the dog is pretty happy.
Wendy won't like it. She fears that the back entry will seem to be a cave, and although the window will help, the door and the addition of a north view will be crucial to the final acceptance of this change. The enclosure is important, since the basement now extends beneath the back entry and a porch enclosure will keep rain and snow off of what amounts to the basement ceiling.
The enclosed area is long and narrow, so its main benefit will be weather protection rather than storage of any kind. We have no plans to finish or insulate it, although that may come later; I envision the eventual new door as being open most of the time except in crappy weather, and our current storm door staying in place. But, although most of our weather systems come in from some variant of the west, a lot of the actual rain and snow blow from the east or swirl around, and it will be a very nice thing to not get nailed by cold wet right outside the kitchen.
Wendy is out of town, and on her trip home she ran afoul of closures of the Interstates due to flooding. She found her way onto a detour that was awfully slow, and then lucked into finding another detour that has aimed her toward home rather than making her backtrack. The southern part of the state is coming out of the rain but continues to suffer from flooding. Iowa gets the news, because theirs is worse, but we have some raspy conditions. See an earlier rant.
Tiger Woods seems to be recovering nicely from his knee surgery. Tim Russert died today. The weekend is upon us. Enjoy.
Wednesday, June 11, 2008
Up In The Air, part 4
It's now June. On Monday, the Bobcat guys came back and finished off the demolition of our old basement, and graded the excavation. On Tuesday, the concrete guys began by pouring the concrete foot for the foundation, 20" wide by 8" deep, with two spots for the posts that are supposed to support the beams that will replace the old inside walls. Wednesday saw the first of two days of block laying; Thursday saw the finish of the block laying and the smearing of stucco (concrete) to seal the outside. Friday nothing happened. The drying process of mortar and stucco was visible, and happened apace in spite of more rain. We spent another weekend airborne. The blocks in our foundation are 12" deep by 8" high by 16" long; the 12" dimension is specific to foundation work. Each block has two cavities, which should provide some dead-air insulation.
I still don't know an awful lot about our general contractor, but all his subcontractors are good. The guy from Xcel Energy who came to mark lines for digging said he loved our Bobcat guy. The Bobcat guy was excellent, and he said that "nobody lays block like Dennis Fedderly," our concrete and block guy. We had needed some repair to our crawl space in the back some years ago, and this was the guy who did the block; the Bobcat guy said that the block repair was the hardest of everything to bust out during excavation.
Let's give a name to the Bobcat guy: Don Berg. He didn't use Bobcats per se; that's a trade name. Don has a couple of New Holland small tractors, one with big metal treads and one with rubber treads. He said that he earned his respect from Xcel Energy by damaging a gas line "a little bit, and I reported it pronto." He was the one who pointed out that we had a good deal of clay under the house, and he suggested drain tiles, which had not been bid originally because the general guy had assumed, reasonably enough, that we were on sandy soil as is much of the town. He put down wood guides for driving his tractors over the sidewalk and driveway. Have you seen the Tom Hanks film, "The Money Pit?" This (drain tiles) was going to be change number one.
Monday, two days ago, the concrete guys came and swabbed tar sealant on the new foundation.
Yesterday, all the debris in the yard was finally hauled away. This was great, because it included the old basement windows and broken glass, a good deal of 80-year-old sheet metal ductwork, odd brick and wood, etc., which had spilled a couple of feet into the other neighbor's yard. Much of the dirt was pushed back against the new blockwork, and our driveway was scraped clear of most of the stored dirt. The place began to look semi-normal.
Today, the house was lowered onto the new foundation. The girders are still under the house, so some blockwork is still to come, and the basement windows (including one "egress window") haven't been put in, but we're at the elevation we'll be at for years to come. This will be some 12 to 16 inches higher than before: it's a good thing, because it gives us room to grade the yard away from the house in ways that weren't possible before, but it means at least one more step on the front porch and some re-jiggering of the driveway and step to the back entrance. Hooray! - I still have plumbing, power, cable, etc., and the steep ramp on the jury-rigged porch is now less steep.
One challenge we hadn't addressed was the back entry. It had always been open, and subject to leaves, snowmelt, and other weather problems. Now, the basement will extend under it, so the elevation will change. How to weather-seal it? The contractor will put down a rubberized seal over the exposed basement ceiling that will now be outside our kitchen door, but we hadn't considered walling it off to keep away the onslaught of snow and rain. That's change number two ("Money Pit"); we will have what amounts to a vestibule outside the kitchen door. I had always considered hanging plexiglass on the railings we had, but now we'll have a wall, with a door and not enough windows. I envision a door that will be open except in wet or snowy weather; Wendy envisions a darkness that can't be alleviated no matter how many windows are put in. I wanted some form of double or sliding door, but that would jack the price even further than otherwise. Also, because of the change in elevation, we need to consider steps that weren't there before. They broke some of the driveway when they took out the back entry to make the new basement; how much can be taken up in the repair and how much needs to be a step?
Still to come: pulling the girders, and blocking in the holes. Setting the windows. Figuring out where the water and gas will be piped to. Figuring out where the water pipes and the drainage (toilets, etc.) need to get into the floor. Figuring out the location for the floor drain, which will be determined by the location of the furnace. Venting the furnace and the dryer. Setting the sump pump for the drain tiles. Possibly choosing an on-demand water heater. Pouring the new basement floor, which is subject to much of the above. Building new basement stairs(!). )Placing new light fixtures and electric plugs. Putting in new sheet metal ductwork, and reconnecting the furnace and central air. Somehow we need to set up a "utility room," with the furnace, the laundry, the water heater, etc., in such a way that some future owner can finish the basement if needed.
What a mercy - only for this selfish reason - that we haven't suffered a heat wave! I could kill for some 85-degree weather, which we haven't had yet, but in these circumstances it can wait another couple of weeks. I've worn shorts for only three days; last year my third day was sometime in April. It's yet another rainy day, with severe weather threats for overnight, and for tomorrow in the southern half of the state, where Wendy is at a meeting, and the yard is still a sea of mud. Can you imagine: Lake Delton, by Wisconsin Dells, blew out its impoundment and flowed away! The Tommy Bartlett Waterski Show has no water on which to perform! This was part of the same flooding that washed away a number of houses in the Dells. Great TV film, but holy crap!
This has been a year of a record number of tornadoes and incredible amounts of rain, widespread flooding and some other remarkable weather. Gobs of baseball-sized hail. Snow in the West. Drought in the Southeast.
We want urgently to help the people in Myanmar after the cyclone, and the junta won't let help in . That's news. We want urgently to help the people of China after the devastating earthquakes.
What does the rest of the world feel about the steady parade of natural disasters in the US? Except for Katrina, have we ever received offers of aid for any of our horrible weather-related catastrophes? Is, for example, Germany interested in helping out in the Dells?
One of the curses of our ambivalent foreign policy, and especially the Bush Administration's steady pissing off of other countries, is that we are not considered a part of the world community, but some special case that needs no help but can be called upon if somebody else is in need and blamed if we don't respond . Our next President (dear Lord, let it be Obama) needs to lead a very specific effort to integrate us into the wider world, so that we can extend help when we can - it wouldn't be America if we didn't - but so that others will extend help to us at need.
Sorry. That's a bit off topic. But Jesus! How can one eight-year period so alienate us from the whole world? Anyway, you're up to date. Wendy's in Milwaukee, and I'm off to bed.
I still don't know an awful lot about our general contractor, but all his subcontractors are good. The guy from Xcel Energy who came to mark lines for digging said he loved our Bobcat guy. The Bobcat guy was excellent, and he said that "nobody lays block like Dennis Fedderly," our concrete and block guy. We had needed some repair to our crawl space in the back some years ago, and this was the guy who did the block; the Bobcat guy said that the block repair was the hardest of everything to bust out during excavation.
Let's give a name to the Bobcat guy: Don Berg. He didn't use Bobcats per se; that's a trade name. Don has a couple of New Holland small tractors, one with big metal treads and one with rubber treads. He said that he earned his respect from Xcel Energy by damaging a gas line "a little bit, and I reported it pronto." He was the one who pointed out that we had a good deal of clay under the house, and he suggested drain tiles, which had not been bid originally because the general guy had assumed, reasonably enough, that we were on sandy soil as is much of the town. He put down wood guides for driving his tractors over the sidewalk and driveway. Have you seen the Tom Hanks film, "The Money Pit?" This (drain tiles) was going to be change number one.
Monday, two days ago, the concrete guys came and swabbed tar sealant on the new foundation.
Yesterday, all the debris in the yard was finally hauled away. This was great, because it included the old basement windows and broken glass, a good deal of 80-year-old sheet metal ductwork, odd brick and wood, etc., which had spilled a couple of feet into the other neighbor's yard. Much of the dirt was pushed back against the new blockwork, and our driveway was scraped clear of most of the stored dirt. The place began to look semi-normal.
Today, the house was lowered onto the new foundation. The girders are still under the house, so some blockwork is still to come, and the basement windows (including one "egress window") haven't been put in, but we're at the elevation we'll be at for years to come. This will be some 12 to 16 inches higher than before: it's a good thing, because it gives us room to grade the yard away from the house in ways that weren't possible before, but it means at least one more step on the front porch and some re-jiggering of the driveway and step to the back entrance. Hooray! - I still have plumbing, power, cable, etc., and the steep ramp on the jury-rigged porch is now less steep.
One challenge we hadn't addressed was the back entry. It had always been open, and subject to leaves, snowmelt, and other weather problems. Now, the basement will extend under it, so the elevation will change. How to weather-seal it? The contractor will put down a rubberized seal over the exposed basement ceiling that will now be outside our kitchen door, but we hadn't considered walling it off to keep away the onslaught of snow and rain. That's change number two ("Money Pit"); we will have what amounts to a vestibule outside the kitchen door. I had always considered hanging plexiglass on the railings we had, but now we'll have a wall, with a door and not enough windows. I envision a door that will be open except in wet or snowy weather; Wendy envisions a darkness that can't be alleviated no matter how many windows are put in. I wanted some form of double or sliding door, but that would jack the price even further than otherwise. Also, because of the change in elevation, we need to consider steps that weren't there before. They broke some of the driveway when they took out the back entry to make the new basement; how much can be taken up in the repair and how much needs to be a step?
Still to come: pulling the girders, and blocking in the holes. Setting the windows. Figuring out where the water and gas will be piped to. Figuring out where the water pipes and the drainage (toilets, etc.) need to get into the floor. Figuring out the location for the floor drain, which will be determined by the location of the furnace. Venting the furnace and the dryer. Setting the sump pump for the drain tiles. Possibly choosing an on-demand water heater. Pouring the new basement floor, which is subject to much of the above. Building new basement stairs(!). )Placing new light fixtures and electric plugs. Putting in new sheet metal ductwork, and reconnecting the furnace and central air. Somehow we need to set up a "utility room," with the furnace, the laundry, the water heater, etc., in such a way that some future owner can finish the basement if needed.
What a mercy - only for this selfish reason - that we haven't suffered a heat wave! I could kill for some 85-degree weather, which we haven't had yet, but in these circumstances it can wait another couple of weeks. I've worn shorts for only three days; last year my third day was sometime in April. It's yet another rainy day, with severe weather threats for overnight, and for tomorrow in the southern half of the state, where Wendy is at a meeting, and the yard is still a sea of mud. Can you imagine: Lake Delton, by Wisconsin Dells, blew out its impoundment and flowed away! The Tommy Bartlett Waterski Show has no water on which to perform! This was part of the same flooding that washed away a number of houses in the Dells. Great TV film, but holy crap!
This has been a year of a record number of tornadoes and incredible amounts of rain, widespread flooding and some other remarkable weather. Gobs of baseball-sized hail. Snow in the West. Drought in the Southeast.
We want urgently to help the people in Myanmar after the cyclone, and the junta won't let help in . That's news. We want urgently to help the people of China after the devastating earthquakes.
What does the rest of the world feel about the steady parade of natural disasters in the US? Except for Katrina, have we ever received offers of aid for any of our horrible weather-related catastrophes? Is, for example, Germany interested in helping out in the Dells?
One of the curses of our ambivalent foreign policy, and especially the Bush Administration's steady pissing off of other countries, is that we are not considered a part of the world community, but some special case that needs no help but can be called upon if somebody else is in need and blamed if we don't respond . Our next President (dear Lord, let it be Obama) needs to lead a very specific effort to integrate us into the wider world, so that we can extend help when we can - it wouldn't be America if we didn't - but so that others will extend help to us at need.
Sorry. That's a bit off topic. But Jesus! How can one eight-year period so alienate us from the whole world? Anyway, you're up to date. Wendy's in Milwaukee, and I'm off to bed.
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
Up In The Air, part 3
There was some exciting advancement today, so I'm a little pumped to pick up the tale.
The Friday before Memorial Day, the contractor had a Bobcat in to begin the preparation. They wiped out the front and side-of-house garden, began chewing up the yard, took out window wells at the basement windows, and generally removed things which would be in the way as they prepped and lifted the house. Of course, it rained during the weekend, and the changed slopes conducted water to the leaky old windows and the leaky old walls, and we had some water in the basement. I just swept it to the dirt spot.
During the last week of May, the house went up. The house mover came Tuesday (Monday holiday, of course) and knocked holes in the old basement to make room for girders. Wednesday they raised the house, ripped off the front porch, and began demolishing the old basement. We had to enter the back door by putting a footstool on the back porch, and we had no water or toilets. We left the pets in the house - the dog figured out how to use the footstool to get in and out - and went to the Super 8 for the night. I ran over Thursday morning and walked the dog, and got her back in, then went back to the motel and we left for work from there. Thursday they removed the back porch, part of the basement enlargement, and we needed a five-foot ladder to get into the back door. Lucy jumped out just fine, but it was drippy and the 80-pound dog didn't want to be lifted in by someone on the brink of a big hole in the rain, so we went back to the Super 8 and paid the fee for pets (actually not - they forgot to put it on the bill). Now it gets fun: we had checked in, and Wendy was walking Lucy to our second floor room, I was in the lobby with our overnight bags, and bam! a bolt of lightning, a crack of thunder almost simultaneously, and all of the north side of town lost power. So, to recap: the house had electricity, but no water or toilet, and we couldn't get the dog in, but the motel had no power. The three of us sat in the room, watched the lightning, and laughed. Well, maybe not Lucy, but she jumped up on a bed and didn't move all night. Power was back in 20 minutes. Lucy did pretty well in the dining area: McDonald's cheeseburger Thursday night, hotel make-your-own waffle Friday morning. She spent the day at a neighbor's with her dog friend Miles.
By Friday evening, they had patched in a water connection and some PVC for toilets, and hung the water heater on one of the cribs (stacks of railroad ties used to hold the girders on which the house sits. Looks a bit like one of the wonderful campfire stacks from Boy Scout Camp, or something out of big Lincoln Logs). The contractor had to come back and turn the water ON, and turn the water heater outflow valve ON, but we were somewhat home. We also had a jury-rigged, steepish ramp up to the front door. Once he climbed up a 12-foot ladder to come in the back door and unlock the front door, we were even more home. Hey, we had power, cable and internet - it took yet another contractor visit to find and hook up our cable phone modem - and we could shower and pee. Lucy needed about a day to get used to the ramp, but she is handling it well. We've been in the house ever since.
Bobcat work and demolition was going on Thursday and Friday, but wasn't quite done, so we sat another weekend with demolition crap and heaps of dirt in the yard. You may know that this has been a cool, rainy spring; we haven't suffered the horrible excess of rain and flooding that begins about 60 miles south, but any rain made our lot a sea of mud. During the moving and excavation process, our driveway was covered in dirt to protect the concrete, but that just made our mud sea larger. Wendy's bike, our garbage cans, and much of the brick from our entry sidewalk resided in our neighbr's yard (we're mowing it for him this summer - we owe him!).
The Friday before Memorial Day, the contractor had a Bobcat in to begin the preparation. They wiped out the front and side-of-house garden, began chewing up the yard, took out window wells at the basement windows, and generally removed things which would be in the way as they prepped and lifted the house. Of course, it rained during the weekend, and the changed slopes conducted water to the leaky old windows and the leaky old walls, and we had some water in the basement. I just swept it to the dirt spot.
During the last week of May, the house went up. The house mover came Tuesday (Monday holiday, of course) and knocked holes in the old basement to make room for girders. Wednesday they raised the house, ripped off the front porch, and began demolishing the old basement. We had to enter the back door by putting a footstool on the back porch, and we had no water or toilets. We left the pets in the house - the dog figured out how to use the footstool to get in and out - and went to the Super 8 for the night. I ran over Thursday morning and walked the dog, and got her back in, then went back to the motel and we left for work from there. Thursday they removed the back porch, part of the basement enlargement, and we needed a five-foot ladder to get into the back door. Lucy jumped out just fine, but it was drippy and the 80-pound dog didn't want to be lifted in by someone on the brink of a big hole in the rain, so we went back to the Super 8 and paid the fee for pets (actually not - they forgot to put it on the bill). Now it gets fun: we had checked in, and Wendy was walking Lucy to our second floor room, I was in the lobby with our overnight bags, and bam! a bolt of lightning, a crack of thunder almost simultaneously, and all of the north side of town lost power. So, to recap: the house had electricity, but no water or toilet, and we couldn't get the dog in, but the motel had no power. The three of us sat in the room, watched the lightning, and laughed. Well, maybe not Lucy, but she jumped up on a bed and didn't move all night. Power was back in 20 minutes. Lucy did pretty well in the dining area: McDonald's cheeseburger Thursday night, hotel make-your-own waffle Friday morning. She spent the day at a neighbor's with her dog friend Miles.
By Friday evening, they had patched in a water connection and some PVC for toilets, and hung the water heater on one of the cribs (stacks of railroad ties used to hold the girders on which the house sits. Looks a bit like one of the wonderful campfire stacks from Boy Scout Camp, or something out of big Lincoln Logs). The contractor had to come back and turn the water ON, and turn the water heater outflow valve ON, but we were somewhat home. We also had a jury-rigged, steepish ramp up to the front door. Once he climbed up a 12-foot ladder to come in the back door and unlock the front door, we were even more home. Hey, we had power, cable and internet - it took yet another contractor visit to find and hook up our cable phone modem - and we could shower and pee. Lucy needed about a day to get used to the ramp, but she is handling it well. We've been in the house ever since.
Bobcat work and demolition was going on Thursday and Friday, but wasn't quite done, so we sat another weekend with demolition crap and heaps of dirt in the yard. You may know that this has been a cool, rainy spring; we haven't suffered the horrible excess of rain and flooding that begins about 60 miles south, but any rain made our lot a sea of mud. During the moving and excavation process, our driveway was covered in dirt to protect the concrete, but that just made our mud sea larger. Wendy's bike, our garbage cans, and much of the brick from our entry sidewalk resided in our neighbr's yard (we're mowing it for him this summer - we owe him!).
Monday, June 9, 2008
Up In The Air, part 2
Once we decided to go ahead with this goofy project, Wendy's first concern was the garden areas: they were all to be destroyed during the process. We moved some of our perennials to other places in our yard which we thought would be safe, and we borrowed an 8'x30' spot in the yard next door (the house is vacant, and owned by a man whom we've known since he was a small boy), and we borrowed a big honking rototiller to get it ready. We only sliced through the Invisible Fence wire once, and now - after a spendy service call - I know how to fix it. Some of these plants have history: a lily that has managed to bloom on our anniversary every year for the past 20, plants from Wendy's father's yard, from her mother's yard, from friends now deceased from our church, and so on. So far all are surviving, although the poppies are not much to look at (they don't transplant well) and it's hard to say how the tulip and daffodil bulbs will do, as they were moved mainly so they could die down in the normal way. A big hydrangea and a couple of varietal lilac bushes are sitting in the clumps they came out in.
Then came the emptying of the basement. For all that we couldn't keep down there, a whole great pile of stuff required hauling up the rickety steps: Paint cans from most of our most recent interior jobs, and at least one can from the last exterior job (this is great, as we have the color code for new paint which will be needed), plus a few that will need to go to the solid waste recycler. Tools: some of mine, some of my dad's, some of my grandfather's, and some that came from who knows where (anybody missing any?). Food (canned, mostly), pots, pans, seldom-used small appliances. Coolers - I have two or three old-school gallon water jugs. Old lamps that we fully intend to have repaired. Laundry supplies. Shelving. Folding chairs, card tables, and two old wooden rocking chairs. Sporting goods, Christmas lights, cleaning supplies, vases (at least a dozen!), nails, screws, various old hardware that I don't have the foggiest how to use, etc. The cat's litter box had to be relocated. Mercifully, Laura and Ross were here for a weekend and they helped a great deal. The washer, the dryer, the freezer, a couple big tables, and the furnace were hauled out a bit later by the Bobcat guys.
The house was to be lifted as if to be moved, so the old basement could come out. We didn't know how smoothly that would go, so we took down mirrors and wall-hung art. My collection of beer bottles - all Porters, who knew there were so many varieties (40+ bottles so far)? - came off the shelves, as did some other precious items. We emptied our hutch and boxed the contents. This appears not to have been necessary, although I am in our back room addition now and it sways ever so slightly when my wife walks through.
Then came the emptying of the basement. For all that we couldn't keep down there, a whole great pile of stuff required hauling up the rickety steps: Paint cans from most of our most recent interior jobs, and at least one can from the last exterior job (this is great, as we have the color code for new paint which will be needed), plus a few that will need to go to the solid waste recycler. Tools: some of mine, some of my dad's, some of my grandfather's, and some that came from who knows where (anybody missing any?). Food (canned, mostly), pots, pans, seldom-used small appliances. Coolers - I have two or three old-school gallon water jugs. Old lamps that we fully intend to have repaired. Laundry supplies. Shelving. Folding chairs, card tables, and two old wooden rocking chairs. Sporting goods, Christmas lights, cleaning supplies, vases (at least a dozen!), nails, screws, various old hardware that I don't have the foggiest how to use, etc. The cat's litter box had to be relocated. Mercifully, Laura and Ross were here for a weekend and they helped a great deal. The washer, the dryer, the freezer, a couple big tables, and the furnace were hauled out a bit later by the Bobcat guys.
The house was to be lifted as if to be moved, so the old basement could come out. We didn't know how smoothly that would go, so we took down mirrors and wall-hung art. My collection of beer bottles - all Porters, who knew there were so many varieties (40+ bottles so far)? - came off the shelves, as did some other precious items. We emptied our hutch and boxed the contents. This appears not to have been necessary, although I am in our back room addition now and it sways ever so slightly when my wife walks through.
Up In The Air, part 1.
The past few weeks have been a challenge. We decided to have our house raised, the old, failing basement ripped out and a new one put in. It was one of those things that started out as a visit to our little local home show to check into roofing options.
More likely, it started in the 1920's, when this house was moved to a fieldstone and brick foundation in which both the fieldstone and the mortar contained lots of sand. When we moved in in 1982, the basement was prone to getting wet in most rainstorms. For years, the sand fell out of the mortar to the point that you could see between stones, and the basement was a sanctuary for Daddy Longlegs spiders. While we redirected much of the rainwater with eavestroughs, drip rails and some regrading, the dampness got in. The floor drain was above the level of the floor, and some of the concrete had been chipped away to reveal open dirt; we just swept water to the open part and let it soak away. The basement was cold - great for storing wine and better beers, but not inviting - and would get clammily damp at temperatures too cold for the dehumidifier. Even some good hardware picked up a patina of rust, and many items simply couldn't be stored down there. The stairway was, by 1/8", wide enough for modern appliances, and was rickety. Our daughter once said, "Other people have a basement. We have a cellar." Under a 1920's backroom addition was a crawlspace that included the old coal chute; a handyman framed up some insulation to keep the back shower pipes from freezing.
At the home show, we talked to a couple of local contractors about various roofing materials. Since the whole show had about 20 exhibitors (our town isn't that large), we got a good cross section. We got to chatting with one guy about a possible project that included changing that back room, adding a deck, possibly putting n a hot tub, etc., etc. We invited him, along with a couple of the roofers, to stop over and give us a bid.
When he showed up with the bid, it included the whole new basement, replacement of the front porch, and a roof. The changes to the back room, the deck, the hot tub - not mentioned. But I'd been nursing the dream of a clean, dry basement for a long time, and my lovely wife, though noting the absence of the things she wanted, recognized the need.
At the bank, we found that solid credit is a good thing to have when it comes time to access some of that credit. The weird part is that our new loan, which finished off a previous one, is for somewhat more than we paid for the house all those years ago.
In the next installment, the project begins.
More likely, it started in the 1920's, when this house was moved to a fieldstone and brick foundation in which both the fieldstone and the mortar contained lots of sand. When we moved in in 1982, the basement was prone to getting wet in most rainstorms. For years, the sand fell out of the mortar to the point that you could see between stones, and the basement was a sanctuary for Daddy Longlegs spiders. While we redirected much of the rainwater with eavestroughs, drip rails and some regrading, the dampness got in. The floor drain was above the level of the floor, and some of the concrete had been chipped away to reveal open dirt; we just swept water to the open part and let it soak away. The basement was cold - great for storing wine and better beers, but not inviting - and would get clammily damp at temperatures too cold for the dehumidifier. Even some good hardware picked up a patina of rust, and many items simply couldn't be stored down there. The stairway was, by 1/8", wide enough for modern appliances, and was rickety. Our daughter once said, "Other people have a basement. We have a cellar." Under a 1920's backroom addition was a crawlspace that included the old coal chute; a handyman framed up some insulation to keep the back shower pipes from freezing.
At the home show, we talked to a couple of local contractors about various roofing materials. Since the whole show had about 20 exhibitors (our town isn't that large), we got a good cross section. We got to chatting with one guy about a possible project that included changing that back room, adding a deck, possibly putting n a hot tub, etc., etc. We invited him, along with a couple of the roofers, to stop over and give us a bid.
When he showed up with the bid, it included the whole new basement, replacement of the front porch, and a roof. The changes to the back room, the deck, the hot tub - not mentioned. But I'd been nursing the dream of a clean, dry basement for a long time, and my lovely wife, though noting the absence of the things she wanted, recognized the need.
At the bank, we found that solid credit is a good thing to have when it comes time to access some of that credit. The weird part is that our new loan, which finished off a previous one, is for somewhat more than we paid for the house all those years ago.
In the next installment, the project begins.
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