Floors coming out

So, I've been pulling up floors in the north 1/3 of the house. One board at a time.

Here's a view of the main beam. To the left you can see discoloration. The beam is 3 2x8s. It takes a downward turn just left of the brick support in the middle of the photo.

Next we see a close-up fo the main beam. I'm debating weather to disect the beam and reconstruct it or to just support this end and work with what is there (I'm leaning toward reconstruction). This is further demonstration of wood placed in a moist environment for many years.

Here is shot to show you what the "Business end" of the house is looking like at this point.

Demolition!

Most of my time working on the house lately has been spent removing plaster from the walls. It requires lots of pounding, scraping, scooping, sweeping, and the use of a good respirator.







Here are some photos that should show you what I've been up to:

This shows how the walls are pretty much devoid of plaster and/or lathe. Stacks of tires, while technically not "required" in such a renovation as this one, really do make it feel more like my place.


























This is a view showing the wall after it has been partially removed (it used to be just past that little wood stove).













Besides plaster removal, I've been doing a lot of measuring and planning. The cold weather has hit and I've had to do some stop-gap winterizing of the plumbing and the one room that remains finished. The ground just hasn't been dry enough to make much progress with the foundation trenching, but I have managed to make a litte bit of progress.

I've been working on digging on the foundation trenches and removing the flooring from what was the kitchen. Here are some progress photos of the kitchen floor: Here's what I'm up against as far as structural issues are concerned. This next photo shows a badly deteriorated joist and sill plate.
This next photo is of the sills and floor joists along the east wall, from below. Though not as severe as the photo above, you can see that the sills and joists are trending toward disintegration.
My plan is to remove floors in all affected areas of the house in order to gain sufficient access to raise the floor and replace the sill plate and floor joists. I plan to use treated lumber for the replacments. Generally, I avoid treated lumber where possible due to environmental and health concerns. Though I do plan to keep the crawspace much drier than it has likely been in its past, I feel like this is the most appropriate material choice. The crawlspace will still likely be a somewhat damp environment and the north wall of the house puts the sill plate basically at grade level. This, sill plate at grade, is not a good building practice, but what's a guy to do with a ~60+ year old structure? I may try to address the grading in the future...but for now, I'll work with what I have. I assume that the house was build before the advent of treated lumber, and I can certainly see some benefits to the use of treated lumber in this application!

I don't have any newer photos of my trench digging progress but I have slowly been working on it. I promise there will be detailed photos of the drainage system when they are worthwhile.

Foundation Drainage

One of the first major projects that will need to be completed will be a foundation drainage system. As-purchased, the house had moisture in the crawlspace. For health and the longevity of the materials, I aim to make the crawlspace as dry as reasonably possible.

The drainage system will consist of a perimiter trench, drainage pipe (drain tile), gravel fill, and a sump pump and enclosure. I'm opting for a sump pump for this system to evacuate the water as opposed to a gravity draining system because there is not sufficient elevation change on the property to allow for gravity draining.

The first step is to dig a trench around the perimiter of the foundation. I'm trenching down to the level of the top of the footings. Some say, ideally, that drainage of this type should be beside the footing. I am electing, however, to run the drain tile on top of the footing for the following reasons:

• The soil around the footings will not be disturbed. I'm worried there could be issues with foundation movement if I start moving dirt adjacent to the footings.


• The footing will give me a level surface on which to lay the drain tile, ensuring no low spots. This will help ensure the longevity of the drainage system itself, as it should be able to sufficiently drain the water admitted to it and dry out between wet spells.


• I've elected to dig by hand...and to dig deeper than the top of the fitting would mean more work!


• This is a crawlspace, not a basement, so I'm not worried about water getting to the level of the footings...I just want to keep from having to crawl around in mud to fix things!

I had planned to rent an excavator or trencher to perform the work. However, I did need to get out the shovel to determine how deep my footings actually were. When I got to work with the shovel, I realized that the soil around the house is REALLY easy to dig and in about an hour I had roughly 1/4 of the perimiter of the house dug, more-or-less, to the footings. So, I get to save some money and work a few pounds off. I did manage to break my shovel...but that won't stop me for long.

I should have more reports of progress on the drainage system as it comes along. I need to dig the pump pit, ad an enclosure, finish the trenches, install drain tile, backfill with gravel, and on and on. It's going to take a while!

A note about where the water goes: Ideally, rainwater will be handled on the property, reducing its contribution to water quality problems due to excessive runnoff. The system I'm putting into place as described above is meant as a "fail safe" or "last effort" plan to keep the crawlspace dry and the foundation stable, particularly while I'm goign to be doing so much work in the crawlspace. It will discharge to the street, travel into stormwater drains, and ultimately find its way into local streams and rivers. Future considerations for landscaping will try to minimize the water that gets to the foundation in the first place, and also limit the amount of runoff.

I delved a little bit further into the Kitchen floor situation. I took a circular saw along the length of the room parallel to the northernmost floor joist.

That gave me a bit of a view of what all is going on, structurally, with the house. I wasn't surprised to see the main center beam to be rotted and sagging.

It looks like I'll have to be jacking the house along the north wall to replace rotten sill plates and joists. That's going to take a bit of planning ;).

I found some wasps that weren't very happy to see me and my long pry-bar. I think they've been working on placing a wiretap on the phone line or something. It's hard to tell...but the nest is in this phone box.

They likely won't be the last to find my presence less-than-desirable. As a matter of fact, I'm hoping that the neighbors will put up with me ;). This garage-sale-sourced stereo may be my undoing in that respect. It seems the knob might go up to eleven, though I haven't confirmed that yet.

Carpet has to go!

Within hours of closing on the house, the carpet came out. In a house this small, it only took about an hour to remove all of the carpet and padding. This was certainly an unpleasant task, but very rewarding. Underneath, the original pine floor is revealed. It's certainly seen its days, but may be salvagable for the most part. I do have a recycled oak floor planned for a replacement, but the original pine may come in handy for future attic space additions.



Here's the Living Room:

And The Bedroom, with lots of carpet glue residue:
I'm also working on removing the vinyl flooring from the kitchen, bathroom, and entry area. The kitchen floor is badly damaged along the north wall and will require removal of the floor to repair what I guess to be failed floor joists. Not surprising, but still somewhat interesting, the kitchen floor has, from top down, the following layers: Vinyl, very thin plywood, vinyl, plywood, and finally, the original flooring.

There's not much detail in this photo, but most of the vinyl has been removed from the kitchen floor and in the far right is a hole striaght through to the crawlspace. The floors take a noticible downward slope in the 3 feet closest to the wall.

In the Beginning

Welcome to the renovation journal for 408 Alexander. The property was acquired with the intent to perform a Sustainable Renovation while residing at the home. Realistically, I'll be doing most of my living down the street at my current home until I get a few of the major issues taken care of, like structural repairs and getting some rudimentary kitchen/bathroom fixtures in place. The home is 624 Square Feet. That's 26 Feet (side to side) by 24 Feet (front to back). There is one load bearing wall running down the center of the house.