Forced Day Off from the House

We are ramping up to start rebuilding but we still have some floors and the ceiling joists in the back of the house to remove. If the ceiling joists had been installed correctly, we would of left them, they were at the proper height but sagged and swayed. Originally, we were going to build a beam across the house to support the new ceiling joists but then changed our mind so our design would not be questioned by the town’s inspectors. Now, we’re going to support the ceiling on the bedroom wall so now we have these 16ft 2 x 6’s sitting on the floor until we get to that point in the re-build.

We get the floor up and  see that some of the exposed floor joists need to be replaced. We also find some of the rim joists are also rotten. Thankfully, some of the floor joists we are taking out are the same dimension as the rim joists and we can re-use them to replace the rotten rim joists. We knew when we bought that we would have some weak timbers in this area but not as bad as we found so it means a bit more work but the house will be better than before.

The crawl space under the house is wet and we will need to address that before we secure the subfloor. For now, we continue to pump it out and hope for no more rain. As we dig down to place our cement pillars for the new beam, the hole fills up with water but Barb’s excellent idea to pour the cement in ‘Lowe’s’ pails works perfectly and the cement is not submersed in water.

It was a very physical day and we’re both exhausted. When we try to fix dinner, we get a shock to find our potatoes and onions soaking wet from under the kitchen sink in the rig. What is going on now?? I crawl under and see a stream of water coming out of the top of the water out connector of the hot water tank! Crap, we do not need this at this point. I added our pressure regulator to see if that was our problem but it just slowed it down – thankfully we have had our showers and do not need any more hot water today but it is something I need to look into tomorrow.

So, tomorrow arrives and I squeeze myself under the cabinet to see what’s going on – holy crap now, I can’t really tell if it is the hot water out fitting or if it is the tank that is causing the leak. I disconnect the hot water line and turn out the plastic coupling that goes into the tank fitting and it appears to be ok. I wind on a couple turns of Teflon plumbers tape and tighten the plastic fitting back in and turn on the water – damn, still leaking. Ok, so maybe it needs more tape or tightened a bit more. Well, guess what – correct, I put another wrap of tape on and tightened it a bit more and CRACK! The plastic fitting breaks off and yes, right at the tank – nothing left to grab onto and in no space to manoeuvre my slim carcass! Now what? Off to the local hardware store to get a new fitting and maybe some sort of an extractor tool that will make it easier to get the broken plastic fitting out and yes, you are correct, I did NOT get a plastic fitting to replace the broken one once I get it out.

No one can sell or tell me how to get the broken piece out of the tank fitting. There is a plumbing contractor at the end of our street so I may have to bite the bullet and pay someone! I stop off and one of the plumbers was there and he suggested I use a spade drill bit, heated to somewhat less than cherry red and push it into the plastic, leave it until the bit cools then carefully turn it out. It worked! Wow, so simple but effective. With the new BRASS fitting installed and all the connections snug, the water on and no leaking now! This little episode only cost us a day of de-construction!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ok, now back to the house – one corner of the house must have gotten a lot of water over time as it was totally rotten and weak. We re-built everything from the foundation up, rim joist, stud section with sole plate, top plate and the exterior wall. Whew, this was fun. We also removed all the substandard wiring but that left us 2 circuits that we can use for our power equipment for the re-build. It is a miracle that the house did not burn down from an electrical problem. We found open junction boxes, connections made with out improper connectors and connections made without a box!

 

So, we’re moving along with a little more work than expected but we’re still having fun. Barb is able to do a little quilting even with all we have going on.  Hope all is well where you are …..