Project Detour

Whew, another week of excitement and fun! We started Sunday off by cleaning more debris from the crawl space – margarine containers etc that the previous owner used to feed the cats that were living under the house. We also cleaned out the spidies from the garage so we could hang the floor plan and the project timeline for easy reference. We cleaned ourselves up and spent an enjoyable afternoon and evening at Corrie & Dean’s for Mother’s Day dinner.

On Monday, we completed the rim joists for the back of the house. Thankfully, we were able to re-use some of the floor joists that were not rotten to fit in. It would have been a more difficult job to do with todays lumber dimensions – a lot of shimming would have been needed! A beam is needed to support the floor joists in the back part of the house so Barbie & I set about laminating some 2x8’s together and got it in place and levelled up.

 

 

 

Monday was a long day but we accomplished a lot. When we woke up on Tuesday, we find a few inches of water in the crawlspace from the overnight rains. Crap! If this is going to happen every time it rains… well, I’m sure you can imagine. Anyway, we were not ready to put in the weeping tiles around the house but it appears it needs to be done sooner than later. This throws a wrench in our plans and pushes us back some. We have a neighbour that mentioned he would help with knowledge and equipment when we were ready to put in the weeping tiles. I wander over to his home and ask him to have a look at our water problems and see what he thinks. Well, the next thing I know, we’re digging test holes and discussing plans to dig a trench around the house and install the tile and backfill with gravel. One of the test holes revealed an old ‘grease pit’ where they drained the kitchen sink into. The top was broken so it was not hard to open and wow, did it stink! We get it all cleaned out so we can place a plastic barrel in it with the sump pump.

We realized we needed to get a ‘locate’ done for gas and other underground services but when called, they would not commit as they require 7 days notice. Dave calls in a favour and the next thing we know, I am out in the pouring rain at 9:30PM with amber lights flashing talking to a ‘locate’ guy. He said this was not an emergency situation and there is nothing he can do. He spoke to the dispatcher and there will be the proper ‘locators’ out the next morning to identify where the services are.

Barb sidelined herself because ladies do not work out in the muck but she kept herself busy working on some quilt projects and made herself a little quilted bag to hold her measuring tape and pencil on the mitre saw.

 

After the rain stopped a little, we noticed the locate paint marks, showing us where the gas and telephone lines were. It has been a week of cool and rainy weather but we manage to dig the trench on Wednesday and avoided the gas, water and sewer lines successfully. Now Barb & I had to shop for the drainage pipe and parts so we can start moving gravel and laying in the pipe on top on Thursday. This seems like last minute stuff and it is! We gat back to the house around 10 PM with the drainage supplies and more lumber. Terri and Mark plan to come by on Saturday to help build the vaulted ceiling in the main area of the house and we wanted to be sure we had the supplies.

 

Thursday morning, our first task was to get the sump pump set up in the cement tank that we found Tuesday. At least we can start pumping some of this water away to help dry the ground up some. We are up to our ass in mud and mire around the house. My arms are a little longer now after pushing the wheel barrow through it to dump gravel in the trench – now I have to wear gloves all the time to avoid scratching my knuckles on the ground when I’m walking!

By Friday, we have the pipe in the trench and start back filling the gravel – the pump is running a lot and moving out lots of water. The water in the crawlspace is slowly disappearing. I knocked a small hole at the base of the foundation and plan to dig a trench inside to help catch more water to ensure we do not have standing water again under the floor.

Saturday, we get our money’s worth out of Terri & Mark! But, there is no way to get in the house! The front door was closed due to the moat around the house and there was no floor in the back. So, before they arrived, Barb & I installed some floor joists and laid some plywood so we could get into the house through the back door. After removing the old ceiling rafters and some discussion on how, the new ceiling was in and looking great. With some time left, Terri & Mark moved lots of gravel to areas that were not accessible by machine. With Barb shovelling gravel into the wheel barrows and Terri & Mark hauling them and me raking – yep, I had the easy job – we moved a lot of gravel in short order.

Just reliving this week, I am exhausted so that’s it for now. Hope all is well where you are….

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 …..

Hello’s and Goodbye’s

Through all our excitement of arrival and getting started on ‘our project’, we almost missed our 47th wedding anniversary! Mark arrived on Saturday to help with the house and presented us with a bouquet of flowers and said happy anniversary from Terri , I & Ali and we looked at each other & said oops. So, on Monday, we decided to take a day off and celebrate with dinner out. A neighbour had told me that there was a particular Chinese restaurant that made excellent food so we decided to take the leap and try it out. Well, it was excellent, good food, good service and of course, good company – just the 2 of us at a window table overlooking the Niagara River and Buffalo. It was a nice evening but a few days later, we found out we went to the wrong Chinese eatery – so now we have another one to try out.

 

After all the work done on the weekend, we filled the dumpster and had to have it taken away and a new one dropped off. That was an experience in itself. Taking it away was no problem but bringing in the new one was a bit different – we have had lots of rain and the ground was real soft and the truck got stuck part way in and couldn’t really drop the box due to overhead cables. The driver called his office and they sent a back hoe/loader to push the truck in a little farther and then pulled it out after he dropped the new bin. The driver of the back hoe was the owner and he pulled up to where I was standing and introduced himself and asked where he should send the bill to, me or the truck driver! Of course, I said the driver, he’s the one that got stuck! We had a short laugh and then the back hoe started to repair the ruts that the truck left – great service and I would recommend Jim Flake’s service to anyone.

Now that excitement is over, back to the job at hand. We have the centre and the front of the house to remove wall panels, drywall and insulation yet. It only took Barb & I 2 days to remove and clean up the rubble and the house is down to the ‘bare bones’. For the most part, all above the foundation was in good shape but there has been moisture issues over the years and we will have to re-build one corner of the house. At the foundation, there is extra work that we did not anticipate, some blocks were left out for venting and we’ll have to replace a few rim joists that sit on the foundation. The floor at back of the house where the bathroom and leaky hot water tank were located has to be taken up and most floor joists replaced. The tank must have been leaking for a long time for this much rot and weakness. The floor joist were built in an unusual method, forming a series of rectangles, sistered together instead of the standard joist structure with supports at the ends and a beam in the centre of the span. No wonder it sagged badly!

May 2nd we were invited to the service placing Gerry’s ashes in the niche the family choose at Mount Pleasant Cemetery in London. After some pivoting around about travel time during rush hour.  We would be heading to London in morning rush hour, Ann invited us to come down on Thursday night. As we were getting ourselves organized, friends dropped by to say hello and welcome us to the ‘Hood’ – they live in Crystal Beach. We chit chatted, showed them our new hobby and chatted some more. It was a nice visit though short and we hope they didn’t feel we pushed them out the door  so we could head to London.

It was a cold and rainy day as we gathered at the cemetery to remember Gerry as his ashes were placed in the niche.  Thought we had cried ourselves dry but the tears once again flowed. After a great lunch at Sunnydale we went to Anne’s sister Rose’s house for the afternoon and supper.  We watched movies of life with Gerry and our Ellis Family Roots DVD.   We stayed with Ann until Saturday and headed out to see Vicki & Ron in Sparta. Vicki & Ron have a challenging time ahead and we wanted them to know we are here for anything they might need.

On the way home, we stopped at Lowe’s to pick up some materials – we’re excited to be starting to build! Almost all the de-construction is done except where we have to replace joist etc and ripping up floors but we are gonna be cutting and nailing!

We hope all is good where you are…..

The Reno Begins

We arrived back in Ontario on Apr 17th, a little early because we are both excited to get going on the ‘hobby house’ reno project. We decided to park in Terri’s driveway until we get the RV site prepped at the house. It is a bit of a commute – 90 minutes one way so that gives us incentive to get the move the rig.

On the weekend, Barb, Terri, Mark & I drove down the house and smoked into gutting the house and getting water, sewer and electricity available. We had a few challenges but after some ‘MacGyvering’, all is good and we hope to move our rig on Thursday, depending on the weather. The front ‘porch’ of the house was really just a deck and had heaved over a winter and we couldn’t open the front door so it had to go. As Mark & I were setting up the EWS, Barb & Terri were taking the deck boards off the porch so we could unbolt it from the house and move it to the side. The builder of the deck must have been paid by the screw – there were hundreds taken out. Once all the deck boards were off, we could see he used 24 4 inch lag screws to hold the deck to the house – he didn’t want it to blow away! We still couldn’t move the frame and once we took the sledge hammer to it, we saw why – more 3 inch wood screws, some hidden behind the joist hangers. Finally, the deck frame is clear from the house and we’ll wait until the weekend to move it – our kids are coming up and with all that manpower, we can move anything!

We started to remove the ceilings to get at the insulation – what a messy itchy job that was! We tried various methods to capture the insulation as it was pulled out of the ceiling to avoid a big mess but to no avail so it all went on the floor. Fibre and fluff filled the air so much that we thought Barb’s camera had a lot of dust in the lens of some shots but all it was, was the fibre in the air caught by the flash of the camera. We had masks on but we still had to go outside for fresh air. It was an action packed day and the cold ones were a perfect treat at the end of the day.

 

 

We ordered a dumpster for all the old drywall and insulation from the house. You can see from the pictures that we had lots of garbage so Barb & I went down during the week to ‘clean up’! It took us all day to move the stuff from the house and into the dumpster. We also put the finishing touches on the EWS for our rig.

Moving day was a beautiful sunny day. We took a couple sheets of 1/2 inch plywood from Mark & Terri’s, cut them lengthwise and planned to use them under the wheels to aid us in getting the rig onto the back yard without getting stuck. Even with a few dry days, our yard is wet and we’re a little apprehensive that our plan is going to work.

The street is a little narrow and with garbage day, the turning was tight but we get the rig on line and Barb gets the 2’ x 8’ sheets lined up perfectly and we roll back. As soon as the rig is about to roll off the first sheet, Barb gets the second set lined up. I got out of the truck to help out but Barb had them all lined up by the time I got to the back – I’m a lucky man! We soon were in and using the plywood to under pin the jacks so they didn’t disappear into the lawn. The sewer connection wasn’t going to work they way I left it so after more planning, off we go to pick up more ABS and finished the job.

 

 

 

 

On Apr 26th, Dawn, Corrie, Mark and kids came up to visit and we had our first family lunch in the ‘new house’! We also took advantage of all the man power and got more work done. John & Di dropped by for a surprise visit too. We had a house full on a nasty, wet and cold Saturday.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We’re tired and sore but sleep great at night. Hoping all is good where you are. Our winter home at the Plantation was severely flooded out with many of the home owners affected. It was the worst flood since recent memory and our thoughts and wishes are with our many friends in LA.