Well, we have to admit: it's been a tiny bit harder to stay up-to-date with blog posts than we thought it would be. Sorry for the radio silence...
We've been busy finalizing all of our plans over the past 6 weeks or so, getting really detailed about the placement of structural columns and beams, plumbing, toilets, sinks, walls, doorways, windows, pipes, electrical outlets, etc. etc. so that we could submit our final plans to Richmond Heights (the municipality that we live in, for the non-St. Louis people) and get our permits to begin construction. Oddly enough, you don't need permits to take things apart, just to put them back together! All of these various different systems are really interconnected, so at moments, we found ourselves a bit paralyzed, stuck in a complex -- and sometimes circular -- web of decisions to be made. But, we are feeling good about where we landed (and are confident that a million other decisions-to-be-made will reveal themselves in due course). We submitted out plans midweek, and we will see what they say!
The big projects that are underway right now are focused on in the basement, and are closely connected:
1. Replacing the sewer lateral. The sewer lateral waste pipe that runs down the middle of the basement needs to be replaced, so Nathan dug out a 3-foot deep trenches where the existing lateral pipe is, so that we can remove the old pipe (#noworkingtoilet) and be ready for the plumber when he comes to put in the new lateral line this coming week. Here's where the excavation began...
Nathan used a sledgehammer and a jackhammer to break open the pretty thin concrete slab that makes up the basement floor (only about 2 inches thick in some areas, which is unusual), and dug out the dense clay underneath to unearth the existing pipes. He loaded the clay into 5 gallon buckets and carted it out to a large pile on the side of our house (nicely out of view) -- our hope is, later on, we'll made a cob wall or a clay oven out of it, but we'll see.* Here's a video of Nathan giving a little tour of the basement trenches. The orange lines mark where we'll pour new piers.
Once the new lateral line is in place, we'll fill the trenches with gravel...here is the gravel delivery, a finer mix of limestone aggregate that will help fill in among the coarser concrete chunk that came from the tear-out.
After backfilling the trenches and excavating for new footings (see the next section) we can pour a new slab over the backfill. In addition to the trench down the center of the house for the sewer lateral, Nathan also dug some connecting trenches (like tributaries...but for poop!) that will connect to bathrooms and drains that we're adding to the house (if you remember from our very first post, the house only had one bathroom, on the second floor). All of the other plumbing that connects to these basement waste pipes will come later -- what we're doing now is called a "ground rough-in."
2. Replacing the concrete footings that the bearing columns sit on. In the basement ceiling, down the center of the house, there is an enormous horizontal beam that runs from one end of the house to the other, and is held up by several vertical columns. While the perimeter of the house sits on the foundation wall, this beam essentially holds up the middle of the house. The wood columns that hold up the beam are very old and show early signs of rotting, and the concrete footings (little concrete pads that the columns sit on) are too small for today's standards, so we will replace the wood columns with steel columns, and the tiny concrete pads (1'x1') with much bigger ones (3'x3') that are set into the basement floor. Nathan will set up heavy duty temporary supports (called "shoring") while we replace the supporting columns. (N: Here the 6x6 posts are being fitted with threaded collars that have about 5" of adjustment. The shores will "chase" the beam as we correct the height by about 1.5" with hydraulic jacks, the same kind you'd use to pick up a car and change a tire, but bigger. Jacks push, shores hold. The shores are rated for 15 tons, and we expect to need about half that capacity and less if we double them up. So a generous margin of safety.)
As it happens, the big beam in the basement ceiling and the supporting columns are situated in almost the same place as the sewer lateral -- they run parallel to each other, off-set by about 20 inches, so the placement of the concrete footings end up being very close to where the sewer lateral line will be installed -- hence the interconnectedness of these two projects.
3. Digging out a corner of the basement. This was a pretty recent decision, and one that we'll just have to let play out. Basically, we are trying to leave our options open for a project later on: we may want to finish one corner of the basement into a guest room with a connecting bath, but in order to do so, the ceilings would need to be about three inches higher. But, this is a basement, so you can't really raise the ceilings (unless you want to lift the whole house!) so our main option is to lower the floor slightly. Since we're already doing a lot of digging the basement, and since we're going to be pouring concrete anyway, we decided to go ahead and do this step now. We'll wait a few years to (recover from the initial house project and to) discover if we have any water/moisture issues that would prevent us from finishing out that space.
4. Windows. While all this is happening, I've been working on refinishing our beautiful old double hung windows.
We have 24 windows in the house (22 of which are double hung and so have 2 sashes each -- sashes are the wooden squares that hold the glass and that slide up and down), and 21 of which we plan to keep, and many of which have flaking paint and cracked putty. So, that amounts to a total of 42 sashes that we are removing from the house, fixing up and putting back in. The basic process is...
1. Taking the sashes out of the frame
2. Using an infrared heat gun (safer than a regular heat gun) to soften and really carefully remove the putty that holds the glass in place,
3. Remove glass (which is hopefully intact, but not always) and put it somewhere safe
4. Use the heat gun and a carbide scraper to remove the old paint from the sash (we do this under a very well-ventilated fume hood and wearing a respirator, as fumes from heated lead paint are really toxic. The infrared heater helps with this, by not overheating the paint, but still important to be super cautious)
5. Make any needed repairs to the sashes, and then sand them to make them nice and smooth
6. Install weather stripping (we are using beautiful spring bronze weather stripping, which looks like this)
7. Reinstall the glass using fresh putty and let it cure (this takes several weeks)
8. Prime and paint the windows, covering the putty to help it seal against weather (the puttied side faces the outside of the house)
9. Reinstall the windows.
We are starting with 3 windows (6 sashes) -- this weekend, I puttied (professional term is "glazing") two of the sashes -- here's a video of a part of the process.
*When I told this plan to my knitting group, all of whom have homes of their own and more life experience than we do, and they just about laughed me out of the room. Ye of little faith...!
We've been busy finalizing all of our plans over the past 6 weeks or so, getting really detailed about the placement of structural columns and beams, plumbing, toilets, sinks, walls, doorways, windows, pipes, electrical outlets, etc. etc. so that we could submit our final plans to Richmond Heights (the municipality that we live in, for the non-St. Louis people) and get our permits to begin construction. Oddly enough, you don't need permits to take things apart, just to put them back together! All of these various different systems are really interconnected, so at moments, we found ourselves a bit paralyzed, stuck in a complex -- and sometimes circular -- web of decisions to be made. But, we are feeling good about where we landed (and are confident that a million other decisions-to-be-made will reveal themselves in due course). We submitted out plans midweek, and we will see what they say!
The big projects that are underway right now are focused on in the basement, and are closely connected:
1. Replacing the sewer lateral. The sewer lateral waste pipe that runs down the middle of the basement needs to be replaced, so Nathan dug out a 3-foot deep trenches where the existing lateral pipe is, so that we can remove the old pipe (#noworkingtoilet) and be ready for the plumber when he comes to put in the new lateral line this coming week. Here's where the excavation began...
2. Replacing the concrete footings that the bearing columns sit on. In the basement ceiling, down the center of the house, there is an enormous horizontal beam that runs from one end of the house to the other, and is held up by several vertical columns. While the perimeter of the house sits on the foundation wall, this beam essentially holds up the middle of the house. The wood columns that hold up the beam are very old and show early signs of rotting, and the concrete footings (little concrete pads that the columns sit on) are too small for today's standards, so we will replace the wood columns with steel columns, and the tiny concrete pads (1'x1') with much bigger ones (3'x3') that are set into the basement floor. Nathan will set up heavy duty temporary supports (called "shoring") while we replace the supporting columns. (N: Here the 6x6 posts are being fitted with threaded collars that have about 5" of adjustment. The shores will "chase" the beam as we correct the height by about 1.5" with hydraulic jacks, the same kind you'd use to pick up a car and change a tire, but bigger. Jacks push, shores hold. The shores are rated for 15 tons, and we expect to need about half that capacity and less if we double them up. So a generous margin of safety.)
3. Digging out a corner of the basement. This was a pretty recent decision, and one that we'll just have to let play out. Basically, we are trying to leave our options open for a project later on: we may want to finish one corner of the basement into a guest room with a connecting bath, but in order to do so, the ceilings would need to be about three inches higher. But, this is a basement, so you can't really raise the ceilings (unless you want to lift the whole house!) so our main option is to lower the floor slightly. Since we're already doing a lot of digging the basement, and since we're going to be pouring concrete anyway, we decided to go ahead and do this step now. We'll wait a few years to (recover from the initial house project and to) discover if we have any water/moisture issues that would prevent us from finishing out that space.
4. Windows. While all this is happening, I've been working on refinishing our beautiful old double hung windows.
1. Taking the sashes out of the frame
2. Using an infrared heat gun (safer than a regular heat gun) to soften and really carefully remove the putty that holds the glass in place,
3. Remove glass (which is hopefully intact, but not always) and put it somewhere safe
4. Use the heat gun and a carbide scraper to remove the old paint from the sash (we do this under a very well-ventilated fume hood and wearing a respirator, as fumes from heated lead paint are really toxic. The infrared heater helps with this, by not overheating the paint, but still important to be super cautious)
5. Make any needed repairs to the sashes, and then sand them to make them nice and smooth
6. Install weather stripping (we are using beautiful spring bronze weather stripping, which looks like this)
7. Reinstall the glass using fresh putty and let it cure (this takes several weeks)
8. Prime and paint the windows, covering the putty to help it seal against weather (the puttied side faces the outside of the house)
9. Reinstall the windows.
We are starting with 3 windows (6 sashes) -- this weekend, I puttied (professional term is "glazing") two of the sashes -- here's a video of a part of the process.
*When I told this plan to my knitting group, all of whom have homes of their own and more life experience than we do, and they just about laughed me out of the room. Ye of little faith...!
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