Hello all, seems there are some very knowledgeable folks here, very
refreshing after attempting to deal with big box reps and the like...
an experience that left me quite a bit... underwhelmed lets say.
I probably shouldn't lay out the entire complexity of my project all at
once, I doubt anyone would read it all, and if they did, coherency to
the answers might be complicated and require a table of contents, lol.
So heres the gist of it, I have a home that I just bought, i had the
intention of fixing it up quick to a nice environment and I was going
to let my sister and her new baby come live with me and be happy.
Well, fairy tales don't come true very often. I'll leave all the
horrible mess of the real estate portion out, suffice to say, this was
the best I found for my budget with a nice piece of land to work with.
After turning on the heat in march, the old clunker furnace worked, one
of the few things that does still work in the house, unfortunately,
while granted it is march in michigan, it was not that cold, we had not
moved into the house yet, and the thermostat was at minimum, the bill
was 260 bucks for a partial month even under these not even inhabited
conditions... OUCH!
I had already planned to update some things, now I was seeing, that I had quite a bit more than I anticipated on my hands...
With the help of my dad and my uncle, we have taken off all the wall
coverings, and most of the ceilings to reveal the "bones" as I've seen
it referred to here, which is actually exactly the term I have been
using curiously enough. Well, the bones aren't in horrible shape, but
the organs and pretty much every major system is seriously fubar'd.
Want to know what kind of insulation i found? This is funny and
depressing at the same time, depending on whether you see yourself in
my shoes, or casually observing such events and finding the misfortune
most entertaining. What I found in the best areas, was molded and
rotting fiberglass batts, the 2nd tier was old insulation with aluminum
backing that was like cardboard? the 3rd found in the walls was just
plain old newspaper, I have a number of pages from the local journal
dating back to the fifties, kind of cool, but not so great insulation!
lol. For the ceilings it was a mix of vermiculite, and more moldy
fiberglass.
It took more weeks to rid all of this nastiness, I'm sure the garbage
man hates me at this point for the three week period of having twenty
contractor garbage bags at the curb and other assorted goodies, hehe.
The home's wiring and plumbing are atrocious and blown apart in that order, but that's for later.
Now another thing of note that comes into play, is that the foundation
has some issues. The biggest problem is the north wall of the basement,
which it is a full basement by the way, has a huge crack all the way
down it, so large, that I shined a flashlight in, and could see the
crack was clean through to the other side of the block, at least I
couldn't see the dirt...
There are lots of other cracks as well, but that one stands out as the worst by far.
I can see that the drain tiles have been recently redone, actually they
were done in 99' by a man with the nickname "Fuzzy" how do i now this?
His name is written in a portion toward the southeast corner. God bless
him as I'm pretty sure he's the guy who built the place in 1947 and
raised a family of four there according to the neighbors, but fuzzy was
not a rich man, and he did things that "worked" but weren't necesarrily
right. Anyway, I think that addressed the water problem, as there was
no water leakage since I've owned the house for a few months now,
HOWEVER, this is subject to change, and kind of has me worried, the
water table is far below it's normal level, there has been extensive
work going on just down the street for a major pipeline of some sort,
probably the sewer, and they have been pumping down the table since
before I even looked at the house. I want to fix these walls now,
before they potentially become a problem again.
So I had a guy come out and give me an estimate on fixing the walls,
concrete guy, he gave me numbers that were consistent with others, but
in my opinion ludicrous... Why, because, I can have that same excavator
I'm going to need anyway dig me a hole for a full basement on the front
and back walls for under 1000 bucks, and he's a good guy, so I have
faith he can do a good job even with the messed up walls, and I have
found a good mason that is willing to put on an addition foundation for
the front and back for under 7k. So i figured, why not just make these
walls interior, and then my water problem goes away, i still intend on
fixing the bow in the heavily damaged wall, and I know the inspector
will give me shat if i don't fill the both with concrete... so i have
no choice there, oh well.
So at this point, my problems had become a project that included adding
on, but wait, act now and as an added bonus... i would have overlooked
other issues.
The roof on the 2nd floor was done in 2x4, way to overdo it man. I knew
there was potential issues, but i had hoped it was due to water warping
the sheathing, it was both. So once we had the 2nd floor roof of, i
realized that had to go as well.
So at this point, I'm looking at two major portions of the structure
being modified, the entire roof was coming off, and building two
additions onto the existing structure, one on front, and one on back.
All three of these were not for the purpose of making the place bigger,
but to address issues with the structure, and if doing so, might as
well capitalize on that, and formulate some sort of gain in right?
So what I wanted to do, was on the front addition, beam the first level
ceiling and open up the living room. There is a massive fireplace with
three open sides to it, but wasn't enough room to fit in a few couches
comfortably and enjoy it! Front additon and removing the existing
exterior wall that would have separated the two solves this. The house
lacked space seriously as it was, the back addition was decided to be
bedroom space, as the existing "master suite" was a joke. I figured
that since I was putting on new foundations for these additions, and
the roof was coming off the existing structure, why not go up too, the
opportunity is there, as pretty much everything in the house is being
redone, so I have intended the plans to go up on the front and back
story as well, build in a full 2nd floor over the existing structure
(it was only 1.5 story before) and put a knee wall above the 2nd level
and a decent pitch, to get some attic space that you can stand up in.
So at this point, i have a pretty good idea of the "bones" of the
struture, well, not so much really, and working with a structural
engineer has left me extrememly frustrated by the way, maybe it's just
my area, but there seems to be a general lack of building knowledge...
EVERY single framer, of which the count is somewhere around ten now,
that I have brought to the site, and asked questions of, clearly, had
no better idea of how to do anything, than I do at this point after
reading and researching for month, and that is sad, but true.
After getting so fed up with the engineer, the framers that all seemed
baffled by the beams that would be necessary for the open spaced etc, I
about lost my mind, and I do mean literally, I feel bad that after
telling my sis that I would make it easy on her with a place to stay,
that I still have this shell of a house to deal with, however, I
couldn't have done any better I suppose, as with the budget I have to
do it, along with the general seeming lack of knowledge, i don't know
what else I could have done. I have already been doing my own research
to "supplement" what the builders and such were having the most trouble
answering for me, at this point however, it seems I am the home owner,
general contractor, and every sub, I have to learn it all, or this
jumbled mess I have will never be a home, and I can't have that...
The structure itself, I still have some questions on, but I've got that
largely figured out, and I'll save that for later on in this post, for
now I wanted to present my story, and then start with a few components,
and gradually weave them all together.
I figured a good place to start, is on the foundation, and work my way up.
Now I have a good mason, so that's at least one thing I don't have to
figure out completely, however, he does things the old way, so if i
want something done different, I have to guide him.
I pretty much have a decent idea how best to do the foundations (at
least I think I do). Dig the holes, put in pea gravel, cover with 6 mil
or heavier plastic. (how do you seal this plastic at this point
anyway?) lay some xps foam over that, i figured most likely 2" of it.
(I figured unlikely but do i have to seal this anywhere?) and then pour
the concrete right over the foam? Oh, i should mention the walls will
be concrete block, 10".
The new foundation walls will have to be far away enough from the
existing ones to not undermine the existing footings and such, he said
one foot, then two foot later, not sure if that was at different areas
or what (he was breaking up so it was hard to hear). I figured partial
block walls around the perimiter of the existing walls, and of course
full walls anywhere that will be new and a wall does not already exist.
Probably 13 courses of block for the additions, the existing basement
is 10 courses.
It would probably be helpful for anyone who wishes to help to see the
drawings I have made, I have them all in pdf form, I'll try to shrink
the images down enough to post them. Basically I thought a good way to
not put any more stress on the existing north and south walls, was to
platform up from the new foundations and tie the two platforms where
the walls would butt up together with metal hardware, so essentially
where ever there is already a wall, there will be another right next to
it for these additions, and there is a side wall for each that will
meet along with the north and south longer walls. This was the only
design that I could conceive that would not put additonal stress on the
existing structure (except for the heavier roof and extra attic space i
will be adding on) was by doing fairly independent platforms for the
front and back additions.
By the way, all comments and suggestions for anything I present here
are most welcome, even where i have not posed an actual question,
throughout this process i've had people point out a great many things
that completely change everything...
How best to waterproof these outside walls below grade is another
concern of mine, I know that the old style asphalt stuff will crack
right with a wall, which doesn't seem real smart. I wanted to add xps
to the exterior of all the portions of the house that I will have
access to, which will be below grade for the two additions plus one
wall of the existing structure (will have to be dug deeper for new
drain tiles, so i can rewaterproof and add below grade insulation here)
and the entire structure above grade, as I will be adding xps or eps to
the entire exterior and residing. I wish that I could do the entire
surface below grade, but I can't dig up the entire house, so I'm going
to be restricted to the areas I will already have exposed.
With that in mind, things got kind of complicated for me at this point,
I don't know how best to add the xps onto the existing walls, and the
new walls, and waterproof the whole thing, and then carry the xps right
on up all the way to the soffits on the roof...
I realize that this will likely have to have a multitiered approach,
one for below grade and one for the just below grade to a few feet
above ground level to make it to the siding. From there i can just
cover with siding and tape the joints, it's getting to that point I
don't have the foggiest on.
One thing I should point out that influences absolutely everything is
the lack of funds to do everything. I found a good cheap supplier of
the xps, so I should be able to swing that. But I've got only 15k to do
this house top to bottom, and I know it's not enough, but I have to
come as close as possible, so please, don't tell me I'm retarded, just
work with me here, it has to be done, there is no alternative for me.
Being constrained, a cheap option i thought of was simply using 6 mil
plasic all around the below grade part, and using something strong to
seal it on, perhaps some sort of fasteners, a tape and the a rubber
compound like ames blue max around just the perimiter (that stuff is
kinda expensive). But then i wondered if it was that easy, how come no
one had done it before? ... perhaps there is a flaw I am overlooking.
I suppose i should leave it there at this point, I've as per usual
already posted a novel to start with, foundation first... heh.
Many thanks to anyone who has not fallen asleep reading thus far, haha.
I thought about simply covering |