This cOld House 26

It rained Monday, so the roof leaked and the roofers are behind another day. The masons are scheduled to come first and fix the chimney, before the roofers replace the slates or metalwork, presumably because masons are not so light on their feet, so whatever damage they do can be addressed by the crew after them. I got a call from the scheduler late last week indicating that I may actually have some work done this week, provided the weather holds. The good news is that I am the very next job on the list. The bad news is that they since they are in Columbus, and they don't send the weather-dependent crews out-of-town unless they have a level of comfort that they will be able to work a whole day, and it's scheduled to rain all week, we won't see them until next week, and I'll be moving the buckets around for the next little while.

The garage door arrived today to be sent off for painting. There is nothing to attach it to in the new garage yet so I guess it's just as well. I am eager to get it installed to secure the space now that we have the cut out done between the old and the new. Rob met with the concrete guy to pin him down on when we will begin to move forward on the top and back fill. I also got him to move the 'bridge' (plank that stretched form the front porch to the top of the garage, over the eight foot drop,) that was such an attractive nuisance to Naomi. (Pic is of said bridge, not garage door.)


We are quite happy with the sump pump and drain system we've been working on. The drain in the laundry room appears to be working pretty well. It's wet, but at least it doesn't run all the way around the room to the old drain anymore. The new drain keeps the stream out of the way against the cracked wall where it enters. Tommie likes it, as he'd rather drink from the floor (or toilet) than his bowl. And the sump kicks butt. A couple of weeks ago, as Rob sheepishly fixed the downspout pointing into the hole in the side of the house, he was perched on a ladder in front of the discharge. It throws about 2 gallons in a second or two of 55 degree ground water. It nailed him good!

Remember Dan's irrational desire to build a conservatory over the patio linking the living room and dining room? (His rationale: it would give us water-proofing around 17 windows, take care of the leakage down the outside basement walls in that area, give us a nice buffer to the rooms without sacrificing light and - this is new - act as a corridor to the new guest cottage for when the girls are in college and we are running a bed and breakfast. (Don't get me started... ) Well if we had more money than God, I suppose this would work. Rob found the link. I often accuse that whenever he's on the job site, the bill goes up by $4,000 (something always pops up, like another leak or some additional work,) but this time it's more like $104,000!

The floor guys put the last coat on the girls' bathroom floor. This now makes the room fully functioning, and tomorrow the girls will take their inaugural dip. (Tonight's date night.) We still have some issues up there - the window, the medicine cabinet/mirror, and the challenge of fitting a shower curtain to the oddly shaped opening. Rob and I think we have that one licked, although you never know until a theory is tested in practice. He needs to do some cutting and gluing, and I need to do some cutting and sewing.

The hole between the old garage and new garage looks good, although it's few inches shorter than we'd like because we were getting a little too close to the old window which was filled in with concrete. The wall is very thick. You can see the slab that they push out of there... it's about 10 inches. We need a little caterpiller to lift it out of the garage.




I hope to have pictures of the roofers, or the concrete guys soon. No luck today.

This cOld House 25

I'm happy to report that we've turned off the furnaces for a couple of days. It was 76 degrees here yesterday, which worked out wonderfully as the floor guys showed up to do the girls' bath floor, and the concrete cutter showed up to re-fit the flexicore panel and cut a hole through the front wall from the new garage into the old garage, for the entrance door between. When sanding floors and cutting concrete, it's best not to have a blower re-distributing the dust throughout the house. Yup, that sure is a big honkin' saw that guy's using to get through the 10 inch wall.

When the flexicore arrived, it was cut wrong for the angle next to the house, they re-cut it to fit better and after that was done they needed to shift it back 8 inches. Did I mention it weighs 6,000 pounds? Rob, Bob Sr. and Larry made like Egyptians and jacked, wedged and rolled the slab into the correct position. The first picture shows them jacking it up with a manual screw jack. You can see the temporary wall they rocked it back on. They also used steel rods as rollers. Clever. The second shot shows how much they lifted it. It didn't take much to get it going, although it got caught on the steel bracket on the other end so they had to move the jack and do it all over on the other side. Dan and I were pretty impressed (and pleased) that they were able to shift it without having to get the crane guy out again. Now that the lid is properly set, we can finally move on. They will get ready to pour the top, and then backfill around the walls. I'm a little nervous about the 8 foot drop with the girls wanting to get out and play in the yard.
The bathroom floor turned out better than Dan or I imagined possible. The commercial sander kicked butt up there and the resulting surface was near-new. 85 years of wear gone in 60 minutes. This bodes well and gives us great hope for whatever is underneath the painted linoleum tile in the master bath. We have two coats of urethane to go, and then the plumbers are back to re-set the fixtures, then one final coat of urethane and I think we'll actually be pretty well done in the bathroom. (Except for the window, of course.)

Still no news from the roofers. They did send a crew out a couple of weeks ago to dry us in. Unfortunately, they were unable to do so, leaving me to move the buckets around until we finally get the actual do-the-work crew out here. The good news is that we were moved on to the 'priority one' list. (Like that means something?)

Tommie has begun to venture out into the yard. Apparently he only goes out when it's above 60 degrees. He's still gaining weight. One of his favorite things to do is sit on the pedestal sink in the master bath when we are washing up for bed. He likes to drink from a small stream of water out of the tap. He's done this almost from day one, but lately he's been having a little trouble balancing his bigger butt on the side of the sink. He wobbles - not a very graceful sight!

This cOld House 22

This house has some seriously bad water mojo. I'd best be finding me a Feng Shui expert pronto.

Leak of the moment:

The pool equipment has a cracked pipe, which is now draining the filthy, mucky, highly malodorous biology experiment which is the pool water into the area around the pool pump and heater, saturating it. This would be bad enough, if it weren't for the fact that the pump and heater sit precariously perched at the top of this:

This would be the eroding slope that is in the space between the steps from the backyard and the back wall of the old garage. It is actually on our to do list since the equipment is already sliding down the hill down to the level of the driveway, about 10 feet below. As if THAT weren't bad enough, the whole thing is on the other side of this:

This is the foundation crack in the garage. As you can see, it has been 'repaired' using an epoxy that holds the moisture well enough to start mildewing. (Before it lets the stinky water leak all over the garage floor.)

I have a call into my sweethearts, Korrect Plumbing, who are trying to find me someone to get out here today. I'm not sure how the pool pump system works, but the water level is already below the level of the intake, which leads me to believe that the water is coming out of the pool via the main drain... you know, the one at the bottom... meaning if the pool drains all the way, in addition to having a small landslide and a garage that smells like a petri dish full of bacteria, we'll also have a cracked pool. And yes, the pool equipment was winterized... Johngineer did it himself before we moved in. Is there anything he can't do?

Enough of that.

Here's the weatherproofing on the girls' bath window. (Since we are supposed to get that big bad-ass storm blowing through tonight.) We had a leak on the brand new unstained frame last weekend with which we were quite annoyed. Rob was, like, uh - oops.

No sign of the roofers. I do have a call in to their scheduler to get an idea of where we're at. I imagine the bad weather has pushed everything back a bit.

I want you all to know that I am through all the main phases of grief, (you know, mourning the death of Dan's and my savings account.)
Denial - "it's not that bad....
Guilt - "we shouldn't have bought this house...
Anger - "that son-of-a-bitch lied to us...
Acceptance - "I'll call (INSERT CONTRACTOR NAME HERE)...

This cOld House 20

Update on the gas bill pool. I've canceled the contest since I had the dates wrong for the billing cycle and didn't want to be accused of any impropriety, (Pop,) and also, I had virtually no takers! The gas bill for January 11 to February 9 (29 days,) was $641.22.

We are still crawling at a snails pace on the other open projects. Dan gave up on doing the walls ourselves, so we had Rob get his drywaller over to tape and mud the cracks. Daylight (yup, that's the name embroidered on his shirt,) did a very nice job taping up and patching where the new window frame went in as well as going over the tape job I did on the cracks and filling in some other bad areas. We will be ready to paint this weekend and will stain the floor next week with an eye on having the bath complete by the week of March 5.


Rob and Co. came by this week to build a temp wall and set a steel beam over top to hold the flexicore panels which are supposed to be installed tomorrow, (I'll believe it when I see it,) and finish off filling in and drilling through the old window openings to hold the angle iron against the kitchen wall to which the ends of the flexicore will be welded/bolted. And they shoveled out the ice and snow so they would have a nice work surface, instead of an ice work surface.

We discussed door options and Rob and Co. will be building a set of walk thru doors for the old garage where we are taking out the lift door and building a solid wall. We'll also remove the original sliding carriage house door (now fixed in place), build a wall and put a high transom window on the other side. That should go a long way in improving the temperature in the garage and kitchen/office/art room on top.

We are not looking forward to having the opening cut between the old and new garage. Concrete cutting produces a dust so fine that it's like smoke and seeps in everywhere. We know that even with measures in place, we won't be able to stop the dust from seeping in all over the house and then settling everywhere. That will happen in about a month once the inside of the garage is trimmed out and the lift door hung.


The cat finally caught a mouse (with proof) this week. The mouse was getting pretty bold considering Tommie's been on board for a couple of months. He must have lulled him into a false sense of security. I was up in the middle of the night on Tuesday and was presented with the rodent. It was fresh! Thanks, Tommie. The cat has also figured out another way into the walls/floor as he turned up filthy again this morning, with all the usual holes still blocked. If only we could train him to administer a shot of that foam sealant wherever he's finding these holes.

We have a meeting with the landscape architect on Saturday. We are going to take a look at the side lot as well, working towards a master plan for re-foresting it. (Dan wants to plant a labyrinth, complete with reflecting pool/gazing ball in the middle - I guess this goes along with his grand plan for the conservatory over top the limestone patio outside the dining room.) We hear that Seibenthalers (the go-to nursery/landscape co. in these parts,) has a kick-butt tree sale in the fall and the more you buy, the more they discount. We'll be waiting for that one.

I'll be ready with the camera tomorrow should the crane and panels show up.

This cOld House 19

This morning as I was making Cocoa for the girls, I saw our mouse. Rather, I saw a streaking blur out of the corner of my eye darting from under the fridge to under the stove - I couldn't really see it as it was going about 240 miles per hour. I called to Tommie-Cat, disturbing his breakfast. He looked at me like "whatever..." and went back to his 'cat beans' (as Naomi calls his food.)

We have contracted for storm windows for the dining room and living room. It'll be six weeks, just in time for spring!

I'm headed to Lexington this weekend with the girls, Dan is staying put to work on the bathroom. (We're responsible for painting it.) If he doesn't get it done, I'll release Rob to get on it next week. I am eager to push it along since the tub in the master bath (which we are NOT re-doing any time soon,) kind of blew out this week. Korrect Plumbing (my heroes) were able to get it back together, even 'though Dan, who harbors a secret desire to be a plumber, got to it first and essentially trashed it. Thank goodness we saved the tub valve out of the girls' bathroom - the plumber stripped the seats and stems off of it to make our tub work. But that valve won't last for long so we need to get the other tub up and running for the girls. Dan and I can survive without a tub since we have the separate shower, but the kids really need one.

I finally got a plan out of one of the landscape contractors. It wasn't at all what I wanted, so it's back to the drawing board. (Not that I can even fathom doing yard work in this cold.) Looking ahead... looking ahead....

Dan and I came across an article about retro fitting insulation in older homes. After the weather this week, we are intrigued by it. I'll point it out to Rob for his opinion when I next see him.

I've only had one taker on the gas bill pool. (See my last post.) Let me know if you are interested!

This Wet House 15

This is Dan's civil engineering project - a small canal set to drain the moat around the new garage.

It has been raining for three days straight.

We have been taking on water for two and a half days.

I went up to the attic bedroom to clean Tommy's cat box and discovered it full of mounds of clumps. I thought "Wow that cat pees a lot," and then I saw the tell-tale holes made from a drip-drip-dripping action. Sure enough the beam and ceiling above was wet. The good news is that the cat box and litter pretty well caught all the water. We have a garbage can in place now.

We have at least two roof leaks and water is seeping in the cracks of the floor/walls on three levels in the basement/garage. We discovered another leak at the bottom of the stairs from the kitchen to the front hall, but that will be fixed when the new garage gets a roof. Likewise on one of the two leaks in the old garage.


The big chimney has copper all around it and it looks (from where we were standing,) as though the seam is cracked. If this is the case, it's a quick fix, if not it means a bunch of copper work, and either way the entire chimney will need to be re-flashed. That is not very bad news, since it means that the actual slate is still holding and so far the only problems we've had are copper related.

The basement is also somewhat easy to fix. This house does NOT have a sump pump. That's rare for the age/location. We can add one fairly inexpensively, (under $500,) and it looks as though that is what we will be doing. What I'm not sure of is if one will do the job or if we will have to do two or more since the ground water is seeping in on three different levels.

Our true problem is that the house is built on a hill and the whole back and side yard slopes towards the house. So all the ground water runs to the house, then hits it and goes down, creating hydrostatic pressure, which then forces the water up wherever it can manage to go, such as minute cracks in our basement floor, walls etc.


Adding an element of danger is the fact that the swimming pool is located fifteen feet outside the dining room and although it was drained at least a foot down when it was winterized, it is now within an inch of overflowing. If it overflows, the water will go directly into the basement. Since the pool currently looks like a biology experiment, Dan has taken it upon himself to set up a siphon with the garden hose this afternoon to take the level back down out of the danger zone. We hope.

The electricians left on Friday after a very long day where they were pushing to get everything done. They got kind of sloppy near the end and we have a long punch list for them. Glen finished the tile in the girls' bath, but there are a couple of spots where the grout looks low - I'll ask Rob's opinion on Tuesday. Rob started replacing the drywall in the bathroom and even got a good coat of mud on. He'll need to put a couple more on and then sand the floor and then I think we'll be ready for paint. We are holding off altogether on the window until we make a decision on replacing or repairing. The plywood is on the inside of the frame and there is water leaking in underneath the damaged sill. Not sure what we'll do to weather proof that until the roof guys come out and lay the new copper in a month.

I've had a reminder in the last couple of weeks about verbal vs written instructions and I'm going to have to be much more careful about documenting stuff.

I'm getting irritable from having subs traipsing in and out all day every day. We aren't expecting the flexicore (garage roof) to be installed for another month and we are about done with plumbers et al for the inside project so I'm expecting some peace and quiet in the next few weeks. And I'm looking forward to it.

This cOld House 14

True to its name, the portion of the house heated by 'furnace 2' got down to a chilly 49 overnight as Dale was unable to get the part he needed to fix the brand new furnace in the basement which quit yesterday. He returned this morning and was able to correct the problem and we had gained about 10 degrees in the first hour after it began working. We are back to normal now, and cautiously watching the others for additional citrus signs. (Lemons?)


The concrete guys stopped by long enough yesterday morning to drop off blankets and tuck in the walls. With temps dipping into the twenties over night they needed to keep it hot enough to cook (cure.)

Glen is moving along on the tile. Tommy happily crawls into the floor every morning when Glen arrives and I don't see him until the house is quiet at 6:00 pm.

The electricians, (bless their hearts,) are hard at work completely re-wiring the kitchen. They've been here three days straight and have still some more work to do. It's taking much more time than I anticipated but as an added bonus, they managed to fix the call button box when they were fixing the doorbell. They work a bunch in Oakwood, and while they had seen call buttons before, they were quite excited to see that they were still operable and hooked up to the original mechanical box. They'd never seen that before.

Payne and Co., (the drainage people,) have their liliputian equipment stationed out by the living room and are making good progress on the excavation there. Their back-hoe is so cute! Rob's guy will be patching the holes in the foundation with some hydrostatic cement, then the whole thing will be water-proofed, gravel and drain tiles installed, all the drains and down spouts tied in and then back-filled to grade. Again a bonus, the arbor vitae I dislike had to be torn up to facilitate the excavation.

When Rob took out the windows in the girls' bathroom, he fitted the hole with a 1/4 piece of bead-board plywood. It was over 85 degrees in the bathroom this morning, testament to the amount of heat we are losing through the darn windows. Dan says we have a solution... just cover them all up with plywood!

I did meet with a storm window guy yesterday and that option looks better and better. More on that later.

This cOld House 12

Today was a pretty significant day. The concrete foreman, Doug, showed up to check progress and we got a big gravel drop. That makes the mud pit look a little more like the beginning of a garage. The hole has dried out a bit after the buckets of rain we got over the weekend and Doug said his crew would be by tomorrow by noon with forms to start the walls. Yippee.



They started tearing up the girls' bathroom today. Rob said they'd break up the tub to get it out and I mistakenly figured they'd be cutting it into pieces. The process was somewhat more violent and involved Larry, a ten-pound sledgehammer, and porcelain shards raining down through minute cracks in the kitchen ceiling.




The rodent abatement system is installed but is not working exactly as planned. The first couple of days Tommy hid upstairs in the attic room where we deposited him upon entering the house. The night of the second day he meowed to get out of the room and we let him start exploring. He seemed to be getting comfortable but when we turned in for the night he had some trouble settling down. We figured he'd just start investigating the myriad of pests currently residing with us but instead of eradicating them, he's an audible alarm that sounds all night whenever he hears something, which is constantly. We aren't quite sure what the problem is, as we were assured the cat was well behaved and a good hunter. It's entirely possible the cat is suffering from target saturation. We are torn - we dislike the mice, but we are rather fond of sleeping, and while we would like to keep the cat and lose the mice, if we can't correct the situation we'll be keeping the mice and losing the insomnia.

I met with the first of the replacement window guys. (As opposed to the repair/refurbish window guys I met with several weeks ago.) The refurbish bids came in higher than I had hoped. Every window in the house needs work. Some are worse than others, but all need re-glazing, and when I say that I'm not just talking about re-glazing the sash in the frame, rather, the material between the individual glass pieces, (diamonds) and the lead came has deteriorated to the point where the panels are no longer air or water tight. This involves first getting the window out of the oak jamb, removing the panel from the frame, pulling the entire panel apart, cleaning the glass pieces, cutting new came, fitting it back together (with the new glazing between glass and came,) and re-soldering the whole she-bang. Then stripping the frame of 85 years of paint and rust, cutting out the metal that has rusted through and welding new pieces in, painting or sealing the frame, fitting the leaded glass panel back in, re-glazing it and putting it back in the (hopefully) re-milled oak jamb. It's about a $900 process and at the end of it, we'd still have a single glazed window that needs some kind of a storm window custom fitted. Oh, and did I mention that we have 76 leaded sashes? (And 10 additional steel casement windows.)

I've submitted a request to the This Old House television program website. Gosh, I hope they find my witty inquiry worthy of investigation.