These guys WORK

Work started right on schedule this morning at 9:00. I haven't actually gone down yet today (can't seem to bring myself to move more than 6" away from a space heater or the 2 cats sleeping on my legs..), but will get a good photo-roundup of today's progress to post tomorrow.

Plenty of progress in the last 2 days though!

Here's the side of the house as it looked Thursday morning.

The giant pile of dirt is gone, and the new joists and sill are in place on this side.

The pile of plywood visible inside isn't holding anything up, it's about to become the form for the concrete. Plus, it makes a handy step as it's a pretty big drop to get down there now! We haven't spent as much time down there this week, since the water heater pilot has thankfully stayed on.

Still plenty of dirt being pulled out. We expected them to bring a bobcat down there, but with all the cribbing they said it wouldn't be worthwhile, so it's all being dug by hand and loaded in the truck in wheelbarrows.



Lots of supplies showing up, too. Here's the Handy Rebar truck dropping off.. well, handy rebar! I think it's extra handy because it's pre-tied.

There's a pile of handy concrete spacers

and a pile of Paraseal waterproofing membrane.

Here's a shot of our slightly jenky, but no longer leaking or stopped up with a shoprag main sewage line. (the new joists and sill plate are visible here too)


Most of the drain lines are in a pile out back, which is fine for now since we only have 1 bathroom and the kitchen sink.

This is the temporary drain line for the kitchen sink that you can see tied in on the left of the main line.

The center area down there doesn't look too different, as most of the work is focused around the perimeter. Which you can see here, in the same view of the side taken Friday morning.

Most of the plywood form is in place, as are the supports.



The rebar cage all along the East side is in place, and the anchor bolts and tie-downs look to be in place all the way around the perimeter as of Friday morning. They're spaced even closer than what the engineer spec'd, so once there's a foundation there, this house is not coming off of it!

Until then though, it's a pretty wild ride. In the evenings, either of us walking through the house causes some pretty good swaying.. and being in here while the work is actually happening is like one earthquake after another.

I think it's about time I head out and grab the paper and some pictures, which I'll post tomorrow.

it's beginning to smell a lot like..

Festivus!!

Let me start off by warning you.. we're dorks, we know this

..but when you've got an outhouse on your front lawn, and the neighborhood starts twinkling with xmas lights.. well, you've just gotta do what you gotta do..

.. and we had to decorate the porta-potty!!


We got all bundled up, spiked some hot chocolate with something to keep us warm, and headed outside.






Dan took care of tinseling the sign










While I strung lights and hung the wreath (eucalyptus, so it smells nice!)











Then we hung a Santa's Workshop sign and stuck candy canes all over the place!

Happy Holidays

love,
the Neumanskys!!

This Remodel Brought To You BY...

Monster Energy Drink!
I don't like to think that we are overly picky but....
I think I know how these guys are getting the job done so fast. They're all hopped up on Monster Energy drink.
Look here's one hanging out with his buddy empty soda cup.
And here's one...
This one's hiding in the cribing.
This ones hanging out on some other cribing with its buddys coke one and coke two.
This one's taking a bow.




These two are getting crushed by the junk pile!! Poor things, won't someone save them?
Here's a long shot of the dig-out so far. If you look carefully you can see Mr. Monster and his buddy Coke lounging about on some cribbing.
I was so shocked at just how deep the hole was that they dug that I had to measure it. Its just about 9' which is how high we wanted the ceilings on the bottom story.
Here's Irene grabbing the 'good bricks' and hiding them so she can use them on the driveway and maybe on some garden paths and what-not.

But seriously, the job is coming along faster than I could of imagined. The house movers are coming this Wednesday to level the house and the plan is to be pouring the foundation walls the following wednesday!! Yahoo!!!! Good news too, its not supposed to rain for a couple of weeks!!

Day 4, coming right along..

There has been a LOT of activity the last couple days!

You can see that the bottom run of our front stairs is gone.. I didn't think they would survive the work anyway, but the crew needed egress to run the giant steel beams under that side of the house. Half of them went in through the garage doors, and they're sitting on top of the stacks of railroad ties. There are clearer pictures of that from the inside.

With the stairs gone the no access to our front porch doesn't matter so much.. There were concerns about the load of the area over the porch, so it's shored up for the duration.

A close up of our front stairs.

We're going to need to rebuild that landing too.. I'll be very excited when we have a nice, sturdy staircase that we don't have to worry about buckling under people.

Look, no more animal nests anywhere under the house! or, hopefully, anywhere in the house for that matter!

Here a view from where the back door used to be. There's no wall back there at all - it's completely open.

This view illustrates the process a little.. The railroad ties (mostly 6"x6", but some 6"x8") were stacked in the bottom of the big pits. They're crisscrossed all the way up to the joists above. In this case, the steel beams run across the top of the stacks, and the house rests above that. Then the old foundation gets knocked out, and the rest of dirt is dug down to the level of the pits. There's still a bit more to be cleared out - that's why they were working on Saturday - but it's amazing how much was done in just 4 days!


The house is entirely resting on the railroad ties. You can see the walls just hanging there above the ground. So it's not that the house is being "lifted" to get the old foundation out and then rested back down on the new foundation (I've been asked about this a lot) - it's held exactly in place the whole time.



This coming week there will be some leveling done, so we expect to get some cracking. The back 4 feet of the house seems to have started life as a multi-level porch, which always had a slope. There's been further settling, which they're going to bring as close to level with the rest of the house as possible.

We've discovered some impressive cracks already radiating out from the corners of the pocket doors.






The back stairs are pretty interesting too.. I think they would've been rendered inaccessible yesterday, except that that's currently the only way in or out of the house. It looks like the weight of the deck is being spread across 4 2"x6"s which are resting on 2 of the steel beams. It looks pretty odd to us, but these guys are the experts.




Here's a view from the underside. There used to be a couple concrete piers with posts supporting the center of the deck, but the new outer wall of the house will replace some, and the remaining 2 will be redone.




We did notice this after yesterday's work.. the main sewer stack underneath the bathroom has a gaping hole in it. There's an obvious flow of water in the dirt around it, and it smells about as nice as you'd expect.

The neighbors weren't very excited about the work continuing on Saturday, but everyone is being very nice about it. Plus, we've been told by several people how friendly and respectful the crew has been. I'm glad we're surrounded by such nice people, because we have another 5 1/2 weeks to go!

Out with the old..

These guys are moving really fast! This is what the basement looked like after day one ->










<- And here's the same spot after day 2!


Those pits are pretty scary when you come home in the dark and walk right past all the caution tape, using your cell phone as a flashlight.. Railroad ties are going to be stacked up in there to support the joists above so the old brick foundation can be knocked out



Because we timed it so well the crew has been working in the rain and mud, so they put up a tarp/shade to keep the lumber dry


The only weird thing so far (aside from the fact that the pilot on the water heater has been out..) is this framing under under that back room.

Here's a better picture of it. ->

I think those joists are being entirely replaced with ones that span all the way across - the open area back there is being closed in (the "major design review" portion of the plan).

In any case, when I asked about it I was told it was only temporary, which is fine with me.





When I left for work this morning they were loading in the steel beams which are going to carry the load of the house. You should've seen the crane maneuvering around those wires!


They put a roller on top of a railroad tie under each end of the beam which the crane placed them on so the beams can be moved by mere mortals.

You can also see the stack of railroad ties that was being loaded in.


After the first night of stumbling around in the dark I learned that trying to take pictures at the end of the day after getting home from wasn't really worth it, so I've been taking pix in the morning before heading out. I thought I'd do a complete spread of where things are tomorrow, but they've asked to work (on Saturday!) to get a bit more done. Much as we wanted a little extra sleep tomorrow morning, I don't want to put a damper on that kind of enthusiasm!

the sweet, sweet sounds of jackhammers in the morning

The gang's all here!




The crew showed up early and talked about the plans.





Then, at 8:05 (we have a clause in our contract that no loud work can start before 8am.. trying to make it a little less miserable for the neighbors) this gentleman got started! This right here is the very first cut towards our shiny new foundation!

Here we go!!!

Look what I just found when I came home from work! The porta-potty fairy was here!

Tomorrow morning, bright and early, the foundation work starts.
For real.
We're really starting!

We wrote letters to all the neighbors telling them what was going on and how to contact us.. hopefully the noise won't be too bad. Fortunately there's rain to keep the dust down (she says ironically, because this is the EXACT time of year we didn't want to be doing this and it did actually rain today.)

So, in about a year, please remind me of how happy I am now to be getting down to work :)