The Rain Came...

Well Ida rained here pretty much all week. What that meant for me and my dirt hole was a test of the impact that the new french drain would have on the water issues that used to exist in the basement. The news is mixed and, frankly, I figured it would be. The area where there used to be the biggest water infiltration issues is no longer a problem. By the basement window there is a spot where the rain drains from two angles of the roof to a single point and drives from there to the ground. Before the french drain was installed water came in through the foundation wall at a fast trickle (if there is such a thing). With the new french drain and some added plastic sheeting to that spot the old water issue is gone (at right: cracks in the mud where there used to be a water issue.  After 4 days of solid rain the dry cracks are still intact!). BUT in the actual space where the workshop will be there are a couple of pools of standing water and a significant amount of very sticky clay-mud. So, clearly, water is getting in.

I must admit I was a little bit dejected. I expected some water would still get in, but this much? Luckily I was able to stay constructive speaking to both my friend Shawn and then Robb stopped by later in the day. What they both told me, very politely, is that my french drain should have been dug deeper in the ground and closer to the foundation. Shawn and I came up with some good foundation vent/fan ideas that I will discuss later and Robb suggested that I re-point the foundation brick wall. With the wet floor (at left: standing water on the dirt floor) the one thing I can tackle right now is the re-pointing.

Re-pointing is a procedure whereby old brick work is reinforced with new mortar. These brick walls are close to 90 years old and so, understandably, there are a lot of missing or crumbling sections of mortar (at right: check out a section of the near century old foundation wall). In this case, there are a couple of reasons to re-point but one of them is to begin the process of water proofing the wall. I have no assumption that that will fix all of the water issues, but right now those cracks in the mortar are letting small trickles of water through and this will go a long ways towards addressing that issue. Once the bricks are re-pointed I will seal the below grade sections of the wall with a slurry. It sounds like some kind of drink that is hot pink and comes in 56, 64 or 80 ounce cups, but it’s far from it. In simple terms a slurry is used to coat all of the bricks with a thin layer of cement/sealant that will further prevent water from seeping in.  I'm looking forward to giving it a shot.

Tomorrow is re-pointing day. Wish me luck!

It's dug!

So I finished the digging late Monday night.  It's amazing to see all of this old brick that has been covered in dirt for 80 some years.  When I started I thought I might occasionally get the heeby jeebies down there, you know digging around under a house usually late at night.  But I've been having  a great time, the neighbors I'm sure think I'm nuts or are theorizing about the strange things I might be doing (I can't get the movie "the burbs" out of my head) wheeling barrels full of dirt and dumping it in piles in the yard at 9 and 10 at night.  But me, I'm having a great time, in fact as much as I am happy to be done with the digging stage, I'm going to miss it.  Hard labor is missing from most of our lives these days and I for one have enjoyed getting my hands dirty. (At right: look out below!  Standing at the back of the future workshop on the old brick wall-- it used to be an easy 6 inch step down from here, now it's a 3' jump!)

So all in all I'm estimating that there is now 360 cubic feet of dirt in the middle of our yard and missing from under our house.  We are thinking about doing some kind of cool landscape thing with it in the backyard (a hill perhaps :)), which I'm glad andee has agreed to because I REALLY don't want to move it again! 

We now have an extra 2-3.5 feet of headroom (it used to slope from back to front) in the future workroom, so what's next?  Well Robb came over last week when I was about 70% done digging and showed me how to install temporary supports for the floor above.  These are necessary for us to be able to dig under existing supports/piers and pour footer extensions below them.  You are essentially supporting the house next to the old support while you dig under it and re-support it at an appropriate level for the new depth of the dirt floor.  You have to do this because in digging down 2-3 feet we have compromised the original foundation footings.   Don't worry, I'm re-supporting first and compromising second (you do this by leaving dirt, ideally at a 45 degree angle, around the base of the old pier until you get the temp up). 

Constructing the supports:  It's really not too bad of  a job once you know how to do it, but because it is so critical to get it right (the house could literally cave in if you didn't do it right) I am extremely glad Robb was there to help.  He showed me how to do the first one and I followed with the next three.  The deal is that you need to find a joist above that currently rests on the existing pier and get as close to it as possible with the support.  Our job was pretty easy because when Helena's crew worked on the house they installed a rectangle made of heavy duty glue laminate wood to support the kitchen above, they tied it into existing joists and rested it on two new supports and original piers at the front.  So we just needed to get the temp supports onto the glue lam near the old pier.  Robb instructed me to get 4"x6" posts for the temp supports and 4" thick conceret block to rest it on (see above).  We then constructed a base using four concrete blocks that we laid first parallel to the foundation wall and then perpendicular to it (2 on top of 2).  We used the circular saw to cut the support at the measured length (you have to make at least two cuts, one on each side, to get through the 4" piece).  Then he held the support while I toe nailed it to the glue lam above.  We then hammered wedges under the support between it and the concrete block to lock it in place, using a level to make sure we had it straight up and down.  A few days later I put up the next support to the right of that one, which wasn't too bad by myself because I had cut it so that it was a pretty tight fit and was stable enough for me to nail it in at the top.  Once I had dug out the rest of the area though I was faced with a pretty difficult task. 

(pink loops to assist in hanging the 4x6)

Because the glue lam pieces that run parallel to the foundation walls are close to the two front piers I couldn't attach the suppports directly to them, so I had to run another 4x6 across those two glue lam pieces and attach the supports to it.  I struggled for a while to find a way to lift and hold a 6' piece of 4x6 up there (8.5' off the ground) long enough to nail it in on both sides.  After quickly deciding it wouldnt work without help I devised a way of creating loops with string to hold the 4x6 close enough to the glue lam for me to then toe nail it to hold it in place (see pink loops in picture above).  This worked well and gave me the help I needed to get the piece up and attached (right).

All four temporary supports are now in place and it is time to excavate under the old piers.  We will dig down 14" below the bottom of the dirt floor and create a 14" cube that will be the new footer below existing footers, supports or piers.  We will use 2' rebar pieces for structural support.  This is the part of the job that scares me the most.  I'm not an engineer nor a builder so I will be relying heavily on Robb through this phase.  I can't wait though to learn more and to get one step closer to getting the floor in!

I should have included this in the last post.  Below is the approximate plan for the space with dimensiomns missing from the right side because of some changes I have made and haven't remeasured since.

Beginnings...

The House

My partner andee and I bought our house in June of 2009. As a little shout out, Helena Cragg and Sylvia Williams with Synergy Enterprises (http://home.earthlink.net/~helenacragg/) rehabbed this 1920s craftsmen to its current state of beauty—they did a fantastic job then graciously sold it to us! It is just a shade under 1100 square feet with 9’ ceilings, original heartwood-pine flooring throughout with a deck and a great big space out back.

The house in halloween garb

This blog though, is about the belly of the house, its underside, the area that is usually ruled by water, mold and dirt. The house dramatically slopes from front to back with the front of the house only 2 feet above ground while the back is nearly 15’ high. It’s a beautiful, old piered-foundation with original red brick filling in the spaces between external piers. If you stand at the back of the house and stare at the structure, you’ll see more brick below than you will siding above.

The Plan

The first time I stepped foot in what the sellers called a root cellar, I knew it had a lot of potential. Headroom was not a problem. Not counting pipes or the duct work, the ceiling of the space, or the base of the floor joists above, is nearly 12 feet high in sections. I started with fairly modest plans of a workspace on the left side (when I talk about the space I’ll talk about it as as if you are facing it from the backyard), the space that used to be a garage for some tiny car that American’s probably still haven’t invented (though a Ford Fiesta would probably have fit). The garage used to make sense because there was an old alley that came from Quenn St. which is perpendicular to ours. But with the alley no longer functional and a new fence around our yard the space will not be for a car, small or otherwise! But as I tend to do, what started as modest or functional plans quickly turned grandiose. What started as plans for a 100 square foot work room turned into dreams of a 350 square foot work room, bedroom, hallway and bathroom with french doors leading onto a rear screened-in-porch. Whew! Yeah, I know I’m crazy!

French doors are goinna go where?  You'll see!

One of the first things that I decided (long before I had figured out the dimensions and purpose of the entire space), which complicates the job and runs counter to what almost every GC or builder I’ve talked to has recommended, was to install wood flooring throughout the space. Now, before you start calling me names that rhyme with cupid or bum, hear me out!

Wanting wood flooring, but being familiar with countless stories of warping, buckling and rotting with below-grade wooden floors I had to devise a plan that both kept water out (REALLY HARD!) and accounted for any moisture that might seep in. At this point the plan is still fluid and in progress, but with great help from others (Specifically, Master Carpenter Robb Damman has worked with me on the details of the plan and General Contractor Brad Redfoot on some building code questions—I would highly recommend them both) I have been able to work out many of the details.

The Workshop

The workshop space is shaped like a lowercase h. It is 16 feet long and 10 feet wide to a point about halfway in where it shifts to 8 feet wide. The width at that point is affected by the old stairwell that connects to a door off of our kitchen above (part of the plan will involve putting a trapdoor in that space to access the old stairwell). Ceiling height is a little bit tighter on this side of the house, but it is still very manageable. The vision is a 145’ work space where I can have a well functioning wood shop with storage and functioning areas for tools. The walls and ceiling will be drywall and the floor will be tigerwood (picture at right, more on tigerwood later).

As I said earlier, we believe this space used to be a garage. When we moved in Helena and Sylvia had installed an attractive faux-beadboard covering over the 8’x7’ opening, but to gain proper access to the space we quickly decided we needed doors. Not having built any doors before I decided it was time to try. I constructed the frames for the doors out of 2x4s leaving space for some old windows that a friend had given us a few years ago (amazing that we held onto them for just this occasion—thanks Noah!). With the frame built and the windows in I covered the area with rough cut 1x3s for a slatted wood look. As you can see from the pictures I am still in the process of painting but caulking and priming are done so it is weather safe from the outside. With the doors complete it was time to move to working on the inside of the space.

Though head height in the space was already well over 7 feet, in order to fit a wood flooring system (with footers, joists and subfloor) I have been digging down 2-3 feet in most places (picture at right: evidence of excavation in backyard). The eventual floor level will be equal to the bottom of the barn door frame. For the workspace, which is what I’m tackling first, I will be digging and pouring 14”x14”x14” footers for the joists to rest on. There will probably be 3 of them for the center joist (which will consist of 3 2x6s) to rest on.

The back of the future workshop, dug down over 3 feet

Making sure that the overhead structure (the house!) is supported during the digging process has been difficult but is obviously important. As I’ve been digging I have been leaving dirt around the load bearing walls or piers and will later support the floor with temporary posts (4x6s) sitting on solid concrete block to the sill/joist above. With the overhead structure supported I will excavate below existing footings and load bearing areas, the triple 2x4s by the stairs, for example (picture at right), and then pour new footings that will attach to the existing pier with vertical rebar (steel). I will also excavate and pour footings for concrete block walls on all outer edges to attach the outer joists to. The joists will be pressure treated 2x6s that will span no more than 16” and run perpendicular to the tongue and groove flooring that will be installed above.

But none of that would actually keep the water out, right? Right. So there are a couple of things I have done and plan to do that will address water issues. The first thing we needed to do, whether we finished the basement or not, was to deal with the water that pours in sheets from our non-guttered roof to the ground below. The 80+ years of this has done its damage to the foundation. Fortunately, Helena repaired areas where the outer brick wall had started to cave in, but there was still no drainage in place to stop it from happening in the future.

Because we wanted to maintain the historical integrity of the house we were against gutters from the start, what we decided on was a French drain. For those who aren’t familiar, a french drain is basically the drainage equivalent of burying power lines, you are moving your visible drainage from up high (gutters) to down low (in this case from nowhere to down low!). Last week my mom was in town and together we dug a trench the length of the house that lined up with the water that comes off the roof (an easy way to make sure you have the right spot is to run the hose on the roof for a while to simulate rain and wait for it to fall—in sheets :)). We then lined the trench with 6 mil plastic that overlapped the edges and inserted an 8” diameter drain pipe with a drainage sleeve over it, the drainage sleeve is made of a porous cloth material that keeps dirt out of the pipe and stops it from clogging. We then went over to the rock shop on Hillsborough (they are great over there!) and bought ½ cubic ton of drainage rock and covered the drain pipe and plastic with it. It rained the other day and it stayed almost completely dry down there (huge improvement!). My final move on the outside will be to run plastic partway up the outer wall seal it and cover it with rock ensuring that it slopes away from the house and towards the drain pipe.

Even with all of that though I expect that water will find its way in from the outside, the front or below, so to prevent decay and mold growth I will lay down thick plastic sheeting under the floor joists and run it up the side of the brick outer walls. I won’t be sealing the space but will be doing my best to prevent moisture from getting below the floor or from making it to the eventual wall studs and dry wall. I have a few ideas for venting the space beneath the floor but haven’t decided on one yet.

It’s late and that’s all for this first post. If you’ve made it this far you are probably named Dylan or impressively persistent. Either way, I look forward to using this blog to teach others what not to do and to keep myself on task. Budget concerns aside, I hope to set realistic deadlines for myself and use this as a written way of keeping myself on target.

Until next time, I’ll be digging!

Progress...

Not too far to go!