Trust me, I'm an expert

The main goal in what you have been witnessing over these past few posts is to have a radiant heat system humming under our feetsies where we live on the upper floor.  We have known for a long time that the basement area would need a major overhaul in order to realize this goal.  The impacts are systemic in range as the following pics will show.  

In the living room there existed a pretty major floor issue, where along one side - between the living room and family room, and along the front windows the floor sloped up, pretty sharply in some places.  The elevation difference from highest to lowest must be a few inches .. I haven't measured it, but it *was* significant.  Putting in any sort of hardwood flooring, even manufactured, would have been impossible.  This line of thinking is running in parallel to that of the joist work down below.  I knew the day was coming where I would need to open up the floor to remove the floor from sitting up on the built up stone foundation - which accounted for the dramatic slop which was present in our living room from about 5 feet back from the window to the window.  Somewhere I have pictures of the floor from underneath at this point - and literally the joist that *should* be supporting weight at this point is indeed nailed to the floor, but is floating above the steel beam.  That is because the floor is resting on the built up foundation which is about 2 inches higher then the rest of the joists resting on the steel beam through the rest of the house.  

On the chopping block is the lovely fake stone work that also contains asbestos.  I know it's asbestos by the way it tastes.  NO No no, we knew this when we bought the place.  There was an enormous wood burning stove in this corner.  We'll pick up a nice little pellet stove in its place, which will warm the place in the interim before the radiant heat is operational. 

In order to get at the foundation areas where the floor is sitting on, I have to begin removing layers of sub-flooring.  Measure the depth of the first layer, set the blade height, and begin buzzing away checkerboard-like sections for (somewhat) easy removal.  

I believe that this corner was host to a bathroom at one point .. probably many many years ago.  Just below this area was where the vat that was part of the cheese making process.  I don't think there was a bathroom in this location at the same point in time when the cheese making was happening just below.  That would be gross.

I have seen a lot of this sort of thing while working on the house.  There is what looks like wallpaper glued to the surface of these boards.  Maybe these boards once belonged in an interior wall before they we're used here?  It's odd, but not surprising in this old place.

Further back shot of the fake stone area where the wood stove once stood.

Ok, shit's gettin' real.  I've buzzed off enough of a section to expose the foundation that I'll be working on.

This is the beginning of may alarming discoveries.  This is the corner where the south and west foundation walls meet.  On the tops sit huge wooden timbers that bear the weight of entire sides of the house.  What I find is a large cavity filled with bits of bedding that animals, rodents have dragged in over the years.  I have known that the foundation suffered from this sort of thing, that mice have a labryinth of tunnels in and out of the foundation walls.  This is different and needed immediate attention.  I was surprised how for down I was able to shop-vac out bedding and deteriorated mortar.  In the hole I could see some of the exposed, ancient hardware that was used in securing the beams in place once they we're placed on this foundation who knows exactly how long ago ...

This is my major find.  In the exposed wall I found these old-school fuses.  60 watts!  AND I found a penny in that hole that was made in 1917!  I'll take a picture with a better camera, but yeah - 1917.

Here is a vertical crack in the foundation.  No good.  What could be causing that??  While gutting the basement I discovered some major holes in the mortar between these foundation stones such that you could see from one side to the other!  Check this out.  This is the vertical crack with the holes near the bottom.

A closer shot of the cavity.  That white dot in the middle is light shining through from the other side of the wall!  This is an extreme example.

This is a shot of the same area, but pulled back so you can see a vertical crack in the foundation.  The crack coincides with the cavity pictured above.  There were several rather scary cavities that I addressed one by one, so as to not destabilize the entire column.  Care is taken to brush and vacuum out each hole and wet it to prepare for the lime mortar mix.  Once set, the filled in cavity will strong and rigid, impervious to critters, water tight yet breathable.

You can see a crack that runs do the corner below where this rather large abscess was.  This is where I found the old penny.  Eventually, this gets cleaned out and filled with mortar.  

That beam holds the floor up through the middle of the house.

Jackpine Jamboree!

I was so fortunate this past weekend to be able to travel north with the family to attend and participate in The Jackpine Jamboree!  This is a sort of neo-bluegrass/old-time musical festival run by my long time friends, Stef and Jimers from the new-bluegrass/old-time musical group, Sloppy Joe.  Stef called me and said, 'you HAVE to get up here and play with our friend from Georgia, Ralph Roddenberry!'  I said, 'OK!'  It did my heart a whole lot of good to get up there and reconnect with some of my dear old friends.  

Wisconsin is full of this kind of thing

The campground was quite nice.  It's amazing what people can do with their campsites.  The lake was beautiful and warm.  We brought the kayak up so the kids could explore. 

Next to the lake was a porta-potty that looks like it might be older than I am.  

Look out for jugalows!

Rain was the bane of the festival, but these Wisconsin folks are pretty hardy.  There was quite a collection of people in the early afternoon and tons more in the camping area.  They came and went as different artists took the stage or as the rain dictated.  Despite the rain, people we're in great spirits and endured the elements.

Horseshoes and Handgrenades we're incredible!  They are very tight, very fun, high-energy juice!  A great bunch of guys as well, I'm very happy to have met them and hear their music.

Later that night I took the stage with Ralph Roddenberry, Jeff Sachs and Jamie 'Scallywag'.  Wow.  Just, wow.  Ralph, we love you!  I cannot wait until our next encounter!  It was a pleasure and an honor to work with ya!

http://www.ralphroddenbery.com/

Sub Floor Blues

Looks like I will have to replace some joists or do some sistering / splicing.  Shouldn't be too much trouble.  I mean, it's going to be an awful lot of trouble, but I'm pretty sure I know what to do.

This was pretty funny .. here is a view of window sill in the foundation.  I was cleaning up around the window and checking the overall scene and I noticed this material that was apparently stuffed under the form when they poured the base of the sill.  

Here you can see the scruffy old, worn material.  Upon detailed inspection.. 

.. it looks like someones old undies we're used in the process of pouring the sill in the basement window??  That f&^^ explains ALOT of what I have found over the years in this crazy old house.

Anywho, here is one fix in progress.  I'll spare you the details.  Suffice it to say that its quite a chore to splice a new piece in with a sister, moving the jacks and ladders and all that as you go with just one person to get the material in place.  I just gotta get all this sub-floor work finished so that I can get the radiant heat system installed and working before winter so I can be cozy and play my guitar upstairs to my new baby boy!

Basement Teardown

A lot of time has passed since the last update.  The summer and fall we're busy and updating the blog took a back seat.  I lost hundreds of photos, too, which we're destined for this space, so all in all I lost the desire to take all new shots to post - the spirit had left me.  Oh, well.

During that time, however, the reality of the basement was looming in the near future and we knew that it was a matter of time before we would finally have to break ground on the gutting process.  The basement project consists of gutting it to its bare limestone foundation and poured concrete floors to its open ceiling joists.  Only then will we be able to level the floor upstairs, install radiant heat under the floor, fix the upstairs bathroom, etc.  The state of the limestone foundation is of concern, as well.  The entire foundation needs to re-tuck pointed and a new coat of mortar applied.  There are tunnels throughout where mice and other things freely enter the house.  Having the basement bare I will be able to begin forming a plan for supporting the ceiling, addressing our heating needs, and everything else that needs to happen in order to solidify the integrity of the house.

Eventually, the foundation will be new, smooth, and painted.  All surfaces will be easy to clean.  The basement will be a wonderful environment to grow my shitakes and oysters!

The last remnants of flooring remain in the photo.  This used to be the kitchen and the floor was tiled in linoleum.  Very curious what was done here.  If you look closely, you can see that the wooden floor is really a deck that has been sitting over the top of this concrete floor.  The concrete underneath is highly irregular, so the deck-floor is supported with blocks of wood of various heights.   

Once the remainder of the decking was removed we can see evidence of the operations that we're once part of the old Rock Hill Cheese Company.  We have often puzzled about the small concrete stub wall that you can see in the far center of this shot.  Now, with the floor-decking removed you can see that there was what was a tub and the stub wall is all that remains of it.  They kept it, I guess, for its inherit aesthetic qualities.  It formed the base of some shelf space when the kitchen was here.

The concrete down here is all sloped toward the front of the house where I discovered an old drain.  The low end of the tub has a large slice in the bottom of it that is angled toward the drain.  I would be curious to know what the exact function of this structure was in the cheese making process.  My guess is that this is where the cheese was finally pressed to remove excess moisture.  Any takers on this one?

It is clear that we can remove the rest of the stub wall.  The wall is built from bricks that are hollow inside, so it should come down easily.

This shot is taken from near the back of the basement toward the front, looking past what was once the laundry area, past the bathroom and the kitchen.

Next steps are to clean up the ceiling, removing and tidying up electrical, spider webs, any old ducting that may still be up there.  There are a few issue with the floor as well, places where some concrete forms we're poured that need to go.  Pretty soon I'll be setting up my shots to put in new beams and support posts and eventually a new heating system so we can stop freezing our asses in the winter.  Yay!

The end goal is also to make this area inhabitable for growing edible gourmet mushrooms.  Once it's all clean, re-tuck pointed and smooth, cleanable, this area should make a fine base environment.

Happy New Year!

I really feel like finally I can begin the year, that finally things are opening up, the energy is changing and I'm feeling it course through me!  For some reason it feels like a new year has begun and I feel ready to take on the challenges that this year is serving up for me.

I have been getting the very distinct feeling that it's time to get things rolling with the house.  There are a couple of rather large projects that must be finished, as they are in a state where they are getting worse and to wait could mean damage to the house.  The house itself has a number of systemic flaws that, in order to fix them, one must tend to a number of precursor projects first.

One such project is our, 'sun porch,' a name that we have given this 3-season room.  The room is not seated on a foundation, but is instead supported the way a deck is supported, by posts and beams.  The existing posts are sitting on old concrete pilings which are starting to sink due mainly to erosion.  It's clear that I will need to divert the water.  The underside of the deck was designed to do this, but this particular area has not been tied in to under the deck.  This is one issue.  The second issue is that I will need to add more posts, jacks and  beams under the floor of the sun porch.  The floor has a spring to it because there is not enough support from the joists, which have a rather long run.  Adding more posts and beams will make the floor solid and will stop the progression of the sinking concrete pilings along the outside wall.

I knew this job was coming and had plenty of time to think about the order of things.  

The sun porch has been quite a disaster.  My tools we're all scattered throughout, garden implements and garbage of all sorts we're distributed randomly through out.  Over the winter the occasional cat would find an open garbage can and create a mess of paper and food wrappers.  In order to address the sub structure underneath the sun porch the flooring/decking will have to be removed because the joists and ground below need to be exposed.  This means I would have to first thoroughly clean and put away stuff in their proper place.  Most of my tools have been longing for a real home and I knew that I would have to once and for all wrangle them together in one place.  Matt's old room was going to be the place and I knew I would have to build some sturdy shelving to keep it all on.

The shelves are made of a somewhat crude but sturdy 2x4 construction.  This is the second one of these I built for the same purpose, to keep tools and accoutrement.  I cut 6 legs from 2x6 at 6' and screwed 2x4 cleats where I wanted each shelf to sit.  Each shelf is made from 1/2" plywood, each being 4'x2.5'.

All of this work made me hungry.

Assembling the shelf is pretty easy, but its a little tricky to get the first level up.  After that, there rest of them are easy to just set up on their cleats and then drill in.

It did not take me too long to fill the shelf up!  These shelves are now home to every tool, compound or otherwise that I use to work on all of the various things that I need to work on in this old house.  All of my power tools and tool boxes are here.  All of my sockets, screw drivers, grabbers and cutters of all types are here.  I have a box of various electrical components, boxes, 15 and 20 amp BX cable, breakers and switched.  Another box has plumbing supplies, rosen solder, pipe cutters and replacement parts for the well pump.  Another box has .. you get the picture.

Here is a shot of both shelves together holding all of my stuff.  Not pretty, but very strong and useful. 

This weekend we celebrated Aiden's birthday.  Aiden got some cool stuff for his birthday.  Here is a really cool one!  These are legos that have LEDs built in to them!  Wonders never cease/

Finally Spring!

Spring is finally here!  Even during the 30 degree days, the angle of the sun provides enough direct sunlight to warm ones shoulders and give the needed reassurance that indeed, for reals, Spring is truly on its way and all is good in the Universe.

Spring means work, getting ready for the coming growing season and cleaning up all that is revealed by the melting snow. 

It has been a while since my last post.  At that time we we're raising a new batch of baby chickens.  The older hens just aren't laying the way that they used to and there we're predation issues (raccoons mainly). With care, they all (except one that was killed by an unknown predator during an experimental trial of letting them out during the winter - it was a hark or an owl that got it since there we're no tracks leading to the kill scene) made it through the winter time.  With the aid of a 400 watt heating lamp and some exterior insulation, they all spent the winter cooped up in their 4x16 living space.

Until only recently, the chickens spent all of their time in this small space.  This was not an issue for a while, since they we're still young and small, but recently the situation shifted to a need for more space and free-range-chicken exercise.  Just in time!  The weather is breaking now and the chickens are able to get outside and be chickens.

Today was the day  to clean out the chicken coop.  I knew it was getting pretty bad.  Maybe next year I will make it a point to do this sort of job more periodically.  I certainly maintain and change their bedding often during the rest of the year, but this years winter seemed to go on forever and I couldn't make myself do it.  Also, there is freezing that occurs.  The collected layer of dropping intermixed with the straw/hay substrate below begin to freeze into a very well stratified rigid structure that defies physical coersion and if one waits too long (so I have learned) a solid and growing block of frozen chicken shit piss straw bugs etc will be so massive that it only makes sense to wait until there is a chance of thaw sometime please and thank you, Ma'am, in March.

So, fresh bedding just kept being applied and really after all, during the hard winter that substrate is going to be at or around freezing, if not colder (yeah, colder), so it was not going to be particularly stinky, etc.  But now, it really is Spring.  I knew one of these weekends coming up soon I would have to address the big thawing layer of .. It was today that I had the pleasure of cleaning out about 5 months worth of composting hay and straw laden with chicken manure, a few hefty layers of it, that had built up during the winter.  

Below is a picture of what was the worst of it.  This is the back door of the coop that is located right behind where they all roost, and therefore where most of the manure is located.  By my rough count, I moved over 1000 pounds of the stuff into new compost heaps that we prepare to be used in late Spring.  My nose tells me it should be pretty good stuff.  I think this was about 600 pounds, maybe more.

Here is the same area with fresh alfalfa hay.  Putting a layer of hay or stray underneath where they roost is a great way to catch all of their crap and its ready to go for composting.  

The manure being kinda randomly distributed and layered in the hay/straw substrate this will be a great starter mix to help fuel the composting (an art to which I claim no ownership nor expertise in) process.  And it' easy to whisk away.  The crap that is.  When it's all glommed onto a bulk of something else that is easy-whisk-awayable.  Yeah.

Things in the green house or more or less not happening.  Except compost that is.  

We used the greenhouse during the winter for kitchen compost and managed to fill in quite a large hole, like maybe a yard even.  Just stuff from each day collected that we knew the chickens wouldn't want would get collected and put in there.  I continued the compost pile, extending the hole and layering the chicken manure mash as I brought it from the coop to the greenhouse, covering it with a layer of soil and repeating again or 4 times.  It was good to see that there was a healthy worm population in the soil as I dug through the dirt.  With a little tending, the compost should be ready by late May. 

So, yes our chickens are making a lot of manure.  They are fully grown now!  Here are a few shots of them in the coop.

Bardrock sitting on an egg

Look at the variety of eggs!  Most striking among them are the pale blue/green eggs.  These we're laid by the variety of chicken known as the 'Easter Egger'.  Easter Egger chickens lay these colored eggs that range in shades of light blue and light green.  

More baby chicks and the ditch

Look at the baby chicks!  They are getting so big so quickly!  I've been trying to condition them to not be so skittish when we humans have to intervene.  We've been trying to make it a point to feed them out of our hand a few times a day.  At first when we'd put our hand in the box, they'd flip out, peeping like mad and jumping around like popcorn.  This instinct is slowly being replaced with them instead being interested in us, which you can see at the end of this short video as the woken chickens being to come closer, craning their necks to see what's up.

Just about done with the drain around the foundation.  So far, it has worked perfectly.  I still have a few tons of brick and stone cart away, though ...