During last week's cold snap, we experienced our first frozen hose. After shutting the house water off a few weeks ago, we opened a few faucets to allow water to expand when frozen. Unfortunately, we forgot that we had previously turned off the washing machine water supply. When the water inside the washing machine hose froze, it was not able to expand freely, and broke the hose at the wall.
The floor joists are now in place and most of the plywood is down for the flooring. Since the old trusses are all gone, the tarps are lying directly on the flat plywood. Because of this, the water does not flow off of the tarps as well as it used to. The rain started yesterday afternoon, and when we went to look over the house last night we saw all of the drips. We spent quite a bit of time looking for enough containers to cover all of the drips. Here is a picture of our dining room.
Our family room also had some leaks. The rough framing for the stairs is done. Now we can get a better idea of what the room will look like with the stairs.
Besides rearranging the buckets this morning we decided that we needed to clean up the yard and house a bit. We had all of the old trusses, scrap lumber, and old heating ducts in our yard and driveway. And the house had scraps and sawdust everywhere.
By the end of the day today, we had piled most of the trash on our RV parking, ready to be hauled off to the dump later this week. Ohm's mom is somewhat amazed and amused about her changing perspective on the state of the house. After cleaning up the sawdust and debris from inside, she said "wow, that looks great." Then she realized that she was saying that with walls torn up everywhere, floors covered with plastic and hardboard, no ceilings, and with water dripping in a cold, dark house, all of which had her a bit traumatized when they first happened.
We're not sure if we'll be able to move tomorrow. We're both sore already. It was quite a workout.
When Ohm's dad stopped by after work (without the camera), a third wall was up over the front of the garage, and the framer was putting up the tarps for the evening. We hope the weather holds out so that the framing can be finished enough for the trusses to be delivered on Friday as scheduled.
Besides rearranging the buckets this morning we decided that we needed to clean up the yard and house a bit. We had all of the old trusses, scrap lumber, and old heating ducts in our yard and driveway. And the house had scraps and sawdust everywhere.
By the end of the day today, we had piled most of the trash on our RV parking, ready to be hauled off to the dump later this week. Ohm's mom is somewhat amazed and amused about her changing perspective on the state of the house. After cleaning up the sawdust and debris from inside, she said "wow, that looks great." Then she realized that she was saying that with walls torn up everywhere, floors covered with plastic and hardboard, no ceilings, and with water dripping in a cold, dark house, all of which had her a bit traumatized when they first happened.
We're not sure if we'll be able to move tomorrow. We're both sore already. It was quite a workout.
The tarps have been doing a decent job of keeping the water out of the house. Every once in awhile we have to go knock water off of the tarps. Last Sunday morning Ohm's mom went to the house to take the old ratty insulation off of the heating ducts in the crawl space. Code requires that we reseal the existing ducts with mastic compound and that they be insulated. When she arrived at the house she found a spot in the dining room where the tarp had filled up with water. When she pushed on the bubble to get the water out, she discovered that the tarp was no longer extending outside the house. Instead the water rushed down the inside edge of the wall and into the dining room.
There was also water down in the crawl space, so Ohm's mom repeated Ohm's dad's exercise from a month ago of moving all the water down into one big puddle. Later that day Ohm's mom and dad brought out the shop vac and vacuumed out the rest of the puddles of water.
On Wednesday, the 23rd, major external changes started to occur. The remainder of the old trusses started to come out, along with the wall around the front window. (Good thing we locked the front door!) The new floor joists are going in and the old trusses are now in the way. Luckily we have been rain free the past couple days. The next possible forecast of rain is on Saturday. We hope all the tarping still works without the trusses facilitating water flow. The framer has started to comment on the poor framing job performed by the original builder.
The current plan is to have the house framed in by February 5th or 6th. The plumber is scheduled to come on the 6th. The roofer will come sometime shortly after that. We hope that the major wind and rain storms stay away until after the house is weathered in.
There were a couple spots on the roof and tarp which needed patching before the next big storm. Nails poking through the roof that were added to tie the tarp down were causing some leaks into the house. Ohm's Mom got up on the roof with caulk and sealed off those spots. The sharp bricks on the chimney wore a hole through the tarp. Ohm's dad is shown below adding black duct tape to the tarp to repair the hole and putting a couple of old pairs of jeans on the chimney to reduce the chafing.
We hope to have the foundation form inspection on Tuesday the 15th or Wednesday the 16th.
The picture above shows where the bay window will be added.
This picture shows where drywall needs to be removed to add a structural beam.