Tarps for a Roof

The roof is off and the house has been tarped since Tuesday. Ohm's mom took Ohm over to watch some of the roof demolition on Tuesday morning. He was squealing with delight. Men were throwing large pieces of roof down into a truck, and they were also climbing up and down a ladder. What could be more fun! Ohm's mom is kicking herself because she forgot to take the camera to the festivities.

The tarp has done a fairly good job of keeping the rain out. Here are a couple pictures from inside.






















Ohm's mom took Ohm over to the house later in the week for a quick look around. He recognized the various rooms, and was very interested in the changes. When he saw the kitchen with tarp for a roof and plastic covering the cupboards he asked "What's the kitchen doing?"

There has been quite a bit of rain since the house had the tarp added. The foundation guy had to add a sump pump to the spot dug for the bay window foundation.
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.

Almost All Gone

The demolition guys came today and did most of their job. If the spray paint on Friday was troubling, the house condition today was scary. The house looks completely different.

The roof comes off Tuesday, and the tarp will go on then.

Ohm's Parents were over there Monday night stapling up plastic in places the siding was removed. It went up faster than expected.

Below is a picture of the front with the plastic sheeting added to the front entryway. We hope it is sufficient deterrent to keep the neighborhood cats, squirrels, raccoons and other animals out. We locked the front door when we left to act as a deterrent for other unscrupulous visitors we may get.



Here is a picture from our neighbor's house, looking into our family room. You can see that the ceilings from the affected areas were removed as well.


Lets hope the visitors don't make it to this side of the house.

We will be going back tomorrow night to see how well the plastic survived the roof removal.

Marked

The house is ready for demolition. By Friday we had all the floor coverings down, and met with the demolition guy and the framer. The framer marked areas of the house on the walls and exterior where he wanted the drywall and siding removed.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.

We have to admit, it was a little bit disturbing to see spray paint on the interior and exterior walls that we painted ourselves a few years ago.

Popcorn Disposal

On New Years Eve, we took our asbestos laden load to the only place that accepts it in the immediate area, at the Rabanco Disposal sight, downtown, just south Safeco Field. Because of the pending holiday, traffic was light. Ohm's Dad went to the dump alone while Ohm's Mom and Ohm went to the Babysitter. Ohm's dad pulled onto the scale at the gate in the '95 civic with three large heavy bags of popcorn ceiling. It should be noted that the popcorn was double bagged in 6 mil thick bags that were 50 inches wide and 60 inches tall.

After sitting at the scale for a couple minutes, Ohm's Dad got out of the civic and stuck his head in the 5' window at the scale. After expressing her surprise that a car snuck on the scale without her noticing, the attendant directed Ohm's Dad to a "Blue Dumpster" along the yellow wall. Ohm's Dad pulled up to the "Blue Dumpster" and discovered the dumpster was about 9 feet tall. He tried to push the bags into the dumpster a couple of times, but just couldn't get it to fall in the dumpster. So he pulled the civic up to the dumpster and climbed up on the hatchback tailgate to push the bag in. That is when he discovered that the top of the dumpster was sealed. After inspecting the "Blue Dumpster" a door was discovered in the end of the container, where the 3 large bags were easily deposited.

Popcorn

After Christmas, we started the first bit of house modification to our home. Because the house was built in 1970, we suspected that the popcorn ceilings contained asbestos. Our suspicions were confirmed when we sent a sample to the lab for testing. Due to state laws, the two options we had were to either hire a certified asbestos abatement contractor or do it ourselves. The procedure for removing the ceiling may be found here. We performed all the prep work and started removing the popcorn ceilings from the Family Room on Wednesday. We finished removing the popcorn in the Living Room, Dining Room, and Hall on Thursday, December 27. While these are the only areas where the ceilings must be removed, we plan on taking the popcorn ceilings out of the bedrooms this coming week.

Moving Out

The Family left our house on Saturday Night, December 15. With the great help of Bill, Sasha, Marcos and Auntie, we loaded up the moving truck with all our furniture and made the mile long trip from "Home" to "The Rental".

The rental is a little larger than our home. It is also 20 years older, has a leaky roof, and there is no door between the garage and the house. While it is OK, we can't wait to move back into our home.

Water, Water, Everywhere

4 AM Monday morning, we woke up to the sound of the water alarm going off under our house. 3 years ago we installed a system called "Clean Space" in our crawl space to get rid of the standing water we had down there about six to eight months out of the year.

We had installed a drainage system and gravity drain in our crawl space. The entire crawl space was then sealed off with thick plastic to prevent any moisture left in the ground from entering the air in the crawl space. Any water that did enter the crawl space was quickly drained off preventing any significant accumulation under the plastic layer and no water above the plastic barrier. The system had worked very well since it was installed, and kept our crawl space dry through several severe storms. We had become so confident in it that we used part of it for storage.

Then early Monday morning, during our heavy rain, water flowed in so quickly that the gravity drain could not keep up. The water flooded the crawl space and soaked everything down there. After spending the next couple hours pulling everything out of the 18" of standing water under our house, it was time for OHM's Dad to go to work. OHM was quite surprised to see the river of water flowing through the yard before going to the babysitter. OHM's Mom decided to stay home on Monday to sort through the now soaked pictures, letters, keepsakes, and off season clothing.

Throughout the day, the water flow around the house got worse and worse. There was a stream flowing through our driveway with the water run off from our neighbors, and our neighbor's neighbors, and their neighbors. This flowed into the little steam that goes around the front and side of our house.

The picture above shows the water draining from our back and side yard into the stream. I circled the gravity drain working away trying to empty the crawl space. The water level peaked around 11 AM, and most of the water had drained out from under the house by 5 PM. Something tells me a new sump pump will be installed before we are finished with our home renovation.