Post date: Sep 1, 2013 4:27:24 AM
What have I been doing the past four months? Not exactly resting on my laurels, such as they might be.
Other than a two-week break for tent camping in Grand Tetons, I have been rehabilitating two old houses for the past four months.
Background
‘Rehabilitation’ is not usually a term used for buildings - more often for drunks. But these houses might well have been on a seventeen year binge, having been occupied by former hard-time convicts, themselves in a rehabilitation program.
Since many of the occupants did not have many technical skills, their care of the houses lacked a bit of finesse, to put it mildly. We had four houses, from which to chose two. One of the houses was a single modest-size room, with very tilting floors, a hazardous stair, and the water heater on the front porch. Another had a rotten floor under the bathroom. (The rot extended at least a foot into the bedrooms on either side. This was the result of badly repaired plumbing that had leaked for years.) So we chose the largest house - about 100 years old - and another, smaller house - about 60 years old.
Why all this effort? The houses are now occupied by six young volunteers who are working with the Episcopal Service Corps in Seattle in a new program called SERVE (Seattle Episcopal Residential Volunteer Experience) - of which I chose to support the ‘residential’ portion. All this is on the property of St. Luke’s church in the Ballard neighborhood of Seattle.
St. Luke’s owns a half city block in downtown Ballard, next to the new library and across from the new city park. On that property are an old church (with kitchen and dining area in the basement), a large meeting room with classrooms and office space, a duplex, two ‘portable’ classroom buildings, a parking lot, a ‘pea patch’ urban garden, and these four old houses. Plans are afoot to redevelop this entire half block in three years, so any investment in the old houses should be as light as possible, while making the buildings safe, habitable, and comfortable.
To plan the work and provide a list of work items for (at least 35) volunteers I maintained a list of priorities, with the name of the item to be worked on, what needed doing, which trade (who) was likely to do the work, when it was needed, special material or tools, and estimates of labor hours and expense. As of today this list has 180 items, most marked ‘done’. We never tracked actual hours, but the estimate was for nearly 500 hours and $8,000. We have receipts for over $13,000. I’m not much of an estimator!
Large House “Mary”
The old large house was built on posts, most of which have rotted off and been replaced - but not necessarily to create a level floor. It has ten foot ceilings, giving it a grand feeling but hard to heat. The walls are not insulated, there is only a few inches of rock wool insulation in the attic, and none of the original windows fit very well. This house was used as the community kitchen, with two electric stoves and a double utility sink for dishwashing. The kitchen floor was tiled with 24” ceramic tiles, emphasizing the uneven floor considerably.
When we first saw the house the utility room had only bare studs, an old water heater, wiring for a clothes dryer, and water for the laundry tubs (but no tubs and no drain!). We finished the utility room walls, moved the laundry tubs and a wall cabinet here, replaced the water heater, added drain, and installed used laundry equipment.
The bathroom has a 24” wide door (but a 10’ ceiling), a malfunctioning toilet, a tiled shower stall, and a vanity sink that partially blocked the entry to the shower. No heat in the bathroom, no insulation, and at least 1/4 inch gap all around the window, no handle on the door, and lights and an exhaust fan that did not work. Ben and Carl added a salvaged wall heater. We replaced and moved the vanity and toilet and got the door latch working.
In the large bedroom a squirrel had chewed a hole in the rain gutter, causing water to run inside the west wall. (Mold, mildew, rotten wood, soggy insulation - you name it)
The community kitchen had some once nice second-hand base cabinets with loose ‘quartz’ counter tops and also second-hand (but not matching) wall cabinets. The previous residents washed dishes in a double utility sink! There are oodles of electric outlets; some are seven feet up the walls! We removed the cabinets, added Internet and furniture, and made it into the community living room.
The front room has an old gas-fired wall heater. Another front room had been used as an office, with no closet and no heat. The large bedroom had a large closet, but the plaster walls were crumbling and the built-in storage had four-foot wide drawers 18” high and 24” deep. Above these drawers were cabinets all the way to the 10’ ceiling - hardly useful - and blocked by the closet rod.
The pair of newer houses have combed cedar siding - used only in the 1950’s. These two houses have foundations and are generally solid. We did not notice the rotten bath floor at first, so planned to use these two, which have identical floor plans (except for the location of the front door).
The smaller house had been used by the manager and was in somewhat better condition. But the electric floor furnace remained a mystery for months - largely because the crawl space was wet and narrow. Carl finally determined that the electrical controls had long since corroded, making it useless as a furnace. But there was an electric wall furnace and an air conditioner (nearly useless in Seattle).
Exterior
The rear of the small house once had a window to the bathroom, which had been closed in but never shingled. Also the paint along the bottom of the shingle siding had largely flaked off, especially on the south and west sides, making the house look decrepit. The front (actually side door facing the garden) door had been replaced, but the new door frame was never caulked so there was a gap to admit many spiders.
The large house had some peeling paint, but generally looked acceptable from the outside. We toyed with the idea of completely repainting both houses, and even purchased surplus dark gray paint for the purpose. But careful consideration, and some testing, led us to get one gallon of matching paint and touch up the bare spots. Looks great with much less effort.
Most of the windows were painted shut, and some had rotted badly. Only the south-facing, original 100-year-old windows in the utility and bath rooms were hopeless. We sealed them shut. All others are now operable and repainted. One window had been replaced with a sliding aluminum window, which was hard to slide. A little candle wax made it easy to operate again.
None of the doors closed without a large crack to let in the winter cold. Some of the locks needed rekeying and we added a deadbolt. Still need to add weather stripping, but the cold weather has not yet arrived so that must wait.
Electrical
Many of the three-prong outlets are wired with only two conductors, but the bathrooms had the required ground fault (GFCI) outlets. Ben replaced a number of the outlets and many outlet covers.
We found a dangerous anomaly in the larger house. When we first looked, neither the lights, exhaust fan, nor outlet in the larger bathroom worked. Then we noticed a disconnected wire in the power panel. Using a tone tracer we determined that this wire led to the bathroom. So we connected it to a spare circuit breaker.
When we went to reconnect the water heater the breaker tripped immediately. So we replaced the water heater, thinking it was shorted. Attempting to connect the new water heater (with the circuit breaker turned ‘off’) the wires still were live! Looking closely at the circuit breaker we found an extra wire tucked under the screw. Disconnecting this wire made the water heater safe to reconnect and actually heat water. I think this wire is somehow cross-connected with the bath circuit. Now we have a different disconnected wire in the power panel.
During replacement of outlets, I asked about the gas wall furnace in the large house and somehow heard that it was working. (It has a small fan that plugs into the wall outlet.) Just before the volunteers arrived I tried to light the pilot in this furnace with no success. It took a professional to replace the safety interlock. We now have gas heat in one room.
The old electric furnace in the small house contained an electric sub-panel, so we were able to insert two regular circuit breakers and wire two new outlets for electric space heaters in each bedroom.
I drew floor plans with every electric outlet, lamp, and fixture, numbering each with the circuit breaker. Now, when they have trouble - which they will - they can easily see which circuit is a fault.
Plumbing
One reason we rejected the other small house was a long-lasting plumbing leak that had rotted out the bathroom floor. In this house we discovered that the plumbing for the kitchen sink had been cut off but not capped and the plumbing for the laundry machine had no P-trap. The bathtub drain was held together (mostly) with duct tape.
(Incidentally, this house had been used for laundry. The dryer vent dumped lint and very humid air directly into the crawl space. The entire area under the house had perhaps a half-inch of lint everywhere, including the spider webs. This may have contributed to the rotten floor.)
After we decided to rehab the large house I crawled under it to examine the plumbing. We were abandoning the kitchen sink, so the water pipes had to be capped. Of course the iron pipe had rusted together, so it took more than my strength to separate the joints.
The bathroom vanity had broken, and partially blocked the entrance to the shower stall. The hot water had never been connected to the existing faucet. So we bought a new vanity, shifted its mounting away from the shower stall, and then tried to connect the drain to the existing P-trap. Fun exercise: requiring a special flexible corrugated drain pipe, stretched a bit beyond its design. The toilet was in great disrepair, but Carl donated a low-flow toilet from his house. The shower head was plugged with rust, but that was easily cleaned. No TP dispenser in this bathroom, so we added one. And the shower drain appeared to be running up hill, so I propped it up with a stick. Since no one has yet tried the shower, I’m awaiting a verdict on this one.
We moved the laundry tubs from their former use as dish washing sinks to the utility room. This required plumbing the water pipes and adding a drain pipe for the sinks and the clothes washer.
When we replace the water heater I discovered that the hot and cold pipes had been reversed, so I had to move the shut-off valve to the cold pipe. Hot and cold pipes were reversed under the sink, too, but that was easily fixed with a longer hose. Had to replace the O-ring on the faucet to keep it from dripping, and, of course, it needed an aerator. Oh, and the sink had no legs, but these were easily built from 1x4s.
One of our volunteers managed to plug up the (then) only working toilet and the toilet was not solidly mounted on the floor. This required help from a professional plumber, who checked the drain (clear) and remounted the toilet. The sink and bathtub in the small house were OK, except for a bizarre shower head, which I replaced. Of course it needed a new shower curtain and rod. Oh, and there were no pegs or towel bars in either bathroom. We mounted a (former) kitchen wall cabinet over each toilet to provide room for extra toilet paper and cleaning supplies.
Carpentry
There were few carpentry tasks. Most of the doors didn’t fit right. Locks to install (or re-install). Rebuilt the back steps and porch. Added handrail. Added a door to the attic to try to retain heat in the winter.
Not really carpentry, but the utility room needed insulation and wallboard. Also the big closet needed wallboard to cover the existing crumbling lath and plaster. We opened the doorway to another closet and added bi-fold doors. Had to install closet rods in two closets. One closet was only two-feet square, and its door collided with the entry door. Couldn’t enlarge the closet but we did remove the impeding door.
Wooded drawers all needed candle wax to make them glide much better. Had to cut shelves for some of the cabinets and install drawer pulls.
Painting
Of course everything was painted inside. Special colors on the walls and white semi-gloss on all the windows, trim, and woodwork. Outside all the windows and trim were painted white and we touched up the siding to match the original. Looks much better to the neighbors now.
Painting took a lot of time, but we had many very good volunteers, who put up with my diligent preparation instruction and insisted that they prepare before painting. Scrape, fill, sand, dust, prime, re-sand, dust, then paint. All that after removing hardware, such as door locks, staples, nails, and unused picture mounts.
I could go on, but both of us are tired of all this detail!