Back in the Saddle

We are rededicating ouselves to telling the story of how a Senior Center in rough shape was transformed into the jewel of a single family residence that it once was and then some...

Giddy-up and stay tuned!

Keeping Water Where You Want It

Water is a precious comodity as Charles Fishman (fellow Palmetto Panther) notes in his latest book, The Big Thirst. 

In regard to construction though, water is an adversary to be respected and redirected.  The first defense is crafting the site with a French drain around the building and channeling the water away as much as possible.  Although it sounds foreign, we have Henry French from Massachusetts to thank for making French drains "main stream"...

Wikipedia outlines French drains below:

A French drain,[1] blind drain,[1] rubble drain,[1] rock drain,[1] drain tile, perimeter drain, land drain or French ditch is a trench covered with gravel or rock that redirects surface and groundwater away from an area. A French drain can have perforated hollow pipes along the bottom (see images) to quickly vent water that seeps down through the upper gravel or rock. French drains are common drainage systems, primarily used to prevent ground and surface water from penetrating or damaging building foundations. Alternatively, the French drain technique may be used to distribute water, such as a septic drain field at the outlet of a typical septic tank sewage treatment system. French drains are also used behind retaining walls to relieve ground water pressure. The earliest forms of French drains were simple ditches, pitched from a high area to a lower one and filled with gravel. These were described and popularised by Henry French (1813-1885) a lawyer and Assistant US Treasury Secretary from Concord, Massachusetts[2] in his book Farm drainage.[3]

French drains are often installed around a home foundation in two different ways:

Buried around the foundation wall on the external side of the foundation
Installed underneath the basement floor on the inside perimeter of the basement
In most homes, an external French drain or drain tile is installed around the foundation walls before the foundation soil is backfilled. It's laid on the bottom of the excavated area, and a layer of stone is laid on top. In many cases, a filter fabric is then laid on top of the stone to keep fine sediments and particles from entering. Once the drain is installed, the area is backfilled and the system is left alone unless it clogs.

While an external French drain can operate for ten years or more without the need for maintenance, it's prone to clogging without any warning and can eventually lead to a flooded basement. When there is no filter fiber, sediments can make their way through the stone as years pass and clog the drain, and when the filter fabric is present, that can instead clog with sediments. It may be wise to provide cleanouts, much as is done with sanitary sewers, to provide access for inspection with a camera snake. Also, a French drain that is not installed with a sump pump counts on gravity alone to drain foundation water, and if the house is not located on a hill or near a steep incline, finding this slope can be problematic. Additionally, maintenance on an external French drain involves expensive exterior excavation, which includes removal of walkways, shrubberies, porches, gardens, and anything else along the perimeter. Installing a French drain around the inside perimeter is most commonly done after the house has been built. Most commonly, this is done in response to a wet basement or right before performing a basement finishing. To install this kind of drain, the perimeter of the basement floor is jackhammered down to the footing and the cement is removed. A layer of stone is laid down, and the a perforated drain pipe is laid on top of it. Water is collected from the basement wall floor joint as it enters, and a sump pump is installed to pump the water out of the house and away from the foundation.

The system is easy to maintain once installed, and the sump pump will need annual maintenance to perform properly. An interior French drain is much less likely to clog than an exterior, partially due to the fact that it is not sitting underneath several feet of soil.

Interior French drain installation is an effective way to waterproof a basement but requires the use of a sump pump.

We actually  like to install a back-up emergency sump pump with an alarm, just to be sure.

In this Monumental Renovation, we are building both internal and external French drains and two sump pumps.

Working in and around the excavating for new plumbing and gas lines and the geothermal well drilling rig, let the French drain digging commence!

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and the crane used to take out the steel firescape....

This is actually inside the basement!

Is There a Doctor in the House?

We are dealing with a growth that needs to be removed.

Renovation is similiar to conducting medical surgery in many respects...The patient is the part of the house that will remain.  The patient must be stabilized and the invasive procedures that are made are as limited and safe as possible.  The objectionable growth is isolated and the removal begins.

Before the demolition as much as feasible was donated to people who could use the items individually and Habitat for Humanity.  (They have a great new director BTW.)   Demolition starts inside and proceeds with the removal of the masonry.

A clean slate-

with the patient resting comfortably. 

We aren't out of the woods by any means but the patient has great bones and the prognosis is excellent.

Shifting into Sustainability

           

Basements have potential but most are just plain bad.




They are inherently dark, damp and musty with low ceilings to boot.  All of these ingredients can facilitate mold growth and there are all sorts of issues with that too.  The humidity in this basement was palpable.  It was cold and clammy in the winter and oppresively muggy in the summer. It also had asbestos, underground oil tanks, above-ground oil tanks and an incredibly antiquated boiler.  Notice the cat litter on the floor put there to soak up leaking oil...Nice!

Before construction began, the thermostats were set at 50 degrees fahrenheit.  The two above-ground oil tanks were filled which summed to nearly 600 gallons.  It was assumed this fuel "injection" would last the entire winter especially at that low temperature. 

 It lasted less than 30 days! 

The utility bills for this place were in the thousands every month and even then it wasn't particularly healthy or comfortable. 

The effort to be sustainable starts here...

This however was cutting edge basement technology in 1914. 

It is a....wait for it...central vacuum system! 

It was manufactured by the American Radiator Company and was mentioned in the original plans and specifications.  We are going to keep it as a motivating icon as we transform this space into a 2014 cutting edge technological showpiece!  Sweet juxtaposition in the mechanical room!

-Kind of like cars-

A 1914 Electric Car from the American Automobiles.com website

BMW Electric Hybrid Concept Car to be introduced in 2014

Dovetail Construction Company will introduce the Residential Mechanical Room of the Future that honors the past.  Let the quest for sustainability start here....

 

Vroom Vroom!

Front Porch Tesselations

We have worked on framing the porch and here is the ceiling looking up from the first floor tile porch.

Ron and Paul are working out the electrical needs of the porch.  Gotta keep those holiday lights in mind!

Bruce is working above the ceiling on the new balcony floor.  Ice and water shields protect the new roof sheathing in preparation for the copper and roof tile installations.

Ed is working on the amazing built-in gutters.  It is a travesty no one will see them from the first floor...

While Ed is making a copper delivery he asked would we like "tesselations in the copper where you can see them ? " Like tesselations?"  I exclaimed, "Do we ever!"

From Wikipedia: Tessellation is the process of creating a two-dimensional plane using the repetition of a geometric shape with no overlaps and no gaps. Generalizations to higher dimensions are also possible. Tessellations frequently appeared in the art ofM. C. Escher, who was inspired by studying the Moorish use of symmetry in the Alhambra tiles during a visit in 1922. Tessellations are seen throughout art history, from ancient architecture to modern art. In Latin, tessella is a small cubical piece of clay, stone or glass used to make mosaics.^[1] The word "tessella" means "small square" (from "tessera", square, which in its turn is from the Greek word for "four"). It corresponds with the everyday term tiling which refers to applications of tessellations, often made of glazed clay.

There aren't many roofers that know nuances like tesselations but Ed is no ordinary roofer and we are no ordinary general contractor.  As we are big Escher and Alhambra fans, we are also big tesselation fans and so together we embark on Ed's signature balcony....

"Let's do diamonds Ed! echoing the Schwarzchild overmantels and coffered ceilings!"

                                                                    Buenisimo!!!!!!

OohLaLa with the Exterior Paint Colors!

This is what we are starting with- The windows are coming out and they will be completely rebuilt or remade entirely with the same profile if they are too far gone. (The window construction will be a separate post.)  Once the lead paint is responsibly removed, you can see the beautiful quality heart pine.  The first step to painting is a terrific primer.

Here's Martie...

Then paint color experimentation starts.  We need to stay with the Duron Paint Preservation Palette as to color but we can use whatever type of paints we want as long as they are tinted the Duron colors.  Look closely, there are a number of potential colors on the new balcony fascade.

The color below was too golden and even though the brick hadn't been cleaned yet, it was apparent the hue wasn't "just right"...

This color was making us think of Grey Poupon and not in a good way...

This was "just right".  We decided to go two-tone with colors that coordinate with the brick, the roof and the stone and we have the lighter color as an accent and underneath the soffits to bring as much light in as possible.  Wait until you see how it looks with the selection of tile that we have coming too! Magnifique!

The sashes are black, a construction finish eye-liner of sorts, making the windows pop!  They will really look great with cream draperies behind them.

Ooh LaLa!