inner city duplex part 5 - 8
OK here we go just about to start the demolition
post 5 - salvage of material from old house
This isn't another post complaining about that awful asbestos remediation work that seems to follow us around from project to project. The current demolition site we are prepping for has provided us with some interesting opportunities to reduce the amount of garbage headed to the landfill.
The house in question appears to have been built in 1952, however we now have reason to believe that maybe it was hauled in from another site and re-used in '52 as a house (judging by the hand dug style foundation it is sitting on this would make some sense). This would make it far older than 1952, and, since it is covered in old growth 12 inch fir planks, the lumber could be multiple times the age of the house. The house construction definitely predates the existence of sheet plywood product, fortunately the builders back then had old growth lumber that was so massive the dimensional lumber could be used instead of plywood sheeting material. This product would be extremely costly to reproduce today.
We texted a photo of the material to our contact at red barn lumber, he is interested in having a closer look to see what we can salvage. We will uncover the rest of the house and figure out what to do with all this old growth fir plank.
The second major salvage operation was the removal of the kitchen cabinetry and countertops. We assisted in the removal and loading of the material into the trailer of someone we met on kijiji. Hopefully he makes use of the cabinets, he hauled it all away for free. At least this saved us the tipping fees.
Here are some photos of our recent salvage and re-use activity.
post 6 - demolition
We have started the demolition at our 41 st project. The demolition is always a satisfying part of the job because it happens fast, and it comes after so much time and investment has been made in design and permits, engineering, remediation and logistics. Getting back into business building houses is a welcome improvement over searching for land to buy, arranging financing, and dealing with community concerns about our lengthy rezoning application that is now complete.
We are using a new contractor for the demolition, he chooses to use large roll off bins to load the crushed material into. It was amazing to see how he squeezed both the old house and the garage into two of these bins.
We have noticed many signs that the construction industry has become busier over the past month or two. Good project sites have been selling quickly for strong prices and there is a noticeable push to get a bunch of basements dug before it gets really cold. We are in a rush to get our basement poured so that we can connect the new sewer lines and get it all backfilled before the freeze.
With the demolition and excavation work progressing we can refocus on lining up the rest of the contractors that will take us to the drywall phase. As per our usual practice, we have a schedule software and input the various trades into a continuous chronology that takes us to the major midway milestone, when the building is locked up and ready for the inspections. We are also hard at work tuning budget and getting competitive pricing for the bigger parts of the job.
Next up will be surveying for the excavation and the dig itself. We will be pushing quickly into the cribbing phase and setting a start date for our framers. Our goal is to have the windows in before Christmas, and this looks very possible right now.
post 7 digging is complete
Our survey crew and excavator completed the digging project at our semi detached job site . With the excavation all done, the surveyor must return to mark out the corners and height of our footings. Unfortunately our cribbing crew is super busy at the moment and an earlier delay (from a previous excavation company that cancelled on us) resulted in the typical domino effect of one contractor being unable to complete on time, thus impacting the rest of our basement schedule.
A third contractor, who does our sewer install, is super reliable and has given a firm date. This creates a peculiar situation where we are going to have a sewer installed prior to the basement walls. As frustrating as this appears, it is just another construction aggravation we tend to encounter all too often. What we have learned, especially when it comes to utilities and underground installation is that you, as the builder, must never be the cause of delays or not be ready for the crew. If you do this, you will get pushed to the back of the line, with even worse consequences later. For deep sewer/water install, that tends to not happen in winter without serious cost, we are happy to go ahead and get it done now, rather than wait until spring.
If we were to wait until spring, the outcome could be that our contractor will have a huge list of work and our job wouldn't be done quick enough. Not having water on site is very in convenient for the finishing trades, and would prevent us from installing sidewalks and landscaping. Better to have the street dug up, the mess all contained into a smaller window, and we can backfill the walls later.
post 8 - survey footings
The survey crew was back to locate the precise building corners and the height of top of footing. This allows the foundation to not only get placed in the right spot, but also the right elevation. Without extremely close tolerances here the main floor elevation, a regulated measurement of the permit, could be off. This could result in the building being over-height, and that would be a really difficult situation to deal with.
Past mistakes on job sites have led to builders' being forced to take extreme corrective measures, like cutting off the top of roof trusses to shorten the building. The city can take a very defensive posture on approving any height overages after the framing is complete.
This makes having the footing height exactly right a fairly major task for any inner city project. We look to be in good shape right now and while we have lost further days due to scheduling conflcts, we plan to have the basement done next week.