Post-lift pre-dig

Summerford:

And so it came to pass.

On the first day, the house was lifted. That would be Monday, June 9, for anyone who hasn't been paying attention.

We got up early. John around 7. Me around 7:30. I was coherent by 7:45, sort of. Didn't really matter. What mattered was that I could heft and carry, shove and pull. Choked down some cold cereal with an apple on top. Had to get some carbs because it would be a long day.

We had a few things to do before the lifters arrived.
1. We had to take the top off the living room chimney. (Yes, I know I said in the previous entry that we were going to postpone any action on the LR chimney until later, but the lift man said that the top had to come off now to prevent damage to the roof during the lift. John also had had to separate this chimney from the floors during the previous day or two. I forgot to mention this. He had the pleasure of working in the attic where there hasn't been any fresh air in 100 years and where it is still the temperature of the earth when it emerged from the primordial ooze.
He could not proceed with this work though until the furnace man gave him the go ahead in case he (the furnace man who was due to arrive at 8a.m.) needed to run the furnace before dismantling it.)

2. The furnace had to be dismantled - or at least some of the ducts had to be removed because they would be in the way of the lifters. The furnace man would do all this, freeing up John's time, and also bearing the responsibility for any problems occurring with the furnace when we hooked it back up again. That part is worth whatever we paid him, which was very reasonable.

3. The sewage pipe had to be severed because it is not of the stretchy variety. and would not survive the lift - or the septic tank might be lifted from its resting place.

4. The water inlet pipe had to be severed so it would not get damaged.

As for me, I was tasked with getting us packed up and ready to leave. Clothing. Food. Stuff in general that we couldn't live without. You'd be amazed what's in that list.

By the time John got the chimney taken down to below the roofline, the furnace man was pretty well done with the furnace. John, bless his heart, left the sewage pipe until the very last minute. It's not wise to have a middle-age woman in a house without a functioning toilet for any more than 20 minutes.

The lifters arrived pretty much on schedule. Robert Coates from Glenwood and his crew of four men, two of whom were his sons.

Within the hour, they had cribs (crisscrossed square posts; see top left pic below) started under the house which would support the rails they were inserting from front to back of the house, as well as a place for the jacks which would raise the house, inch by inch.

Within a few minutes of starting to jack it up, the boss realized there was a problem. The floor in the living room was not lifting. Turned out that the living room chimney had been mortared to the sill plate. There was no choice. The chimney had to come down. So the strong fellows bunged a hole in the base of the thing (see top right pic below). John went up to the attic and started bunging the bricks down through and they took them out at the bottom. It was down in less than an hour. And the lift could continue.

By 3pm, with lunch and two coffee breaks, the house was up as far as it needed to go. It is 38" higher in the back than it was before we started. They took a while to get it all level, tweaking this jack or that one to get it just right.

And so it was done. As predicted, my stress level came down as the house went up, although I confess I spent most of the day at a friend's drinking tea and worrying.

We were informed that we were responsible for finding a digger to dig the trenches for the foundation footings. Huh? So why weren't we told this beforehand. We could have had someone lined up to come the very next day. No that would be doing things the easy way. Let's do it the Newfoundland way.

Luckily we had hired a fellow from Lewisporte last year to dig the hole for our septic tank. So we put in a call to him, telling him to call the lifter and arrange a date. We would have see how long this wait might be.

Banging down the LR chimney

In all her glory