The Before and The After

Newfoundland:

All the talk about what we did on the house this summer warrants a few pictures. If you've ever clapboarded a house, you will appreciate the amount of work it took to get from the Before to the After pictures.

Before: Northwest side

After: Northwest side

Before: East Corner view

After: Northeast side

How it was done:

Step 1 - They removed the old clapboard and replaced any rotted sheathing boards, and there were some.
Step 2 - Old windows were removed and replaced by new. (In some case, this step had to wait because the new windows hadn't arrived)
Step 3 - A house wrap of breathable foam insulation was nailed on, and the seams taped with Tucktape (I have a real loathing for this stuff!).
Step 4 - John ripped 2x4's into 3/8" strips to make strapping which would support the clapboard. We borrowed a neighbour's table saw for this which helped some, but still a time-consuming job. On the 2nd side of the house, John gave in and purchased strapping in order to eliminate this step.
Step 5 - The strapping was nailed vertically over the house wrap 16" on centre.
Step 6 - At the base of the wall, a narrow (15") and continuous length of metal screening was placed in back of the strapping and then folded under and over the front of the strapping and stapled in place. The bottom of the strapping was then secured. This screening will keep buggies out except for those who are small enough to squeeze through the wee spaces.
Step 7 - Window facing boards (not sure if this the right word), sills and drip caps are installed. They had all been made beforehand. Big job in itself. In most cases we had also pre-painted them.
Step 8 - Clapboard went on. One board at a time. I try to keep up with supplying the stained boards while two men (John and Terry, a fellow we hired for the summer) nailed them on. (See previous entry for my clapboard factory!) I put two coats of stain on the front of each board, and one on the back. Wore out many rollers, but beats using a paint brush.

Terry and John look down, way down

After: East corner view

 

And so next summer, 2011, we will complete the clapboard on the southeast and southwest sides. I will have to get out my wrist support because my right wrist took a beating this summer. One step away from carpal tunnel syndrome, I'd say.

Hope Terry will be available for work again, because sure as shooting, I won't be getting up on that scaffolding any time soon.

Filling in the blanks

Hillgrade:

I should have made a post between the last one and the one before to show just what we did to get ready for The Lift.

The biggest job was the chimney in the kitchen. It used to be hooked to the wood range but it had to come down since it was leaning dangerously and would have prevented the house from lifting.

It didn't take us long, John and I, to make short work of it last week. John started on the roof and really only had to push it with his little finger to make it come tumbling down. He got it down to below the roof line and then patched the roof with some pink bubble wrap that we had tied around the stuff in our trailer last year when we came down.

Then we got to work on the portion that ran through the Chimney Room (hence the name of the room)[see leftmost picture]. John had a 4-pound sledge hammer (I grew up calling them mauls) for knocking the bricks. The bricks didn't take much coaxing to come loose. We opened the window in the room and threw the bricks out into the backyard.

Pretty soon we could see down into the kitchen, so we cleaned up the Chimney Room and took ourselves downstairs. We had a cup of tea and a little snack before continuing.

It pretty soon became clear that we would need masks for the remainder of the work. The chimney, just below where the stove pipe joined it, was pretty much FULL. Of what we were/are not sure. It was like gravel, but damp and dark [see below]. Probably a mixture of creosote, soot, dust and precipitation that fell through the chimney over the years. It stank. Acrid is a mild word for it.

We needed a tiny shovel to get this stuff out of the chimney before taking the bricks away. John remembered finding a wee shovel in the shed but it was falling apart. However, with a strategically positioned nail, bent at just the right angle, we managed to get a workable shovel.

We were unable to open the window near the kitchen chimney without totally destroying it. So the bricks had to be walked out the door to the yard, two by two.

When we were finished, we were left with a concrete chimney block [at left]. This top of this block would originally have been at floor level, or perhaps just above. Proof of just how badly this house needs to be leveled.

The living room chimney services the furnace. It was originally the chimney for the parlour wood stove. In fact, the furnace pipe comes up through the floor and enters the chimney in the same spot that the stove used [see right]. This whole thing had been boxed in to hide it all, with shelves built around in an attempt to make it somewhat useful. But it took up a lot of space in the Living Room (parlor?) and I was all for getting rid of it.

Except. The chimney was rather nice seen from outside. Gave the house character. Completed the roof line. But not practical inside. What to do? What to do?

We debated long and hard about it. John did a lot of online research to see if our furnace could work with one of those metal chimneys attached to the outside of the house.

It seems that it would, but we decided to postpone this decision until later. Maybe next year. (Update 2023: Little did we know.)

And so. With the kitchen chimney down, we were truly ready for the lift. Bring it on.