Bulky Ducts

The fact of an old house that uses forced air to heat it is that you need large metal ducts to move that hot air along to various points where it is released for human consumption and comfort, and even larger ducts to allow for cold air to flow and be part of the equation for beneficial air circulation. The other fact of an old house with a basement of limited height is that those ducts must at some point run across and thus below the joists, thus impeding one's vertical movement within space.
Earlier in the week, the furnace was placed its new home and we were asked about where we wanted the new basement heating vents, but we were not really advised as to what that would mean with relation to size and location of ducts and the resultant bulkheads when the ducts get covered in gyproc and painted to become the final definition of the rooms' dimensions.

On Friday, with now ducts in place and framers starting to encase them, we suddenly realized that we now had ducts and bulkheards up the yin yang, as the old saying goes. We imagined our 6'+ tall friends cracking their heads on them as they moved around to get the snacks and top up the wine we put out for them in future imaginary entertainment scenarios, and then getting blood over our nice clean walls and bulkheads, and then maybe suing us for lost wages and stress. This is not good we told ourselves. This is not good we told the framer and the contractor.

Work was halted and omnipotent EJ was consulted via email, sitting in his lofty den in faraway DC. He must be omnipotent because not only is he extraordinarily capable, and able to envision the most obscure idea put to him but he responded as immediately as only a supreme being could possibly respond. He concurred with our concerns and outlined a plan. Measurements were required. Questions were asked. Research was necessary. Our weekend plans were expanded to fulfill whatever was necessary.

After umpteen phone calls, emails and quiet moments of judicious thinking, 3 options emerged.

Early this morning we put these to the contractor and to our joy it looked like the very first question (do we really need so many cold air returns that we can't loose that huge metal box that is hanging down from of our new workspace ceiling?) resulted in striking off option C. Hurrah! Less cabinetry to design, build and pay for. Option B was gone with a swipe of pen once the study's (and upstair's kitchen's) heat requirements were confirmed. Let the trumpets blair as flow returns to the west wall!

Option A rules! This means that the bulkheard running north to south along the west study wall (necessitating shifting all the windows down a smidge and having to change our path a bit to the inside through the passageway into the workspace) is gone. We can keep one hot air vent in the study and replace the other one with 2 small electric baseboards on either side of the French doors. We can move the kitchen vent from the original place near the back door to the base of the cabinety near the dishwasher or refrigerator. The large duct that runs inside the top part of the storage cupboard under the stairs might become as little less huge.

We will still have to move the wall on the back end of the furnace which shrinks the laundry area, and shift the large laundry room window down a bit to accomodate a large bulkhead, and will sadly have to lose the smal laundry window for the same reason, but the impact on our lives is considerably less dire on the east, utility side of the house.

Of course it means having to pay to have the old work taken out and redone (including moving the gas line running up to the upstairs kitchen stovetop back to its original course) before the framers can resume their work, a loss of a few days, maybe even a week in the schedule. But we take a breath, close our eyes and think of it as a small price to pay for a future of obstacle free entertaining and living!

now you see it - now you don't

Good thing we aren't sleepwalkers because we have now lost our back porch and back stairs and it's a long way down.

While waiting to the new porch and stairs to be built, we've spent some time figuring out whether to pour concrete under the stairs or gravel instead. The plan is to replace all our back garden paths with something better at some future time, as we can't afford to do it this year, so we are having to think about the best option for the base of the stairs as it will join those future unknown paths. We also have to think about how we will use the space under the stairs which is potentially precious storage for such things as firewood and large plant pots that are empty during the winter.

A friend whipped together 2 little visuals to help us decide - it's the sort of thing that took him 5 minutes and would take me 3 and a half days! It made our stairs look disgusting but it did help.

Any guesses which one we chose?

Supporting ourselves

On one of our early evening visits downstairs we noticed a vital piece of the house was missing - one of the two supporting beams!

Upon closer inspection, we saw that a cunning contraption of two-by-fours had been set up to replicate temporary walls to hold up our house for the several days it took to amass enough man power to hoist the new beamwhich adds much needed height to the space. that we will be walking under daily. No dancing parties those days!

And where the old posts were are now great holes in the concrete.

But never fear, those 80 years old solid wood beam and posts will be reborn as new posts, albeit decorative ones on the edges of the new walls.

The concept of support in general is high on our minds this week, as we sit reading the newspaper or eating breakfast in the kitchen nook while under us we feel the thud and shudder of wood being pounded into place to support the new part of the room below. A thick beam now runs across the space, although you can still clearly see the difference between the ceiling under the kitchen nook and the ceiling under the back porch.

This new part used to be outside the house, under the back stairs. Tearing out the external wall revealed heavily rotted supports to our porch, so this is a timely project in more ways than cashing in on government incentives and avoiding future HST costs and - oh yeah - renovating a space long in need of it.

Just think - I could have walked out the back door some beautiful summer day to hang out my newly washed smalls on the laundry line only to plunge to certain leg fracture as the porch gave way under my healthy yet svelte body. Yikes, disaster averted!

hieroglyphics

At 6:30am or so we hear a key turn in the basement door lock and the first footsteps quietly entering the cavern we call home below stairs. By 7am boards placed up for overnight security are being ripped down and by 7:30am, the screech of the saw, the bawl of the drill and the crack of the hammer introduce today's symphony. We move around and work at our desks upstairs feeling the floor move below us with each hammer wham and see the dust come up through the vents and floorbooards in little puffs.

There are moments of calm - deliberations or lunch - and then it starts up again. Our voices level up a notch and then down again as needed to be heard above the cacophony. And then suddenly everthing is still. Involuntarily we look at the clock and it's 4pm. Suddenly - poof - they are gone. All is still, the only sound heard is the dust settling on surfaces for the night.

We take our door key and go down to see the progress of the day, eyes blinking in the gloom as we roam around, looking up at beams and along at joists and down at bases and pipe fittings. The most intriguing thing we've noticed however is the appearance of mysterious hieroglyphics on bits of wall, like some message left for the afterlife of our house. We pass our hands over the indents made from HB2 pencil pressed into soft fir and try to make sense of them. Some look mathematical, some geographical and some artistic. What can they mean?

it's pouring inside

But it's pouring cement, not rain. This morning we had a churning, turning cement truck roll up onto our boulevard at 7am, and the 6'5" blond cherubs wheeled barrows of the stuff to the new foundations under the front porch (for future lawn tool storage) and back porch (for future office extension).

Thankfully Monday's rainstorm did not return as feared so that all the bailing out stayed bailed and the tarp covering was unneeded.

bringing the outside in

One of largest physical changes to our new basement space will be the addition of several feet gained by extending under the back porch, which is currently a grubby set of shelves covered over with white lattice. Sounds like a simple enough procedure and it is, in essence. But in reality it means that the stucco gets ripped off the south side of the house, an 80 year old wall is bashed out and the foundation is carved and sliced, with huge chunks of old cement manhandled out to the waiting bins.

A new foundation will need to be poured and a step put in to facilitate the difference in ground level, and the stairs and porch will have to be rebuilt, as the porch floor is now also considered a roof to the new inside addition.

moment of zen

Eric's new found talent for rock balancing resulted in a selection of artistic efforts appreciated by us in the middle of renovation stress, and by the neighbourhood as we hear passersby exclaim "How did they do that?" and "That wasn't there yesterday!".

Now that Eric has returned home, the stones' delicate balance remains at the whim of wind and man as we do not possess the skill or patience to rebuild anything that falls. At least we have the photos - so when things get crazy, as we know they will, we can gaze at them, breathe deeply and try to go back to 'our happy place'

a plumbers tale

The removal of the walls revealed the original cast iron plumbing stack perched about a foot above our foundation. A few days without water and a lot of screeching and pounding from cutting up the cement flooring has lead to a new PVC line sunk down under what will become a new foundation. There was a bit of discussion when we realized the new line would cross across the top of an existing window, but the boys have worked it out with twists and hoists and ties and the promise that we will have light after all when it's done.

A trench had to be built out in the front garden to the point where the line takes a dive down to join the city's line, which could have been up to only 5 feet from our fence and so required the moving of several plants that had grown inconsiderately in the way due to the fact that we planted them there. Let's see, now when would be the worst time to move plants? I would guess in the height of summer and during a record-breaking heat wave. Well, we were in luck! Vancouver was experiencing back to back days of 34C heat, putting all our plants in stress. Perfect for adding a little frisson to the situation.

I put the sprinkler on them for a couple of hours, and waited until dusk to start digging. Thank goodness we had a strong, kind, energetic and handsome (ok the fact he is handsome wasn't necessary to the job but it made it more pleasant for me!) houseguest staying who joined me out there wrestling with ferns and hostas, rhodos and azaleas as the light faded and we stumbled over holes and shovels and hoses and feet. The dampness helped the plants but it sure made everything heavier and harder going. Eric and I returned indoors looking like we'd had a mudfight (honest, we hadn't) and took turns stripping off for showers and dumping mud-soaked clothes and shoes into the bathtub.

I had left two larger trees that I hoped would not have to be moved and joy of joys, found the next day that the sewer line dove only a few feet from the house. Of course that meant that some of the plants that had been moved hadn't had to be, but they might have gotten trampled a bit anyway so at least they are tucked away and hopefully will survive long enough to get moved back in kinder temperatures.