One of the cement blocks holding up my house
I was thinking this thread wasn't going to see any action! Okay, so some more info, followed by a progress report.
The house doesn't have a foundation, this is typical of what holds up the floor joists. Aside from my project adding beams, we intend to have a foundation dug and poured around the perimeter when I'm able to get financing. Would've been last fall, but I'd recently changed jobs and my application at the credit union was declined citing the recent job change plus my credit utilization, both of which will be within guidelines this summer.
Rewiring: that is among my projects long-term, this wiring was the main panel, but I've installed a new panel elsewhere in the house and the second floor is rewired - it was worse. The first floor will get rewired as the old wiring is phased out from moving the first floor bathroom, kitchen and stairway.
Access holes: The hole shown is the most recent hole I've cut, I have 6 other access holes - 2 of which are in this room. Most of the rest of the crawlspace is 27" deep, some as deep as 36", only the last 8' of the house is 15" deep. Feeding boards into the crawlspace is done through an outside access hatch cut through the brick veneer. I already have most of my 2x10's fed into the crawlspace.
If I call the 4 beams beam 1 (northernmost) through beam 4 (southernmost) then beam 3 is built and beam 2 is ready to build, I just wanted to bet beam 1 built before beam 2 because beam 2 will obstruct one of my other crawlspace opennings, forcing me to crawl under beam 2 to get to beam 1.
Re-routing drain lines. Actually, that was one of the first thing I had to do after we moved into the house. I knew that the drain pipe under the driveway was in bad shape because before we moved in, I had to snake it because I had backflow from the standpipe for the humidifier. We've since had that replaced, but the snaking had made that last through the first winter.
The drain line I found out I had to replace AFTER we moved in was the one going to the other side of the house where the kitchen and laundry are located. That pipe had failed somewhere underground and was bubbling up around where the new-er PVC joined into the clay coming out of the ground in the middle of the house. I ran new PVC drain. I had to rerun most of it again because I needed to reroute the stack to clear beam 1 further forward.
I'm a bit slowed down this weekend by some back pain, but once I wrangled the materials into place, the second try went easy....
First try, I wanted to place a 2x10 under my low profile 20 ton jack, then a 1/4" steel plate under the triple 2x6 temp beam.. That didn't fit. So I had to dig out under the 2x10, and once I did that everything fit, and I was able to lift until I took the pressure off the wood on top of the brown cinder block. I had to break the block up with a sledge hammer, and I placed a cement block under my temp beam, but the house didn't lower that far. I'm leaving it in place just in case for now.
Next, I have to reroutethe heating duct. That'll be a project done from another access point after my back feels a little better.
__________________
Please do NOT consider any "before" picture of my house as any kind of endorsement of any particular construction method. In fact, you should probably assume that if I post a "before" picture, I am posting it because I am soliciting advice on a proper replacement for one of MANY things done wrong by a previous owner.
|
Linear Mode
