Hurricane Florence and Other Problems

Not to turn this into a personal blog about me and my issues, but this has not been a good couple of weeks.  It started out with copious problems with our foundation contractor, who we ended up letting go after numerous failures to actually get the necessary permits and start the work.  Permitting will be another topic I discuss later.  After finally working with another contractor to get started (Mike Amerson of Amerson Construction has been super helpful), we have our foundation and masonry permit in hand.  We do not, however, have an actual mason lined up through him to do the work.  Charleston's building market is still booming, and labor is at a high demand.  We are still looking, hoping to have some additional pricing soon.  

On top of that, after having an injection in my back about 4 weeks go for a herniated disc, my back gave out again last Saturday during a tennis match, so I've been out of commission for a while now.  Of course this happened the morning after I was scheduled to be fixing the water line that I cut with the excavator the night before, so I came home from that tennis match sweaty, in agony, to a house with no water.  My amazing wife put her plumbing hat on, went to the store, got the fittings, installed them, and got us back in business.  After some drugs and little recovery time,   I did manage to get the front porch completely demolished, and with the help of Linz, the kids, our good friend Simon, and my father-in-law's mini excavator (thanks to Dockmasters for the free equipment rental), the site is graded and prepped, ready for the surveyor to come stake the corners so we can get started with footings.  The rebar and steel pans for the slabs are already on site.  

The grading and porch removal revealed some unexpected issues with the foundation of the existing house; that is to say, the foundation has turned out to be non-existent.  The house, built in '61, was originally framed on top of creosote piling.  I do not think the piling were actually driven, but instead piling butts were placed in shallow holes and the framing started on top of them.  After almost 60 years in the moist sand, the pilings are completely rotted and falling apart.  During the brick removal process, one piling even completely collapsed, so a jack has been put in place temporarily.  The plan all along has been to temporarily support the house on two sides with jacks anyways to allow for the new concrete footings to be placed partially under the existing structure, which will then be re-supported on that footing.  The problems were just worse that we realized, so it's a good thing we are doing it now.  On to the next issue. 

Hurricane F*&%g Florence.  Of all the things we needed to happen with my back out, two sides of the house completely exposed (look at the photos below), the site totally stripped of grass and generally not set up to drain water away from the open crawlspace, the roof open to the elements along the old front porch line, no water, and no more use of our original front door which is now 36" off the ground, a major hurricane is not one of them.  The kids have been out of school since Monday afternoon, we were issued mandatory evacuation orders on Tuesday that all true Charlestonians have promptly ignored, and so we've been prepping, waiting, and watching the forecast to see if the shit-pile remnants of our home would be swept off into the intercoastal.   To add to our problem of already not being able to find subcontractors eager to work, a major storm would make their availability even more scarce, as insurance work would of course pay much more favorably than a self-performed addition managed by yours truly.  This is all a complete cluster, and Lindsay and I have been forced to just laugh and smile.  Not much else we can do.  It will get done somehow.

Once the site is staked by the surveyor, we will hopefully be installing and pouring the footings, followed by several weeks of the masonry guys blocking up the walls. Once the walls are up, we will pour concrete in floor of the crawlspace to cap it off and prevent moisture and pest problems in the future, as well as the garage slab.  Then the metal pans will get installed on top of the block walls, and our new slabs will be poured to complete the interior floor of the new addition, as well as the front and rear porches and deck.  If it sounds like overkill, that is because it is.  And every contractor I have had out here has let me know it's overkill.  I'm an engineer, so what does everyone expect?  The idea is that with the house 50' from what is essentially a 1.5 mile wide expanse of the intercoastal waterway, I wasn't about to cheap out on the foundation.  The elevated slab over a crawl space is something I have always wanted to do, as it gives you an absolutely rock solid floor which can then be covered with what you want (hardwoods, tile, exposed concrete, carpet, etc).  No bounciness.  Impervious to flooding.  Great place to run and hide in a tornado.  Impervious to termites.  For a modest increase in price, you get it all.  Worth every penny!

Here are some photos of our progress so far...

Removing all the rubble after the porch demo

Starting to grade the site for the new garage

Linz and the kids all helping pick the bricks out of the fill dirt

Steel pans for the slabs and the nearly completed site grading

Just about done with the grading, sad little shack is all that's left

Rotten piling under the house, with temporary jack installed.

Linz learning how to drive the tractor... not happy about being photographed

As some of you may know, one of the myriad of projects I have had in the works was a complete repaint of the 1988 Porsche 944 Turbo I bought right after college.  Well, after almost one full year of disassembly, building a paint booth in my shop, stripping, sanding, correcting dents, and finally actually shooting the paint, it is all put back together and finished!