Third Post Part Two: The Post

Hey everybody! Ryan wrote this blog post after he installed the final post almost entirely by himself. I'm suffering from a case of paddler's (tennis) elbow and typing, hammering, lifting, etc. all kinda suck for me right now. So without further ado, Ryan's Post:

Our house is no longer sitting on bottle jacks!  Managed to get this done in less than two hours, so we're definitely getting better at it.

That tofu block is just sitting on top of our new slab.
If the house continues to shift we can jack up the post,
slide the block back underneath, and drop it back down.
It's a feature.

Concrete looks a little chunky, shut up.
Even at 10% of its rated strength it could
support the weight of our entire house.

That joist on the right is mostly sound
under the termite scabs, I swear.

In the process of jacking up the house we lifted the roof a bit, which lifted up the posts in the laundry area that were supposed to be supporting the eaves.  We stuck some shims underneath, but the bottoms of these posts are pretty rotten.  Maybe we can amputate the gangrenous bits and slide some blocks underneath. Definitely our next carpentry project. Stay tuned!

But what about the yard?

Filler post!

Here's an update on the things growing around our tumble-down house.

The tomatoes are quite happy. Growing bigger everyday.

The only sunny day so far this year. I did four loads of laundry.

Our first bananas. The second bunch is almost ready. Once
paddling season is over, I'm going to have to bake about a
dozen loaves of banana bread.

Butters is learning to climb. She's a late bloomer, but quite proud of her new skills.

From top to bottom. Agave keiki, 8 pots of mystery
citrus seedlings, and peppermint. The citrus are the
tiny, tiny beginnings of a hedge and the mint the
start of a tiny, tiny herb garden. The agave keiki is
getting bigger everyday and will soon
be a large, spiny accent for my front yard. 

Third Post, Part One: The Concrete

This is the final post we have to replace under our back wall (for now). It's a little more complicated than the others. Which is why we jacked the beam level and then left it be for a week. We were making plans, no good can come of this. We'll also have to move our 240V dryer outlet. Our first electrical mod. Yay.

Just you wait. We'll get you. And your outlet too.

So, some of you might wonder what makes this post so much more of a pain than the other two. Well, it's not the new electrical wires slung willy-nilly all around it, though those certainly are irritating. It's where the post sits under the beam and where it wants to sit on the pier.

Ah yes, I see. You have a break in your beam here, sir. We must immobilize the area immediately.

So, to jacks walk into a beam...

Alrighty, let's have a look at [the rest of] the problem:

Two inches to the left. Some of you might be thinking "Quit whining. It's not so bad."  But stay with me here.

And two and a half inches to the inside. Damn. It's ok though, we've got a plan. Structural engineers, avert your eyes, this isn't going to be pretty.

So here's the plan: We're grafting a new pier onto the old one. In order to do that, we'll need to have access to the back of the pier.

Ah, I see the problem. We've got some concrete on our concrete. Hmmm...

I'm just glad the first two weren't this messed up. Also, when pouring slabs, always put the slab on top of your piers. What could possibly go wrong? Besides, you know, termites, rot, and the house shifting.

That's ok. I've had some practice. That grip guard saved my fingers more than a few times. This will only take a moment. Clink, clink, clink... 

Eventually, I chipped away enough of the slab to remove the rusted termite pan. The I found a void behind the footing filled with soil. Soil plus ruined termite pan equals termites and I've had quite enough of termites. I made sure that we'll have an impermeable barrier between the post and the ground.

Cenobite footing? Well yeah, but we have to tie the old concrete to the new and these concrete anchors should do the job. Like rebar, but threaded. and with phillips heads.

Making concrete at home: Getting the ratio of mix to water right is crucial. So here we go, I'll use a bathroom scale to ensure I get the amount of mix and water, once I get a clean bucket, and the home equivalent of a volumetric flask (it's a water bottle), we'll make some mud.

Voila! Sorry, there are no photos of us pouring the concrete because concrete on our hands becomes concrete on our camera. Concrete on our camera means fewer pictures in the blog for all of you. That would be awful.

Once it started to set, we signed and dated it. Sort of. 

Once the new footing has cured for 72 hours (to reach 75% of it's final cure strength) we'll pop a post in and pull those jacks out. You know, the easy part. And now that the house is level-ish, I think we can get gutters. You know, so it will stay that way. 

Crap, I have to hire another contractor. Wish me luck.

Our First Major Repair Without Professional Assistance

....Or, "now it's Amy's fault if the house falls down."

One of our major concerns when we purchased the home was that there was notable rot and shifting of several of the posts holding up the house and joists holding up the floor. Some of this we fixed in May with the help of Dean, the carpentry superstar. But some of it we didn't get to. Even though they were really bad:

Seriously, that's supposed to be weight bearing and it's not.
Crap. Our house is still standing from force of habit.

But now, with the electricians finally gone we were able to get back under the house this weekend without tripping over hanging wires or worrying about bumping into an open circuit. So, with 4x6 lumber and our new chop saw at the ready, we got to work.

Hello, chop saw. That sorry piece of lumber is the 4x6 Dean replaced, now more of a 4x4 and perfect for practice cuts and shims.

Step one, place bottle jack next to rotted post and remove said post. For removing rotted lumber, I recommend the 24" demolition bar, a cat's paw, a 4 lbs. sledge hammer, and a carpentry hammer. Unfortunately, I don't have any pics of the actual demolition, but here is the first post we removed.

There really wasn't much left. No wonder the bedrooms leaned and the floors creaked. There was daylight under this post before I started lifting with the jack.

Foreground: 6 ton bottle jack sitting on 4, yes four, 7x7x4 CMUs. The dirt under the house is, well, fluffy.
Center: New 4x6 post and shiny new termite pan. Not yet plumb or braced, so don't panic.

Jacking up the house for this first replacement post was ridiculously scary. As I lifted the house, Ryan was inside with a level telling me to keep going. The roof banged, the wood creaked, and the jack pushed block after block into the soft ash our house is built on. As the jack ran out we had to prop up the rotten post with shims, let down the jack, put in a new CMU block, and re-lift the house. We did that three times before we got the floor level.

Once we had the post in, we had to get the braces in. The braces along the exterior wall were easy enough, Ryan just cut some 2x4 to match the ones we removed. The interior brace was a little trickier, though. The interior braces are anchored on a piece of 2x4 lodged between the floor joists. The problem with this was that the two joists by this post were significantly termite damaged. Dean had shored them up by "sistering" them damaged joists with a new, treated board. This meant that I couldn't nail the new brace in from the outside and I couldn't just line the new one up where the old one was. I had to wedge the new brace up between the damaged joists until I found sound wood and then I had to toe-nail it in. It was neat work, but I couldn't get a clear photo.

But that was only one of the two posts we fixed. This is the other one:

Of the five posts holding up the back of my house, three looked like this. It was...worrisome. And don't go thinking that little tab in the middle is holding anything up, it flaked away as soon as we started demolition. That's right, everybody, the exterior corner of my kitchen was being supported by the memory of a 4x6. No wonder the fridge leans.

You might have also noticed that the termite pan in the last photo is embedded in the driveway. I fixed that with a masonry chisel and my trusty sledge hammer. Once we had the new posts treated with Hi-Bor and installed, they looked like this:

The very last nails in the first new post. Yeah, I'm a rock star. I installed that post. Ryan cut the lumber, and did a great job, it wouldn't look that good without his excellent chop saw skills.

New post, new block, new termite pan. Ryan did most of the work on this one, my arms were getting tired after chipping away all that asphalt by hand.

And I looked like this:

Dirty sexy. The shirt is also covered in dirt, but it's harder to see. Dirt-colored shirts rule.

As of this posting, we still have one jack under the house. The last post has moved almost entirely off it's pier and we can't put it back because there is a join in the beam. So this weekend we'll be pouring concrete! Good times.

The Electric Slide [Show]

The Great Rewiring has come to pass. Here are a few photos of the work.

First, the outside:

 

Our snazzy new circuit box. Shown with our new meter and half our new fuses.

Ryan and I removed the old meter and box.

 

But there was a surprise waiting for us behind it.

Oh shit. It's a tiny chest-burster nursery. (Just kidding. They're gecko eggs. Gross.)

Next, and outlet update:

Wires stripped, tamper-resistant outlet at the ready. I helped.

First counter top GFCI circuit installed. It only took three weeks to get the rest in. Who wants pizza? 

Let there be light!

This is what was lurking under our kitchen light fixture. The paint is discolored from heat and the Canec underneath is toasted. Grounded, insulated lighting: it's a good idea. Was glad we decided to do a full rewire when I saw this.

Running new wires for the new fixtures.

Cheapest-finest fixtures from the HD. We were looking for affordable and sealed to prevent mass immolation of bugs.

There are lots of bugs. Lots.

Those are termites, the house-eating kind. There were thousands of them anywhere there was light during most of May and June. Butters found them delicious. I found them in my hair, my purse, my shoes, my tea...

My home now has all the modern comforts: smoke alarms, lighting that shouldn't burst into flames, three-prong outlets you can't stick a fork into, fully functional washer/dryer/range/refrigerator, and a meter the utility guy can read with a remote from the street.

In all honesty, we aren't completely happy with the work (see the previous post). But it's [roughly] up to code and fully permitted, and we'll be able to make cosmetic changes as we go along.

Always Assume Human Error

So I've been going in circles with my electrician for a week and a half. I'd say the smoke alarms don't work, they'd say they do.

Only one of the five (5!) in my house chirped when the battery was removed, and it was the only one with the light that indicated it was wired into the system. The electricians said, "Well when we test one, they all sound off."

Here's the thing, they all have a battery back up and are wired together so that when one goes, they all go, even when they're all on battery back up power. So instead of "reading the directions" like they suggested I do, they just went on their merry way.

In order to find out what the hell is going on, I pull them all down out of the ceiling. Lo and behold, I find the one that has a loose neutral wire. It's just floating in the box. All but one of my alarms are down circuit of this one, so that all of them have no neutral only the hot. Open goddamn circuit. Way to go.

I fixed it. Took me an hour, and most of that was painstakingly reviewing the instructions the damn things came with, hunting down the right tools, and figuring out how to get the stupid things off and back onto the ceiling. I'm going to charge them for two hours, the customary minimum for a site visit.

Better see that credit on my bill.

Cat Doors and Refrigerators and Other Fun Things

Of course, not all of our projects are big or complicated, lots of the stuff we've been doing is small-kine. Things that make the house nicer without driving us to distraction along the way.

And some projects that only make our lives more exciting. Like the cat door.

Three cats, a quarter acre, and Ryan and I are on our way to our very own Silent Spring. One lizard, frog, mouse, bird, or roach at a time.

From the inside, Butters is modeling the fabulous interior shelf. The kittens love the new pet door, it took them about two days to master the concept.

Ryan and Chuckles demonstrate how the exterior shelf is perfect for kitties on the go. It took Sadie a week to figure out how to use this pet door. Odd, since she had one on Maui for nearly three years.

Tree frog, thanks Chuckles. He was pretty spry. The only reason we caught him was because  we cornered him and he was too dirty to stick to the walls.

Mouse, thanks Butters. It's totally alive, too. Just like the damn frog.

Chuckles models the "window seat" in the living room. He's watching a family of finches that Butters is slowly annihilating (two down, two to go).

The new fridge was another project. The old fridge was just right if all you wanted was to spoil milk and wilt veggies (52-60 degrees Fahrenheit). We shopped around the various appliance retailers in Hilo, but the selection was, eh, limited. I didn't want a plain white box and we don't have the room or the need for a 30 cubic foot french door deluxe with water, ice, and smoothie dispensers.

So, like anyone else in the US, I turned to the internet. After a week of online browsing, I figured out what I wanted. And what I didn't want.

--Yes: Stainless steel finish, freezer on the bottom, energy efficient, 24" depth
--No: Ice maker/dispenser, french doors, side by side fridge/freezer, white finish

The 24" depth turned out to be a real bear. Very few refrigerators are made to "counter depth" and those that are, are often really tiny (under 10 cu. ft.) or really huge (over 24 cu. ft.). When I finally found one that met most of my specifications I ran into a couple problems.

1. Nobody ships retail purchased refrigerators to Hawaii. Or so they claim.
2. The fridge I picked is over six feet tall. The "fridge-space" in the kitchen has a cabinet that hangs down to about 5'6".

So, what's a girl to do? Well, turns out, HomeDepot.com doesn't ship to Hawaii, but if you make a HomeDepot.com purchase with your local Home Depot customer service desk, they can get it shipped via third party to the store. Neat. Now all you have to do is wait two to six weeks for your appliance.

Two weeks later, stunningly, I get a call from Home Depot. Good news! My refrigerator has arrived, and when will I be picking it up? Wait a minute. Picking it up? How are Ryan and I supposed to get a six foot tall, 200 pound fridge into and then out of our truck, up a flight of stairs, and into our house. Where is the old fridge going to go?

"Amy," you might be thinking, "why didn't you figure all this out before you bought the darn thing?" Well, I did. There is some confusion at Home Depot about what is and isn't covered under their free delivery and haul away service. So, three phone calls and two managers later, my appliance is being delivered and they're hauling away the old one, for a nominal fee.

Now, about our inadequate "fridge-space":

The doors are off, I'm standing on a stool, and I've got a flat head screw driver. It's demolition time.

We were pretty careful pulling this cabinet down. It's in good shape and I'd like to be able to re-purpose it. We're halfway to a kitchen island with this lumber.

The cabinet is off, but as expected, there is some groady left behind. That the technical term folks.

After some delicate work with our wood chisels and lots of soapy water, we're calling it good. I tried to talk Ryan into painting the kitchen this shade of blue, he's not feeling it. 

It's not a big kitchen and I hate running into things. So I want a fridge that won't stick out six or eight inches past the pantry cupboards.

Fridge delivery time. Great, back that truck right up the driveway and we'll swap these out, no problem.

Well, except that neither fridge can get through the kitchen door until we take down the door. No worries, we've done this before!

This is as clean as it will ever be. I took a picture.

Our brand new fridge. Wow, it looks... off-kilter. That's ok. Have torpedo, will level.

There, much better. One of the adjustable feet is nearly out of threads, the other is about as short as it can get. Our floors have topography. And look how shiny it is.

Ryan can no longer see the top of the refrigerator. In this, we are now equals, he finds it a bit disturbing. Also note how much bigger the kitchen looks with the refrigerator not sticking into the doorway. It's amazing, you have to be here to appreciate it.

Last but not least, other things that make me happy. 

1) Found a matching washer and dryer on CL, ancient, but in good condition. Under $200. Can't wait until we can use them. (See electrician post.)

2) Picked pink anthuriums from our garden. I think they're even more lewd in pink than red.

3a) Replaced nearly all of the cabinet catches in the kitchen, because none of them worked anymore. Way more work than it seems like it should be.

3b) There, all set for the next sixty years.

3c) Now that I'm not afraid of a traumatic brain injury, I'll find a way to make use of that top shelf.