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Our New house

Stoney

Well-Known Member
Messages
4,487
Reaction score
9,554
Location
Elmira ny
So as some of you know I recently got divorced (finally), and am getting remarried. Hence why I haven't been on here much.
Since I'm 41 and have not had my mid life crisis yet we (wife to be and I)decided to do something crazy....
We bought a house...first one either of us have actually owned. Which is a awesome feeling, but kinda intimidating at the same time, mainly because this house is definitely a fixer upper. But hey I'm a contractor so no big deal (yeah right)...
We put the offer in back in early February and finally closed on it this past Friday (March 20th). It's a foreclosure so we got it for a whopping 9,000$.plus closing costs..grand total to be home owners was just over 10 thousand..we had about 12 thousand in the bank so we paid cash for it No mortgage 😁
Now for the bad news. It left us with about 2,000$ to our names but have plenty of contracts lined up for next few months so no big deal...
Ummmm. Wrong....2 days after we closed our great governor Mr. Cuomo, decided to shut down the state of New York due to Corona virus. All non essential businesses closed till further notice...thanks prick.
Soooo. Bad timing..but hey we own the place outright so we will survive..
Kitchen was destroyed so we gutted it to the studs the same day we closed. It's part of a 3part addition off the back of the house..all added at different times by different skill levels of workers...funn. not.
We're tearing off the other 2 addition parts cause there damaged to bad to bother saving $wise and we want the space for a bigger back yard. The kitchen floor is shot. Joices and all from water damage. So there getting replaced to. And we're relocating the bathroom from one of the addition rooms to a small room in the main part of the house. Nothing to major there. Plus we already had all the 2x8s and osb for kitchen floor as well as a brand new set of cabinets.. so that's money we don't have to spend. And I have a furnace and brand new hot water tank in storage for the place ( original boiler is toast and so is water tank). The rest of the place just needs alot of cosmetic work done. And definitely will need new windows eventually. But again for the price we got it for.. we ain't bitching.
Now for the real bad part. The original foundation was field stone like most older houses around here. with a crawl space under the house. (Built in 1940). Which is fine , they worked for hundreds of years. But of course some moron had to get an idea when they built the first addition (where the kitchen is). He decided to take out 15 feet of the foundation starting from the back corner of the house and six feet along the adjacent wall of the house. The dug a basement hole if you will under that corner. The long spand is sitting on telescoping Jack's . Under the shorter corner of the main house (6ft area) they built a block wall. It starts 6ft under the main house and runs about 20 ft or so. It's what the kitchen addition is sitting on. The block wall is under 2 walls of the kitchen. This probably seemed like a good idea to them..but they didn't plan for all the water that pours on the ground out side the one side of the house off the shed roof which is only 3ft from the house...it's caused the 20 foot block wall to buckle. (I'm going to attach lots of pics) soi get the fun job of jacking up that corner of the house a couple inches and pouring a concrete wall there (and put gutters on the shed) to send the water elsewhere. FUN TIMES..
The place sat empty for about 4years so planning to find alot of other stuff to fix. Going to PEX pipe the whole place and (when money allows) rewire it.
Just thought I'd do a project thread on here to show you all.. got plenty of time to work on it since can't go to work till the governor says I can...DSCN3230.JPGDSCN3317~2.JPGDSCN3318.JPGDSCN3316.JPGScreenshot_20200220-093943.pngScreenshot_20200220-094003.pngDSCN3227.JPGDSCN3228.JPGDSCN3320.JPGScreenshot_20200220-094038.png
 
I'll bet there's nothing in that block wall. Here we have bond beams every 32" vertically and every 4' horizontally

I learned about the bond beams years ago when I built my house, I had never heard of those, of course I am not in construction like you Les. My basement walls, (block foundation) for the house is 17 blocks high if I remember correctly.

My contractor recommended it plus the strongest concrete poured inside every block top to bottom. His theory was do it right, its your house foundation, we don't need to be coming back later and repair something. I pretty well trusted him and went extra (over kill) on a lot of things, like extra thick footers, thicker concrete wherever it was poured. Costed more money, but I am hoping everything holds up as long as I live in the house and for the next owner, which should be someone in the family. Contractor said it was a hundred year house, well I'll not be around then for sure...…….. ;)
 
So as some of you know I recently got divorced (finally), and am getting remarried. Hence why I haven't been on here much.
Since I'm 41 and have not had my mid life crisis yet we (wife to be and I)decided to do something crazy....
We bought a house...first one either of us have actually owned. Which is a awesome feeling, but kinda intimidating at the same time, mainly because this house is definitely a fixer upper. But hey I'm a contractor so no big deal (yeah right)...
We put the offer in back in early February and finally closed on it this past Friday (March 20th). It's a foreclosure so we got it for a whopping 9,000$.plus closing costs..grand total to be home owners was just over 10 thousand..we had about 12 thousand in the bank so we paid cash for it No mortgage 😁
Now for the bad news. It left us with about 2,000$ to our names but have plenty of contracts lined up for next few months so no big deal...
Ummmm. Wrong....2 days after we closed our great governor Mr. Cuomo, decided to shut down the state of New York due to Corona virus. All non essential businesses closed till further notice...thanks prick.
Soooo. Bad timing..but hey we own the place outright so we will survive..
Kitchen was destroyed so we gutted it to the studs the same day we closed. It's part of a 3part addition off the back of the house..all added at different times by different skill levels of workers...funn. not.
We're tearing off the other 2 addition parts cause there damaged to bad to bother saving $wise and we want the space for a bigger back yard. The kitchen floor is shot. Joices and all from water damage. So there getting replaced to. And we're relocating the bathroom from one of the addition rooms to a small room in the main part of the house. Nothing to major there. Plus we already had all the 2x8s and osb for kitchen floor as well as a brand new set of cabinets.. so that's money we don't have to spend. And I have a furnace and brand new hot water tank in storage for the place ( original boiler is toast and so is water tank). The rest of the place just needs alot of cosmetic work done. And definitely will need new windows eventually. But again for the price we got it for.. we ain't bitching.
Now for the real bad part. The original foundation was field stone like most older houses around here. with a crawl space under the house. (Built in 1940). Which is fine , they worked for hundreds of years. But of course some moron had to get an idea when they built the first addition (where the kitchen is). He decided to take out 15 feet of the foundation starting from the back corner of the house and six feet along the adjacent wall of the house. The dug a basement hole if you will under that corner. The long spand is sitting on telescoping Jack's . Under the shorter corner of the main house (6ft area) they built a block wall. It starts 6ft under the main house and runs about 20 ft or so. It's what the kitchen addition is sitting on. The block wall is under 2 walls of the kitchen. This probably seemed like a good idea to them..but they didn't plan for all the water that pours on the ground out side the one side of the house off the shed roof which is only 3ft from the house...it's caused the 20 foot block wall to buckle. (I'm going to attach lots of pics) soi get the fun job of jacking up that corner of the house a couple inches and pouring a concrete wall there (and put gutters on the shed) to send the water elsewhere. FUN TIMES..
The place sat empty for about 4years so planning to find alot of other stuff to fix. Going to PEX pipe the whole place and (when money allows) rewire it.
Just thought I'd do a project thread on here to show you all.. got plenty of time to work on it since can't go to work till the governor says I can...View attachment 59911View attachment 59912View attachment 59913View attachment 59914View attachment 59915View attachment 59916View attachment 59917View attachment 59918View attachment 59919View attachment 59920

Congrats on the new house, Stoney. Looks like you have your work cut out for you, it will take some time, but you will get it, just hang in there and don't get discouraged. Looks like you have hot water baseboard heat in the house, once you get that going it will be toasty in there.

Dang, two of those rooms are painted the same as two of my bedrooms. My wife wanted our bedroom to be purple and my grab, its purple about two or three different shades. The walls are one shade, then the step ceiling is a different shade. I told her whatever, but I keep to choose the color in another bedroom, which is used as my computer, office room. I chose a lite blue which is real close to Carolina Blue......:)

Good luck and hope you get to work on it soon, considering all this travel restriction stuff, which should pass. Main thing is stay away from others, New York is going to have it pretty rough for a while, stay safe
 
Well, mostly good bones to start with. And mortgage free as a bouns. Nice! Bummer about the timing though :(

Have seen plenty of houses around me with block and mortar foundation walls (only). No filler, no internal support. Some are standing tall after 50+ years, and some are bending / settling from water erosion (it was not common in the day to install underground drainage systems).

Do I see water baseboard as heat? If so, do yourself a favor (if not already in the plans) by adding a self-bleeder to the plumbing. With that low cost part, the system will never gurgle again!

And too bad that you already have a furnace. A wood gassification furnace works great with boiler systems. Can plumb it to work with DHW as well. But again, that would mean getting a different hot water tank.
 
Mortgage free is wonderful. Ya got your work cut out for you, but it’s all fixable.
Incoming work will be slowed, but make sure you build some cash on hand to do the jobs that come your way. Customers pipes will still break (As our friend in his Montana house already proved) and hvac will still go out. Most renovations for the pretty look will be out for a bit.
Hopefully you can get a chunk of that kazillion dollars passed by uncy sam to keep your business afloat.
 
If you really want a strong wall go poured wall with lots of rebar. I don't know why they even compare the two. Your rebar should be placed so that it it on the side of the wall opposite of the load but still maintain at least 2" of coverage.
 
Removee them concrete blocks, a shortish section at a time. Dig back far enough for a good foundation then, use a piece of pipe and build You some screw jacks with it, a piece of all thread, nut and washer on one end to go against the wall plate and a big flat rock or a cement block dug down far enough to not interfere with the foundation trench. keep removing blocks and digging and replacing with the pipe jacks until You have got far enough to make for good stabilization. Pour in the foundation with rebar and rebar sticking upwards, after foundation is poured then pour that portion of the wall, dont pour the wall until the bottom plate has been replaced for as far as the jacks are run. Repeat as often as necessary until there are no more cement blocks left under that dwelling.
That was how I installed a foundation under a portion of My house that had just a brick and a block every so far. Had that entire addition standing on pipe stilts and was able to adjust the level through the all thread end with the nut and washer. I did use a length of 3/8ths steel plate against the new wall plate. I also attached five rebars running horizontally onto the pipe jacks. I dont think that wall will ever fail. I formed the outside up to the wall then run the chute through the windows and had a plywood deflector to the inside to chute the concrete into the trench and had the inside forms higher than the wall plate, used a vibrator to be sure all the air was worked out and filled until the concrete was slightly above the bottom edge of the wall plate.
that concrete wall is about 18" thick and four foot deep. Nice sturdy foundation.
 
18" WOW!!
It had to be that thick in order to have room to get the concrete chuted into the forms. and, when digging around the walls needed enough room to get the feets and shovel into the trench. The trench is about 4` deep too. LOLOLOL
My BIL helped to dig around the walls, he being an ex concrete foreman from over when Colestrip power plants one and two, three and four were being built just looked for a reason to get a shovel into his hands. LOLOLOL He could dig all day without taking a break and love every minute of it. He passed on at 89 YO a month or so ago. he will be missed.
 
So I got bored...God gave me a bunch of things that all end in the word "saw"..chainsaw, skill saw, demo saw....what was he thinking??lol. Do I decided to take out the kitchen floor, seemed like a good idea at the time. KIMG2772.JPG
 
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