Foundation

With the pour completed, the forms can come off. Voila, we have a foundation.

Window Wells

Completed Foundation

 Unfortunately, as these things go, the foundation work itself could not come without some difficulty. After the forms came off, it became rather obvious that the basement wall nearest the driveway was about as square as the rest of the original house. Which is to say, not so square.

As a result, in this picture below you can see our concrete contractor jack hammering away the entire northwestern wall and getting ready to re-pour the wall again. Fortunately it will only delay framing a day, and this particular problem won't cost us a dime.

Pour

Quite a bit of progress made in the last 9 days. The first priority was addressing the foundation wall experiencing the buckling effect, while simultaneously managing to keep the house from collapsing.

Balancing Act

New Footer

To do that, the foundation wall was removed in its entirety, with five temporary supports put in supporting the first floor under the corner of the house. A wide footer was then poured under where the wall used to be, with the new wall to rest on top of the new footer.

The removal of the foundation wall made the basement floor of the house look like a giant mouth about to eat the backyard. We were trying to decide whether the corner post dangling in space looked more or less scary than when it was supported by a pile of old bricks in slow-motion collapse. Either way, it was quite a sight.

Window Wells

Hole for Basement

With the wall braced and the footer for the interior wall poured, the project moves into a quicker pace, at least visually. The foundations for the window wells were poured first. The crews don't waste much time, they were able to complete the wooden forms and pour the concrete in the same day, with the concrete drying to the point that the forms could be removed the next day and they could proceed to the next part of the foundation, forming and pouring the basement walls.

Forms Go Up

Basement View

Just a few days ago, a giant truck full of forms pulled up in the driveway, and over 2 days the forms for the basement walls were hammered into place. Much of the basement will be above grade, so the hole is only 5-6 feet deep. As the forms were put in place, sections of styrofoam were cut and inserted inside the forms, which will set the brick ledge for the above-ground brick veneer.

View From 2nd Floor

Pouring Cement

Around 4pm today, three giant cement trucks hovered in our street and started pouring concrete. By the time the sun set, the pour of the basement walls was completed and left to cure over the weekend. Next week the forms come off, a ton of wood shows up and framing begins.

Moments

With excavation proceeding, the conditions of what we find become more important, as we figure out what can or should be done to merge the new part of the house with the old one.

Interior Wall with 3" Moment Arm

With the corner of the foundation exposed and approaching readiness for footers and foundation for the addition, we had a structural engineer return and look at what the subtraction process exposed. In short, it exposed problems.

Exterior of Wall

The first and most obvious issue being the exterior foundation wall that will become an interior basement wall when the addition is complete. From the pictures it might be hard to see clearly, but this wall has what the engineers like to call a "moment". Given the age of the house, perhaps you could call it a "senior moment", should you be so inclined.

Essentially the wall is buckled inward by about 3" and can't be repaired. Since it will be an interior wall, it will be replaced with a standard 2x6 interior studded wall of today's construction. This actually will allow us to rearrange the basement floor plan.

In addition, the corner of the house currently supported by a random stack of old bricks has begun to look more frightening by the day. The pile of bricks continues to deteriorate and what was once a tenuous support by two sections of 2x4 is now a harrowing support by two sections of 2x4 resting on their corners. We have avoided breathing too heavy near this corner, and our builder has reinforced it for the time being.

Slow Motion Collapse

Don't Get Too Close

Subtraction

Old Kitchen

Finally moving along a bit.

Construction appears to have finally, maybe, begun somewhat in earnest following a period of inactivity since the arrival of our building permit. In the first two weeks after we received our permit, our crew got to work in removing the small addition that contained the kitchen on the main floor, a small bedroom upstairs and laundry machines in the cellar. That took about 2 days.

The kitchen itself was quite small, and the ceiling was barely 7' high on all three floors. We were able to donate or sell the appliances in the kitchen, which were in pretty good shape, over the last few months.

Once the addition was removed, the next step was to dig out the existing basement, effectively increasing the ceiling height. In order to manage the effort and risk involved, we chose not to underpin the existing foundation, and instead are digging about 16" inside the current foundation wall. That will leave a ledge around the outside of the room about 18" high, but we had no interest in taking risks with a 160-year-old stack of bricks and mortar. The area we are digging out will be used as a media room when the work is completed.

Big Hole with Ledge

Original Footers?

As can be seen in the picture on the left, we are digging several feet below the existing basement floor. There was a steel I beam supporting two steel cross-beams in the middle of the old cellar floor, which have been removed. In the picture on the right, we see what could possibly be the footer for the original house, if there was such a thing back then. It is right below where the outside wall of the original house would have crossed the cellar and is visible on both sides of the cellar.

From the outside, the house now looks like a shanty. The windows are boarded up except for one window, the corner of the house where the addition was is wide open to the elements, and despite our best efforts the window in the third floor room (hidden behind chimney in photo) bangs open and closed when it gets windy.

Before

Neighbors Loving This I'm Sure

 As can be seen in the photos, the footprint of the house has decreased temporarily. When the addition is completed, it will extend in front of the tree to be seen on the left of the current photo to to the right above.

Outer Wall and Siding

Now that the corner of the house is exposed where the addition was subtracted, you can see a number of interesting things about the construction. First, it appears the color of the house when this addition was put on was a pale yellow. That appears to have been covered by white paint sometime before 1904 when the house was pictured in a book with a white exterior.

The second feature, which we can't decide to be fascinating or terrifying, is how the corner of the house is now supported. We believe this was once the corner of the house before the low-ceiling, three-story final addition was put on (the one we just removed). As can be seen in the picture, there is a huge post that goes from the sill plate at the foundation all the way to the roof line, consistent with balloon framing. However, that post is supported at the bottom by two flimsy blocks stood on end. Not so sturdy.

Corner Post Exposed

Yikes!

 From the corner of the shed in the driveway the house certainly looks different, with a gaping view into all three floors. The next steps in the construction involve digging the rest of the foundation, part of which can be seen in the photo on the left above, pouring a new cellar floor in the old part of the house, and putting in the foundations for the new part of the house.