Our old house is a bit saggy (but what do you expect from an 84 year old?)
...
Our house sags. If you were to drop a marble on our floor, it would roll to middle of the house, because our floors are ever-so-subtly bowl-shaped. If you were to take a shower in our pink clawfoot tub, you would notice that all the water doesn't drain out, because the drain-side of the tub is on an uphill slope.
This -- and the current lack of earthquake retrofitting -- is why we are having our foundation replaced. It's time for our little house to get some loving maintenance. Our contractors -- one of whom lost a house much like ours in the 1989 earthquake -- cannot believe that our house is still standing. No exaggeration, they hardly needed to use the jack-hammers in order to pull apart our old concrete foundation.
If all goes well, and today isn't a state-workers' furlough day, we should have a building inspector over at the house, and then the new concrete can be poured. The wooden form in this photo will hold the newly-poured concrete.
I'm really pleased with how gently (jack-hammers notwithstanding) the contractors have done the demolition. The only impact of wrenching our house off the old foundations are a single crack in one of our (already cracked) walls and a shifting of our front door. The guys assure us that the before the project ends, we'll have a door that opens easily and a bathtub that actually drains.
(This has to be one of the worst photos I've ever shared on the blog. What it shows is the underside of our house, looking from Jo and Mandy's driveway, through to our driveway. If you look closely, you can see Robb's car's tires on the top-right of the photograph.)
Our house sags. If you were to drop a marble on our floor, it would roll to middle of the house, because our floors are ever-so-subtly bowl-shaped. If you were to take a shower in our pink clawfoot tub, you would notice that all the water doesn't drain out, because the drain-side of the tub is on an uphill slope.
This -- and the current lack of earthquake retrofitting -- is why we are having our foundation replaced. It's time for our little house to get some loving maintenance. Our contractors -- one of whom lost a house much like ours in the 1989 earthquake -- cannot believe that our house is still standing. No exaggeration, they hardly needed to use the jack-hammers in order to pull apart our old concrete foundation.
If all goes well, and today isn't a state-workers' furlough day, we should have a building inspector over at the house, and then the new concrete can be poured. The wooden form in this photo will hold the newly-poured concrete.
I'm really pleased with how gently (jack-hammers notwithstanding) the contractors have done the demolition. The only impact of wrenching our house off the old foundations are a single crack in one of our (already cracked) walls and a shifting of our front door. The guys assure us that the before the project ends, we'll have a door that opens easily and a bathtub that actually drains.
(This has to be one of the worst photos I've ever shared on the blog. What it shows is the underside of our house, looking from Jo and Mandy's driveway, through to our driveway. If you look closely, you can see Robb's car's tires on the top-right of the photograph.)
Comments
Have you ever read the children's story "The Little House" by Virginia Lee Burton? Aside from being brilliantly illustrated, it's a neat little story that reminds me a bit of your cute little house. You won't be able to move it back out into the hills covered with daisies and apple trees, but you are certainly going to love it up good and make it happy! :)
::hug::
LunaSea
When working on cleaning out and repairing my sister's house in Wyoming, I got an estimate of 160,000 to fix the foundation. I will NOT ask you how much this is costing, but I sure will keep you in my thoughts if we win the lottery!
We drove 5 hours to Brooklyn to return Gary's Mom and Aunt- lots of jackhammering on our Pennsylvania highways as well out here.
Annalisa
Bandaid
Don't worry, we're insane, but not that kind of insane.
Much love,
Wendy In The Eastbay