Our work was slated to start on August 29th but due to Hurricane Isaac, we got rescheduled to the 31st. I swear, if its not one thing, its another. When the foreman showed up to start the job, he didn’t have half the equipment he needed and when I brought out the contract and verified that he was going to dig down into the ground and put the steel reinforcement I had previously talked to the salesman about, he did not know what I was taiking about. After several calls and 3 hours MIA, we received a call from the owner of the company and we were rescheduled. Sigh…at that point, I was not sure if we were EVER going to get the foundation repair completed. This has been a 3 year project in the making. So, long story short, the first foreman did not know what he was doing. Later on I found out he was fired (uh-oh!)
On September 4, the company sent another foreman and WOW, this guy knew what he was doing. Of course, we got off on the wrong foot early in the morning before I had my coffee and he was slightly rude, but nevertheless, he got the job done and I was very pleased with the final product. I was having serious misgiving when a column fell and a sewer pipe was ruptured, but thankfully the column was put back correctly and the sewer pipe was an old and not connected to anything. Below are pictures during the sill replacement and one is after it was complete. I am so very excited! I have some calls in to carpenters. The porch work is next. We could not replace the rotted porch boards until the foundation repair was complete. So my porch has been quite useless these past 5 years. I am ready to be able to enjoy it.
The roofing contractor came by this week. In the next couple days, he is going to give us the start date on our new roof. He is also going to do all the carpentry on the roof and replace all of the fascia boards. I AM SO EXCITED! Bye-bye rusted flashing and rotted fascia boards!
Next to commence will be rewiring half the house (that is still on knob and pole wiring…SCARY! I KNOW!) and after that will be all new plumbing, out with the cast iron pipes, in with PVC and……drumroll please……an additional BATHROOM! Yay! (confetti falling from the sky!). Unfortunately, in our 3200 square foot house, we only have ONE, yes I did say ONE, bathroom for 5 people! We will be adding a full bath on to Vivian’s bedroom. I am trying to work out a small half bath in the hall, maybe under the stairwell. So far, that project is not going very well. I am not sure if I will be able to manage it. We shall see….
Above-back porch sill. They jacked up the corner and put a concrete block underneath it. They did not realize the column was hollow, so the concrete went inside the column and it fell. Oops! It got all fixed back. It looks good. I am happy.
This is a picture of them shimming the front sill to fix it.
This is a picture of the completed work and the sill replaced. Unfortunately, they don’t make a block of wood big enough the same size as the sill, so 2-3 pieces of treated wood had to be bolted together to replace the sill.
This is a picture of them working on the corner.
I think my favorite thing about the repair was the crew. The foreman was the only one who spoke English. All of the workers were tiny, but man, did they put up a sill! At lunch time, they brought a microwave out of the truck and hooked it up to the extension cord to cook their lunch. Ingenious!
Have a great weekend everyone!
Andrea
Perpetual Renovator 