On Hold

We have reached the point where we now have to wait until the city issues the permit.  Once issued, we will start carpentry and get this thing rolling!

Ready for concrete

It's amazing what we've taken out of this house (and that's not over, by the way!).  The boys managed to fill an entire masonry bin to the rim over the last couple of days, and we're now ready for the concrete channels and other small areas to be filled up.  Carpentry will most likely start the week of August 22nd, so we have a bit of a waiting period until then.

I can see the light!

Another tough day of slugging out concrete, block and dirt, but we can finally...see the light.  Another couple of man days and we should have this place ready to move forward... but we'll still have more demo upstairs later.... sheesh!

Drain installation

Tony was in with his two trusted assistants, and man, did they have a hot day.  Even though we had done all of the channeling, they still had a lot of digging to get all of the drains in place and primed, and all of the stacks set up and connected to the floor drain pipes.  We now have a back water valve which is a nice bonus for this old house.

The demo... continues!

This house continues to release treasures... one little concrete chip at a time.  It was well built indeed!

Getting the damn porch slab out was a relief.... but then it reminded us that the benefit of having the little basement skylight opened up was to remove the 3-4 tonnes of concrete debris from the basement... d'oh!

A well deserved hydration break... it was a long, hot day!

Drain channeling

On 1940's/50's basement slab, we often find 2 or 3" max of concrete on the basement slab - pretty easy to cut and channel for new drains.  We have elected to replace the entire drain system, as what we had to work with was simply not up to snuff.  However, the concrete is 4"-5" thick, and takes quite a lot of work.  Rocco has been cutting channels for almost two days, and we're now smashing and chipping our way before the plumbers arrive.  

Backfill and more demo

Thom snuck in late Saturday and managed to backfill the entire foundation.  Today was the start of a lot of small, masonry demolition project.  Even though the design of the porch (see above) was not good, they sure knew what they were doing with the strength of the concrete.  It took half a day to whittle the porch down to half the original size.  Tough work!