De-Construction

We're replacing our house. The location is a great waterfront spot, but we've been unable to determine how to make the old house (a colonial design) work for what we want, even if we were to renovate. We found ourselves spending most of our time on the enclosed back porch. Why not design a house that achieved that effect all the time in most of the rooms? We also had two large trees, a maple and a will oak, adjacent to the house and we wanted to save them. Our design moves the house about 8 ft away from these trees and raises the main floor 18 inches to allow for better drainage from around the house (another problem we wanted to address). Having done a major renovation before, we wanted to do a complete replacement, including foundation.

PrecisionCraft
While reading about energy efficient homes, we became aware of Bensonwood. Their style matched what we wanted, which was something like those in these two interior pictures.

Bensonwood

We came up with a preliminary floor plan and worked with Bensonwood to turn it into a architectural design. The permitting process had one hurdle: as of November 2016, the county requires all new construction (a tear-down and rebuild is considered new construction) to include a nitrogen processing tank as part of the septic system. It took another three to four weeks to get all the permits.
In the mean time, we were able to get a demolition permit to take the house down. We used a deconstruction and recycling company to recycle most of the parts of the old house through The Loading Dock. Below is a sequence of the deconstruction.
Back porch removed

Removing the brick
A dumpster full of material to recycle

The main roof is gone and windows have been removed
The roof and brick have been removed
Down to the first floor decking




They don't recycle the fireplace brick because it may have been heated, which reduces its strength.

First chimney topples into the old basement
Second chimney gets gobbled up by the excavator
Digging out the old foundation











I was able to record the destruction of the chimneys.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Trim and Finishing Work

Image
We're into the trim and finishing work stage now. The kitchen cabinets and counter tops are installed. (We're missing one cabinet, due to an ordering error, but it isn't going to delay us. Here is the kitchen at this phase, with the range hood sitting on the countertop. The subway tile backsplash is being installed on the far wall. Kitchen cabinets, countertop, and lights The stair railings have gone through a number of design iterations. We settled on a post and handrail design that allows the cable railing system to be tighten, compressing the handrails and toe molding. Here is a shot of the first two sections installed at the top of the stairs. There are a surprising number of cable railing system vendors. We decided to use the Feeney cable railing system, which is a bit more expensive than some of the alternatives, but provides a clean installation. The hand railings are at 41 inches, which we found to be a convenient height. Building codes in Maryland require the
Read more

Insulation, Drywall, and Siding

Image
Insulation has been installed in the walls as a sound abatement measure, so we don't have the laundry competing with our current choice of music.  To the right are the railings and construction stairs that go down to the first floor. Rough-in Finished, Insulation Installed The orange, really tall wood in the loft walls are engineered studs. An engineered stud is made of layers of wood glued together, somewhat like plywood, only the wood grain is all the same direction. They are very expensive but they are straight, which is why we used them in the tall loft walls. We didn't want to have wavy drywall that might result from using regular lumber that bows. There is orange pipe in the upper right - that's the fire suppression sprinkler piping that is now required in houses here. The sprinkler is only intended to run for a few minutes to give the occupants time to escape. It isn't intended to stop a fire. The tall loft wall The drywall and finishing supplies have b
Read more

Working on the Interior

Image
With the building under roof, we shifted our attention to the interior by framing the interior walls. First Floor Framing Turning Empty Spaces... Into Framed Rooms We would like to get some heat into the structure, so Keith and I worked on the wood stove hearth and have it ready for tile, which has to be ordered. The wall behind the wood stove will be finished in the same stone that we're going to use around the entry and on the visible parts of the foundation. Technically, the hearth doesn't need anything other than a non-combustible surface if we use the heat shield. However, we feel better about using a 1/2 inch layer of Micore 300 on the subflooring, covered by a 1/4 inch layer of Durock fiber-cement board. Thin-set cement will hold the tile to the Durock. Wood Stove Hearth Underlayment We cut 45 degree angles on the hearth to eliminate the corner trip hazard. The hearth will be slightly higher than the surrounding floor, so we will frame the hearth
Read more