Blog of Chris

This won’t be a lengthy one, but the crumbly brick wall and teeny tiny kitchen addition on the back of my house are now long gone.  I hired a local demolition contractor who brought in a crew and got it all done in under 2 days.

The concern now is rain, snow, burglars, and cold weather (not to mention the dust, which has settled once more over enerything I own).  I have the remaining 3 footers dug, and will be ready for concrete again as soon as it can be delivered.  After that it’s time to start framing.

Here’s a shot of the back wall with a hole in it.  There’s no turning back now.

-C

-C

TOM STOVER HELPED MOVE, STORE, MIX AND POUR THE 4000 POUNDS OF CONCRETE MENTIONED BELOW…

I think I may have already blogged about the ordeal that Christmas day caused… My head is spinning right now (I’ll comment on why later), and I can’t remember if I did or not, so I’ll recap:

The Saturday before Christmas we dug three huge holes that would someday be footers for my addition. On Christmas, it rained all day, and these holes filled with water and a ton of mud. After spending an entire evening pumpting the water out and dredging bucket after bucket of mud out of these holes, I decided that I had to get these footers poured as soon as possible. (In other words, I was not going to risk them getting full of mud again, because dredging them was miserable hell)

Concrete… I needed about a yard to fill these 3 footers, and the minimum you can get delivered pre-mixed is 2 yards. In a futile effort to save money, I decided to rent a mixer and create 4000 pounds of concrete in my own backyard. To make a long story short, it’s not worth the cost savings to mix this amount of concrete on your own. Also, I ended up needing more than a yard anyways, to havinf 2 delievered would have worked out.

So, another lesson is learned through blood, sweat and tears, but now I am pretty confident when it comes to concrete, and half of my foundation is in place.

Below are some pictures. The design calls for a 16 inch section of 24 inch diameter concrete form tubing, suspended so that 4 inches of it are above the surface and one foot is below. This allows for the remaining 2 feet of the hole to be slightly wider than the top (which is also why I needed more concrete than I calculated). We suspended the tubes by nailng them to 2×4 supports, then suspended a pre-tied cage of reinforcing steel, centered in the footer. Next, we add concrete, skim the surface, and set a heavy duty column base to accept the 6×6 posts that will eventually hold my house up. Simple, right? Now I just need to do 3 more!

No, there was no golden shovel or first stone, but the groundbreaking for my addition commenced at about 8:45 AM on Saturday, December 23rd, 2006 to the sound of early-monring jackhammering.

I had spent most of the day and evening prior to Saturday running around gathering materials and tools, to include:

-1 12-foot length of 24″ diameter tubular concrete form

-enough pre-cut and pre-bent Rebar to reinforce all 6 of my column footings

-Tarps, Shovels, buckets, and one very cheap wheelbarrow that barely made it through the day.

-An electric rental jackhammer from Home Depot.

Digging holes is much harder work than I could have ever imagined.  As with any construction project, it’s easy to envision all the peices moving easily into place in your head, but when you get out there and actually do it, it’s a lot harder and takes a lot more time.

Actually, once we got the system down, we were ok.  The first hole took about 2.5 hours to get down to 36″ deep, but the second and third took about an hour each.  The hardest thing about it all was the confined space, and trying to shuffle people, dirt, jackhammers, wheelbarrows, etc around my teeny tiny back yard.

At the end of the day we had 3 holes dug, and the 4th was jackhammered, ready for digging next week.  Thanks to Ryan Parnell, Alex Baglione and Brian Drenning for showing up to help!  Their efforts were rewarded with Qdoba burritos (Alex, I am still indebted to you)

I can’t dig the last two holes until demolition is done, so I will likely pour the three that are ready sometime this week (Just to keep things moving during this between holidays timeframe)

Like an idiot, I forgot to cover the holes, and it rained all day long on Christmas day.  I got back home last night to check things out, and one of the holes was completely full of water.  I will have to pump it out or wait for it to dry up.  Either way, it has probably lost some depth and may need a bit more digging!

-C

After 4 months, I finally have a building permit.  Geeeeez.

It doesn’t have the best grammar in the world, but that’s not really my concern right now.

All you blog readers out there should know what a colossal pain in the @$$ is was to get this peice of paper in my posession, so I’m going to explain it here.

Yesterday I finally met up with my engineer after tons of phone calls and emails getting the plans together.  He stamped them, and I ran downtown to get my permit.  Of course, the board of municipal and zoning appeals has not sent out the offical results of my zoning hearing that took place on December 5th.  I first had to go up to the 14th floor and get my zoning packet back, with a handwritten notice of approval.

Back downstairs in the permit office, I present my approved zoning packet and engineer-stamped plans.  The gentleman behind the counter informs me that if I intend to build a rooftop deck, I will need consent letters from my neighbors sent via certified mail.  I kindly explained to him that my deck would not be bearing on any shared partition walls.  The blank look on his face informed me that he didn’t know much about much, and he had to refer this puzzle to someone higher up in the Beaurocracy that is the Baltimore City Department of Housing and Community Development.

About 10 minutes later, I get my number…  They use the exact same system as the MVA.  A bell rings, a display flashes your number (well, it flashes a lot of other people’s numbers first… I am sure you’re all familiar) and then you go over to the desk where a very unmotivated permits employee takes forever to type all your information into the system (It should not take forever, seeing as there are no complete sentences).

But wait, it gets worse… that first number was just to make sure I was ok with zoning!  After I am done with him I get another number!  This time I waited about an hour and a half for pretty much the same thing. Just when I am almost done, the clerk informs me that my property is in the “Cheseapeake Bay Urban Development Area” and that I must gain approval from the Department of Development or something to get my permit.  She also informs me that they have recently stopped taking walk-ins at their office on the 8th floor, and that I must leave a set of plans, pay my permit filing fee, and come back after 48 hours to see if they have approved the work.

I was pretty much fuming at this point, but rather than quit, I decided to journey up to the 8th floor to investigate what this Urban Development business was all about.  When I arrived in their office, I explained the situation.  The receptionist called someone on the phone, gave them my address, and told me to wait.  After about 5 minutes, she told me that I was good to go, and I could go get my permit.  They signed off on the work in the computer, which was unexpected.

I got back downstairs feeling pretty good again, at about 3:40 p.m.  The clerk at the information desk kindly informed me that they stop giving out new numbers at 3:30 p.m., and that I would have to come back the next day to get my permit.

Damn it all.

So, today, I went back downtown.  I was in and out in under 20 minutes, which was surprising, and now I have this yellow peice of paper that will allow me to build.  Whoop dee doo.

That’s all for now.  I’ll comment on digging footers after this weekend.

-C

Things are coming down to the wire, and the strucutural engineer I hired should be getting back to me today with his comments on my plans. After that, I’ll meet up with him, get his stamp, pay him, and head downtown to pull my permits.

Last weekend, Ryan and I laid out the locations for my foundation. There will be a total of 6 piers, 2 of which are located inside the existing kitchen. The other 4 should be pretty simple to pour.

I did some calculations this morning and figured out that I will need about 2 yards of concrete to pour these footers, which equals 100 80-pound bags. (That’s $531, including delivery). Add to that costs for labor, tool rental, and materials, and the grand total comes to about $1100 for my foundation, not including the cost of the engineer.

(An engineer would have been required for the rooftop deck eventually, anyway, so I am killing two birds with one stone, and paying for some peace of mind on the structural stability of my addition.)

The costs of excavating and pouring traditional footers with a masonry wall would have been several thousand dollars, and would have taken considerably more time than this will.

We hope to dig these footers this Saturday, and get them poured shortly after Christmas! Wish me luck!

-C

It’s 9.46 PM, on Thursday night.  Here I sit on Tommy’s couch, finding myself able to get online in the evening… something I have not done in quite some time.

It may come as a shock to many of you, but I still do not have internet access at home.  There used to be an unsecure wireless network nearby my house, but sometime while I was in the desert it disappeared.  There are a few around the neighborhood I can count on if I want to look like a dork and sit in my car to get online.

My job has me spending a majority of my time out of the office recently, which also means I am less and less online.  Less bloggings, less buying/selling things on eBay, less craigslist, less IMing and emailing.  It’s just not like me, but it’s probably a good things because being online usually ends up in buying things online.

Ryan Parnell is a punchout carpenter who works for my company, and I have spent the last 10 weeks renovating a bank and a master bathroom with him (not at the same time!).  I enlisted his help to finish Tommy’s exposed brick wall.  I had already spent several days cleaning, pointing, and sealing the brick, installing recessed lights, and framing the border.  I have virtually no experience finishing drywall, so Ryan’s expertise was quite valuable.  We got all of the drywall hung, installed all the corner bead, and were able to get the first coat of mud.  Tommy will be very impressed when he gets home from his office party.

Plans for the house are coming along.  I have been discussing the structure with an engineer, who I will pay for stamping my plans.  I sent him a rough draft of the plans yesterday, and he replied today with an improved footer design.  He is going to mark-up the draft tonight, and send me his updates tomorrow.  I will revise the plans, then meet with him next week, where he will apply his stamp (and I will apply my checkbook).  After that, it’s straight downtown to get my permits!  Finally!

The plans is still to get the foundation poured before new years.  It should be a full weekend’s worth of work for 3 or 4 people, if I can find the help.

Shortly after new years, the existing kitchen and collapsing brick wall will be demolished (phew!), and framing will begin.  I hope to line up the framing operation with a weekend in the middle of it, so I can enlist help from friends.

If I had a bell, like the Amish, I would ring it, and maybe the community would help me raise my walls.

I will try my best to blog again soon, though I don’t think anyone is reading anymore.

-C

“Mr. Whong?  Your appeal was approved.”

Sweeeeeeeeet.

Well, that took about 4 months longer than it should have.

I may have mentioned it in the last post, but I now need the services of a structural engineer to allow me to build this addition (and deck) safely, and more efficiently.  I’m waiting on feedback (and pricing) right now, but should be able to get my building permits before the new year.

-C

Today was the big day, and I journeyed downtown to attend the hearing for my zoning appeal.  I had never been inside city hall, which was pretty darn neat.  It’s full of historical artifacts and paintings, and a lot of history about the building itself.

About 75 people filled the little room, which had auditorium seating around a big desk that the board members sit at.

They handled the appeals in numerical order, and I was 10th on the list, so I was out of there in about 10 minutes.  You step forward, they state your name, appeal, and address, and ask you if you have any further comments.  Some, like me, brought in letters of support from neighbors and community associations, others brought nothing.  Then they say “We have enough documentation to support your appeal”, and send you on your merry way.

So, tonight they actually vote on each appeal, and we can find out the results tomorrow.  Whoopee.

Also on this venture downtown, I was finally able to track down my building inspector, who never, ever, ever seems to be at his desk to answer the phone.  I reviewed my plans, and it seems that there is no way to build my addition without an engineer getting personally involved with the foundation.  (Well, I could pull it off without an engineer, but it would involve considerably more demolition, excavation, concrete and masonry to accomplish it.  The cost of hiring an engineer may offset the added costs of building it the “traditional” way.)

I suppose it was to be expected.  The project I intended to start within 30 days of my return home from Iraq is now 120 days overdue.  I had wanted to start first thing in 2007, but the weather is now uncoopertive, and I have no clue whether or not my dealings with an engineer can be completed in December, especially with Christmas and New Years coming up.

I have put other big plans on hold until this addition is behind me, and I can rent a room out and lower my monthly expenses, but as it stands, I may not be able to start until spring!  Damn it all.

-C