Roof 2.0

The roofers arrived at 8 am and set about making a lot of noise. They're ripping off the cedar shakes on the back of the house, and pulling up all the gravel and underlayment. In doing the latter, they discovered that the rotted out areas of fascia are actually old wooden gutters! Those places where we suspected the flying squirrels were entering the house, and where we stuffed a bunch of steel wool, were wooden gutters that had been covered over by the last roof job. This is interesting, in that it adds to the theory that all of the house was built at the same time, since the wooden gutters there match the wooden gutters on the front part of the house.

So here's some of the progress so far:
These shots show the windows and shingles and a bit of the gravel roof before:



And here they are now:


Here's the (recently repointed and capped) flat roof chimney before (also note in the right corner of the picture, you can see the wooden cabinet door (the previous owner's solution) toped with a bucket (our solution) covering a hole in the roof):

And after:


And here's the vent pipe from the downstairs bathroom before:

And after:


Here's a bigger shot of the roof surface:


And check this out:


Our roof is from Carlisle, Pennsylvania! My hometown!

Of course, there's more to be done. First of all, there's this mess:

And they have to put the metal drip edge around, and also take care of the front door overhang and bay window roof. But they did a lot of work in one day!

The Insulation Itch

Sometimes, I get the itch to do something around 83 Durant. Today, after a long day of sitting at my desk and in meetings, I just wanted to do something more substantial than make up lesson plans and quizzes. It was 6 pm. Is this really a good time to START a home project? Generally, no. But, as Jake wasn't here to talk me out of it, I decided:

Why not insulate?

Indeed, why not?

Many times, these sorts of evening/nighttime projects that I begin do not end well. I'm pleased to tell you now, that this one was a success!

As you may recall from previous posts, the basement laundry room/bathroom is clearly mid-project. [That would be a project started by the previous owners.] Framing has been built for insulation and drywall, but some of the bays are empty. I decided to work on the two full-sized empty bays, as portrayed here:



As you will also remember from a hilarious previous post, we have plenty of insulation to fill these bays. To my disappointment, Jake was correct in his calculations, and I indeed was incorrect: there are five pieces, each 93 inches long, in the package. And they E-X-P-A-N-D when you open the plastic.



Lucky for me, these pieces are each exactly the length I need for the height of the wall, so all I needed to do was shove them up into the space between the studs. I also carefully carved out spaces for the pipes in the area (compacted insulation doesn't do its insulating job).



I used my handy staple gun to staple the Kraft paper to the stud, and voila! It's insulated! It didn't take long at all.



For future reference, I include the photo below to show the location of pipes. We're hoping to move the washing machine (and hence, water & drain pipes) over to this area sometime in the not-too-distant-future.



And here we are, with the two bays complete! I'm so pleased! There are still the two corners to deal with, as well as a few other spots down here, but for now, this seemed like a good night's work. In the (hopefully) near future, we'll finish up the remaining bays, and then we need to cover up this Kraft facing. It's not really supposed to be exposed like this (some kind of fire hazard). Drywall is the fancy way to go, but I'm not sure we need or want to do that. At the very least, we need to staple up some plastic sheeting to cover this up and contain any stray fiberglass particles.



While in the basement, I also took on one of those longstanding WHHHHHAAAAAAAT? issues: the red sweatshirt stuffed into the hole in the chimney. I removed the shirt, shoved some nice fresh insulation inside, and then covered it with a brand new flue stop from the hardware store. It's basically a metal plate with prongs on the back to hold it in place. I sealed the whole (hole) thing up with caulk, and here it is!!!



R.I.P. Old Red Sweatshirt:


And by the way, safety first when dealing with insulation. I wore long sleeves & pants & gloves, all of which went into the wash immediately after I finished. A face/nose mask and goggles, too -- that stuff is nasty! By the way, I got some how-to tips on this project from a book I borrowed from the library: Time Life Books: Insulating and Weatherproofing. It was the updated, spiral-bound edition, and it is a great resource.

The whole deal took me about an hour and a half; still plenty of time afterwards to clean up and blog it all before Jake gets home from class. The question is, will Jake notice the new insulation? I suppose the real question is, will I be able to contain my slightly giddy pride in my accomplishment long enough to let him notice it?

Slate Roof

The very nice guys from Twelfth Century Slate Roofing arrived today to make some repairs for us. It's a bit noisy here at 83 Durant. They are working on the chimney first, fixing up the counter-flashing (that goes around the flashing that the mason already installed). They're also replacing some missing and broken slates, as well as putting on a lovely new copper ridge. It's an exciting day!

Here are some after shots:




We learned that our downspout & gutter guy messed up. The gutters are too high for a slate roof, and the downspouts were put on backwards (which is why the water runs down the OUTSIDE of the gutters). This is annoying. But they said the chimney looked good. They also gave some advice on the flat roof on the back and the small overhang over the front door. We're going to get some estimates for rubber roofing for those areas, but it's not a huge rush.

That's all for now!

Further Projects Imminent

Today we sent off the contract for some work on our roof. We're using The Twelfth Century Slate Roofing Company. They will be doing the following work:

-->Base flash (with copper) the main chimney (the one we just had rebuilt)
-->Replace twenty missing and broken slates (VT/NY purple)
-->Remove the aluminum ridge cap (it's corroding and pulling off) and replace with a copper ridge cap

If all is well with the weather, he will start on Monday! Amazing!

We're also hoping to have him put a hole in our roof. That sounds bad, but we need a hole so that the vent pipe that currently ends in the attic will actually go outside (where it should be). We're thinking that we might be able to attach the vent pipe ourselves; we just need him to peel off the slate and take care of the flashing around it on the outside of the roof. It seems like we just need to attach a length of pipe; we'll investigate further to see if this warrants a plumber.

But today, while looking around for info on the vent pipe issue, I found this piece of information from our friends at This Old House:

Another option, if codes in your area allow, is to cut off the secondary vents in the attic at least 6 inches above the ceiling insulation and cap each one with an air-admittance vent. This is a device with a diaphragm that allows air to enter the stack when water goes down the drain but doesn't allow sewer gases to escape into the house. Theoretically, you could eliminate roof penetrations entirely with these vents, but at the moment, the codes say that every plumbing system must have at least one stack that extends outdoors.

So we do have a sewer vent that vents outdoors (off the downstairs bathroom & out through the flat roof). Perhaps we don't need to cut that hole. Further investigation is warranted.

Here is some interesting information about these air admittance valves:

Air admittance valves (AAVs) are pressure-activated, one-way mechanical vents, used in a plumbing system to eliminate the need for conventional pipe venting and roof penetrations. A discharge of wastewater causes the AAV to open, releasing the vacuum and allowing air to enter plumbing vent pipe for proper drainage. Otherwise, the valve remains closed, preventing the escape of sewer gas and maintaining the trap seal. Using AAVs can significantly reduce the amount of venting materials needed in a plumbing system, increase plumbing labor efficiency, allow greater flexibility in the layout of plumbing fixtures, and reduce long-term maintenance problems associated with conventional vent stack roofing penetrations.

Wow! I think we just solved our problem. Thank you, Internet, for saving us a boatload of money and hassle!

Here's some more information on issues & solutions to plumbing vents:
This one has a nice diagram.
This discussion thread features the "controversy" over AAV's.

Chim chiminey Chim chiminey Chim chim cher-ee!

The masons are gone and our chimney is done! This is the back, flat roof chimney, all freshly repointed with a chimney cap.












And this is the newly stucco'ed inside of the chimney from the attic. We're pleased and relieved to have it all done so quickly.








And because there's never a dull moment at 83 Durant, I'll go ahead and document the next thing we need to figure out: fascia boards. They are the boards that you see underneath the roof, and are attached to our wooden gutter (yes, we have wooden gutters on one side of the house). This one, as you can see, is pretty rotted. This is because the wooden gutter seems to be pretty ineffective at actually draining the water. We're not sure what to do, or even who to call on this one. I think we'll wait to talk to our slate roof guy, and see what he suggests. For now, we'll enjoy the fact that we have such nice chimneys!

Chimney Evolution

Here is our sad, sad, leaky chimney just a couple weeks ago. That pile of green at the bottom: towels. Wet, wet towels.




















Here is our chimney (or lack thereof) just a few days ago. I rather like how you can see the neighborhood through the gaping hole in the roof!







And here is the chimney now. The guys are supposed to come today to cover this stuff from the inside, and also re-point the back chimney.

Introducing....Our New Chimney!

Wow, these guys work fast! We have a new chimney. And it's quite lovely, if we do say so ourselves. It snowed a bit last night, and some more this morning, but it got to be about 40 degrees out, so everything melted. So the team showed up around 10 am, and by 2 this afternoon, we got to meet our new chimney! Check out the adorable squirrel home we have perched up there!

Dude, Where's my Chimney?

I swear, it was there this morning, and then, I turned around, and it was gone!

Remember folks, lock your chimney every time you leave the house.

But seriously, our chimney is gone. The nice men came this morning, built up scaffolding, and took it away.

If weather permits, they will be back tomorrow to put a new one in its place.

While we have the chimney specialists here, we also had them take a look at the flat roof chimney -- the one that vents the kitchen stove and the one that first aroused my suspicions regarding how chimneys work (see previous post). It does indeed need to be repointed (the home inspector had told us this), but the flashings looked fine.

Also, as I suspected, it should have a cap, although it doesn't seem to be having any problems as it is. So 83 Durant is getting some major overhauls in the chimney department. This is an expensive proposition, but one we should never, ever have to do again.



UPDATE: We're now a bit concerned about the hole in the roof where the chimney once was. The weather forecast calls for snow tonight and tomorrow turning to light rain, and here's the view from inside the attic:

That tarp was sorta wadded up in the front, thanks to our masons. We've since done some impressive work with scrap wood, plastic sheeting, duct tape, a staple gun, some rubber tubing, and string -- all the materials of quality craftsmanship. Check it out! Fingers crossed.



UPDATE: after we fashioned this awesome creation, and managed to sort of get it in the right place through the hole in the attic, the mason showed up at our door to tell us to rest assured, all was well. He put more tarps on the outside, and promised they would be back tomorrow.

In which we break our house

It has been raining a lot. The chimney has been leaking a lot. This has led to the discovery of water in the spare room closet. It's obvious that this has happened before, but it's the first time we've seen an active leak. So it was not so surprising exactly, but it certainly wasn't pleasant. The plaster is all wet and soft, so we decided to take out a big hunk of it, both to get rid of some of the wetness and (we hoped) expose the leak so that we could direct it more productively (say, into a bucket, rather than into the rest of the plaster).


It's rather shocking to see a hammer knock off plaster.

With our shop-vac, we sucked up all the mess. Jake hung some towels from the laths, hoping to direct the water seepage out of the walls. There's not any active driping at this point. I think we actually contained a fair amount of the drippage in the attic by putting more plastic up there.


Incidentally, horse-hair plaster is crazy stuff. There are CLUMPS of hair in there. I am not kidding. We took some pictures, but you can't really see it; you'll just have to take our word for it.


So that's where we stand. I don't know if there's anything else we can do at this point, other than wait for chimney-repairing weather, which may be a few months.

Some things broken; some things fixed

I don't think I mentioned this previously on the blog, but the dishwasher broke on Friday. Its tiny "clean" light blinked and blinked and blinked, but believe me, those dishes were not clean. A-1 Maintenance Master to the rescue. A very nice man came today and checked it out. Dis-assembled the whole thing, got down to where the motor lives, and discovered:

A NAIL.

I am not kidding. I can't figure out how a nail got down in there, but there it was, making the motor (and thus the washer) inoperable.

The machine is back together and humming away now.

In other news, we have a leak in the roof and/or chimney. We discovered this because Jake was up in the attic to deal with the critter situation. Without the critter situation, we wouldn't know about the leak. Thanks, critters! Your work here is done. Now please leave. I wonder if the critters read the blog. That would explain why they don't fall for the traps. They know we're after them.

The slate roof guy tells us that it's a chimney problem, so we need a mason. We're working on finding one. I am a little exhausted by 83 Durant at the moment. Oh, and by the way, for those who already read the previous chimney post (WHHHHHAT #3) it's not even that chimney. All this time, I've been worried about the back chimney (what's with the hole? where does the water go?) when the front chimney was the real problem. [FYI, The front chimney vents the furnace; the back chimney vents the stove.] I still find chimneys mysterious and perhaps a bit ominous.

WHHHHHAAAAAT? (Part 3)

There are many oddities in the basement. Today's installment features the oddities of the chimney. First, there is the very bottom of the chimney, where you will find this tiny door. Behind the door is a bunch of dirt & leaves & such. We cleaned all that stuff out today.

Oddity number 2 is the holes in the chimney. We know they had a wood stove down here at one point; this was clearly where it was hooked up to exhaust out. But why fill the hole with a sweatshirt? Why not something more permanent? Why not sweatpants? I suppose it is a nice touch that they used something red that matched the red chimney; perhaps they thought no one would notice. Today we pulled out the red sweatshirt, assessed the hole, and then shoved the thing right back into the hole. I think we need a more serious fix -- some insulation and a metal cover -- to take care of this. But at least we know what's in there now.




So neither of these items are exactly huge mysteries; however, I still have a serious question about the chimney, and perhaps chimneys in general. Why don't they fill up with water? Ours has nothing up on top. I even put a mirror inside the bottom hole, and you can see all the way up to the sky above. So why doesn't that little door at the bottom fill up with water (it was filled with old leaves!)? I've seen other chimneys with a thingy on top, but ours is open (we can see this because we can access it from the flat roof). Anyway, the mystery of the chimney is my big worry of the day. Are we going to have a chimney full of water or snow?