matching tracksuits

This was supposed to be last Tuesday.

The wiring in our house was somewhat of a mystery. Why doesn't that three-way switch in the kitchen and hall work properly? Where does that line go? Where did that line come from?

Most of the morning was spent working out those details so we could kill a couple of breakers and start pulling out old wires. In their place, we placed some shiny new boxes for switches and outlets and pulled a bit of 14-gauge wire for a few of the outlets. It was another of those days where we accomplished a lot but it doesn't quite look that way.

Tomorrow, though, it all starts coming together. We'll finish the majority of the wiring, but since that involves significant time in the attic, we'll be starting quite early. The plan was originally to start at six, but since the weather report indicates a mild morning, I called and left a message that we could probably wait until seven to start. I know, however, that my mentor, like I, sometimes misses messages on his phone, so I'm not sure when we're actually starting, which is why I'm going to bed now.

The light was particularly beautiful this morning given the fact that I knew we would be spending the whole day in the crawl space.

It was a blessing and a curse, really. The heat outside was so oppressive that it was really almost pleasant in the crawl space, which made it a welcome change from yesterday. On the other hand, it’s the crawl space.

Out mission was simple: deal with a 3/4 inch sag in the dining room portion of the floor.

A seven-foot level showed the problem clearly. The idea behind the solution was simple: build two piers to hold a new support beam under the affected area. An easy idea with a back-breaking implementation.

But the beam is up, and the jacks are still temporarily in place. “The floor will need to settle a little before we make any definitive moves,” my mentor/guide explained.

For now, things look good.

A header is meant to support the span of the door so that the weight of the house is not actually on the door but on the header above the door. What happens if you don't build the header correctly? You'll have weight bearing down on things that aren't designed to take weight.

What happens if you don't build the header correctly and the door is on the corner of the house? You get a door that's almost impossible to open.

What happens if you put a lot more weight on a floor than it's designed to handle and leave it there for a long time. You'll get a lot of sag. Approximately 5/8 to 3/4 inch in our case.

See that "header" above the door? All the weight was on those 2x4's nailed together, which in turn sit on two 2x4's below them. That's why the door wouldn't open.

Apparently, the holding mess that was in the house a couple of owners ago was concentrated in the dining area, which is why the floor sags there.

These two "whichs" are why my mentor said, "Well, we're putting off electrical for a few more days so we can fix the structural issues."

So with the help of a third man, we built a temporary wall to support the structure while we knocked out the "header." Then we jacked up the roof and installed two LVL beams to make a new header for the entire door/window section, making sure that the supports for the beams rested on the columns below in the crawl space.

And by then, it was time to quit. So we boarded up the gaping hole, hung plastic to protect it all from rainfall, cleaned up, and called it a day.

Well, the other two gentlemen called it a day (at least for this project). I continued by clearing the floor of any debris and marking the floor, with the help of a six-foot level, for the areas where it sags.

Tomorrow we get to do it all again, except in the crawl space, without the ridiculously heavy LVL beams.

I'd like to find out who the "contractor" is that put this together and send photos of this "work" to every building inspector in the county along with his name. "You might want to check his work carefully."

The plan was to begin working on the electrical today, laying out and planning everything, starting to pull wire in the afternoon. That would be blown, I knew, because I knew just how bad that leak in the winter had been, and I knew what the subfloor would look like.

Sure enough, that because evident Saturday during demolition day.

Another thing became evident: we would have to do something about the door to the deck. The header wasn't much of a header. But when we chalked a line above the 2x8 that ran across the top of the windows, ostensibly supporting them, and saw a 3/8 inch difference between the middle edge and the corners, we realized we had more work to do.

So the subfloor work gets moved to Wednesday as we spend tomorrow fixing this huge issue.

And the electrical? Well, who knows?

On the upside, the cucumbers and blueberries are growing nicely, and the outdoor kitchen is functioning very well indeed.