Digging A Trench

This week the builders used a circular saw with a diamond-impregnated blade to cut a one and a half foot wide trench through the concrete around the house. The workers continue to prep the house ahead of the lifting of the house, scheduled tentatively for August 10th. What's clear after the concrete removal is that the current grade of the path around the house is at least 6 inches higher than it originally was. This meant that the concrete was in direct contact with the redwood causing wood rot at the base that will need to be repaired.

Floor Removal

The builders have removed most of the floor ahead of the house lifting that will take place in a few weeks (more on that later). We've saved much of the old growth redwood during the demolition (you just can't buy the stuff any more, and even if you could it would be very expensive). We plan on milling the better pieces into replacement window frames to match the rest of the house.

Asbestos

Removal of the kitchen floor tiles was a very delicate job. Kitchen floor tiling prior to 1986 frequently contained asbestos. The contractor tented the area and soaked the floor in order to minimize the possibility letting any particles get into the air. All of the workers were dressed in bunny suits with appropriate respirators. No power tools were used in the removal of the tiles, again to minimize the chance of disturbing the tiles.

Demolition Of The Rear Deck

Demolition began of the rear extension of the house, which was built in the early 1900s. This extension consists of a laundry room on each floor that slopes quite a bit downward, and a rear staircase with a roof. The rear extension has no architectural detail and is not original to the house; it takes up a lot of the open space in the back of the house, and it blocks sunlight.

The Demolition Begins

When my wife and I were considering what to do first with a limited budget we really wanted to install a new high-end kitchen and a few new bathrooms. We got quite far along in terms of kitchen design with our architect (Jace Levinson of JACE Architecture), but always had this nagging concern at the back of our minds about the condition of our foundation. The rear right corner of the house sagged quite badly and after further investigation we determined that we only had about 12-18 inches of clearance below the floor boards; the brick foundation's lime mortar had erroded away and we had some dry rot damage. Given the risk of significant future earthquakes (despite relatively minor damage from the 1906 and 1989 earthquakes to the house), we changed directions and postponed the kitchen and decided to lift the house and install a new concrete slab with seismic retrofit to the ground level. Since we were installing a new slab and the entire ground floor would need to be gutted, we decided that we would install radiant floor heating in the slab and into the ceiling (to heat the second floor).

What's Wrong With This House?

We bought this property assuming the worst in terms of what needed to be fixed... we weren't disappointed. The house needed a new foundation (seismic upgrade), new kitchen, new bathrooms, new electrical & plumbing, heating, new roof, new plaster throughout and if that weren't enough of a challenge, we decided to strip the lead paint from all internal surfaces throughout the house. First things first... we replaced the roof. We contracted the job to S-Top Roofing who soon discovered there were 8 layers of shingles.; we were quite lucky the roof didn't cave in under the weight. City code allows for no more than 3 layers of roof shingles. The next thing we did was to strip the lead paint off of all the mouldings of the top 2 floors (the ground floor was going to be gutted so we decided not to bother with that level).

Introducing Our Old House

This is our old house built in 1885 in Hayes Valley, San Francisco. According to our research of the city's water department records (most other city records were destroyed during the fires that proceeded the 1906 earthquake) the house's first owner was Martin E. Green, a long-shore-man (a dock worker who loads/unloads ships); he bought the property for $3,000! We bought the house this on August 19th, 2005. We had an excellent real estate broker, Bonnie Spindler, who specializes in Victorian Houses. We were very lucky as we found this property in just over a month, although we must have seeen more than 50 properties all over the city.