Preparing For The New Concrete Footing

An army of carpenters were at work this week building the forms for the new concrete foundation. The concrete that will be poured into these forms will be reinforced with rebar tied and twisted in place. San Francisco is earthquake country and the footing is about 3 feet deep and about 2 feet wide. When the new foundation is in place it will be substantially stronger than the brick foundation it replaced. The new pressure treated stills that were installed this week will then be tied and bolted to the foundation.

Demolition Of The Rear Deck Complete

The builders finally got around to removing the remnants of the rear deck this week. The picture doesn't really do much justice to the sense of open space and Western light and fresh air that we now get in the back of the house. This deck was essentially a covered porch on each of the 3 levels, attached to the rear of the house. In addition, a rear staircase was attached to it. It was ugly, it was falling down and it took up most of our outside space. Good riddance!

The House Is Leveled

The house lifters returned yesterday leveled the house (as you can see from the plumb line) to within half an inch all around. Once the foundation has been poured the builders will be able to make small adjustments to improve the leveling of the house as needed (it will never be 100% perfect... it's an old house!) The pressure-treated lumber seen in the picture (at the base of the siding) is the start of forms being built to pour the perimeter concrete foundation.

Leveling The House

As you can see from the plumb line the lifted house is not level. The plumb line is 5 inches further from the house at the base than it is at the top of the house. The house lifters debated lifting the rear corner of the house (shown in the picture) by about an inch to level the building but we all worried about the risk to the fireplace chimney getting damaged. In the end they decided to drop the other side of the house by about 2 inches. The side to be lowered has a brick wall about 4 feet tall because it borders the property next door on higher ground. The worker in the picture is in the process of removing the top layer of the brick wall. Next Wednesday, the house lifters will lower the brick wall side of the house. More on that later.