This Odd House

The chained prerequisite dependencies all started from the need to repair the roof.  To repair the roof required that the chimney be repaired.  I obtained an estimate for doing so:  $2200.

This seemed like a lot of money to tuck point a two foot section of chimney, and so the idea was to replace the furnace with one that didn’t need it.  I could remove the chimney altogether, simplify the roof (no penetration), and reclaim the interior volume consumed by it and save the expense of repair (albeit with the larger expense of a new boiler).

I investigated what it takes to remove a chimney.  The internet is a marvelous tool.  All one needs do is type “how to remove a” and Google will autocomplete your query.  In this case I needed to provide a few characters as a hint.  “How to remove a ch” was enough to list dozens of entries, forum posts from  other people wanting to know, and those who had figured it out and wanted to share their experience in taking down a chimney.

From them I gleaned that it is entirely possible to do it yourself.  It involves chiseling out each brick, one at a time with an impact chisel, dropping it down the chimney, picking it out at the bottom, and carrying it away.  It is hard, dirty work, but not complicated.  No special talents are needed.

I contemplated how I might go about this task.  I could imagine chiseling away at the top bricks and dropping them down.  I could even just leave them in the cavity– I only cared about removing the top half of the chimney anyway, to open up the space on the second floor.

But then I thought about the things that could go wrong.  Maybe the open area of the chimney was smaller than I needed to contain the top half ‘s bricks.  What if the bricks jammed up?  Was there a chimney liner or flue that would interfere?  Once I got down to the level of the roof, I would have another foot to get down to the ceiling level on the second floor.  How would I get to those bricks?  Reach from above?  Tunnel from below?  If I needed to remove the bricks, what would I do with them?  Bricks, power tools, and ladders in the hands of an inexperienced out-of-shape amateur seems like a recipe for accidents.

Once again I felt that awful wave of being overwhelmed by a project beyond me.  I was stuck with figuring out what to do, again.  This time my internet search for removing chimneys included companies that specialized in demolition work.  I learned that there are two types of demolition:  “complete”, and “selective”.  Evidently the tools and techniques are different between the two (dynamite and front loaders are used for the former).  I needed the latter, where collateral damage needs to be minimized.

I found a company that specialized in chimney removal.  For $2400, I could have it disappear in a day.  For about the same amount to repair it, I could destroy it.

I would feel better if the bricks could be recycled, but this turns out to be not possible.  The used bricks need to be cleaned of mortar, and end up being more expensive, and having aged, weathered and stressed, do not hold up.  The DOT once accepted them for roadbed substrate, but found that they end up getting crushed, breaking down, and shifting, and so now the old bricks go to landfills.  At least they are inert.  In a dust-to-dust sort of way, they are returning to their origin.

My time with the dumpster ends tomorrow.  It will be picked up and processed by the construction waste recycling center.  I wasn’t able to truly fill it, but there’s plenty of removed drywall and unneeded black and white countertops in there (I saved much of the cabinetry for recycling directly to people who can use it as is).

I’ll be glad to have an excuse to stop the demolition work.

Tony looks through an opening from the formerly useless pantry. Lighting control central is to the left.

Another weekend of dismantling the upper kitchen.  The goal is to remove the wall that creates a useless pantry and add the area to a larger kitchen with modern cabinets and counters.

The unwanted wall is a leftover from when there was apparently, a back stairway to the second floor.  The stairway consumed a 3-foot space, a little over 8-feet long.  Somewhere in the history of the house, it was removed, a floor inserted, and a 3×8 foot closet resulted.  It was done by amateurs.  The space is actually a little over 8 feet, but that was inconvenient for whoever cut the plywood to fit- he must have had a single 4×8 sheet and didn’t know how to piece it.  As a result, there are gaps at the ends of the floor where debris falls into a dark unknown space (above a first floor shower/bathroom).

For the second weekend in a row Tony came over, and applied himself to baring the wall.  The wiring running to a megaswitch panel (with dimmers and switches for every individual light in the room) was exposed.  Earlier in the day, nephew Andy had exposed a mystery wiring box, buried behind the wall.  I’ll be very glad to remove this and install lights and switches that make sense (and reduce the fire hazard).

This room has now consumed seven (amateur) person-afternoons of dismantling effort, and it is still not done.  Stay tuned.

To start the remodeling of This Odd House, I had followed all of the dependencies to this single initial requirement: remove the old boiler and the asbestos-wrapped heating pipes emanating from it.

One of the HVAC contractors I contacted offered his associate’s services for asbestos abatement.  I met them and toured the basement plumbing.  The old boiler could have asbestos in it, containment procedures would need to be followed as it was removed.  The pipes would need to be “glove-bagged”, sealed, cut, and removed in sections.  All in all, they could do it for $5000.

So, another prerequisite: find $5k above and beyond the new heating system expense.  I now started to wonder if my friends were right when they recommended “run away, run away” from This Odd House.

Asbestos is a wonderful, scary material.  I had positive opinions of it a few decades ago when I donned asbestos gloves to place fuel directly into a woodburning stove in a North Woods cabin.  Complete fire protection–  I was impervious!

But the high incidence of mesothelioma and other lung diseases in asbestos mining towns (1.4% !) eventually resulted in banning the material.  I always thought it was lengthy, repeated, close exposure that was the risk factor (like tobacco, a cigarette would not kill you 30 years later, but 30 years of cigarettes might).  The abatement procedures are regulated by the state health department and asbestos workers are licensed and trained.  I am skeptical that a single exposure puts me at much of a risk, but I can believe that the abatement workers might be.

As an example, air samples are taken before and after the removal.  If the after test exceeds standard limits, the site must be scrubbed again (and a fine is issued).  All asbestos is bagged or sealed, and it is registered with the disposal destination in a manifest.  We know where every piece of asbestos that has been removed from the basements of Minneapolis currently resides!

At the end of the removal, and in the event of an accident, the workers must shower.  This is done in a portable decontamination chamber where the water is retained– it must not end up in the city water drains.   Instead, it is taken back to a facility where it is processed by three stages of filters to remove the microscopic particles.

My friends may still be right about This Odd House, but Angie’s List is my friend too.  I looked up several abatement companies that were local, and highly rated, and invited them to bid the job.  It was refreshing to hear them declare that the boiler itself had no asbestos, it contained fiberglass; no special containment procedures would be needed.

Only the pipes needed special handling.  I learned that glove-bagging (enclosing the pipe in loose plastic to allow a gloved knife-wielding hand to cut away the asbestos) was limited to 25 feet of pipe per room per year.  An interesting spec.  My pipes qualified, just.

I don’t usually go with the lowest bidder, but in this case, after learning about the procedures, air testing, licensing, and overall experience and knowledge of the abatement company, I did.  And I will be confident and pleased at the asbestos-free basement I will end up with, at a third the cost of the original scary asbestos estimate.

The reliable but inefficient 1950s vintage boiler.

I recall paging through the college catalogs of all the cool courses I could take at the university.  There were so many interesting topics, but after reading the course descriptions I would encounter the prerequisites for registering.  It often was some obscure course in a discipline I had no background in, and so I was restricted in the areas I was allowed to pursue.  As with many things, this is good and bad.  It kept the classroom at a minimal background knowledge level, but it excluded extra disciplinary contributions.  Oh well, Mayan calendar interpretation will just have to get along without the advice of astronomers, mathematicians and geologists.

The limits and conditions of dependencies and prerequisites are everywhere.  In this project I found that there are chains of dependencies.  When I negotiated the price of the house, it included a discount for the price of replacing the roof.  I consulted with roofers.  They could not do the job until the chimney was repaired.

Repairing the chimney would incur an expense.  I could fix the chimney, but I had plans that would (eventually) replace the 1950s vintage furnace with a modern high efficiency one that would not need a chimney.  I also wanted the internal space that the chimney currently consumed.  So to replace the roof, I decided that I would first need to remove the chimney (rather than repair it).

But removing the chimney means that the furnace and water heater must be replaced.  After consulting with heater/plumbing companies to get bids, it became apparent that the  existing boiler and distribution pipes, containing and wrapped by asbestos, needed to be removed.  Removing asbestos requires the services of a licensed asbestos abatement company.

So this is where I am.  To remodel the kitchen (and claim the chimney space for it), and to replace the roof, I need to remove the chimney, which requires that the boiler be replaced, which requires that the old boiler and pipes be removed, which requires that the asbestos be abated.

I contacted several asbestos removal companies.  Their prerequisites were for hot and cold running water (to meet the protocol of asbestos abatement procedures and regulations).

I hope this hasn’t created an impossible loop of prerequisites.

The demolition party was an exhilarating but humbling experience.  Eager volunteers dismantled and tore down large sections of This Odd House.  They did more than I ever expected, but I learned that demolition is a lot harder and more involved than I thought.

It is easy to become overwhelmed, but my friends and family all provided encouragement (despite their concern about my clear thinking in taking on this project), and on Sunday, the day after D-Day, Tony joined me to help take down the soffits.  There is still much to remove and I was discouraged, but he portrayed a future conversation we might have, a reminiscence between friends hanging out in a modern kitchen, talking about those old soffits with the odd embedded speakers that intruded the space, and how one Sunday long ago, we took on the task of bringing them down.

Demolition, one obstacle at a time.

Demolition day started out quietly as I contemplated how one actually goes about removing the contents of a kitchen.  My friend and remodeling advisor Poldi and I unplugged the stove and dragged it out.  Ok, that wasn’t so hard.  Now these countertops, just how are they attached anyway?  And the electrical plates, under counter lighting, phone wires, plumbing, wiring, venting?  Sheesh!  This wasn’t demolition, it was disassembly, needing screw drivers, pliers, wrenches and other specialized tools.

I suddenly realized I was in way over my head.

I expected that my nephew would show, along with his enthusiastic girlfriend, the single rsvp I received.  I was really pleased when my brother John and his family showed up.  John has real experience in exactly this activity, having extensively remodeled his various houses over decades.  He dived right in, equipping his wife and daughter (age 7!) with tools and explaining how to tear off tiles and sheetrock.

More people arrived.  They came bearing tools and enthusiasm, but the house was built to resist.  Inept construction methods were encountered everywhere, with code violations and booby traps in the wiring and plumbing.  The interior had been highly designed and specified by artists, but constructed by amateurs.

The team forged ahead anyway, cutting wires and pipes as necessary.  Finally the sink and dishwasher yielded.  The corrugated metal was gradually removed from the walls.  Debris was delivered to the dumpster, useful items and metal carefully placed against it, per Rich’s recommendation.

I was thrilled at the response to an invitation that essentially provided free labor, Tom Sawyer style, for a huge task.  I am amazed at the drawing power of tearing down other people’s walls.  What is it that would bring the mother of a nephew’s girlfriend to come to a stranger’s home and organize the dismantling of it?

At the Before party I was surprised at the number of people who offered to help me do the demolition work in preparation for my remodeling plans.  Now maybe this was just being polite, but I got the sense, especially from some of the women in the group, that this would actually be a fun activity for them.  Perhaps it is the appeal of fulfilling the urge, suppressed in the raising of girls, to smash things and to destroy stuff.  Swinging a sledge hammer may have some cathartic benefit.  Other folks, usually guys, just wanted to participate for the entertainment value.

I considered the idea of a “demolition day”, inviting these would-be demolition crew members to tear down walls and cabinets and rip up flooring.  I could offer them “unpaid internships” and cut my labor cost for that part of the project.  Not that I know anything about demolition and old houses, but hey, how hard can it be?

I investigated dumpster rental.  I discovered that construction debris can be recycled if you contract the right service.  I found Atomic Recycling, a company with a retro name that specializes in recycling such material.  What size would I need?  I was told that 20 yards could hold an entire double garage.  I mentally tried to image this– oh!  I guess he meant after the garage was demolished.  The smallest dumpster was ten yards.  I would discover that this is an enormous volume.

My Minneapolitan friend Rich explained the efficient recycling system that works in the city.  If you have anything with any functional value, or anything metal, don’t put it in the dumpster, set it outside, in street view and it will be gone by morning.  The scavengers (they prefer the term “scrappers”) scan the streets and alleys for valuable materials which then vanish with them, to reappear later, installed in a different home, or melted and reincarnated in some other form.

I gathered and borrowed a number of tools for the work to come– hammers of all sizes, pry bars, chisels, impact wrenches, and sawzalls.  I bought work gloves and safety glasses, and assembled a first aid kit.

Then I sent a dozen invitations to a demolition party,  offering cold drinks and pizza as enticement but recommending appropriate footwear.  I didn’t have a hint how many would actually show up.

I scheduled an “energy audit” with an organization that promotes energy efficiency.  I am not sure exactly the backing and purpose of the Center for Energy and the Environment (CEE), but I think it is a collective effort funded by energy companies trying to meet the state legislated requirements for energy generation.  Minnesota is a forward-looking state that actually has made a plan in anticipation of its future energy needs.  They include changes from the current model of energy generation and delivery, and provides for incentives and requirements to ease the transition.

Since I intend to use This Odd House as a personal experiment in energy use, I thought it would be beneficial to obtain a snapshot of its energy efficiency and losses before making any structural or functional changes.  So I made an appointment with CEE for the day after closing.  The house would be empty and easy to identify leaks, drill test holes to assess insulation, and other issues that could help guide my construction choices.

I was told that two technicians would be visiting, making measurements, and interviewing me for two hours.  I was expecting two men with clipboards, but instead, at the appointed time, two women with iPads showed up.  Corrie and Stacy conducted an extensive check of light bulbs, shower heads, air flow in and out of the house, furnace ventilation, and insulation detection.  It is a measure of how far we have come that there should no longer be a gender expectation in the delivery of these technical services.

One can imagine that there could be a tremendous savings in light bulb replacement.  Unfortunately, nearly every light is connected to a dimmer switch (and there were dozens), disqualifying them for compact fluorescent bulbs.  One of my future tasks is to remove the dimmers.

The boiler that runs the gravity heating system (i.e. radiators) is very old.  Inefficient (50%), but so reliable it is unlikely to fail any time soon.  The water heater on the other hand is past its warranty, and is likely to need replacement in the next few years.  Both send their exhaust up the chimney, a penetration of the roof, and in need of repair.  Modern heating plants are over 95% efficient, so high that the exhaust gasses are not hot, and do not need special protection by a chimney. Typically, they vent out the side of the building.

In a departure from the otherwise discouraging findings, the house was insulated and fairly well sealed.  Cellulose in the walls, ten inches of fiberglass in the attic (the attic in this house is a 12-inch space between the second floor ceiling and the flat roof).  A blower door test measured 2640 cubic feet per minute air flow (at their prescribed 50 pascals pressure difference, a 20 mph wind effect).  The volume of the house is approximately 20,000 ft^3, so this represents about 8 air changes per hour (ACH).

The air change rate has two consequences:

1.  High rates represent high energy loss rates, since the conditioned air leaves the house and new air must be taken in and heated to replace it.

2.  Low rates have health impacts; we need some ventilation to bring in fresh air and get rid of contaminants.

So we need to find some balance between staying healthy and consuming energy.

Modern, highly energy efficient new construction takes the approach of making the house as tight as possible, and then managing the ventilation with controlled active elements- fans and vents.  Here are some comparative values of ACH (from http://www.bae.uky.edu/energy/residential/guide/guidehtml/guidep20.htm)

airtight construction: 1.5  –  2.5
standard new home: 7 – 15
standard existing home 10 – 25
older, leaky home 20 – 50

So This Odd House compares favorably with new construction methods!   Now to decide on the fate of that old reliable, but inefficient furnace.