kristoff wrote: Mon Mar 19, 2007 9:26 pm Since I previously threatened to share my ongoing adventures with another house rehabbing, I suppose I ought to bore everyone with some details.
My business partner and I bought a single family two-story over basement house in South Minneapolis, Minnesota (US). The property was about to go into foreclosure, and I think (hope) we got a good deal on the price. We’ll see… when we are done and ready to re-sell.
The folks who lived there were both grossly, morbidly obese, and quite filthy in their habits, which shows all over the house. There have been no repairs, and extremely little maintenance done in about 15 years, save for a new shingle roof about 5 years ago, after a storm, paid for by insurance. When these folks moved out they left behind a great deal of trash as well as abandoned personal property, which I had to haul away and pay to dispose of (2500 pounds of it).
This past Thursday we had the electric power company (Xcel – lousy bastards) drop our power line into the house. They were 3-1/2 hours late. We then installed a new service panel (circuit breaker box) and installed new power leads in from the meter box. The inspector showed up an hour early, saw that we knew what we were doing, and passed the inspection with a couple of requirements we needed to add (bonding the mast to the panel and ground rod, and grounding the water main on the street side of the water meter). Regardless, we got a pass sticker on the panel. Xcel reconnected our power at 2100 (11 PM) the same day, a five hour delay. Very nasty letter has been sent, and I will refuse to pay their service bill. They cost me more than they charge.
Once we had de-trashed the house, we began removing walls (plaster, lath, framing) where we did not want them, for now only on the second floor. There will be more of that to come in lower reaches of the house. There were two very tiny bedrooms on the second floor, with very shallow, small closets between them. We removed the closets, and recessed a 4” x 8” suspension beam into the ceiling to support the span of the ceiling and roof. Significant stabilization has resulted, and all sagging is out of the ceiling. The two small bedrooms are now one, and new closet space is being built into the end of the now larger room, as well as a new linen closet for the bathroom where one of the old bedroom entrance doors was located.
The other bedroom on the same floor is also having its closet rebuilt. Both bedrooms and the bathroom on this floor are being re-wired to bring them up to building code. Today, I re-wired the bathroom with a 20 Amp circuit, routed through a GFCI receptacle so that everything in the room is fault interruptible. I also brought a new circuit into the now doubled bedroom, and did some routing of cabling under the floor, which I had removed/replaced (where the old closets were). Of course, the bedrooms are being equipped with Arc-Retardant Interruptible circuit breakers (required by code here as of 01 May 2007).
Tomorrow, Tony (my partner) will cut channels into the wall plaster in both bedrooms and drill wire routing holes for most of the remainder of the re-wiring on that floor. He will also cut a new access to the attic (above ceiling area), so that I can crawl through and wire ceiling lights. I expect that on either Wednesday or Thursday I will be able to “hot up” all of the wiring up there (the bath is “hot” already).
That is the current insanity, thus far. Of course, I work a regular job full time days, and a part-time accounting and tax practice as well (very busy this time of year with tax filings). No wonder the sister is nucking futts….
I am sincerely impressed. You sure are handy with a tool. After reading about all you have been doing I am going to take a nap for you.
) Cut 'em when the Zodiac sign is in the feet, I was always told. Use turpentine and lard, make a poltice and rub it into the stub. Never lost a one that way...