This Post Almost Didn’t Happen

It’s been a heck of a week here at Chez Powell. There was a point on Wednesday when I thought perhaps the only answer was a few litres of gasoline and a match, because the issues with the house were just too much. But thankfully we have good contractors who aren’t rattled by surprises, and things are getting resolved. In fact, there’s been a fair bit of progress made in the last five days.

Before we get into that, however, I want to share this video, which made my day when I saw it:

And here you can see the moment a doorbell camera on Prince Edward Island captured a meteor hitting the ground, actually becoming a meteorite:

And here’s a news story about that meteorite, for those who want to know more.

As for the dog, she continues to be fine. No change. Her next checkup is late this afternoon, and we hope to learn more at that point.

OK, on with the tales of the house. Assuming I can recount them in something like the right order.

The big work on Monday was more digging for the plumbing and framing the ceiling for new insulation and sheetrock. The plumbing looked like this:

And the ceiling looks like this:

That might not make a lot of sense, but here’s the plan: They’re framing between the existing beams with 2x4 lumber on 16" centres to support a new layer of sheetrock. The gap between will be filled with spray foam insulation. But we can’t spray it up there just yet, because the electrician might need to run wiring up there in various places.

Tuesday saw them remove the rest of the chimney, leaving a gaping hole in the roof:

In the process we learned a couple of things:

• The water getting in around the chimney was (we think) a result of the flashing. It was condensing water (being metal) on the inside, and from there it would run down somehow. Water was not getting through the roof itself.
• But that wasn’t the only issue. There were several places where the underside of the roof membrane was exposed on the interior of the house, and in those places water could condense and wick out between the wood and the membrane, as seen here:

That little, square hole was one such problem. There was a similar hole about three feet uphill from that doing the same thing, and of course it was happening all around the chimney as well.

Once the mechanism was finally understood, the roofing was cut back to expose the damp wood so it could dry out, both naturally and eventually under the heat of the roofer’s torch.

That got us to Wednesday, where things went sideways.

First, a contractor looked at the insulation in the old laundry room and (correctly) decided it was ugly and that we were going to replace it anyway, so he pulled it out. This is what he found:

That’s wet plywood, but why? Where is the water coming from?

Oh, and yes, the breaker box you see there really is hanging semi-loose. It was like that when we got here.

As for the water, the mystery is that it doesn’t go all the way to the ceiling, and it’s definitely worst in the lower right, which is near the ground-level water leak that we already knew about and are taking steps to resolve.

The first thought was that perhaps the water was coming through a seam in the plywood, so they went outside and started opening up the siding and fascia. But everything they found was both watertight and dry. There was no path for water to get there.

So the exploration moved to the room next door, where I watched a contractor (Stu) tap some drywall with his hammer and then open it up to find this:

That’s one of two very old, very large wasp nests inside the wall. Both were long abandoned and dried out, but clearly there were critters living there for quite a while. But no water was found.

Opening up the rest of that wall (since we needed to do so to route some wires around anyway) exposed a small, active nest of carpenter ants. They’re no longer active.

Continued exploration also found a different wet spot in the roof where some flashing hadn’t been done properly years ago, but that was mild. They replaced the wet wood and did some temporary work to keep it watertight. It will be properly flashed and fixed in the future, when the time is right. At the moment we’re pushing to get things together for the plumber and electrician.

In the end, it was determined that the water on the plywood in the old laundry room was condensation and/or wicking from the known water leak. Simply exposing it was enough to start drying it out. An evening with a dehumidifier did even more. We think it’s fine now, and once the final leak fixes are in place outside, it will not recur.

That was Wednesday.

Thursday saw them preparing to raise the floor in the conservatory/family room. You might recall that there was a step up from the rest of the house (for no obvious reason) and that we were going to flatten it out as well as remove the doors to make it feel like a part of the rest of the house. The preparation for that was to install some level framing that will hold a new plywood floor, as well as allow spray foam to insulate and sound-deaden the space.

In addition, the plumber was here preparing the in-slab drainage for the bathroom and kitchen. That isn’t quite done yet, but at the moment it looks like this:

Friday (today) saw the arrival of the roofer and the spray foam team. The latter accomplished this before lunch:

The foam locks the wood into place, insulates to keep the room warmer in the winter, and provides a vapour barrier as well.

As I write this, the roofer is covering up the ceiling patches, and the contractors are putting plywood down in the family room, covering the spray foam and turning it into a much more habitable space where we can actually live.

We accidentally bumped into the cabinetmaker today as well. He’s working at the house across the street, and now we have some pointers from him.

In short, it’s been a crazy week, and that is going to continue. But we are making good progress at getting the house tight against water and better insulated, as well as seeing progress on the actual renovation itself.

It might be ridiculously stressful at times (like last Wednesday) but there is good news to offset the stress.

I hope your projects come without so many surprises!