Author: Matt

Bump-Out Removal: Roof

May 26, 2017 / / 0 Comments

With the roof of the house now properly supported on the new exterior wall, the next step is to remove the roof of the bump-out itself, which is gabled perpendicular to the house. For this project, the always stalwart Dean assisted. There were two key parts of this process: remove the roof of the bump-out itself, then patch the triangular hole in the roof of the house where the bump-out connected. I had the idea of using the sections of roof we were removing to patch the hole directly. While that’s what we did and it worked, in retrospect it wasn’t the best plan.

Inside the bump-out attic

My thinking was that the sections of roof would be too large and unwieldy to get into the house, just to turn around and get the replacement roof pieces back up. While that much was true, the better plan would have been to remove the shingles and put them back on. Instead we cut and fit the pieces of already-shingled roof sheathing into place and I had to knit the shingles together. It looks terrible, even for a temporary patch, and we’ll be lucky if it doesn’t leak, though so far it’s been holding.

Sheathing removed
Roof section removed
Other section
Making progress

We started by removing the rafters of the bump-out from underneath, then the original board sheathing (which was underneath the newer plywood), and finally the sections of roof closest to the house, first on one side, then on the other. Because there wasn’t room in the attic of the bump-out for two people, Dean removed the windows of the bump-out while I worked on the un-framing.

Dean removes windows

The larger sections of roof were too hard to get a handle on, so the next step was to remove the gable end. Because it was from the inside out, we took off sheathing followed by the three layers of siding. With the end exposed, we were able to get the section of roof off, cut it into a triangle, and fit it onto the house. By this time it was well into the evening and with no rain in the immediate forecast, I decided to call it a day.

Next section
Poor roof mending
Gable removed
Work in progress

The next day was Sunday and I got the other triangle of roof into place. This still left two smaller triangle-shaped holes at the outside edges of the bump-out, but I couldn’t finish those until the walls of the bump-out were gone. I put a plastic sheet over the wall, which later served to funnel water directly into the house rather than keeping it out, but I’ll get into that with my next post.

Bump-Out Removal: Sistering Rafters

May 24, 2017 / / 0 Comments

Sigh. I think two-and-a-half months without an update is some sort of ignominious record for me. This post has been sitting in draft for most of that time un-posted because I ran into a persistent issue uploading photos. To make up for the delay, I’m going to post updates rapid fire over the next week or so to get things caught up, because while blog posts haven’t been happening, actual house progress has. Where we last left off (back in March), I had framed a new exterior wall to take the place of the bump-out.

First rafter sistered

With the new exterior wall in place, the next step is to sister the roof rafters that are over the bump-out so that they are supported directly on the new wall, rather than on the 2×4 on top of the ceiling joists. Sistering is just putting a new rafter next to the existing one, and “gluing and screwing” them together. The roof slope is nearly 45°, so the rafters are almost 15′ long to span the 10-or-so feet to the center. The existing rafters are true 2x6s, so I “harvested” the five I needed from the 21′ ceiling joists that we’re going to replace.

Will gluing a rafter

Sarah’s brother Will came out, and he was a big help getting this step done. The process itself was fairly straightforward, though it involved a lot of climbing around on wobbly ceiling joists.

All rafters sistered

First we cut the end of the new rafters to length at an angle, including a second cut to take off the “nose” so they matches the existing rafters (the ones that aren’t notched onto the 2×4). Then we cut out a section of the 2×4 adjacent to the existing rafter so that the new rafter would go all the way from the top of the wall to the top of the roof. After a test fit, we put down a squiggle of construction adhesive on the new rafter, clamped it to the existing one, and put in screws all down the length. We selected the order of rafters based on the support of the 2×4, so we were putting any more stress on the existing rafter than we had to. I don’t want the roof to be uneven!

Rafter bracket

There were a few spots we had to cut the ends off of nails sticking through the roof so the new rafter would fit, and I can’t understate how much clamping we did to get the two rafters solidly sistered, since one or both of them tended not to be completely straight. I wasn’t thrilled with the rafters just being toe-nailed onto the top plate, so I picked up some framing angles and put them in on either side of the new rafters. With this done, the ceiling joists are no longer supporting the roof, and we can move on to removing the roof of the bump-out!

Bump-Out Removal: New Exterior Wall

March 14, 2017 / / 1 Comment

The first step in lopping off the bump-out is supporting the structure. As it turns out, the bump-out is not very well engineered. The roof of the house is supported by the North and South walls. In the case of the bump-out, the 2×6 ceiling joists have a clear span of about 14′ from the partition wall near the center of the house to the outside of the bump-out wall. There is a 2×4 flat across these joists that the rafters are notched into. A 2×6 is simply not strong enough to support any kind of load at a 14′ span. More alarming still is the fact that the walls of the bump-out are not framed well from a structural standpoint, with the window intersecting all but one of the bearing studs and, of course, no proper headers.

Bump-out ceiling structure

I framed a new section of exterior wall, including partial sheathing. Normally I would have just assembled the framing and put the sheathing on after it was in place, but there isn’t much space inside the bump-out to work once this wall is up. I left out the bottom of the sheathing because the last pieces of sheathing will also need to cover the ends of the floor joists after we cut them back, as well as the top corner so we can pass the windows back into the second floor after we remove them. If I was smarter, I would have put the gap in the middle course of sheathing so I’d have a nice doorway, but I’m not and I didn’t. As I mentioned in my previous post, the plan is to disassemble the bump-out from the inside, so I don’t have to spend a lot of time way up on top of a ladder, handling heavy chunks of house.

Framing and sheathing the new wall

Getting this section of wall tipped into place proved vastly more difficult than anticipated, because of the ceiling joists. In the center of the bump-out, the ceiling joists were sagging almost a half inch lower than the sides, simply because of the weight they were carrying. I didn’t want to frame the wall section short enough to fit, so instead I fought a contest of wills with the mostly-upright wall section and the ceiling joists, trying to hammer the section completely vertical without completely destroying it. I employed a number of methods to get it into position, including cutting the undersides of the bowed joists with a circular saw, using another stud to jack up the joist, and finally using two 3′ pry bars at the same time while kicking at the sill plate to get it the last inch into position.

Tipped up, but not all the way
Getting close
Still a gap at the bottom
Finally screwing into place

I went into my weekend thinking I’d have the wall up in a few hours, and instead it took both days. I didn’t even get it screwed into place until Monday evening. Even then I needed to use an array of clamps to get the sides aligned before I screwed it in. This is unfortunately how this project seems to go with some frequency. Hope springs eternal: maybe I can get the new sistered rafters into place with a bit less struggle.

Lopping Off the Bump-Out: Planning

March 10, 2017 / / 0 Comments

Bump-out

One of the things we decided to do early on in our project was to remove the second floor bump-out. This is a cantilevered overhang above the sidewalk along the side of our house. It’s about ten feet long, extends about two feet out, and currently has four windows. It’s not an unattractive house feature, and because it’s on the South side of the house and the neighboring house is only a story and a half, it brings in a lot of natural light. It’s also original to the house, meaning that the floor structure is the same joists extended out past the end of the wall, rather than a poorly tacked on expansion as we thought originally. So why are we getting rid of it?

There’s a few reasons we don’t want the bump-out. First is the location from an interior perspective. The wet wall of the house hasn’t moved, despite our complete overhaul of the floor plan. Because of this, the second floor bathrooms are located in a specific place (right where the old one was, and where the kitchen was). The old bathroom was fairly small, about as wide as a bathtub and about as deep as a tub, a toilet, and a pedestal sink. We’d like a bigger bathroom since it’s the main bathroom in the house and it will also be incorporating the laundry room. Given where the stairs and hall are, the bathroom has to extend into the part of the house where the bump-out is. While the bump-out was well suited to being a dining room, it’s less suited to be part of a bathroom. When I was designing the second floor layout, I tried a number of configurations to incorporate the bump-out into a bedroom, but it just doesn’t fit.

From the back

From an exterior point of view, it’s mere inches from the neighbor’s roof. We actually had hail break a bump-out window because it ricocheted off their roof. It makes the already dark sidewalk along the house even darker. It complicates the roof line on the side of the house we want to install solar panels. From a building envelope point of view, it makes insulation and water management more difficult. In short, it doesn’t fit our our design, and we’re taking it off.

Bump-out interior

With that decided, how to do it? Since our basement is three feet out of the ground and our floors are ten feet tall, even the bottom of the bump-out is pretty high off the ground, to say nothing of the roof. Because it’s on the narrow side of the house, we can barely put the extension ladder up if it’s against the house, though we can put it against the sides of the bump-out. I came up with a plan for not only removing the bump out from the inside, but putting in the replacement exterior wall from the inside as well. Reality may intervene with this approach, but at the outset at least, and with a fresh pack of reciprocating saw blades we’re going to find out!

Unexpected Plumbing, Yet Again

March 4, 2017 / / 0 Comments

At some point I guess we should just expect unexpected plumbing to happen. However, I can say with certainty that we didn’t expect a loud thud followed by a cascading shower of water from the mechanical room ceiling one fine Saturday evening. We’d just gotten the kids into bed and Sarah was doing dishes when it happened. I came running from the living room (one of us has to sit watch so the kids stay in bed and go to sleep) and she was already pointing me out the back door and upstairs.

Cast iron pipe dropped

When we got upstairs we saw what had happened: one of the three cast iron soil and vent stacks in the wet wall had basically fallen straight down about two feet. The straps holding it in place were both snapped, the top of the stack was in the attic instead of sticking through the roof, and most critically, the PVC pipe it connected to at the bottom (where the washing machine drains) had cracked at the main stack and the waste water from the washing machine had poured out of the broken pipe end into the basement from above.

Broken fitting

The good news is that there wasn’t any serious damage. The 2″ cast iron pipe was already slated to be removed, nothing in the mechanical room that got wet was harmed, and the PVC section connecting the washer was temporary. We turned off the washer and went to bed, leaving the problem for the next day.

Vent stack dropped out of roof

Sunday morning I started by removing the cast iron pipe. This drain used to be used by the kitchen drains from the first and second floors. Apparently, it had been supported by the plaster and lath of the walls, and with only the straps (and the PVC pipe underneath) holding it up, it simply gave way. The bad news was that the PVC had cracked at a fitting, right before it went into the main stack, so I had two options: use a heat gun, some pliers and about an hour to pry the remains of the fitting out and try to re-use the Tee, or cut out the 4″ PVC stack section and put in a new one. That seemed easier, so I ran to the store and got some supplies, including a 10′ section of 4″ pipe.

Pipe removed

I managed some Three-Stooges-level incompetence when it came to removing the old PVC pipe section, spilling the remaining water inside at several opportunities before finally getting the rest into a bucket and the pipe out of the wall…before knocking over the bucket on the floor. I did my best to clean up the new mess on the subfloor and Sarah put down even more towels in the mechanical room below. I put together a new branch for the washing machine and glued it together with minimal fuss.

Roof penetration

The final step was to patch the hole in the roof. When I got up on a ladder in the second floor and took a look, I found the expected congealed tar, but also some bent aluminum flashing. Because I didn’t want to get onto the roof and do a more extensive repair, I simply put some flashing tape over the aluminum cylinder from within.The roof (and walls) already leak, so it doesn’t need to be perfect at this point. We’ll be putting on a new roof in the not-too-distant future and it’s Good Enough™ for now.