Rebuilding The 11 Dollar House™ (continued from Page 4)

By the end of June, the HVAC guys (they were also my plumbers) had managed to install the ductwork, the high velocity air handler, and the Navien™ high efficiency condensing tankless water heater,  The water heater will be doing double duty, providing the hot water for the house, as well as providing the heat for the house through a loop running to the air handler.  Everything is pretty crisp and neat, and all the tubing is hooked up to the various manifolds and ins and outs very nicely. It passed gas inspection at the beginning of July, which was when the gas got hooked up.

July-August 2008  Once we got back from a family holiday by mid-July, I was eager to go on ripping off the roof and extending the walls in the attic.  In a previous late January visit by the inspector, he expressed concerns that the third storey I was proposing lacked adequate headroom based on the current building code.  I measured, I fretted, I fumed, and finally, I decided that rather than try to eke out a cramped upstairs, I would just pop the lid and go up to provide 8 foot ceilings over most of the upstairs.  And so, the framing of various walls began.

In the next week, I had built the main side walls, as well as the three dormer faces.  Stacking them was a bit of an exercise in logistics.  I didn't want the walls in the wrong order, and the dormer faces had to be built last since they would get tipped up first.  By the time I got to to the dormer faces, things were getting pretty tight.  I could reach up to the ridge by scratching my head, more or less.  And so, not to be too poetical about it, it was time for the butterfly to emerge from the cocoon.  That is, if a butterfly were to do so with a reciprocating saw.

This is just one of many pictures I took of the process of sawing out sections of the roof so as to remove it piece by piece.  This was one of those times where my hopes of being green and salvaging something (namely, the old roof deck boards) had to give way to expediency.  The boards were tied together so well with two layers of wood shingles, along with a layer of asphalt shingles, that the only way to get them off without taking a month to do so was brute force and maximum destruction.  I could rely on the weather pretty well; in Edmonton, July is usually a pretty dry month, and I had a good stretch of weather to bank on.  Still, a few thunderstorms could change things pretty quick, so hustle was critical.

The house looked a lot less like a butterfly and a lot more like a house with a really bad haircut.  Still, sometimes the creative process can also be a bit destructive.

In case you're wondering, this is me.  And no, I didn't just get my teeth whitened.  I got my face blackened.  Of all the jobs I've had to do with this place, tearing off the roof has got to be one of the filthiest.

Once the roof was off, my dad came into town to lend me a hand in tipping up the walls and getting things back into shape.

Here, the new south wall and south dormer face have been tipped up.  In the process of doing all this, I had to move the south dormer over by about three feet to have it match up with the new north dormer that went over the stairs.  The dormer on the street side more or less stayed within the existing footprint.  I just raised its walls to make standing in it both possible and pleasant.  Also, its roofline was altered to match the new roofline of the main roof.

Once we got the walls up, we plunked 2X8 joists on top, and then hoisted up the 3/4" plywood (destined for the roof deck) to give us a work surface for the next stage, stick framing the roof.

After the rafters were up, putting the deck on didn't take much time, and then the roof was mostly weathertight.  I still had the sheathing to put on the walls, and obviously, there was flashing and roofing to take care of, but overall, it was mostly all done by the beginning of August.  I was kind of sad when I finally put the sheathing up and the room looked as they do below.  For that brief time, I had a great gazebo with lots of light and views in all directions.

The electrical passed inspection for rough-in in late August.  September would begin with the excitement of more cement trucks.  To see the basement floor getting poured, and some of what else happened in September and early October, go to Page 6.  Or, go back to Page 1, Page 2, Page 3, or Page 4.