Building Science: Remodeling Old Homes

I'm out the home builder and remodeler from Saratoga Springs New York building smarter better designed and longer-lasting homes using proper techniques and building science is my passion I'll be talking to pros around the country about issues that affect their daily work and how they overcome them this is building science hey so we're out we're in Saratoga Springs this week my hometown gonna be meeting with rich Martin and tell you when I think about Saratoga the New England upstate New York area think about a lot of old inventory guess some of the oldest houses in the country up here get two and three hundred year old houses it's a mole posted being rough cut timber houses so it's really interesting even though we got a fast-growing area on the new construction is booming out here it's really important as a carpenter in these areas if you know how to do that stuff you're really interesting to see what rich is up against while he's trying to read level an old floor right now so we look forward to going out and seeing [Music] morning rich morning Matt good to see you again good to see you too well thanks for having us out here today so you got a pretty interesting project we're working on an old house tell us a little bit about what's going on here and what got you into this business well what got me into the business is that I knew construction I guess from when I was a little guy so I've been doing this for 51 years also have an inspection business we've inspected over seven thousand houses what's nice about that is I get to see things wrong and a lot of places from a lot of different builders and so forth but this here project is a house that I estimate was probably built in the 30s or the 40s and what we've done is totally gutted the inside of this house so we can see the framing nature of all the way it's put together the additions that were made the original house everything's a little bit different on this particular house before we get too carried away we're going to adjust these floors this was a porch at one time sitting out here and they converted into part of the living space floors a little out of whack some of the other floors are out due to either structural issues with the foundation and bug infestation we've got some plates that have been eaten up so we're gonna try to straighten that thing out and that's our first goal so when you get into something like this and you're gonna redo a floor system what makes you really decide on how you're gonna attack that project well I think you're looking at both the top side and the bottom side and to what extent we think it's going to take to raise that floor up and level it based on what we see whether it's a foundation issue or the plate deteriorating we'll make a decision on how we're going to take it a apart and replace what we have to replace they've added to the floor maybe adding to the floor is not an option anymore we've got some decent hardwood floors in here that we'd like to match up to so that's part of the consideration also well let's go look at what we got take a peek awesome [Music] but inside here Matt and you can see what we're what we're looking at here in fact as you come through you can see that was the original door to the house and this was a porch that was I think edit or adjusted later roof wise and so forth and as you look in here you can see some of the situation's that we're going to address you can see that somebody took what I think is the original porch floor and tried to level that out a little bit they look beyond that floor if you come over to this section here we even see that the original floor to the house is raised up honest and but I just raised right here is because of a stone foundation for the house sits here so one of the things that can cause a situation like this is either bug infestation because the support structures have been eaten and or that gotten wet and rotted away or we've had outside pressure from roof runoff water pushing in on the foundation creating it to move so there's a number of different ways that these situations can be created but I think for a contractor to come in here and to give a scope of work or a budget plan the only way to know what you've got if you're going to construct and rectify these issues is to tear the whole skin off the house and so we know what that it's pretty difficult to give you as a client a price on something like this until we get to this stage and we evaluate what we have to do to make it structurally correct that's a really big deal and a great tip for everybody to say you know structure everything so that you can do that peel back understand what you're dealing with before you get yourself you know bound in a situation where you don't really know what you're dealing with so have a pre-imposed plan of demolition we're gonna level that floor the first thing I look at it what am I going to do with the steps sure okay I've got an 8 inch rise coming up here if the contractor doesn't think about oh my goodness I'll ever like raise that 2 inches what am I going to do with that extra 2 inches and do I have a cost involved in correcting those steps coming into I've seen him so bad we're the way to correct them is with two five four by fours you put him out in the front lawn with a piece of plywood --nt you're right for sale on it because there are nothing left here okay so we've got a situation where somebody's got to come in and say the owner comes in or whatever and says look contractors say and this is what we've got to do to fix this two things that we need to fix a house to any extent we need a roof that doesn't leak yep okay no sense putting new sheetrock and insulation in this if we don't have a sound roof and we need the foundation and a grader on this house that keeps the roof runoff water away from the foundation if we take care of those two things you can build a house that'll last for hundreds of years it's those two elements that fail that take a house down good the pest infestation doesn't happen until the wood gets wet and the wood gets wet because we don't have proper drainage so consequently we have whatever happened down here we're going to get into crawl space we're going to get into the basement and we're going to see what we have to do to elevate this and level it all up so we go downstairs and take a look done let's take a peek all right entrance to the crawlspace we put this little tent up because we've been running in and out of here and pulled off the secure weatherproof entrance to the crawlspace and I just wanted to point out to you Matt here we talked about it before about one of the problems with structures settling down or out of level floors and this is the plate that came out of this building right here set on top of these block when you look at this the mud indicates that that was termites and if you look here you can see the termite tunnels coming through the cracks of the block working their way up to get into the plate when we took this out the termites were gone but this is full of carpenter ants in here they come in later but all those those fins like that is an indication that the termites and just of interest we didn't have termites up in this part of the country 4050 years ago they've been migrating slowly from the south and as you know termites live out somewhere out in the lawn somewhere but the carpenter ants after they moved in there within the house and the structure itself and again they only attack wood it's wet so that's why it's so important about keeping the water away from these the foundation walls so we're going to climb in here and see we've got one of the things you see is whoever put the insulation and put it in upside down yeah this should have been against the living space instead of the cold space in there not that that's a huge detail but as you can see it's all coming down and we're gonna take it all out okay so that vapor retarder and that's often done incorrectly we see that a lot that's correct reveling around that the vapor retarder wants to go to the conditions on the warm side that's exactly right so then somebody came down to add a little bit more protection and they put up this rigid foam and that just made it worse because now we've got two vapor barriers and the condensation builds in between them as you look around at the whole foundation you can see that the plate that we just talked about outside where the termites is completely gone underneath that section and that these floor joists are not sitting on anything that would even create anything level you can also see that the foundation wall here has got some cracks in it and it was laid up by somebody that I wouldn't say it was a professional mason but this needs to all be pointed up in here so that we can structurally it's not too bad as you look down the wall there's a couple of block out or in that can be adjusted when we raise this floor of it and the reason we're saying raise the floor up because what I see from down here Matt these floor joists look to be in fairly decent condition they do they're not bad they're rough cut lumber but they don't look bad at all which indicates to me that maybe we can come down here put a beam in here drop girder a couple of jacks and raise this thing up high enough to get it up no matter what the level is upstairs but to be able to put a plate in all the way around with sill seal and then what you would do on this grade in here is big this out a little bit and probably pour what we would call a rat slab which is just a concrete cap across this maybe two inches thick polyethylene on the ground first before the concrete so it stops the moisture from coming up into the area once we secured this thing and got it straight the new joists that it's jacked up into place somebody could make a decision I'm gonna insulate the exterior walls instead of the floor that makes sense tea if we can stop the coal from coming in the wall we don't need so much of this insulation in depending upon the heating system that you have you might even condition this space by bringing some heat in whether it be by warm air or a piece of baseboard element hot water so that we keep the dampness out of here by keeping this heated if we keep this heated we can eliminate ventilating and worrying about this because it gets damp and then like we talked about before also create a grade outside to keep all the roof runoff water away from this foundation those effervescence that you see up there on the Block are an indication that there's water outside of those block that's the water that comes through the Block in evaporates just like if you had a pan of water on the stove and you boiled it you'd be left with those so just to be clear rich what I'm hearing you say is you guys are gonna real 'evil this floor out by removing some of the dirt prepare everything down here you remove all the old insulation get it out pour a new slab down on the base and that will allow you checking this floor up to the right elevation installing a new a new sill plate with sill seal everything like that repoint all of the the old block work and reseal everything before the insulation goes on then you're gonna be able to insulate the perimeter walls making sure that you have all of these pieces and parts you know setup and instructional II secure weather proofed and insulated well before you kind of move on to the finishes the reason we're down here is because once we got into this space and we saw the moisture issues that have created or helped created some of this uneven floors we now appreciate that we need to put the new plates and we need to add those things to stop the termites and the carpenter ants and the rodents from getting into it so I don't want you to think that we're doing more than we have to as far as the scope of work of raising the floor but these are things that once everything is stripped and we pull down the ceiling we now know our part of the entire process to put the house back the way it should be yeah and with these modern houses I mean it's very different when we think about houses that were in the 20s as opposed to a house now when we start thinking about dramatic climate changes from the outside the inside of the house and thinking about when people only really worried about heating the home and now we're worried about heating and air conditioning and the house has to react quite a bit different so you know making sure that we can get this house up to modern building science standards to make sure that it can have both the heating side of it and the air-conditioning side of it and be protected from all those things I think that's really great all the pieces and parts that you're adding in here to make sure this stays climate controlled in a four-season climate that's a really great thing one of the things that we have today because of the energy crisis of 77 is we've tightened the houses up just like the two products over our head vapor barrier and the condensation was created because we didn't have this back in the 20s and 30s we had houses that had seven air changes an hour now that we've tightened the house up to save energy we're subject to new levels of problems and the three largest are radon carbon monoxide and mold and those three things are new relative to what they were in the 20s 30s and 40s I think that's probably important to us anyway as contractors to make sure we address all those issues and not walk out of here just by level and floors all right let's get to work let's go [Music] [Music] so this is a layer of flooring they just kept ripping things together they tried to raise it back up can you see is it has the floor descended they added more shims here and then slowly kind of two chins away as they got up to the end to make sure that they could reel 'evil the floor and then use the plywood base over top of that to try to create a more consistent substrate to catch back up to the old shiplap subfloor in the original building [Music] [Music] so it's really awesome to be able to get my hands dirty today and help everybody out really great project is we're reassuring this old House floor was really cool to start stripping everything down and come up with a great game plan as to how this particular situation was going to unfold itself so because we had found out that the addition was originally a porch and the entire structure was built at a slant we decided to Jack the entire building up to get it back to level so you could see where we got down into the crawlspace today put the jacks in lifted everything up put new cell plates in and then because we had some extra time with the carpenters we got up onto the top floor put some of those pieces in the the purlins onto the floor to shim everything back up to the right elevation kicked in some three-quarter inch tongue and groove subfloor to get that flush floor across with the old and the new so they'll be able to blend this floor back together really nicely when they put the rest of the finished hardwood floor on so in the meantime we're gonna wait they get the concrete to do still down in the basement they got to get that chimney down patch the roof back in and I think the weatherization process is kind of a big integral part of that to make sure that they're waiting on keeping everything dry to get the concrete done then they'll get the chimney out get everything in place and maybe get another day or two here thanks for watching building science Saratoga Springs for more building science and in-depth how to's check out our videos [Music] this demonstration is intended for professionals only homeowners should not attempt these projects without first consulting a licensed professional

Channel: Lowe's Home Improvement

Views: 312,403

Keywords: lowe's, lowes, lowe's pro, lowes pro, building science, building school, remodeling old homes, remodeling old houses, remodeling old home, remodeling old house, renovating old homes, renovating old houses, renovating old home, renovating old house, remodeling homes, remodeling houses, remodeling house, remodeling home, renovating house, renovating houses, renovating homes, old home, old house, old houses, old home remodeling, old house remodeling, old house renovation

Id: Ewjg-0NKr2k

Length: 16min 54sec (1014 seconds)

Published: Wed Aug 28 2019