Rehab of a 1957 ranch house

[OhioHeidi]

POPPY, sorry for your lose!

Keeping yourself busy is what I found helped me the most with losing someone dear.  You sure have worked hard on the place.  I'll be honest, I didn't think the place had much of a chance.

I was born and raised in Southern Ohio, Greenfield and I live near Central Ohio now for almost 19 years.  I've hated it the entire time and wish I could get our home sold and get back to the Country.  But there are no jobs in Southern Ohio. 

Nows the time to buy that's for sure!

[poppy]

Thanks for the kind words Heidi.

You sure have worked hard on the place.  I'll be honest, I didn't think the place had much of a chance.

Well, I don't mind hard work, and I figured that the place could be made liveable for an old man like me. 

I don't know if it's a good thing or not, but as I told the people that sold me the nice bathroom shower and vanity, my place in the country is in a Formica neighborhood instead of a granite one.

Whatever it looks like down the road it will be head and shoulders above most houses in the area.

As far as jobs in the country; they are available, but admittedly the options are slim unless you want to work fast food or for Wally World.  There's a reason that the commuter lots are full out there.

[poppy]

I've got to take a break from looking at craigslist almost daily, but I can't help myself. 

The latest find.



I thought I had my stove, but the HearthStone that I bought a while back is borderline large enough and not very efficient (45%) and won't keep a fire all night.  It would be a nice restore project maybe for the cabin, but I found this Vermont Castings thingy.

It's a Defiant Encore model 2190 with catalytic combustor, 72.5% efficient and a 10 hr. max. burn time.

First I needed to stop by the farm and pick up some "aids."



A 4-swivel wheel dolly, cable hoist, straps, rope, and a big ole board; all of which came from various auctions.



This is the way an old man unloads a 350 lb. cast iron stove by himself.




And this is about where I plan to install this beast; across the great room from the 2 original bedrooms and next to the wall by the new MBR.  Now the contest for today is to tell everyone what the "handle" is that's sticking out from the bottom right. 

The stove is about 15 yrs. old and needs some parts, like a new combustor, heat shields for the bottom and back, and new glass panels for the doors, not to mention the necessary pipe and stuff to go through the attic and roof.   

[Windpower]

I have a Vermont castings stove

It has  been a very good stove !

Mine is the next size smaller ( I think it is called a 'Reliant') great stove -- keeps a 1000 square foot old farm house warm all night during below zero Wisconsin nights when stoked with oak or maple

GOOD BUY !

The only quirky thing it does -- funny really -- the stove moves -- kind of walks a few fractions of and inch every few days ---easily pushed back though

I really like the glass doors  too

[poppy]

Thanks Windpower for the positive remarks.  I hope I made a good buy, time will tell.

I'm not sure I like the idea of the stove walking around though. 

Here's some more update.  The more I work on the old house the more I want to reach back in time and strangle the builder. 

Here's one of the ceiling joists.


Just a "small" 2" crack on the tension side.     At least it will be easy to replace.

And while working on the floor structure I found this little slip-up.


Who says you need a support under a girder joint.   

I also spent many hours working on those big ole holes in the floor framing. 



The straps and hoist were not needed to unload the stove but came in handy to raise the floor.   



Finally,  the floor is just about as flat and level and solid as it's going to get. 

[Redoverfarm]

Nice find on the stove poppy.  My guess it would be a draft control or fresh air intake damper.  I noticed what looked to be a adjustable scaffold walk board.  If it is that too has some age to it.  I have rehab several older homes and although the most have decent workmanship but generally all have "whats with this" character.

[Windpower]

"Now the contest for today is to tell everyone what the "handle" is that's sticking out from the bottom right."


That is the air intake draft control. (mine is at the front )

open it up until the fire is well under way then cut back to your desired heat level

the handle on the right near the top controls where the smoke exits the fire box  -- it is a really nice feature

it allows you to open the top 'door' while the fire is burning and throw another hunk of wood in,  without smoking up the house   

then put the handle in the other direction to return the stove to controled burn

Here is a downloadable manual for it  including spare parts list

http://literature.mhsc.com/vermont_castings/manuals/30001693_Defiant_31.pdf

[poppy]

Thanks John for reminding me of the scaffold board.  That was an auction find also.  I have fond memories of house painting with my dad and a couple of his brothers.  Dad had an old single axle trailer that he hauled to a job site and loaded with one or more of those scaffold boards.  I have a set of ladder jacks from another auction that are used with the board.

Sorry guys, the lever in question is not for the air intake.  The air intake control is on the upper right and the damper control is on the upper left.  Try again. 

Thanks for the link Windpower.

[Redoverfarm]

If there are grates then it could be to shake the grates.  Didn't notice if there was a ash tray &/or door

[Pilgrim]

Well, while I was getting my seldom used password changed Redoverfarm beat me to it.  I was going to say what he said. Darn!  I'm just a day late and a dollar short.

[poppy]

Sorry guys, still wrong.  There is an ash door that swings out to remove the ash pan.  There is no shaker.  The handle for the ash door is just to the left of the right leg and is black.

Here's a hint.  Look in the area where the doors meet.

[Pilgrim]

OK, I guess I'll try again since no one seems to have gotten it right yet.  Is it the thermostat handle?

[poppy]

No, you still haven't got it.  I guess I'll have to give a more direct clue.



Now can you figure it out? 


In the mean time here's another craigslist find.



$40 for this 3' section still in the box.  It's almost $50 a ft. new.   


I've had a thread over in General about the floor framing for the new MBR.  I've decided to tear all the old stuff out.



This is the beginning of prying out the old ledger board.



I mentioned in the General thread that the builder used big a$$ nails for the ledger.  The new nail on the right is a 12D. 




The aftermath of ripping out the ledger and sheathing.  BTW, I finally was smart enough to use the ladder to get down into the crawl space after several climb/jump downs. 


Took a walk out to the back yard and noticed some squirrel activity at the hickory tree. 


I was surprised to find that I had a pretty good crop, especialy since my hickory tree on the farm was bare.  That's a 3 lb. coffee can.  Now if I can just find someone to make me some hickory nut fudge. 

[mogie01]

Does the little handle lock the front doors of the wood stove?

[poppy]

Well mogie, the handle does indeed operate the door latch.  It was kind of a trick question because the handle as shown on the lower right didn't do anything except be stored on a bracket hanging off the leg.

The handle is magnetized enough to hang onto the latch.  I'm not sure why it's designed that way, but there you go.

[MountainDon]

So it can be removed when the fire is stoked and not get hot.

[Redoverfarm]

Don that is the same as my Hearthstone.  The handle is removed with the exception of opening the door.  It does get hot.  Unlike the older wire handles like on a cookstove that stay relatively cooler if left on the plates.

[poppy]

Still doing some investigating work on the rim joist between original house and porch/new MBR.  First I ran a string line along the top of the sill.



The level is level and the floor slopes about 3/4" in 4 ft., but what I noticed right away was that there is a hump in the floor.



The string line is at the top of the sill on both sides of this area.  The hump is about 6 ft. long and over what I thought was a section of foundation wall that had sunk, but it actually had lifted in this area which just happened to be at the center of the old archway opening into the old FR/new MBR .   



And I pulled out the trusty water level to see just how much overall slope there is over the 18 ft. of sill from the cistern wall to the outside wall.  There's about 3 3/4" of slope.



I'm probably going to have to live with the overall slope because I really don't want to raise most of the front of the house (about 30 ft.), but I decided to knock out the wall under the hump (after pounding in a 5/8" shim between the wall and sill at the house floor girder) and then, just for fun, rolled the 350# stove over the hump.   

In my dreams, the sill/rim will settle back down.   

Then I turned to the kitchen to see what the floor structure needed plus what it would take to move the heating duct.  So since I had crawed under the kitchen anyway, I decided to take a look at the back bathroom plumbing.



Who says you need continuous floor joists?     Looks like I've got some more mistakes to fix.     Whose idea was it anyway to buy a forclosed house and try to rehab it.   

[poppy]

My family and friends keep asking me if I'm doing any framing yet.  Well, a little progress.


I'm concentrating on the load bearing stuff right now.  This pic. is the new arch way opening between the great room and new back hallway.  It was where a window was in the original bathroom and then became a closed wall between that BR and the newer bathroom.

Yea, I know, I know, I could have just used one or two 2x6's and been done with the header, but I like trusses. 

Besides it's better than what the yahoos did before.


This is the door opening between the old DR and laundry room.  They also cut the subfloor where the sill is for this door (for God knows what reason), so there's no support under the subfloor boards at the edge of the room by the door. 


And then, even though I thought I could leave some of the walls alone, I keep finding so many things wrong that more wall board needs to go.



This is the corner of the kitchen where we had to tear out the pantry because the flooring was water damaged.  This pic. was taken after the sheetrock, old siding and sheathing were taken down.  While I was at it, I also took down the wall board at the back of the pantry.



Here you can see the old roof of the laundry room.  For some reason the cistern hung out a couple of feet from the original back wall, so the laundry room overlaps the newer kitchen.  I'm kind of glad I dug into this wall because....



This is from the laundry room side.  That crack is there because the stub wall end studs were not secured at the top.  So the only thing keeping the wall vertical was drywall tape on each side of the corner.     Well, they did attempt to nail it, but the nails only went into the old asphalt siding.


I told my kids last week that I almost sat down and cried, as I kept finding more and more stupid moves by the fools who should never had been allowed to pick up a hammer.   

[poppy]

In a departure from my typical craigslist buys this report is about some Habitat Restore finds.

The newest Restore in town has been advertizing on craigslist (so I guess it's still kind of a craigslist story).  They had a new in box Pegasus black granite composite double bowl sink for $95.  So I went to check it out on the way out to the Chateau.

I figured that if the sink was not cracked, it would be a really good deal.  Of course, the sink was cracked in not one but in three places and since I don't know if gluing would fix it, I passed.   

While I was at the store I looked around and found a best buy.  I don't think I mentioned it before, but the pink toilet seat I bought with the bathroom set had a broken hinge.

So as good luck would have it, this is what I found on a shelf in the toilet section.


An almost perfect seat that matches the one with the broken hinge.  And the best part was that it was only 2 bucks. 

Then I looked in the kitchen cabinet section and found a couple with a similar style to the hickory cabinets I have.



When I told my son about this buy, he reminded me that I need to focus and quit buying stuff that I may not be able to use.  I was thinking that maybe, just maybe I could figure a way to make the finishes match.   

[poppy]

This past weekend was auction weekend for me.  Sat. saw me at an estate auction in the Amish community building.  On another thread, I told about the dowsing set that sold for $1000.  I bid on a bunch of stuff, but only bought a Remington 1148 20ga. shotgun.

Then Sun. I went to a building materials auction.  It's held several times a year and they have consignment stuff that includes lumber, kitchen cabinets, flooring, doors and windows, and a bunch of other stuff.  It's a really big auction of both new and used items in an old tobacco warehouse.

On auctionzip.com they advertised that this auction included some hickory plank flooring, so I was interested in that as well as doors and windows.

Here's my first load from the auction.


This is 20 boxes (500 sf) of hickory plank flooring.  A pretty big load for my little pickup (about 1320#). 

The helpers loaded it for me, so I had enough energy to unload it myself.



It's natural pre-finished hickory T&G plank.




Before I tell you what I paid, here's an auction trick that I have learned over the years.  One reason that I got a pretty good deal was that I did not bid on this item. 

This auction is so big and has so much hardwood flooring (about 10,000 sf of various types) that they don't put very much of it up for bidding on any given auction day.

They had a special request for the hickory plank flooring of which they had both 5" and 4" natural finish and over 1000 sf of each.  They opened the bidding with the option of choice of any of the hardwood flooring to the highest bidder which included 1000's of sf of oak along with additional varieties of hickory.

The winning bidder got whatever he wanted for $2.80 a sf. so long as he bought in complete boxes (25 sf per box).  He chose 14 boxes of the 5" hickory plank, leaving 29 boxes.

And here's the trick:  The auctioneer then gives any other bidders their choice at the same price. And as is usually the case the other bidder was interested in something different, so they went down the row and bought some oak flooring at $2.80. (this was the only bidding done on flooring that day)

After the bidders are satisfied, they open it up to anyone with a bidders number. So I just hung around until I could request 20 boxes of the 5" hickory blank.  It may not be as much fun not bidding, but I can assure you that I would have had to go to at least $2.85 or who knows how far up to win the bid.  I took the chance that they would have enough available for me and they did.

Now, I did have a backup plan.  There's a local flooring store that happened to be clearing out some 5" natural hickory plank flooring for $3.00 a sf plus tax and they had 800 sf available.  That's still a pretty good deal.

This trick or tactic doesn't always work.  I used it successfully to buy a window for $30, but it didn't work on the door that I wanted.  I figured that since they had two identical doors there would still be one available for me even if the winning bidder wanted one of them.  Well I was right about the high bidder wanting only one, but another bidder got the other one for $35.  So not bidding left me out that time. 



The door (3' 15-lite) is another one that I was the high bidder on, but it was not a choice situation and I paid $120 instead of the potential $35 on the "choice" door.

[ben2go]

Good score on those auction items.Sorry to hear and see that there is way more issues with the house than previously thought.

[poppy]

Well guys and gals, it's been a slow go but I've made some progress in the wood stove department.

Since I didn't like the idea of making a bottom heat shield pattern out of cardboard, I went to Carter's Lumber to browse and see if something would work.  Some 1/4" wire mesh caught my eye.





A little cutting and bending and it looks pretty good.





So I took the pattern over to Art's Welding and he said, no problem.




Well, it looks like the pattern and only cost 40 bucks. 




Had to break out the angle grinder and do a little tweaking.




I did have to spend another 4 bucks for hardware, but it beats spending $270 for a factory shield. 



Then I figured a mock up of the set up would be a good idea.



Cement board, quarry tile, and some small clay pot bases is the current proposal.

And just in case anyone has wondered what a spent catalytic combustor looks like.




And in closing, the lastest craigslist find. 





Lowe's finest that a guy used for one day before he discovered that the flue was not safe to use. 27 tons with Honda engine and it's mine for $800.     I was almost ready to buy the Tractor Supply 22 ton unit for $1000 plus tax when this showed up.

[rdzone]

The stove heat guard looks great.  I have a vermont castings defiant encore that I picked up for $200.  I knew it would need some work, but the stove was in great shape.  I bought a rebuild kit (new fireback, damper and ceramic insert) for it for $500 and now it looks great. I have been thinking about making a heat guard for the back and bottom, so your pictures are extremely helpful.   

[poppy]

Thanks Chuck for the kind words.

Sounds like you got a really good deal on the Encore.  I'm going to have to replace the refractory assembly on mine, but all of the cast iron parts are in good shape.

For a variety of reasons, I don't need the rear heat shield, but if you start with a section of 12" pipe you should be able to build something around it for the shield.  Of course one could make a shield without a pipe section as well.