My "10 year project": rebuilding an efficient "tiny" crooked house in Canada

[MetroMPG]

Agreed on the concept that little house + big problems = somewhat manageable. Big house + big problems I would not even have considered.

I haven't moved in yet, and my initial idea was this:

Gut & fix up the left (west) side bedroom first, since it's sitting level, square and on solid footings. Then I have somewhere decent at least to sleep & work (self employed, work @ home on the computer) while messing around with the rest. I actually already started demo-ing. (Bedroom ceiling & old insulation is gone; started on the walls).

As for the foundation/pad, I've done some research. Of course the big question is: has the pad finished settling completely? It can only go so far. If so, then jacking up the frame and shimming the sills would be fine.

I'm inclined (pardon the pun) to think it's finished settling, based on the age of previous inside & outside repairs that compensated for the house's crookedness.

But in the case that it may settle further, one stabilizing solution is to dig "post" holes immediately beside the foundation/pad, to below frost depth at intervals along the suspect wall and pour concrete in sonotubes level with the bottom of the sill. Bolt angle brackets on the top of the stabilizing "posts" to the sill to stabilize the wall and take pressure off the pad/foundation.

You will laugh out loud (I did!) at how the previous owners dealt with the crooked house issue. In a nutshell: they hid it, rather than dealing with the problem. In other words, there are some pretty crooked walls hidden/sheathed inside some relatively straight looking walls. I'll post details later, with pictures/diagrams for a chuckle.

[MetroMPG]

EDIT: PS thanks for the good luck wishes. At times, I know I'm going to need them!

When I occasionally worry that it may be too much to do myself (+ friends/family ), and on a tight budget, I calm myself down by realizing: this house was occupied for many decades in in its current crooked/tilty condition. The worst case scenario -- if correcting the actual tilt is too difficult/expensive -- is that I will only stabilize where it is now, and then adopt the cosmetic "hiding the problem" approach they used in the past.

Even if I end up going down more of a cosmetic repair road, I will still be able to eco-renovate along the way.

[AlanE]

I'll chime in with my wishes of good luck.

Here's my 2 cents worth of advice on how to proceed while spending as little of your cash as possible.

1.) Hook yourself up in the network of DIY lumbermill operators and tree service/arborists. You can buy your lumber pretty cheap this way, trade labor for free lumber, haul away wood for free lumber or just cutting charges, etc. Some guys have kilns or solar kilns to dry the wood so they charge for that or you can build your own passive solar kiln for next to nothing and dry your own wood. Often times the lumber your get is of better quality than what you get from a lumber yard.

2.) Scour Craigslist and USEDONTARIO or some type of similar publication's FREE section. If you have the time to wait for the right items and a place to store items until you need them you can pretty much build a house for free - I've seen lumber, roofing materials, concrete blocks, rebar, toilets, sinks, kitchen cabinets only a few years old, double paned aluminum windows with Low-e glass, front doors, patio doors, wood stoves, wood flooring, carpet, old granite countertops, furnaces, and so on listed.

3.) Find out about the demolition crews in your locale - I've heard that some crews will allow you a few days before they start tearing the house down to go in and scavenge for free so long as you haul away the junk you pull it - it saves them dumping fees.

4.)As you have noted the foundation is key. That's the place to start. Progress will be slow and non-visible while you work on that and that might be depressing but once that's stabilized the visible progress thereafter will go much faster.

5.) Build yourself a small shop/storage yard so that you have a place to work that is separate from the living space.

6.) Invest in a a.) a table saw, b.) a router, c.) a planer, d.) a jointer and e.) a bandsaw.

7.) If you follow through on points 1.) and 6.) then you are set to fabricate your own wood flooring, your own kitchen and bathroom cabinets, your own wood wall paneling. You can buy a compressor and spray gun and spray your own cabinetry or hire that out. With labor and wood for free you can build yourself a $10,000 kitchen for peanuts.

[MetroMPG]

We're on the same wavelength, Alan. Good summary/advice.

I'm definitely into watching for material that comes available, and I have a place to store stuff until I need it. (I have a workshop/garage on a separate lot in town that's got more square footage than this house ).

So, the stockpiling has already commenced!

Just this afternoon I spotted a trio of casement windows pulled out of a reno job, available for free. They need screens and a bit of work. I'm picturing two in that west bedroom to let in more light, and will likely go pick them up.

I wouldn't hesitate at all to talk to the local reno/demo & kitchen installation guys - Itook a full set of cabinets off their hands from a nice house a year ago. They're already installed in my garage, and are much nicer than the ones in the wee mansion! I'm sure others will come available.

---

On the subject of reusing building materials...

Coincidentally, last week I talked to an old-timer in town whose post-war house (and some others on the same street) was built partly with structural material pulled from buildings in a temporary army officer training camp. These days, I don't imagine there are too many people who would take the time to reuse materials like that. Times & attitudes have changed. (Plus it's probably in violation of building codes that have cropped up since then.)

[AlanE]

Speaking of building codes, you might run into a problem of having to upgrade more than you want in order to get permission to do a little thing. For instance, I'm pretty sure that you can't put aluminum windows into a permitted renovation which would put the kibosh on plans to use free windows.

The alternative might be to say "screw it" and do as many people do and renovate under the radar. If you go that route I would suggest that you take plenty of digital photos of everything you do, especially everything you do that will become buried or enclosed. This will help you in the future anytime you need to know where something is within the structure and it will help you in a post-facto building inspection if you have to sell your pad. Building inspectors in many jurisdictions have more lenient standards for construction that is already in place than they do for construction that has yet to commence, and if you can demonstrate to them how you've followed safe building procedures, which I highly recommend, they have discretion to overlook things like windows not being up to snuff on energy codes and such. The reason I bring this up is that it looks like you're going to be faced with making many trade-offs - there are good reasons why aluminum windows with thermal bridges are disfavored but when the choice becomes $$$$$$=fabulous window versus $=pretty good window, the small decrease in efficiency is made up for by a big amount of $ saved.

On another note, if you want to expand the footprint of the house, the area on the left of the house seems like a natural place to go because in the back you have that small wing, so you'd just be closing off a square. The problem is that you'd have to bring the whole house up to standards (I think) and that might not be worth it. However, if you build a covered porch there you might be able to avoid that problem. With a covered porch on a proper foundation you have the groundwork to put in a higher pitched roof and build yourself viable rooms in the attic. Right now a 500 sf home has got to be a tough sell, but a 500 main floor and 500 attic floor home would better positioned.

[randen]

Message from MetroMPG:

I apologize, randen: I mistakenly over-wrote your thoughtful comments posted here. (I accidentally hit "edit" instead of "quote" and then typed a short reply over top of your original message.)

Feel free to re-post if you like.

If you don't feel like it, the summary I recall is:

- I should beware of dumping money & effort into a house that's not worth it
- An alternative would be to live in this house while taking my sweet time building a new one, possibly on the same lot

Sorry about that! -Darin

[MetroMPG]

The main (original) portion of the building is carnival fun-house hilarious.

Long ago, it gradually settled on one side, then to add insult to injury, the house slowly tilted toward the low side (there was no plywood sheathing back then to hold the original angles - the planking on the gable ends slipped a bit, and things went out of square).

As I mentioned earlier, rather than fix the problem, the previous owners "corrected" the tilt cosmetically.

A picture is worth 1000 words. Brown is the interior original structure. Red is the shimmed aluminum siding. Light green is the shimmed interior wall & ceiling surfaces (pine tongue & groove paneling). The floor was shimmed also.



All that shimming and strapping explains why my window sills are 12 inches deep, despite 2x4 original construction! The picture is exaggerated, of course.

Unfortunately, they "fixed" the interior before the building had finished settling. So the "new" interior is not true any more. The exterior aluminum siding, soffits & fascias were done much later, and they remain pretty straight & level. They were done ~30-40 years ago. (In other words, the house has been stable since they were done.)

So there's a really crooked house inside my somewhat crooked house!

[MN Renovator]

I shouldn't be laughing but that picture is funny.

Could be used as opportunistic cellulose cavities?

[MetroMPG]

The good news is that if I retain the current "envelope", I'll have lots of space for insulation!

[MetroMPG]

Laughing is expected and encouraged. Non-laughers will be beaten until morale improves!

Also, we typed our last messages at the same time.

Could be used as opportunistic cellulose cavities?

Exactly! Lemon, meet lemonade.