Archive for May, 2007
Why Is It So Low?
Monday, May 28th, 2007To the ground: Houses that is. I’ve been asked several times why they’re so low to the ground we can’t work beneath them.
I’m a little slow to answer that question. I also need to get the last installment in on the Water Under The House project. It’s done, but I’ve been slow to get the last post up. Sorry folks It was a hectic week last week. Then, save for a little meeting over the weekend with some out of town folks about a renovation (among other projects on their list), I kinda dipped under the radar for the long weekend.
Okay, down to the question: Why are [some] houses built so low to the ground?
There are two answers. The first is an instance (a rare one, I’ll admit) where the law — the building code, in this case — actually makes a bit of sense. It’s designed to address minimum safety standards. It was never intended to provide a logical or common sense set of building design standards. That’s the job of architects, engineers, designers, and contractors, who are supposed to put the pieces of the puzzle together in a way that addresses such long term life cycle issues as vertical clearance for subarea maintenance and repair.
In reality, however, it only happens on the high end of the housing market. And that leads us to the second answer to the question.
Most subdivisions are built by developers who put the entire development project (or a major portion of it) up for bid: "How much to build 250 homes on proposed subdivision X?" The details take several forms, of course, but the end result is always the same: The bidding is ferociously competitive and the contract is invariably awarded to the lowest qualified bidder.
The developer wants the largest amount of profit from the deal s/he can manage in the shortest amount of time. So it’s not about quality, it’s all about quantity and speed.
In such a bidding and building atmosphere profit margins are very small. Many many corners get cut to keep the project on schedule and on budget. And one of them is the least amount of ground preparation that can be managed. An extra 6 inches of dirt may not seem like much for one lot, but multiply that amount by 250 and you’ve got the difference between a winning (lowest) bid and a bid that comes in 2nd or 3rd, or that comes in late and/or over budget, eating into or eliminating profits.
Once out of the "’tract" home market, however, you begin to find custom designed (or modified) homes that are built "one off." Here you’re more likely to find attention to minor details such as ground clearance, drainage, the need for sump pumps, and the means and methods of accessing the buildings systems over its life cycle to perform needed maintenance.
I hope this is an adequate, if general, answer to the question.
Technorati Tags: building standards, architecture, development, developer, construction, subdivision
Putting Copper Under Wraps
Friday, May 18th, 2007I was on my way home from the There’s Water Under the House job when the phone rang. A do-it-yourselfer had gotten himself into a fix. The copper water main under his house had developed a pin-hole leak. He’d tried to fix it himself, but couldn’t get any of his patches to hold. He’d tried solder couplings and compression fittings and had finally thrown up his hands in despair. It was already four-o’clock. In an hour all the hardware stores would be closed, and these people had no water.
Upon inspection the problem didn’t seem that difficult. We needed a few feet of copper, a stopless coupling, and an FIP to copper adapter.
Then I looked at the rest of the copper under the house. It was green and dark brown. Classic signs of electrolysis. Putting new copper pipe up to this old stuff, I could see that half the wall thickness of the pipe had been eaten away. When I hit the old copper pipe with emery paper, I could easily see how pitted it was. Under a microscope it would have looked like the surface of the moon. In some places the old pipe had to be paper thin. In any event, I knew that getting the solder to take and fill all those voids was going to be hard. A dice roll, in fact.
It almost worked. One pin-hole in the new solder joint was all there was. I was actually pleased, but not out of the woods. The leak was entirely too big to let go until the bigger plumbing problem could be addressed. So I pulled an old "fisherman’s trick" out of my hat. You can use it too:
With the water off I took a strip of rubber — an old inner-tube split down the middle and then cut into strips about an 1½" wide will do — and wrapped it around the pipe so as to make three layers of rubber over the pin-hole. Then I clamped the rubber into place with a couple of pipe clamps. When we turned the water on, it didn’t even drip! (I’m sorry I didn’t get a chance to take pictures of this for you. This was a rush job so there wasn’t time. Maybe I’ll get a chance to do a demo for you some time.)
Give it a try next time you have a pin-hole leak in a pipe.
Technorati Tags: there’s water under the house, copper pipe, sweating copper, compression fittings, electrolysis, plumbing, plumbing repairs
There’s Water Under the House! Post-2
Monday, May 14th, 2007I’m about 50% finished with the sump pump project. The work is slow because of poor clearances. Code says there’s supposed to be at least 16 inches of clearance. In the photo below (and many of the others I’ll show in this post and others) you can see that the clearance is closer to 14 inches — less where the insulation is drooping between the girders. In fact, clearance is the largest cost factor on this job! Low clearance means it takes longer simply to get to where you want to work, and then to move around to reach tools, swing them, etc. Under this house it takes 5 minutes to crawl (on your belly) from one side to the other — and it’s only 35 feet!
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| I just stapled the wire. I’m running it from the source to the location of the pump — clear across the house, of course. The hammer is my small claw hammer. It’s 12 inches long. Clearance here is about 15 inches. One of the more roomy areas beneath the house. |
But, to be fair, I’m no longer in my twenties (or even thirties), either.
Before continuing: I must apologize for not getting this entry up earlier. I had intended to make this post on Friday or Saturday. These photos were taken with the camera in my phone (hence the dubious quality) and the software that connects the phone to the computer didn’t want to work. I had to argue with it all weekend to get things straightened around. Finally, late Sunday night, I was able to down load the pictures to the PC so I could post them with this article.
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| Fixing the damage. Here’s where it all started. There were places like this all over the sub-area. Unfortunately, there wasn’t enough money in the budget to fix it all properly. All I could do is tack it back into place, and out of my way, as best I could. |
To start at (more or less) the beginning, before any drainage work could begin, I had to get the insulation that had fallen back up where it belonged — or remove it. Most was (blessedly) serviceable; some had been water soaked and had to be removed. A minor amount had been so completely shredded it was impossible to put back in place. Strangely, in some places there simply was no insulation. There were places like those pictured above all over the place underneath the house. Note how the insulation is hanging down, held only by the plastic netting. When originally installed, the batting was crushed up against the sub-floor and staples were driven through. That tactic ruins the insulative effect at each point where a staple is driven through. Eventually the weight of the insulation (especially after absorbing moisture for 20 years) tears the paper and vapor barrier, leaving it to hang solely on the netting. It thus becomes a health risk to workers: You can’t crawl around under the house without tiny fiberglass particles glittering in the air around you. You’re working in a constant rain of tiny fiberglass particles. To be completely safe, full breathing apparatus and eye protection would be required. A virtual impossibility in such a cramped space.
Ironically, mitigation would have been as simple as A) stapling the insulation in place from above before the sub-floor was installed and then B) knowing how tight the quarters would be for future workers, using high quality netting material to contain the insulation over time.
What’s visible in the foreground is what happens when such a tactics are not used. The insulation has pulled free of its staples and the plastic netting has stretched under its weight, letting it hang down into the already cramped crawl space. Netting was never intended to be the first line of defense against falling insulation! (The clearance from ground to insulation in the above picture is about 12 inches.)
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| Trenching. The heart of draining the water from beneath a building. Note the fallen insulation in the background. |
In the final picture we’ve finally reached the point of trenching — the heart of draining the sub-area. This picture shows several interesting details. Like the previous one, note the sagging insulation with its tear-drops of fiberglass in the foreground. The trench is also clearly visible in front of the main 4 inch house drain. Above the drain is one of the main, 8 inch central heating ducts. (You can see it to the right of the fallen insulation batt in the middle of the picture.)
What you can’t see is also important. There’s another 5-6 feet of area behind this wall of drain pipe and ducting that’s virtually inaccessible. At the south end of the house the heating duct is some 6 inches above the ground — and that only because someone smashed the duct a bit in an attempt to make enough room to get through! (It’s visible at the extreme right of the frame.) I don’t know about you, but I’m not small enough to squeeze through a space that small. There’s another space in the North West corner that’s equally inaccessible for the same reasons.
Still, for all the access problems, we’re going to be able to do a decent job of draining the ground beneath the house, and covering the ground with a plastic vapor barrier. Mind, I’m not saying this is going to be easy! But we’ll get it done.
Next time: Electrical hookups and plumbing. We finally get a break in our favor!
Technorati Tags: sump pump, building code, sub area, crawl space, insulation, sub-floor, fiberglass insulation
There’s Water Under the House! Post-1
Tuesday, May 8th, 2007In this part of the world, the great, wet, Pacific Northwest, one of the things, architects, engineers, builders, designers, and home owners have to contend with is: Ground water. Because if they don’t, then that only leaves one other option — usually implemented after the fact. A sump pump under the house.
My Current Project
Putting a sump pump under just such a house is my current project. The house was built around 20 years ago, and like a lot of land in the area, when it rains the ground water comes right to the surface. Unfortunately, the sub-area is 12 inches below ground level. (Makes you wonder what engineer gave those plans and that plot a look-see, doesn’t it?)
I actually first bid this job back in January, just before the rains started. I stopped by the property the end of February and the water under the house was level with the sidewalk!
Over the years the water has damaged the insulation under the house. Much of the netting is ripped or torn away so insulation is hanging down all over the place. Unfortunately, the home owner doesn’t have enough money in the budget to repair all the damage. The best I can do for them right now is tack the insulation and netting back up and get the pump and vapor barrier installed to prevent more damage from occurring.
I’m also working on a couple of articles. The next one in the Do Yourself Green series on sealing windows, and one on tank-less hot water.
Technorati Tags: tankless, tank-less, hot water, do it yourself, handyman, do yourself green, pacific northwest, architect, engineer, builder, contractor, designer, home owner, ground water, sump pump, insulation
