Today on the way to work I threw the plans into the mail box!
We wanted to submit them weeks ago, but they were rejected for some minor details. We had the architect add that and today I dropped them off. Now it's all waiting until July 8th, the date of the construction hearing.
We got a few estimates and realized wood ceilings would be way too expensive (almost 4 times as much as brick ceilings). Based on the new, more detailed figures I got the new price tag of € 44800. Yuck! That's $68000... not including insulation and exterior stucco.
The house next door project is dead... the walls are incredibly moist (moldy 3 feet up from the floor) and the roof framing is fairly close to collapsing. One main support is already missing a 1 foot section and several tie beams are like styrofoam. Based on local property values the lot would be wort maybe €1500, the house (if it were in perfect condition which it clearly isn't) €8000. Their asking price: €45000.
Besides, it has been butchered badly, the only(!) original items left are: the shot brick walls, the shot roof framing and one interior door. So even I would advise to bulldoze it.
Wish me luck for the hearing!
Tuesday, May 27, 2008
Monday, May 5, 2008
Tale of a house
Like most old house people I'm always nosy when it comes to checking out other people's old houses. Recently I had the chance to take a brief look at a random old house.
Outside I had a hard time dating it. Two of the sides visible from the street are plain modern stucco, one is fiber cement. The roof is corrugated asbestos cement, something incredibly popular in the 1970s and 1980s. Roof trim: 1970s or 80s semi-rustic rural tasteless. Windows: vinyl double pane. Based on the fiber cement I'd have put the construction date in the 1950-1965 period, with extensive remodeling in the 70s or 80s. Facing the yard there is a weird bumpout slapped to the side, with a narrow front door and a window.
The only thing that pointed towards a much earlier date were the unusually small windows. Narrow windows went out of favor prior to WWII, exceptionally low ones prior to 1900. These seem to be both. 1960s and especially 70s construction loved overly wide if not huge, low windows. Only recently the old style small windows, usually with divided lights became popular again.
Two wweks ago I got in for the first time... even with all exterior doors open the first thing that struck me was the thick cigarette smoke smell. The bumpout is some kind of a hallway, vinyl flooring, windows (three windows and three doors in a room no more than 10 square meters or 100 square feet) and a somewhat decent wood ceiling. A doorway led into the kitchen. 1970s knotty pine paneling, a tiny window that hasn't been cleaned for decades and a hedge blocking all sunlight. A huge brown and black wood stove (1970s too) also designed to work as a central heating boiler. To the left I could see a real old door with two vertical panels, 4 glass panes and a rim lock. That confirmed my suspicions based on the window size - the house is 1820-1870 rather than 100 years younger. It leads to the only bedroom. Blue-grey and pink wall to wall carpet, beige-ish wall paper, even covering the door trim. Every available square cm of floor crammed full with stuff. Ceiling painted baby blue, paint coming off in chips the size of my flat hand.
I quickly made a 180 degree turn and got out of there... veen though it was definitely the cleanest room I had seen so far. To the right of the kitchen there is an indefineable room with a few kitchen cabinets, nicotine stained dark grey walls and a wall mount hot water tank.
In the back there is a double kitchen sink that drains directly onto the ugly tile floor. Next to it someone partitioned off a tiny cubicle barely holding a toilet bowl across the door and a small shower pan.
On to the last room... a20cm step up onto the laminate flooring into a crammed living room (sort of). I don't remember much of it... the back wall covered with the aforementioned pine, obvious moisture damage on one interior wall.
The attic is only accessible over a rickety ladder (precisely a stepladder leaning onto the wall) and shows evidence of a fire in one spot.
In the yard there is a so-called shed that reminds me ofthe slums in Calcutta or anywhere... it seems to be slapped together with whatever leftovers someone had at hand.
The owner asked me to help her carry out two pieces of furniture... the first thing I noticed were my hands stuck to them due to all the filth, followed immediately afterwards by a heavy cat smell.
After I had the stuff out I made a polite excuse and ran to wash my hands... yuck!
Can you say dirty? The owner and her sister chain smoked during the entire time I helped them...
Regarding our pigsty plans: we'll be out in the country next weekend, until then I have to add the hundred little last minute details (by hand since the plans are already signed by the architect) and put them into some kind of folder to submit them. We need to submit three copies each in a separate folder, one for the owner of the property (my grandmother), one for the permit applicant (my grandmother) and one for the council... bureaucracy is just the same all over the world. Actually I think Austria is one of the less bad countries after reading horror stories about France and Belgium.
We're also still waiting for the contractor bids... should have been there weeks ago.
Outside I had a hard time dating it. Two of the sides visible from the street are plain modern stucco, one is fiber cement. The roof is corrugated asbestos cement, something incredibly popular in the 1970s and 1980s. Roof trim: 1970s or 80s semi-rustic rural tasteless. Windows: vinyl double pane. Based on the fiber cement I'd have put the construction date in the 1950-1965 period, with extensive remodeling in the 70s or 80s. Facing the yard there is a weird bumpout slapped to the side, with a narrow front door and a window.
The only thing that pointed towards a much earlier date were the unusually small windows. Narrow windows went out of favor prior to WWII, exceptionally low ones prior to 1900. These seem to be both. 1960s and especially 70s construction loved overly wide if not huge, low windows. Only recently the old style small windows, usually with divided lights became popular again.
Two wweks ago I got in for the first time... even with all exterior doors open the first thing that struck me was the thick cigarette smoke smell. The bumpout is some kind of a hallway, vinyl flooring, windows (three windows and three doors in a room no more than 10 square meters or 100 square feet) and a somewhat decent wood ceiling. A doorway led into the kitchen. 1970s knotty pine paneling, a tiny window that hasn't been cleaned for decades and a hedge blocking all sunlight. A huge brown and black wood stove (1970s too) also designed to work as a central heating boiler. To the left I could see a real old door with two vertical panels, 4 glass panes and a rim lock. That confirmed my suspicions based on the window size - the house is 1820-1870 rather than 100 years younger. It leads to the only bedroom. Blue-grey and pink wall to wall carpet, beige-ish wall paper, even covering the door trim. Every available square cm of floor crammed full with stuff. Ceiling painted baby blue, paint coming off in chips the size of my flat hand.
I quickly made a 180 degree turn and got out of there... veen though it was definitely the cleanest room I had seen so far. To the right of the kitchen there is an indefineable room with a few kitchen cabinets, nicotine stained dark grey walls and a wall mount hot water tank.
In the back there is a double kitchen sink that drains directly onto the ugly tile floor. Next to it someone partitioned off a tiny cubicle barely holding a toilet bowl across the door and a small shower pan.
On to the last room... a20cm step up onto the laminate flooring into a crammed living room (sort of). I don't remember much of it... the back wall covered with the aforementioned pine, obvious moisture damage on one interior wall.
The attic is only accessible over a rickety ladder (precisely a stepladder leaning onto the wall) and shows evidence of a fire in one spot.
In the yard there is a so-called shed that reminds me ofthe slums in Calcutta or anywhere... it seems to be slapped together with whatever leftovers someone had at hand.
The owner asked me to help her carry out two pieces of furniture... the first thing I noticed were my hands stuck to them due to all the filth, followed immediately afterwards by a heavy cat smell.
After I had the stuff out I made a polite excuse and ran to wash my hands... yuck!
Can you say dirty? The owner and her sister chain smoked during the entire time I helped them...
Regarding our pigsty plans: we'll be out in the country next weekend, until then I have to add the hundred little last minute details (by hand since the plans are already signed by the architect) and put them into some kind of folder to submit them. We need to submit three copies each in a separate folder, one for the owner of the property (my grandmother), one for the permit applicant (my grandmother) and one for the council... bureaucracy is just the same all over the world. Actually I think Austria is one of the less bad countries after reading horror stories about France and Belgium.
We're also still waiting for the contractor bids... should have been there weeks ago.
Saturday, April 12, 2008
Status report
Yesterday we had a meeting with contractos and suppliers to get bids for the construction work. Things went ok, but I have the strong feeling we need to be extra careful and sometimes act very stern in order not to be run over by the contractors. They have a strong tendency to do things they way they're used to and that's not necessarily the way I want them done.
The plans are finalized, but the April permit hearing is full, so we have more time to submit them.
On the other hand the old lady next door just died and her house is for sale. Now we've got two options... but right now we're leaning towards continuing the pigsty project since the house next door reeks of a gut job which wouldn't be significantly less expensive.
We (or mostly my dad) also got everything we want to keep out of the pigsty, a neighbor will drive by on his tractor next week and haul everything else to the bulk waste pickup. He's also going to attack the partition walls and concrete slab with a sledge hammer - another neighbor said he likes that kind of work *ggg*
I got a splitting headache after lugging out the refrigerator (something that didn't really suprise me after two weeks of late night overtime at work) so courtesy for cleanup goes to my dad.
In the process he also found a door with a more or less working rim lock. The door itself is a plain shed door and absolutely rotted, but it's got all original hardware.
During the next couple of weeks posting will be scarce since we'll be waiting for bids and approval of the plans.
The plans are finalized, but the April permit hearing is full, so we have more time to submit them.
On the other hand the old lady next door just died and her house is for sale. Now we've got two options... but right now we're leaning towards continuing the pigsty project since the house next door reeks of a gut job which wouldn't be significantly less expensive.
We (or mostly my dad) also got everything we want to keep out of the pigsty, a neighbor will drive by on his tractor next week and haul everything else to the bulk waste pickup. He's also going to attack the partition walls and concrete slab with a sledge hammer - another neighbor said he likes that kind of work *ggg*
I got a splitting headache after lugging out the refrigerator (something that didn't really suprise me after two weeks of late night overtime at work) so courtesy for cleanup goes to my dad.
In the process he also found a door with a more or less working rim lock. The door itself is a plain shed door and absolutely rotted, but it's got all original hardware.
During the next couple of weeks posting will be scarce since we'll be waiting for bids and approval of the plans.
Monday, April 7, 2008
Visitors
As you might have suspected I've got a tracker running in order to see who visits my blog. I'd say more than 90% of my visitors are from the US and get here via the OHW forums (www.oldhouseweb.com). However, I do get the occasional surprise visitor... once I had somebody from Korea googling for clay plaster! Must've been a very patient person, because I checked the referrer and my blog was not amongst the first 10 pages. Another nice visit tracked back to the Czech Republic, very close to the actual location of the pigsty.
And finally, today I had visitors from the UK googling for Heraklith insulation. I even found out with these keywords my blog entry about walls is hit #2 on Google!
Side note: after 2 minor changes (correcting the floor area of the attic and adding the site plan) I plotted the final plans today. Now i "just" need to xerox all the other paperwork three times, create some kind of cover and bind everything.
Regarding the demolition work, Hofer, a discount supermarket chains (many Europeans will know the German owner of the brand, Aldi) offers a cheap electric jackhammer and we'll probably buy it.
And finally, today I had visitors from the UK googling for Heraklith insulation. I even found out with these keywords my blog entry about walls is hit #2 on Google!
Side note: after 2 minor changes (correcting the floor area of the attic and adding the site plan) I plotted the final plans today. Now i "just" need to xerox all the other paperwork three times, create some kind of cover and bind everything.
Regarding the demolition work, Hofer, a discount supermarket chains (many Europeans will know the German owner of the brand, Aldi) offers a cheap electric jackhammer and we'll probably buy it.
Tuesday, April 1, 2008
Plans finished!
The plans are officially ok!
I just need to get the layout right and have them signed by the architect. The architect also promised to get the official site plan and deed record by today and mail it to me. So once I get that and the plans signed we're ready to submit them!
Firday 11th we lined up suppliers and contractors to give us quotes, the construction supply house, a framing contractor and a plumber.
Most likely we'll leave the old concrete floor as far as possible, based from what is visible from outside this is a 15 or 20cm slab, possibly even with rebar. Unfortunately it is fairly sloped (to make sure any animalic liquids run out into the manure pit in the yard), so we have to see how far above ground we'll get. We need to build up at least 7cm above the highest spot of the current floor.
Aside of that I finally managed to get most of the tools out of our Vienna hallway where they'd been residing ever since we finished the last room in 2005 and into the new shop shelf. We definitely need to de-trash all other shop storage though... the new shelf is bursting and there's still enough stuff on the floor and any other horizontal surface.
Not so good: our 30 year old boiler in Vienna gave up the ghost late Saturday night. It had been dripping occasionally for almost 2 years, but once the pressure had dropped a little againa fter refilling it had worked, so we ignored it. Besides, we thought it was just an external valve, underneath the wall-mount unit.
Then my mom said the boiler wouldn't fire up. So my dad grabbed the fill hose at 12.30 Saturday night... or rather Sunday...
Suddenly he cursed and I ran to see what happened. The boiler wasn't dripping any more, it was running. And worse, the water was coming from inside the boiler!
The last plumber who serviced the unit had put the cover on so securely I couldn't get it off... don't ask me what he did.
We put a bucket under the unit to catch the water, grabbed a few extra blankets and went to bed.
The enxt morning much to our surprise it was nice and warm... the beast had held enough water to run!
That held until yesterday in the evening. My dad had eft the hose connected anyway, so he just needed to turn up the water a little and add just enough pressure the boiler would start.
We also got a plumber lined up for Thursday. Most likely he'll tell us to get a new boiler... but we hope to convince him of repairing it, maybe be using a band aid approach.
After all the boiler (which only heats our unit) is supposed to be replaced by a whole house pellet boiler next year, so we'd like to keep it running until then.
Wish us luck!
I just need to get the layout right and have them signed by the architect. The architect also promised to get the official site plan and deed record by today and mail it to me. So once I get that and the plans signed we're ready to submit them!
Firday 11th we lined up suppliers and contractors to give us quotes, the construction supply house, a framing contractor and a plumber.
Most likely we'll leave the old concrete floor as far as possible, based from what is visible from outside this is a 15 or 20cm slab, possibly even with rebar. Unfortunately it is fairly sloped (to make sure any animalic liquids run out into the manure pit in the yard), so we have to see how far above ground we'll get. We need to build up at least 7cm above the highest spot of the current floor.
Aside of that I finally managed to get most of the tools out of our Vienna hallway where they'd been residing ever since we finished the last room in 2005 and into the new shop shelf. We definitely need to de-trash all other shop storage though... the new shelf is bursting and there's still enough stuff on the floor and any other horizontal surface.
Not so good: our 30 year old boiler in Vienna gave up the ghost late Saturday night. It had been dripping occasionally for almost 2 years, but once the pressure had dropped a little againa fter refilling it had worked, so we ignored it. Besides, we thought it was just an external valve, underneath the wall-mount unit.
Then my mom said the boiler wouldn't fire up. So my dad grabbed the fill hose at 12.30 Saturday night... or rather Sunday...
Suddenly he cursed and I ran to see what happened. The boiler wasn't dripping any more, it was running. And worse, the water was coming from inside the boiler!
The last plumber who serviced the unit had put the cover on so securely I couldn't get it off... don't ask me what he did.
We put a bucket under the unit to catch the water, grabbed a few extra blankets and went to bed.
The enxt morning much to our surprise it was nice and warm... the beast had held enough water to run!
That held until yesterday in the evening. My dad had eft the hose connected anyway, so he just needed to turn up the water a little and add just enough pressure the boiler would start.
We also got a plumber lined up for Thursday. Most likely he'll tell us to get a new boiler... but we hope to convince him of repairing it, maybe be using a band aid approach.
After all the boiler (which only heats our unit) is supposed to be replaced by a whole house pellet boiler next year, so we'd like to keep it running until then.
Wish us luck!
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
Concrete
I spent the Easter weekend out in the countryside and tried to get some things done. First I spent a couple of hours removing stinging nettle roots. Those beasts develop root lumps several feet in diameter, with the occasional deep roots. About the only way to get them out is to dig up the entire area with a fork half a foot deep and drag on the roots. After a few hours I had about half of the area I wanted to dig up done and was extremely sore. So I decided to call it a day, smoothed the ground and seeded some grass. That way we'll slowly work our way through the entire garden. As an extra plus the fresh grass looks a whole lot better than the old, patchy coarse stuff.
The I dragged myself into the pigsty to check out how much of the demolition we could do ourselves. I grabbed our trusty Bosch rotary hammer, the flat chisel bit and started plugging away at the concrete floor. After 10 minutes I had a small dent, maybe 10cm in diamater and 3cm deep... definitely no way we could take out the entire floor with our own tools. I had hoped the concrete floor could be as bad as the roof and ceiling, but no such luck.
Then I turned my attention towards the exterior walls. First surprise: at least one of them was unplastered concrete up to about 1m from the floor. And the concrete even protruded over the plaster... so if we decide to plaster the entire surface the bricks will get quite a solid coat.
The plaster came off, reluctantly but in the end it worked.
Finally I tried my luck with the stall partition walls. They're supposed to be brick.
After 10 minutes of hard work I had chipped off a small corner... the plaster is like concrete, as is the mortar, and the bricks are rock hard too. Yuck!
Sounds like we're going to leave the entire demo to the pros, using a pneumatic jackhammer.
I first considered bulldozing the entire building and building new... but I then realized that would give us trouble since we'd have to build the ground floor to current code, which means 2,8m ceiling height instead of 2,65. And most likely that's only the tip of the iceberg. So we'll try to keep standing as much as possible and work with/around it...
On the plus side I realized if we use hollow core bricks we can significantly reduce cost. Precisely we can almost cut the cost for bricks in half. Nice! Besides they're much faster to put up due to their size (25x23x37,5cm) and provide better thermal insulation. The only downside: not as mechanically strong as full bricks and less sound insulation.
We also had the local handyman over for an estimate. He said he'd get a few contractors and material suppliers in for a full estimate based on my plans. He also said we'd need to have the plans ready for permission in April, because the hearings don't seem to be monthly like the architect said.
So yesterday I had a wild CAD session changing lots of details in the drawings. Except for 1 or 2 small items I'm done, so I hope tonight I can mail the plans to the architect again.
I need to get a full site plan though, that's the only large CAD item missing.
The I dragged myself into the pigsty to check out how much of the demolition we could do ourselves. I grabbed our trusty Bosch rotary hammer, the flat chisel bit and started plugging away at the concrete floor. After 10 minutes I had a small dent, maybe 10cm in diamater and 3cm deep... definitely no way we could take out the entire floor with our own tools. I had hoped the concrete floor could be as bad as the roof and ceiling, but no such luck.
Then I turned my attention towards the exterior walls. First surprise: at least one of them was unplastered concrete up to about 1m from the floor. And the concrete even protruded over the plaster... so if we decide to plaster the entire surface the bricks will get quite a solid coat.
The plaster came off, reluctantly but in the end it worked.
Finally I tried my luck with the stall partition walls. They're supposed to be brick.
After 10 minutes of hard work I had chipped off a small corner... the plaster is like concrete, as is the mortar, and the bricks are rock hard too. Yuck!
Sounds like we're going to leave the entire demo to the pros, using a pneumatic jackhammer.
I first considered bulldozing the entire building and building new... but I then realized that would give us trouble since we'd have to build the ground floor to current code, which means 2,8m ceiling height instead of 2,65. And most likely that's only the tip of the iceberg. So we'll try to keep standing as much as possible and work with/around it...
On the plus side I realized if we use hollow core bricks we can significantly reduce cost. Precisely we can almost cut the cost for bricks in half. Nice! Besides they're much faster to put up due to their size (25x23x37,5cm) and provide better thermal insulation. The only downside: not as mechanically strong as full bricks and less sound insulation.
We also had the local handyman over for an estimate. He said he'd get a few contractors and material suppliers in for a full estimate based on my plans. He also said we'd need to have the plans ready for permission in April, because the hearings don't seem to be monthly like the architect said.
So yesterday I had a wild CAD session changing lots of details in the drawings. Except for 1 or 2 small items I'm done, so I hope tonight I can mail the plans to the architect again.
I need to get a full site plan though, that's the only large CAD item missing.
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
Work space
The last weekend was spent doing something that should have been ages ago... installing shelves in our Vienna work shop. It's a former kitchen which is also used for storage, so in dry words it was almost impossible to get past the door. We filled about a full trash can with various stuff and cleaned out for two days before we could even consider installing any shelves...
On Sunday and yesterday we drilled holes in the brick wall, put up metal shelf hangers and solid pine shelves. It was incredible... my dad and me have put up many a shelf in that house, and usually we needed long, thick screws and copious amounts of Moltofill. This time we had screws where we wondered if they'd be enough.
Well, afert geting the first few in we decided we most definitely needed _smaller_ screws!
Eventually we mostly used 4.5x60mm screws and had a hard time getting them in...
Then we quickly filled up the shelf. It's now 2/3 full and the room loks ok again... but there's still more work to do, especially getting all the tools out of the hallway.
If we clean out the other old kitchen furniture we might be able to fit everything and have useable space.
Other than that we scheduled a meeting with the architect to discuss possible cost reductions. Meanwhile I have to alter the plans a little (drawing issues rather than actual footprint changes).
The weekend will be spent out in the country where I intend to do more cleaning up and whack a test hole into the concrete floor.
On Sunday and yesterday we drilled holes in the brick wall, put up metal shelf hangers and solid pine shelves. It was incredible... my dad and me have put up many a shelf in that house, and usually we needed long, thick screws and copious amounts of Moltofill. This time we had screws where we wondered if they'd be enough.
Well, afert geting the first few in we decided we most definitely needed _smaller_ screws!
Eventually we mostly used 4.5x60mm screws and had a hard time getting them in...
Then we quickly filled up the shelf. It's now 2/3 full and the room loks ok again... but there's still more work to do, especially getting all the tools out of the hallway.
If we clean out the other old kitchen furniture we might be able to fit everything and have useable space.
Other than that we scheduled a meeting with the architect to discuss possible cost reductions. Meanwhile I have to alter the plans a little (drawing issues rather than actual footprint changes).
The weekend will be spent out in the country where I intend to do more cleaning up and whack a test hole into the concrete floor.
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