The crew is quickly making progress on the project. With the north, east, and south sides done, they are now making moving to the front, the west side. They're tackling the 'easy' pieces first - places with good sheathing. Next week the carpenter will come back to fix the water damaged sheathing near the front door as well as redo the porch decking. Then, the crew will come back to finish with the rockwool and hardieboard application.
For this project, we're looking to strike a balance among:
In the end, the material cost of the rockwool will be ~$7,000 and the 2" thickness will provide an additional R6 to the exterior, which is about a 60% improvement from our previous exterior wall (which includes plaster wall, 2" of dense packed cellulose, backplastered wall, 1x6 sheathing, woodlap siding, and asbestos shake siding). There is no evidence that the porch and backdoor ever existed. The hole was framed in, covered in sheathing, covered in weather barrier, and now insulated in rockwool. The entryway has always been super cold. When the rest of the house is warm, the entryway has always been less comfortable. And it's no wonder with this level of rot!
Sheathing is being repaired and weather barrier is being applied. Notice how rotten and non-existent the boards are under the back door! All of the wood lap siding has been removed, and now the house looks rather naked. Sheathing in 1893 was 1x6" boards, as opposed to OSB today. Pretty interesting. Also having stripped the house fully, we have identified a number of places with water damage and in need of repair. The construction crew will remove the rotten wood and patch with OSB. Like an onion, the triplex has many layers. The first layer of asbestos siding is now off! One of the more interesting parts of this project was the chance to catch a glimpse of what the triplex used to be. Built in 1893 as a single family home with an attic apartment for the servants, the original home was eventually converted to a rooming house and then to a triplex. Removing the exterior asbestos shakes revealed what a beauty this house used to be! The 2.5" wood lap still held some of its faded white color, making the house look a bit like a ghost. Sadly, some of the original, decorative wooden corbels had clearly been hacked at to accommodate the asbestos being attached over the top. Being able to see what was once there has allowed us to at least try to find suitable replacements from Bauer Brothers. Though they won't match the originals perfectly, we will have some of a similar style to reattach once the new Hardie Board is in place. Hardie Board doesn't quite come in 2.5" lap, but will be around 3.5". We decided to maintain the original white, though there will continue to be some brown and green soffit and fascia. |
AuthorKatie writes it like it is. Peter makes it flowery and interesting. You can tell which one studied engineering and which one was a lib arts major. Archives
August 2020
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