White Elephant

BarnBuster

Virtually Unknown Member
Not sure if that would work, but worth a try. Florida has made it where you can't burn down houses for practice. My wife's old family home in town burned, and we tried to get them to burn it the rest of the way. No go. Cost about $10K to tear it down and haul it off.
FD will do it here but it has to be in BFE outskirts of town. Costs about $10k to do a tear down around here as well, (with no asbestos abatement.)
 

too larry

Well-Known Member
FD will do it here but it has to be in BFE outskirts of town. Costs about $10k to do a tear down around here as well, (with no asbestos abatement.)
This is in town. Houses close by, so that might have been part of it. The fellow did a good job though. It looked really good. But that was years ago. It's grown up into a wood now. We need to do something with the lot. The back side of the lot is on the Florida Trail (which follows the bike path in town), and I had thought about putting in a hostel. Not enough trail traffic yet to make it pay.
 

too larry

Well-Known Member
The house leveling guys showed up this morning. The plan was to cut the pilings and put in spacers like this.

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But about mid-morning, they decided to put those back together and cut the nails and put in big stainless steel screws instead. I like this much better. I was worrying about what might happen if we did have a really big flood.

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too larry

Well-Known Member
I worked along the riverbank while they did their thing. I had done all the easy stuff before, so lots of scraggly shit today. But I'm almost through this mess looking toward the house, then have a halfway decent trail the rest of the way to the beach.

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too larry

Well-Known Member
Are they supporting the house with the bolted on 2X's?
That is what it looks like. We didn't know it until they started cutting posts on Monday, but half the posts are sitting on top of the ground. They are putting extra scabbing on those. The jacking might be creating gaps. I just checked in a couple of time. I didn't watch them work, just ask how it was going.

One thing they did run into was the new deck along the river side is level, but the house isn't. They had to scab that whole side, then cut the nails loose and lift the house into level.

They are all going out of town next Monday, so we are up against a little time crunch. It's hard for me to judge, but it looks like they will not be through by then. Just three in the crew. Although they had a five year old helper this afternoon.
 

BarnBuster

Virtually Unknown Member
I was reading an article about the use of wood pilings in foundation construction. Specifically this was about the Boston Back Bay homes (pricey) and how much they cost to repair the pilings/foundations that have been gradually drying out (a real no no, I guess) and had to be replaced. As long as they remained submerged, no problem. I had no idea of this type of construction.

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too larry

Well-Known Member
I was reading an article about the use of wood pilings in foundation construction. Specifically this was about the Boston Back Bay homes (pricey) and how much they cost to repair the pilings/foundations that have been gradually drying out (a real no no, I guess) and had to be replaced. As long as they remained submerged, no problem. I had no idea of this type of construction.

View attachment 4501240
There are two dry rotted ones they are having to replace. They brought in new ones for those two today.

We had thought about getting the whole house lifted a couple three feet. They would have got rid of the wooden pilings and poured footers to support concrete blocks. I liked the idea, but it was $60K plus.
 

too larry

Well-Known Member
I didn't get any good pictures today. The waves are gone from the library. The double fireplace was an area of concern. Underneath it has two steel supports down to a concrete pad on the ground. It's wood on one wall, so not too worried about that one. But stone on the other wall. And so far seems to have come though alright. No cracks that I could see.

They say they are on pace to be done by Friday.
 

too larry

Well-Known Member
Ran into the first hiccup today. My end of the house had to be lifted 3 inches. Had to turn off the water to the house and cut the supply line to the toilet. It needed changing anyway. The copper tubing was badly kinked and without a shutoff valve anyway.

But everything else is coming along on schedule. The door from the dining room out to the deck swings freely now. There is a rub mark in the hardwood floor, so it's been rubbing for a long time.
 
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