Our New Old House

I got to the house right at 8am and George, the electrician was already there. But my realtor wasn’t, so I called his cell and left him a message. I had a feeling this might happen. With his newborn son waking every few hours to eat, he and his wife haven’t been getting any sleep at all. The electricians were very patient and I finally got ahold of him and he said he’d be there in half an hour, he’d completely forgotten with all the craziness of having a new baby.

So they waited and we talked about everything about the house that I know and they gave me ideas about what the work will involve and everything. Once the realtor showed up and let us in they got to look around at everything. Here’s an overview of our discussion:

These older houses often have something called fireshield inside the walls behind the plaster and lathe. That means the walls are not hollow, in fact you have to drill through that stuff to fish wires through it. He’s not certain ours are like that, but it’s something they were putting in the construction of these old houses.

He measured the house to be about 1000 square feet, 1200 if you count the attic (which, incidentally, was exactly what I guessed!). And he’ll use that number to estimate how much wiring will be needed.

We talked about what it would take to put wiring up to the ceiling and run wiring for the existing ceiling lights. Because those all have knob and tube, they have to run it all through the ceiling, they can’t just fish it up through because there’s not a big enough hole for modern wire to go through. They’d have to cut notches in the joists to put the wire through. Regardless, we’re looking at ceiling patches and probably re-doing the texturing on the ceiling in the long run. If the crown molding is wood, the best solution may be to take that down so it can stay in one piece, strip the paint and texturing off it while it’s down, and once we fix up the ceiling, put it back.

The may be able to access the bedroom lights and the kitchen light through the attic crawl space, though.

The meter will have to be outside, probably right under the bathroom window. The circuit box will probably still be in its present location.

He agreed we should wire for 200 amps to prepare for a garage. I asked him about how to wire the kitchen and he said the garbage disposal and dishwasher go on one circuit, the countertops go on one, the fridge and stove go on one, and the lights may be on one with the lights of another room. That seemed to make good sense to me.

He wasn’t able to give me a firm bid today, but he’s going to get that to me tomorrow or the next day. He did generally ballpark it for me at around $7000, but I really want to wait to see what his actual bid is before I go with that number.

I learned a lot from Dan the fireplace inspector. He showed me all the specific problems with the fireplace and chimney. He had a diagram of the insides of the whole system and showed me how it all works. He recommended this kind of flue damper since ours is totally rusted out and it isn’t the best design for that to begin with.

I did get a firm bid from him with stuff specifically itemized. His bid was $5000 exactly for the whole job to make it a working fireplace. It takes about a week to get the whole chimney done and ready to use.

The tree service gave me a $400 bid to clean up all the trees close to the house and wires, clean off our roof, and haul away the cut debris. I told him I’d take care of the brush in the back and along the alley myself. I need a good excuse to buy a chainsaw anyway, and I know Brandon will LOVE that.

So that’s what we’re looking at right now. I did finally get everything done and then switched off the circuits and locked up the house. It took me just over half an hour to ride downtown, find a place to lock my bike, and get to work.

There’s just so much work that needs doing. I just want to get started already!

[tags]chimney, contractors, electricity, fireplace, trees[/tags]

And so it begins. The process of gathering estimates, collecting bids for work, and figuring out exactly how much this beast is going to cost is already starting to get overwhelming, and it’s only the first day! I wish I hadn’t left my super-organized binder at home. But I’ve gotten a LOT done today. Here’s a re-cap:

I got a phone call from my cousin Ryan, our realtor, at 7:30. I was brushing my teeth. We agreed to meet up at the house around 8:15 or 8:30 to meet the home inspector. Bill was already there poking his fingers in water spiggots and shining lights under the cupboards. I could tell right away that Bill knew what he was doing, so I followed him around and listened to his observations and recommendations. It was like he was a doctor checking all the vital signs of a very large animal. I learned a lot!

Steve, the contractor we’d also asked to come over arrived soon after and he followed me around the inside and outside of the house and took notes on what kinds of work we’d like him to do for us.

We didn’t get an electrician to come along like we’d hoped, but Bill and Steve made some general recommendations of what to ask for when the electrician does get to go through the property.

When I finally made it in to work, I found it really hard to shift gears from house-type work to actual work work. I wanted to jump right to the next step, scheduling more estimates and organizing my notes. I did get to spend a little time on that from work.

One of the big expenses we’ve expected from the start was the fireplace and chimney. As far as we know, it’s supposed to be a working fireplace. However, the part of the chimney that’s exposed outside is literally falling down. There are bricks sitting on top of the roof and gaping holes where they once fit into the chimney. Since I’ve never lived in a house that had a fireplace, I really don’t know what it’s going to take to just make basic repairs and then bring it up to code so it can be a working fireplace. So I called a family-owned chimney service called Chimney Crickets. (Great name!) I talked to a guy there for quite a while and he discussed three possibilities with me:

1. Restore it to being a traditional working fireplace
2. Retrofit it with a metal insert stove and run a stove pipe up the chimney
3. Seal off the chimney and give up on it being a working fireplace

For option one, the chimney needs to be sound (and if it’s not it may need to be rebuilt), it needs a clay lining, which it probably doesn’t have since it was built before 1927, and it needs a weather cap on the top.

For option two, we’d still have to fix the mortar at the top of the chimney and possibly rebuild the whole chimney if it’s too badly damaged.

For option three, well, we brick it up. I guess. I don’t want option three.

Regardless of which option we end up choosing, the thing needs a thorough inspection, so I’ve scheduled that for 8am Tuesday morning. Cost: $65. Then he’ll know for sure how much it’ll cost.

Since I’m already going to come in late to work that day, I also scheduled another electrician to meet me at the house that morning and give me an estimate. Bottom line, the whole house needs re-wired. Completely. We figured out that as it’s currently wired, we’re getting about 40 amps of service to the house. Considering that most houses these days use about 100 amps just for basic appliances, and 60 amps is considered pretty out of date and hokey, that’s pretty bad.

We’ve always expected that our biggest expenses will be the electricity, the chimney, and the kitchen. Those are the three big things I’m going to try to cover in the loan we’re getting with the mortgage. Everything else can either wait, or we can do ourselves. But I’m going to have to be figuring out how much all that other stuff is going to cost as well, so I’ve got some serious planning and window shopping to do.

Besides all that stuff today, I faxed the inspection report to my insurance agent and said a little prayer that he’ll deem the property insurable.

I have an evening ahead of me full of planning, making lists, and talking things over with Brandon. I anticipate it will feel very satisfying to see it all down on paper in my big notebook. And I know I will fall asleep absolutely exhausted today, from the sheer energy of thought I have exerted today.

[tags]chimney, contractors, electricity, fireplace[/tags]