Restoring a House Pt. 03

Nature's Timeline

After the unnerving news about Cicely being pregnant by accident, I was out of the house like a shot, with lots of energy to keep things moving on the restoration. I also needed to talk to Bruce Tarleton about the next house project. Luckily, he was on the site this morning, talking to the painters who had sanded and primed the exterior siding after the lead removal, and were ready to begin two coats of acrylic exterior finish. As I came up, he was saying to the lead painter, "Everybody in town is going to be looking at your paint job on this house, Fred, so take your time and do it right.

Fred looked a bit unhappy that Bruce thought he might not do a good job, but nodded and said, "Got it."

"Bruce, I need a few minutes." I walked us over to the far side of the lot. "Amelia has decided there should be a second house here for the help. She's got Cicely already working on the design. I know you haven't taken on whole house projects, but maybe you would like to do this one? The client likes you, the architect thinks you do super work, and I'll do whatever you need to clear away obstacles like the planning department."

We walked around the site again, discussing the best way to fit the foundation into the side of the hill so the driveway and garage entrance could be inconspicuous. He looked at me. "I had my doubts about the restoration, Kirk, but you've gotten everyone to pull together and get it done. I admire your job skills. If I can get another extension on my arrangement with Tony, I'd like to do this one with you too. Will you send Cicely to me when she has sketches?"

I walked away breathing a huge sigh of relief. The contractor everyone wanted had said yes. Cice and Mely were in the office with coffee for me, and I high fived them. "Bruce says he has to check with Tony, but he would like to build the second house."

The women gave me a great hug, and Cice said, "Mother, you've got to keep him away from me so I can get some work done."

Mely was busy pulling my hair and trying to knee me in the crotch. "I hear you. I just don't know what's gotten into him lately. The roaming hands, public kissing, groping me in front of you. I'm going to have to put my foot down." She stood on my toes and gave me a long wet kiss. "Kirk, how do you manage to keep two women so happy and run this project too?"

I sat down and pulled her into my lap. "Every morning, I wake up and give thanks for the loving you give me, and the happiness we have in our lives."

They lowered their heads on me and said, "Kirk! You are going to make us cry with that kind of talk! We have to work!"

I led them upstairs. Like darkness before dawn, remodeling looks worst just before it gets a lot better. The sheetrockers, the tilemen, and the painters were all in different rooms. I talked to Hank Blossom, the sheetrock lead. "It's coming, Kirk, but remember there is a skim coat to add a plaster effect. We should be done on second floor by the end of this week."

I asked the women whether the paint colors were all settled on this floor. They nodded and led me to the color boards in a corner of one of the rooms. Carefully numbered and marked for sheen from flat through semi-gloss in the bath.

I said, "I am giving all my attention to finishing the second floor completely in the next two weeks. That gives you a week to clean it and furnish it. Right now, why don't you sit down in the office and see how far you can get with the guest house design."

A giant truck full of plants and bushes was out in front, with Maria supervising locations and asking Arturo if he could please connect the sprinklers before she got really mad.

I walked with him to the new master control valve. "Kirk, this wife of mine can be very tough some days."

"Arturo, she has incredible talent. This yard will be a miracle when she is done. There will be a prize with her name on it, and an article in the newspaper."

"Senor, you think this is good news for me?" We smiled at each other, knowing the need to keep our women feeling appreciated.

When I returned to the office, Ceci was just finishing a sketch of an elegant story and a half house set into the hillside. A series of shallow rooflines blended into the hill behind, and an excavated driveway came in a soft line from the right beneath a wall. She was explaining to Mely, "This retaining wall for the driveway will be almost eight feet, but we can soften it with a narrow planter at the base, and perhaps some niches for ivy." The overhangs were deep, almost Wrightsian. The siding was drawn to match the big house, tying them together just a little.

Mely was hopping up and down with excitement. "Kirk, this is wonderful. Maybe I have to live in it myself and let you and the Sotos have the big house!"

Ceci leaned into me and said, "It does look nice. Now I have to make the plans look as good as that sketch." I kneaded her shoulders and whispered, "First class job, architect."

I wrapped my arms around the client and whispered in her ear. She whipped around, lips asking, "Really?"

"It is a heritage house, people should be able to enjoy it. Maria could preside and keep everyone in line, like she already does. The expensive gourmet meals in the downstairs parlor, by reservation only, will be a local sensation. Mexican cuisine, the way it is prepared at the very finest places south of the border."

Ceci looked up from her table and asked, "What are you two talking about?"

Mely exclaimed, "He says that the big house should be an upscale B&B in the season, with fine dining in the parlor among the antiques."

The women embraced, "He's right, as usual. Perhaps I need to add a wing to the second house. Just in case?"

The client put her foot down. "Yes, do that. But before there are too many big ideas, let's get the remodel finished. Kirk, you stop mooning around us girls and get a move on."

I went to see Vic and check that the elaborate period bath fixtures had arrived. I also called about the reproduction four poster bed, sized for a modern king mattress, which I had commissioned at a shop in San Francisco. The owner said it would be ready for pickup in a week. Arturo's son Juan had been hired to go with me and help with the heavy lifting. He played football locally and was tough as nails.

The attic was chaos, with several carpenters sistering new wood to the original redwood. Their respect for the fine joinery used a hundred years ago was obvious. Mark Jones, the foreman, said, "Kirk, there aren't many jewels like this left. And none in this kind of condition. See these rough boards? That clear heart, fine grain wood is no longer available. Furniture makers would pay you a fortune for it."

I said, "But Amelia is keeping it right where it is, with your help. Nice work. Keep it up."

I was on my way back outside when Vic Lansing caught me and said he had found something I should see. In the basement, in the far dark corner, was a former coal storage room, going back to a time when the hot water for the radiators was heated by a coal fire. Vic's lantern cast a light into the room, walls still covered with black dust. He walked me to the rear wall, where the light revealed a top to bottom crack at least two inches wide.

"Wow," I said. "How long do you suppose that has been there?"

"Hard to say, but look at this." At the top of the rock wall, the bearing plate for the floor and walls above had shifted, with only an inch of purchase remaining.

"Double wow. Even a little earthquake could drop that off. Might wreck the house."

"Exactly. I think we need to get John Phillips over to take a look. He has done a lot of foundation repair."

"Vic, we need to protect your people working down here. What about six by sixes and screw posts to take some of the load temporarily?"

Vic and I decided on a materials run without explaining to anyone what we were up to. When we came back, he explained to his crew that an old defect in the foundation had been found and would be repaired, but just in case, everyone was to drop what they were doing and be a shoring gang for a few minutes.

With extra hands, it wasn't long before a sturdy line of timbers was in place. There were several loud oaths when the workers got a look at the big crack.

"Boss, how the hell did you find that?"

"I was looking for a place to run new plumbing and just poking around here in the coal chute. Notice how dry it is? That's a good sign. Maybe that happened by hydraulic pressure in a super wet year, but no one noticed and it hasn't been wet enough to move since then."

I appeared in the office to tell Mely and Ceci I was going home to clean up and have lunch there.

"What on earth have you been doing? This is worse than pigpen."

They took charge and made me sit in the back in the pickup. At the house, I dropped my clothes on the front porch and went for the shower.

After a lot of scrubbing, I came out on the patio in fresh shorts and found fruit and shrimp salad for lunch, along with a very cold beer.

With a long swallow of the beer in me, I said, "I suppose you want to know what is going on?"

"Don't beat around the bush, tell us."

"Mely, does anyone remember when the house heat was converted from coal to oil?"

"I don't. Not sure where to look in the old papers. Why do you ask?"

"In the very back of the basement, there is a small room where coal was stored. In the back wall of that room is a two inch crack in the rock foundation. It looks to have been there a long time, but the framing above the crack is in danger of collapse."

Ceci's lips were forming, "Oh shit," but she didn't say it out loud.

"Vic and his people and I put some temporary timbers in place. The area is dry and doesn't show any sign of moisture or movement. I'm going to give John Phillips, the local foundation expert, a call right after lunch and have him come for a look."

Mely was standing behind my chair, fingers in my hair. "Kirk, I am busy telling myself that this is no big deal, you and all these other people are very competent, and you are going to keep the house from falling down." The women smiled at each other, and looked a lot more confident than I felt. Ceci straddled herself in my lap and stuck her tongue in my mouth.

"Are you two trying to take my mind off our troubles?"

"You don't care about our charms anymore?"

I stood, kissed them firmly and said, "Be gone. Go back to the house in the other car and put a hex on the place, keeping the goblins away until we fix the foundation."

John Phillips answered on the first ring and remembered me. "Kirk, it's good to hear your voice. What can I do for you?"

"John, I bet ninety percent of your callers say what I am going to say, "There is a crack in my foundation, what do I do?"

"He laughed and said, "Pretty close. Whose house are we talking about?"

I gave him the short version of the restoration project, and surprisingly, he said he had time to meet me at the house in an hour.

In a grubby set of dungarees, I stopped at the hardware store and purchased a strong, double element work light and a couple of extension cords. When I led John to the coal room, there was plenty of illumination on the crack and our temporary timbers.

"Well, that is certainly interesting. I suppose no one ever comes back here, now that the boiler is gas fueled?"

"The owner is sixty-eight and says she doubts anyone has been back here in a generation."

"My experience is that most of this part of town has granite underpinnings. And the house was built back into the hill, so this wall is probably sitting on good base, even though they didn't do footings in those days for houses. So I think your guess is correct that it was hydraulic pressure in a very wet year, with no perimeter drains, that did this. They are lucky it didn't go further. A couple more inches..."

"That's why Vic and I did the timbers first and called you second. He has people working down here, but gave them the afternoon off."

"The standard remedy, in unconditioned space like this, is to pour a heavily reinforced concrete wall inside the rock. I think the county will let us use those new auger jacks to get sufficient purchase at the bottom. The machine they use is something else. Continuously monitors the pressure the screw encounters and stops at the engineer's number."

"Can you give me any guess on time and money?

"I will manage the repair for a flat fee of ten thousand. The rest is subs. If the initial test with the auger machine goes well, and the county signs off, there will need to be four to six jacks along the base of the wall. Ten to fifteen for that. The concrete guys, assuming they don't have too many problems forming and pumping in here, will be another twenty. But I'm not putting any of that in writing. It is basically time and materials on a repair like this. And, by the way, the county may be in your hair about other parts of the foundation. I might be able to help. I'm careful not to screw them over and we have a good relationship."

We went back out in the sun and I offered him a beer. "I'd love one, but it looks bad, drinking on the jobsite."

He went and got his camera and took lots of pictures of the crack, the surrounding area, and the outside of the house. We agreed to go to the county together the following day with a preliminary request for modification of the renovation permit, his initial engineering notes, and a timeline.

We were wrapping up when Mely and Ceci came out, a little hesitantly. I introduced them and announced that John had agreed to take on our foundation job, and already had a pretty good idea of how to handle the problem. "The two of us are going to the county tomorrow to amend the permit."

Mely was incredibly nice to him, and did not ask any prying questions about money. She did say, "John, I don't want anyone hurt on this project. Is it safe to work?"

"Mrs. Cartwright, Kirk and Vic did a nice job with the temporary timbers. And nothing has moved down there for a long time. It's not going to rain for a while, so I think the answer is yes, the house is safe to work on. But Kirk had better talk to your insurance people right away."

I spent the rest of the afternoon taking the leads of the subs down to the basement and explaining the situation. They each expressed amazement that such a break could go undetected for decades, and admired the temporary shoring up. They said it was not a problem to stay on the job while repairs progressed, especially after I said that the master liability policy was going to be increased to cover any hazard in the basement.

I decided to talk to my insurance broker from home and headed out after telling the women what I was up to.

His words to me were, "Could be worse, Kirk. Some demolition guy could have triggered movement and collapse. I've seen that happen. The company holding your policy isn't going to be happy, but they get a generous amount of business from me and I think the policy revision will go through. You have umbrella coverage of five million. I don't think we need to raise that, as long as foundation repairs and related hazards are covered. I suspect they are going to want as much as five grand for the added coverage, and maybe arrange for a field guy to take a look."

"Alan, I don't have much wiggle room on this, and considering the people working everywhere on the house, don't want to take chances. When you have news, call me."

I was sitting at my desk, feeling drained, when two bodies came quietly through the door, seized me and said, "You need a soak and a stiff drink. Take your clothes off."

After dinner was in the oven, they joined me. I got kissed and stroked. Mely said, "That little speech I gave you after lunch, Kirk, was pure acting. I was shivering from top to bottom. Ceci and I went to the office and just hung on each other."

I took Mely in my lap and put an arm around Ceci."You are a lucky woman, Amelia, and I am a lucky contractor. Vic found it for us, and we have shoring under it. John has a solid reputation and I liked his description of how he plans to proceed." I gave them each a tender kiss and tightened my arms.

"Ceci, I can't believe this. He finds a crack big enough for the house to fall into, and gets everything under control in one afternoon."

Her head went down on my shoulder and her body shook. I held tight.

Dinner was quiet, each of us wondering whether the repair plan was going to work. After cleaning up, we sat on the sofa, leaning on each other. Mely said, "If the house shifted, and those beams collapsed, the gas pipe could have broken and the basement filled with vapor, and something set it off, and there would have been a giant explosion and I would be dead."

"Mely! You are going to give me nightmares. Please no more! We are here, safe and sound. The house is safe. We are not blowing up!" Ceci's face was reassuring. At least, I thought so.

Everyone laughed and the mood lightened. Mely got out the cards, played two bridge hands at once, and beat the pants off Ceci and me every round. They noticed my eyes closing and sent me to bed, crawling in themselves in a few minutes. My pregnant fiancee hugged me and said she loved me. Auntie said she loved me too.

John met me at the Building Department at ten and said he had been lucky enough to snag the head of permits for our discussion. Phil Ebright took us to his office and John spread out prints, saying, "This will give you an idea of the problem we discovered yesterday."

Holding up one vividly showing the crack, Phil said, "Wow, how long has this been there?"

"No one knows, but maybe twenty or thirty years. It is buried way in the back, as you can see, in an old coal storage room."

I explained that we had immediately placed shoring and screw posts to stabilize the area.

"They demolished the whole basement without finding this or having anything happen?"

"It was only found because the plumbing contractor was looking for new routes up into the house. Not exactly the most inviting spot."

John handed over his engineering notes and work plan, along with the department form for a permit modification.

"I suppose you know we would normally put a stop work order on the house?"

John answered, "As you can see, the area is stable and dry. The shoring is sound. An earthquake might bring it down, but it might break a lot of other things too. I don't think the limited risk justifies a stop work. I would like to do an experimental bore with the auger machine in the next two or three days, and file a complete work plan and detailed engineering notes by the beginning of the week. With luck, there can be a new reinforced concrete wall there in two weeks. Kirk has talked to all the subs, and had them inspect the shoring. They are willing to keep working."

"Ok. If you haven't already planned it, I would like to see at least a twenty-four inch trench across the back of the house. Gravel, filter cloth, pipe brought around to the front of the house, the whole works. Whichever wet year did this, we don't want a repetition."

I let my breath out carefully, smiled and shook his hand. Driving away, I said to John, "I kept waiting for him to mention OSHA."

He smiled at me, "Phil used to work for OSHA. There is no love lost there. His politest description is that it is a bureaucratic mess that goes overboard on way too many issues."

I smiled myself and said, "My lips are sealed. You are the one with the P.E. after your name."

He looked at me, "And you are the hiring contractor with the license and the liability." We both laughed.

The next two weeks were madness. The second floor push was back on. Arturo and Maria complained bitterly, but decided after seeing the crack that they would do the backyard trenching with their own people, who would not destroy what had already been done. Arturo said, "Senor, that is very impressive crack. He eyed the shoring. "You and Vic did that yesterday?"