Since last weekend i have been thinking about how much Sarah and i have committed to doing, how disruptive it will be, and how important it all is to keep our budget on track. I wouldn’t say it has been keeping me awake at night, but it has been on my mind.
Here is what we have committed to doing before the project begins:
- demo basement, pull wiring, plumbing and furnace ducts.
- remove chimney
- remove all asbestos shingles
- demo deck & possibly addition
- pack breakables & take stuff to storage
- dig and pot up plants and find them temporary homes
- get Rid of Stuff!!!
- Demo kitchen
Demo Basement & Remove ducts
This is pretty straight forward grunt work. Sort of.. The drywall is a mix of new (post 2005) and old (unknown date). The old drywall is problematic because it can contain asbestos. While asbestos was banned in wallboard decades ago, they let the industry use up old supplies like mud. There was lots of this in warehouses so it could appear as late as the mid ’90’s. Homeowners are allowed to remove it (you can put yourself at a lot more risk than you can a contractor) but you have to be careful how you dispose of it. It has to go in special bags and in Vancouver you are limited to 5 trips of 10 bags each per year per household. Each bag is no more than 10 kg. I am pretty sure we have more than 500 kg of old drywall so that might be an issue. I have disposable coveralls and a proper asbestos P100 mask and will do my best to keep down dust, but I don’t want to expose any friends to thie old drywall demo so will be doing it all myself. Luckily i know what the new drywall is so i can get help with that. Once all of the drywall is out we can get a spray to stabilize any dust then rip out the studs, wiring, and heating ducts. Right. the ducts. More asbestos. I need to make a plan so that i can move around the basement and tackle it in the right order. This work i can do rain or shine, night or day.
Remove Chimney
We are getting professional help for the part above the roof, but i have committed to doing the inside. This is going to be backbreaking work that can’t start until spring. Once the top is off i am going to have to be ready to go at this non-stop so i have to make sure the other tasks are well in hand. Ugh. This will be pretty disruptive because, well, because it is a chimney and goes from the roof to the basement. It will make a mess everywhere. The good news is that i can get help for that. This work i can do rain or shine, night or day.
Remove Asbestos Shingles
I have already taken the Asbestos shingles off the bottom of half of the house, but now i need to take them off the entire back of the house and at the very least the bottom of the west wall so they don’t interfere with the lift. Ideally i will get ALL of them off and that is my goal. Because of the Vancouver building code the new work has to be super insulated which means either 2×8 walls, or 2×6 walls with exterior insulation as well. I suspect at the very least we will need to sort the entire west wall. Asbestos or concrete shingles are not high risk and can be removed by a homeowner following basic precautions. I have seen people smashing them off a house with hammers and $2 dust masks but for all i know they have mesothelioma now. This should really only be done on days that are dead calm so for the next few months, if there is no wind and it is not pouring rain, you will know where to find me.
Demo deck and possibly addition.
This should be safe to do with friends on a nice sunny day after we have our permits. Rent a dumpster, get some crowbars and a reciprocating saw or two and go to town. We can put sheets of plywood up on the gap and likely continue to live in the space after that is done. I am sure it is more than that, but there is not a lot of hazardous material in the deck except mold. The drywall in the addition is suspect.
Pack & store
It still isn’t clear to us how empty the house will have to be. What gets packed and stored also depends on where we live when they house is being lifted. Basement stuff has to go first and we are likely going to rent a portable storage box and load as much as we can into that. They get delivered and you rent them by the month. They charge for pickup and storage and then bring them back when you are ready. This sounds easier to me than renting a truck, loading into a storage unit then doing the reverse at the end. Some friends have offered to store some stuff (mostly construction stuff) that we might need access to before the house is liveable.
Sort the Garden
We are asking the builders to access for the lift through the alley but our yard will be a mud pit for 6 months at least. We have lots of treasures in the garden that will need temporary homes. This will be backbreaking work of digging. I will help as I can but this will largely be up to Sarah to coordinate. We won’t start on that until closer to the construction date in the spring and early summer.
Get rid of stuff
This is a big and emotionally taxing job. It isn’t directly related to the reno but we have been in the house for 15 years and have acquired a fair amount of things it seems. We already used the pandemic to weed our library but gosh we have a lot of stuff. I have been clearing out stuff on Craigslist, Facebook Marketplace, and Bunz for the last few months already. Sarah laughs at my emporium but we have passed many treasures onto new homes. Looking around though, you can’t really tell. This will go on the entire time we are packing. Is it worth spending money to store this? Does it spark joy?
Demo the kitchen
This will be the last to go because we plan to stay in the house as long as possible. Every month we can live in a construction zone is one less month we are in a short term rental which adds up fast.
So, where does that leave us? The basic plan is that starting now, we are chipping away at the basement and the shingles outside. If it is wet or windy, i am in the basement. If it is still i am outside.
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