From log house to farmhouse. Farmhouse to townhouse. Townhouse to apartment house. Apartment house to crack house. Crack house to our house. Our house to our home.
Many years ago I posted a link on the right side of this page that told readers what few items we were in the market for. The main two items were a door that is 101" X 36 " and a ceiling light fixture for the parlor. Well, we have had several referrals but no luck on the door. We got one email about a month or so ago regarding a light fixture though. I took up the offer to acquire the fixture and installed it the day that it arrived. The only issue was that it came without the six shades that it needed. I don't know if you have ever looked for shades but they can end up costing more than the light fixture if you are not careful. Kind of like getting a picture framed. I just spent $300 a piece getting two $20 posters framed. Some things just don't make sense! Any way. The person who sold me the light fixture has been eager to see if I would make a post about this. I held off until the light shades arrived. I was able to get the best possible price for these shades at Lehmans which is here in Ohio. Believe me I searched extensively online at many options. These were the most cost effective. Of course I had to order 6 pieces which caused an automatic backorder situation which delayed delivery. Anyway, here is the light fixture in all it's glory.
Dayton, Ohio has the unique reputation as being the city with the most patents per capita than any other city in the United States. It had over 1200 patents issued before 1868. I have been researching some of them because I find some of the inventions interesting. Dayton is famous for the airplane, the automotive starter motor, the ice cube tray and the pop top can BUT did you know that Dayton has claim to the automatic gate, a wringer and of all things House paint? Anyone who owns a Victorian brick house may find this patent interesting. It is for house paint and is from 1837. We still have flakes of this or something similar on our place. Click on the image to read the ingredients.
I get asked this question often. "Did you finish your roof?" The answer is "No, but it is two fifths done." The gutters are the time consuming part. They have to be riveted and soldered in place and each corner has to be custom made. There are eight corners due to us having a bay section with four 135 degree corners. The good news is that six of the eight corners are in place so in the spring I just have three straight sides and a dormer to remove and replace with a window similar to the others. I am not looking forward to that window construction. So here is why it has taken so long. Besides the roof, I had to brick up this hole in the wall.
I still have one row to complete but it involves standing on a ladder. I don't stand on ladders unless it is at least 45 degrees Fahrenheit. Here is a news clip from New Years Eve where I get asked about the roof. This was aired live at 6:10 AM so I was up early for it.
I had three downspouts to replace. This had to be done to stop the waterfall we encountered on Thanksgiving Day in our bedroom and parlor which was also the result of not completing a section of gutter before a torrential rain.
Then there was the eight tons of wood pellets that were delivered and moved to my basement. Before they could be stored, I had to remove a huge pile of wood and store it outside.
We had a furnace installed this year.
I actually paid for this to be done. If you live in the Dayton area, call Mr. Hartley who owns Dayton Air Conditioning and Heating, at 937-277-8864 and tell him the Mayor referred you. I did have a role to play in the installation.
My role was to seal up a window opening that we used to vent the furnace. I put in a second piece of 4" pipe for future use if needed. It is easier than knocking a hole in the wall!
While I was at it, I replaced the bulkhead doors which were destroyed by some kids trying to break into the house in 2009.
Then I installed this door in the basement in case you get through the bulkhead doors!
I have also made a bead board wall to replace the handrail to the third floor so that I can install a door and keep some heat in the house. I have also replaced the toilet in the Steampunk bathroom with one that actually works and doesn't require three flushes to clear! I also put a toilet in the 2nd half bathroom area (also the laundry room)so that I don't have to look at the hole in the floor any more!
Did I mention lining a chimney so that we could use the wood stove in the parlor? Well I did that too. I poured vermiculite around the liner and wondered why it was taking so much to fill the space. After entering my bedroom I saw the problem. My fireplace had filled up with vermiculite! This meant that there was a hole between my chimneys. After figuring where it was I proceeded to knock a hole in the chimney to repair the hole. After repairing the hole and pouring vermiculite again, I discovered another hole higher up. So I had to make an even bigger hole in my chimney to repair it. Here is a picture. I still have three bricks to install in order to finish the work.
After all this, homeschooling my daughter and doing Mayoral things there are still people out there that call me lazy!
This saga has been going on for quite some time but the reality is that I have actually only worked on the place for 14 days. Six of those days involved tear down of the front porch and fire escape and one day was spent forming copper gutters. After rebuilding the structural elements and filling the gaping big hole in the roof, it left about 4 days of actual work on the roof. Here is the progress.
Tar paper on one side of the chimney.
Tar paper on both sides of the chimney.
Faux slate on one side of the chimney.
Faux slate on both sides of the chimney.
A close up peak at the composite shingles.
This stuff is made by Tamko and is called Lamerite. It is a composite material that is warranted for 50 years and comes in assorted shapes and sizes. It is easy to cut and can be applied using a nail gun which makes attaching them so much easier than original slate.
They look good too and from the ground, they look like slate!
The bad news is that I suspect that I will run out of daylight and time before I run out of roof to replace. The good news is that I can apply this and the gutters in sections. The flashing around the windows and chimneys is a bear to do and there are two chimneys and 5 windows total. Currently I am one chimney and one window down. I forsee plenty of roof work in my future!
I have never done copper gutters before. I had no idea what I was getting into when I decided to line the box gutters with copper. I didn't choose copper because I wanted fancy gutters that no one would see. I chose copper simply because I would be able to solder it 30+ feet off the ground while kneeling on an 18 inch gutter ledge using this soldering iron.
Here is a section of the copper gutter. I had to make these (with the help of a friend) from 10' X 3' sheets of 16 ounce copper that cost $160 a sheet. I have 17 sheets. I hope it is enough.
Well I have some spare copper, so I am using it for various channel drains and flashing. This is a channel that I had to construct that lies in a very narrow gap between the chimney and the window. This channel has been one of my major sources of leaks for the last nine years! This copper should more than do the trick. That yellow stuff is "Great Stuff" expanding foam. I am using it as a filler to reduce the amount of tarring that I have to do.
And here is some chimney flashing that I had to make from scratch. This was another major source of leaks. The original metal flashing had rusted out after 120 years.
While I haven't mastered the art of soldering, I am getting better. The flat parts are quick and easy. The slopes are a pain because gravity causes the solder to run and pool in the trough.
The copper is 10X better than the original sheet metal which was quite thin and a whole lot better than the tar covered gutters that still encompass three quarters of the roof!
Progress on the roof is slow. I still have to home educate my daughter and I have had to attend many meetings this month. Both can mess up a construction work schedule. Still, I do what I can. Last Saturday I had around 14 people show up to help move this
to this
We managed to get the bulk of the pile in the front yard cleaned up as well. We also hauled 120 bundles of faux slate to the third floor. We all celebrated afterward with pizza and beer.
The roof went from this
To this
Then it rained for a day and a half! Now I have to finish recreating a frame for the gutter so that I can walk on it and remove the rest of that slate. I can then get tar paper down and then, hopefully, I can put the water buckets away.
Every time a section gets cut out I have to stand back and calculate the order in which i have to cut wood beams so that the entire thing doesn't collapse on me. I got the roof off with some help from a neighbor. Day two and three were solo. Today I got help from the neighbor again and here are some photos of us before the final showdown. These were taken just before the final two cuts were made in case they were to be the last photographs of us alive! This really was a scary project. Doing the roof and gutters does not scare me. Tearing this thing down did and I don't scare easily.
The entire structure had moved about an inch away from the brick wall over night. I wouldn't walk out on that top platform today whereas yesterday I was standing on it cutting wood. My neighbor in position as far away as possible holding a rope to pull down the remaining structure.
Here I am making the final cut.
Here are some more after pictures.
When done with this we threw a bunch of crap out that door onto the pile below. Now I have room for the 119 bundles of shingle that I have to get up three flights of stairs. I am hoping to get the layers of tar out of the gutter and the wooden part of the box gutter re built this week. I have already removed a ten foot section of tar and rubber membrane from the gutter. Some of it was so thick I had to use the sawz-all to cut it out in sections. Each small section weighed about 30 lbs.
What is amusing is that it rained today after we got this thing on the ground and my roof leaks less with this thing down!
Slowly! In fact I haven't got started on the roof because I have been busy tearing down the fire escape so that I can rebuild the roof and a 10 foot section of gutter. The fire escape was put on this place way back in 1962 when the third floor was turned into an apartment and the building was zoned commercial. It was made of wood and had corrugated fiberglass nailed to the sides for protection against the elements.
I thought it would take me two days to tear this thing down but it is in worse shape than I thought so I can't work off any of the platforms inside the structure for fear of the floors collapsing. The steps have all started to collapse as well. I have to work off of a ladder for the most part.
The top of this is about 40 feet off the ground and cutting wood with a saw-zall while standing on a ladder this high up is a little scary. Especially if you cut the wrong piece of wood.
Day 1 got the roof off. This took a few hours to do.
Day 2 Got it this far.
Yesterday was day 3 but I don't have pictures yet. I expect it will be down by this evening.
I have only been able to spend a few hours a day working on this due to meetings and numerous phone calls. This is more than the trivial roofing project that the local paper wanted to portray it as. I think they are realizing that because they sent a photographer out to to take pictures of me working.
I always thought it was mice leaving poop in the middle of my floor in the "attic." Every so often I would catch one in a mouse trap. These things come back every year and I witnessed one climbing up the fire escape once so I knew how they were getting in. Well, it isn't mice. We have a resident bat. Here is proof.
This one bat left this much poop in a week!
I haven't been bit by a mosquito in a while ......
