Tornado Recovery

House Repair Talk

Help Support House Repair Talk:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

Gary

Well-Known Member
Joined
Oct 3, 2005
Messages
671
Reaction score
473
I've been absent from the site for a good while and a lot has happened since.
Most notable as I've mentioned in another thread was an EF3 tornado that hit 1 1/2 years ago. Nearly all of our neighbors had significant damage, many lost their homes completely. Some are pretty much back to normal, some left, never to return and happily there are a lot of new homes going up.
I also posted that I got dinged by the table saw yesterday (got an appointment tomorrow with a specialist to see how that will go).
So, I am probably going to have some free time on my hands (no pun intended), and thought I'd post how our house repairs are going post-tornado. Might take awhile doing this one handed, but it will keep me occupied while the fingers heal. I'll post before and after photos. Show what we've done so far & what's still on the to-do-list. Here's one for now, before and after the storm. We were very fortunate, we didn't have to leave our home.
More later.

west side of house x.jpg
 
Sorry to hear about your fingers, hope that goes well. Where are you at with the house repairs?
 
Sorry to hear about your fingers, hope that goes well. Where are you at with the house repairs?

Thanks Neal. At this point the outside is pretty much done. We've got a new roof and siding that we contracted. I built it myself the first time but that was 19 years ago. I've replaced doors windows, some minor structural repairs, etc. The deck has to be rebuilt and the driveway needs a little work yet. The rest is all inside. We had a punch list of things to do before the storm.You know those projects you plan top get to someday? We decided do a repair/remodel one room at a time and get it all done. I'm self employed working at home (sign business). This is my slow time, by Spring the house has to take a back seat to keeping the work schedule going. So, this is when I have time for the house. The hand injury will slow me down some, but I still hope to get some work done before Spring. We'll see how it goes.
 
Last edited:
Gary, sounds like you've had enough excitement in your life to last a long while.

Yea, I did't even mention 2 sprained wrists and a hamstring tear earlier this year. They say things happen in 3's so I hope I'm done with that now.
 
It's amazing just how many things get tricky when your one handed. First thing this morning I put on a t shirt. Buttons one handed was worth the trouble.

Here's a shot of the house before the storm and a couple after.

a1 northeast corner pf house summer.jpg

a8 D5100 Sunday RAW_240.jpg

a10 DSC_7925.jpg
 
Couple more side by side before/after

Roof top west x.jpg

Roof top south x.jpg
 
Looks like you were lucky to have structure left to work with.

Yes very. I screwed the Frame together and used storm brackets on the studs & rafters. Nothing will stop a tornado if it wants to take something, but I like to think it didn't hurt to use the screws & brackets. They weren't required at the time, just suggested. I'm sure the brackets are code now.
 
Consider investing in those saws that won't cut fingers.
Hope you recover without complications.
 
Here's a few before and after repair shots of the exterior. There's been a few projects completed since these photos, but these show the extent of the damage and how blessed we were to still have a house standing.

9 D5100 Sunday RAW_253.jpg

house 2.24.16-37.jpg

3 Morning After.jpg

house 2.24.16-32.jpg

Back yard after storm.jpg

house 2.24.16-16.jpg
 
One of the projects was to clean up the area north of the gazebo. It was a neglected space, with abandon landscaping timbers, an out of control lilac bush, etc. There was a split rail fence that didn't survive the tornado. I replaced that with this vinyl picket fence. You can also see a bit of the damage to the gazebo/deck, that will be a project for next spring or summer. My wife wanted a place to plant a garden, so I used scraps from the residing to wrap this raised garden. Gravel came from the driveway (story about that later). Behind this area is where we store firewood, so that's why the backside of the vinyl fence is protected by the treated 2''x6''s.

Raised Garden 3 (1 of 1).jpg

Raised Garden 2.jpg

Raised Garden 1.jpg
 
Your home is very nice. So, sorry to hear and see a tornado did a massive customization on it that was unauthorized. After being around tornados, espacially the April 27th 2011 ones, I totally feel for you.
Where was your safe area during this destruction?

And very sorry to hear about your fingers being messed up and slowing you down. I hope the doctor can fix you up so you can have full use again.
 
We have gravel driveways front & rear of the house. After the tornado the gravel was full of broken glass, the worst being long shards of mirror glass. I tried grading the top off, but at night under the lights you could still see glistening glass. So, I found someone in need of fill to fill in a ravine and dug about 4-5" out. Then brought back asphalt road grindings. It still needs another load, but I'm very happy with it now. It packs down nice and doesn't track into the garage nearly as bad as the gravel did. I put tile in along side the sidewalk. That took care of a chronic problem with standing water on the sidewalk & driveway. It turned cold, so this project will have to wait for warmer temps.

Drain Tile 3.jpg

driveway road grindings 1.jpg

driveway road grindings 4.jpg

driveway road grindings 5.jpg
 
Your home is very nice. So, sorry to hear and see a tornado did a massive customization on it that was unauthorized. After being around tornados, espacially the April 27th 2011 ones, I totally feel for you.
Where was your safe area during this destruction?

And very sorry to hear about your fingers being messed up and slowing you down. I hope the doctor can fix you up so you can have full use again.

Thanks Angie. We were in the basement at the time. It's under the older part of the house, so we were safe. I was surprised though how many houses had no basement or crawl, just on a slab. Fortunately there were no serious injuries.
 
As the roofer was repairing the roofs, I was busy repairing and or replacing doors, windows and anything else that needed attention before the siding guys got here.
Here I restored the Lattice porch supports. The ovals are solid redwood, designed and machined on my CNC over 28 years ago. Redwood was more plentiful around here back then. A little opaque stain and they're good as new.

oval before.jpg

House 8.25.15.3.jpg

House 9-8-15-2.jpg

ovals.jpg
 
Last edited:
This project I did in December a year ago. The seals in the window leaked into the wall. Then after the tornado the vinyl frame had quarter sized holes in it from flying debris. I built a shack to work in and to keep at least some of the heat in the house. As it turned out it wasn't all that cold during the project, however it rained A LOT.
I built an a frame off the cat walk and anchored it to the wall. Then I used the winch off the trailer and the battery out of the lawn mower to lower the old window and raise the new one.
The outside trim is high density foam from Fypon. Since I had to built the trim out around the brick I had to fabricate some of the parts. I used High Density foam from a 4' x8' sheet. I use this material to make architectural letters in my sign business. I designed the custom parts on the sign software & cut the parts on the CNC.
The day I tore the shack down we got a snowstorm.

Foyer window 12.17.15.2.jpg

Foyer winder exchange 4.jpg

house window scaffold 1.jpg

Foyer winder exchange 1.jpg

Foyer window outside 12.26.15.jpg

DSC_8224.jpg

Foyer window 1.9.16.4.jpg

Foyer window 1.9.16.5.jpg

Foyer window 1.9.16.1.jpg
 
The entry door right below the window also had water damage and damage from flying debris. We replaced it with this raised panel Fiberglass unit.
I gave it the same Fypon & CNC trim as the window. Also fabricated lit house numbers built into the header. I mounted 2 small LED bulbs inside the header and connected them to a dusk to dawn electric eye. (the pizza guy thanked me lol).

house entry door 4.jpg

house entry door 1.jpg

33333z.jpg

333333.jpg

333000.jpg

foyer window 2.jpg

3033.jpg
 
Last edited:

Latest posts

Back
Top