New foundation, old house

Sounds like things worked themselves out and your obviously ok with the results.
I (and others )cant wait to see the progress and the cool pictures. For those of you who have never done this it is a really cool thing to see the house in the air and excavators and trucks working under the house.
Front row is best......

You can sure tell you are in the South Sound by the looks of your yard!
I live there as well and that could be a pic of my yard!

Good luck on your project!
Buddy of mine has the same problem and is thinking of doing the samething.
He wants to rotate his house 90 degrees to get a better view of the mountain though.

Where are you at Drivesme? We're on Vashon Island.

The lift went well. Robbins crew was very professional. They terrorized the house the day before yesterday, and then yesterday, up it went. Estimated weight about 65 tons all sitting on 3 - 40ft. x 12" ibeams. We're 4 feet in the air for the next 3 weeks. Plumbing is now reconnected and we built a bridge to get into the house. Today will be cleanup and assesment. Excavator comes tomorrow. We should be pouring footings by the middle of next week.

The timing was good, both for the weather and the rot I suspected was happening due to the lack of any protective flashing before they put in the patio. We got to it just in time. The front sill will need a rebuild, but all in all the house is in good shape. Every 2x10 floor joist is one solid piece, 36 ft long!

We expect to return to the new foundation in 3 weeks. When it comes down, the house will sit 2 ft. higher. Then we get into landscaping to make it all look right again. Will post more pics as we progress.

This is what this site is about...progress!!!
Looks like it should. Are you putting in a full basement and a hatchway or access from the outside.
How about drains at the exterior. Let us know what the plans are....don't keep us in suspense...

If it were 10 years ago, we might have gone for a full basement, but no real need now that the kids are heading for or already in college. It will just be a crawlspace. There is a basement pit for mechanicals, about 12 x 8, that has an interior hatch already. We'll also have an insulated exterior hatch entry to same space. Drains will be added after the foundation is finished.

Footings are now in and wall will be in by the end of the week. It's good to see some construction after all the destruction. We spent the day relocating the trunk supply duct for the heating. It went off to the side in order to clear the chimney. This created some 30 ft. duct runs. Not good with propane heat in an unheated space. With the trunk now in the center, the longest run will be 15' and of course it will now be insulated. So will the interior foundation walls.

This brings up a question for you all. The county is calling for 10.42 sq. ft. of vents for about 1500 sq. feet of crawl space; that's 21 vents! This seems ludicrous. Our foundation will look like a bunker with machine gun ports.

The house has had a total of 4 - 4x12" vents for the past 82 yrs without any issues. You can see one in the upper left of this picture. We have exceptionally dry soil and great drainage. Never a sign of water in the crawlspace and I close the vents in the winter. As I checkout greenbuilding sites and buildingscience.com I am finding that many are working to get code changed and in radon free areas like ours, recommending no vents at all and a tightly insulated crawlspace. This is the direction I am leaning towards.

What does one do when common sense runs into county code?

Begreen said:

What does one do when common sense runs into county code?

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Do what the county says. It's by far cheaper to do it their way now, rather than later, when you thought you were done.

I agree that current building codes are a little on the extreme side on foundation vents, but we're living with it.

Actually, I was hoping for a little creative thinking on this. The county is wrong. It's not a little extreme, it's a lot extreme and at the home owner's expense. One shoe doesn't fit all. That is simply the wrong approach.

I am thinking of meeting their requirements another way. There will be a 2' x 3' crawlspace entry door. I'm thinking of making it a screen door temporarilly. Also thinking of adding two 18" x 30" windows to the north side (tallest foundation wall). Windows will be screened until county is gone, then will replace with glass block.

We are held to the same standard here. 1 vent to every 150 sq.ft. I also think it's excessive. It's your home. Do what the county requires in whatever way you want.

When I started working in construction, we never put vents on the front of a house. Now county inspectors will refuse to pass an inspection if the vents aren't distributed as they see fit. I have actually had to lay pipe under porch slabs to vent the front of a house to suit the inspectors. One inspector tried to force me to vent a house foundation into the garage! Talk to your inspector before you do something that he may or may not pass. There's nothing like cutting out concrete to suit an inspector's opinion.

Bring updated info from building science and school those inspectors on your way, no other choice.

The plan engineer wrote that we need 21 vents for 1563 sq. ft. That's twice the number that are required in your neighborhood. Ten is bad, 21 is downright silly. I'm trying to catch the inspector today. He's a reasonable man from the construction trade, so hopefully, he'll be a bit flexible.

inspectorD said:

Bring updated info from building science and school those inspectors on your way, no other choice.

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I'm told that won't work. Here, one must go to the DDES office and meet with the plan engineers to get an exception. They'll sit and nod their heads at $132/hr. for as long as you want to rant. Then they'll fall back on code and tell you to do it their way. It's not worth the hassle. Instead, we're going to try and get approval to install 6 - 16" sq vents in the holes left by the I-Beams that are holding up the house. After we get final signoff, we'll change to green building code and seal them up. I'll wait as long as possible to maximize concrete cure time. Probably in Sept. they'll get filled in.

I am sure you know...but for those who don't...
Don't forget on the last day to stick a dehumidifier in the crawl space and leave it there. This will help with the "trying to dry out" concrete.( IT takes a year)

Begreen...this has been a great experience for all on this message board.
I just wanted to thank you for keeping us involved with your project.

Foundation walls were poured today. Woohoo! Now we can start cleaning up this big mess and begin returning the house to a normal life. We'll still need to restore the patio and have a lot of landscaping to repair. But the end is in sight I hope. My son and I relocated the trunk duct for the heating to a more central location now that the fireplace won't be blocking it. I'll be adding new insulated runs soon.

The inspector allowed us to use the openings for the house raising Ibeams as vents. Each is 16 x 16, lots of air. I'll screen them for inspection, then will block them up and insulate.

OK, the forms are coming off. It looks like we are getting some voids and errors. But never having done this, I'm unsure how to call this. One is in a highly visible location. The other is under the crawlspace entry hatch. Is this acceptable and normal? Can it be patched without looking awful? The rest looks very smooth and nice.

It'll make it, what happened is they did not vibrate the concrete after pouring it into the forms. When you use a pump truck sometimes you get some voids or air pockets.
You can put a parge coat over the areas that need attention. Basically like a skim coat of plaster/stucco on the wall.

I would say not a bad job overall....make them do the repairs.

Systems are getting back to normal now. Patio system should be in by end of the week. We rebuilt the kitchen entry. It was originally a porch, which then got windows added and eventually became interior. When we started tearing into it we found the walls were just clapboard inside and out. No sheathing or insulation. So we reuilt it up to the drip edge.

Also have found that the whole house does not have any wind barrier like tar paper. Suspect we'll be pulling off all the siding and filling any uninsulated wall cavities with blow in insulation, then adding a wind barrier and residing, probably with cedar shingles.

I'm going back to work on Monday. This stage has taken 4 weeks of 12 hr+ days/7days a week. Probably doesn't belong in the DIY forum. This is a huge project. We're getting real tired of living in a construction site. Can't wait to get back to normal living.

Begreen said:

Probably doesn't belong in the DIY forum. This is a huge project. We're getting real tired of living in a construction site. Can't wait to get back to normal living.

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That statement alone makes it absolutely appropriate and actually important.
A project like your's is a HUGE undertaking.
Most folks do not understand the scope of projects like this.
All I have to say is THANK YOU!,,
for sharing, for the pictures and the commentary.

Looks great!! Like Square Eye say's..."Grab a chair an set a spell" see what happens ...someone raises a house!!!
We all love that you have taken the time to share your huge project with our little community, all the while being busy with your own tasks at hand.

The house looks like it came through fine, the updates sound good too.

Settin back with a cold one......