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Home Buyers Inspection Service

Partial List of Work I Have Done
Quality building renovations, gutting out and reconstructing old buildings, jacking to replace rotted structure, replacing foundations with poured concrete, historic preservation work, electrical, plumbing, heating, quality boiler installations, finish work, cabinet-making and cabinet work, installing new doors, installing hardwood strip flooring, installing VCT flooring, installing ceramic tile, framing for new construction, troubleshooting all types of building problems, all types of appliance and heating system repairs and maintenance, cleaning and setting up oil-fired burners using a Bacharach Combustion Test Kit.

Quality Boiler Installations
Double-click to watch videos

Replacing rotted sills for, replacing the foundation under, and performing complete rehabilitation to my Northeastern Vermont, East Saint Johnsbury c1850 residence while maintaining original architectural woodwork and charm
(and surviving while living in it)

In 1986, I owned and operated a building renovation business (Guest Renovation, Inc.).  Our business primarily involved major structural work, jacking buildings and replacing damaged and collapsing foundations.  We performed a lot of structural work - replacing rotted sills, replacing floor joists, jacking to straighten and level buildings, etc.  My wife and I also bought this house in 1986.  We gutted it out and before reconstructing the interior, we replaced the rotted sills and replaced the original stone foundation (which was all caving in). The structural and foundation work was performed in 1988, before the interior walls and trim were installed (as always, start from the ground and work up) .

Out of 220 linear feet of original perimeter sills for the house, attached shed and attached barn, 180' of those sills were replaced with new 8x8's.  All existing floor joists secured and/or mortised into new sills. 

Excavation to remove original stone foundation was performed and an entire new concrete foundation was installed, along with perimeter drainage, under the entire house, attached shed and attached barn.  Additional drainage was installed around the entire front of the building which leads around both sides to the lower back yard.
 

This is how the back of our house looked when my wife and I purchased it in 1986.
One would think that simply jacking the deck and installing footings is all that is necessary.
However, the deck was completely rotted and my wife and I knew this "quaint
old house" needed more than mere cosmetic work (don't they all?).

Seeing that I had been in the renovation business for five years at the time
(beginning January 1, 1982), I could "see through" the cosmetics and knew that there was
a lot of work to be done.  We estimated it would take us five years to complete the entire project.
At the rate we started out working on it, five years would have been very accurate.

Having to perform work on other people's homes to pay the bills meant that the original five
years we estimated quickly turned into twenty years!  All this time, I was working with
my crew on other people's homes and would work on our house when there was a lull between jobs.

As always, we started at the bottom and worked our way up, as you will see below.
 

After the deck was removed from site, the following pictures show what remained after removing rotted clapboard siding and rotted sheathing.
Rot extended deep into the wall structure, including rotted wall stud bottoms and sills.  When you are looking at that old house, if there is any
rot at all, you must suspect that the rot may extend deeply into wall and floor structure (like shown here)!

One reason for (even simple) maintenance to get behind is because summers are so short! 
If you want to really maintain a large home here in the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont and adjacent North Country,
you really need more than one or two months of good weather to accomplish most exterior maintenance procedures!
As it is, for every two to three good dry days, you have to figure that you will most likely have a day or two of rain where
a lot of exterior work (like painting, caulking, etc) cannot be done!  The winters are so long here that there are really
only two to three months (maximum) that is appropriate weather to get all necessary maintenance performed and completed!

We joke about the weather here being Summer, Winter and Mud Season!
In reality, it is no joking matter for someone who needs to be out working on his house!
    
 

This photo was taken from inside the kitchen, looking into the sink cabinet through which you could literally see outdoors after all rotted wood was removed.  I'm glad I ripped all the walls out. One kitchen wall was literally filled with rat droppings.

Two photos below show our temporary kitchen we made up in the dining room while the kitchen work was being done.
     

Preparation to install new front sill.  Note how the front wall structure had to be supported at certain stud locations as there was no structure on which to jack and there had to be room to get the new sill into position.

Excavation to remove old collapsing stone (boulder) foundation in preparation for installing new poured concrete foundation (Summer, 1988).  A close friend of mine (whom I hired) came in with his machinery. My father (Charlie) and I did all the jacking to shore up and level the building.  Not only was the main building sagging due to foundation collapse, but lack of central floor structure resulted in the middle of the house being 6" lower than the (sagging) perimeter. The house was essentially caving in on itself, much like a slow motion implosion you would watch of a very large building, only this was a lot smaller and lot slower motion (taking over a century to get to where it was).

 
Richard in the process of structurally repairing a back sill where water had run down inside the
back wall from an improperly installed 3" diameter copper waste system roof vent pipe flashing.
Over the course of time, the sill eventually rotted all the way through.  I estimate, in this climate, this
could easily happen over the course of approximately five to ten years---depending on severity of leakage.

For this small a section, it was not worth the time splicing in such a small wood piece.
The repair you see is stronger and less precarious than a short wooden splice would have been.

 
Repair of this short section nearly complete by Richard with 1/2" thick steel plates and 1/2" x 5" long steel lag screws.
Notice how a Hole Hawg is used (in low gear) to drive the large lag screws into the wood.  There was a lag screw extending upwards through the top steel plate and into the stud bottom which bears upon the steel plate.
 

 
Original foundation under the main house consisted entirely of these stones and boulders with barely a crawl space.
Incidentally, this is the same area that is finished in a picture below where Richard is trowling a section of floor by hand.
The first thing we did upon opening up the crawlspace area to the outdoors around the perimeter is install a new 6x6 full length
carrying beam underneath the original carrying beam that spanned the main house first floor structure from left to right.
You can see two vertical steel posts in this picture, these are two of four steel posts we installed under the new 6x6 carrying
beam located overhead.  If you look closely, you can see a portion of the new wood of the new beam on top of these posts (to the
left of that heating duct trunk line).  Since the new basement floor was going to be at least 6'-6" deeper than the existing stone and
dirt floor, these four support columns were set onto large 3' x 3' x 8" thick concrete footings which were poured below the depth of
 the new concrete floor (that will be installed once all this debris is cleared out with the dozer).  That gave the middle of the building
the support it needed - while at the same time having the four support posts with new overhead helper-beam in place.
Digging under this low area for the four footing holes was back-breaking work to say the least!  However, to do the job right -
and to do the job right the first time meant having to make decisions such as this to keep things running in the proper order!

The large photo of me, troweling a newly-poured concrete floor - was taken in this location (to the right of the posts, as they are just out of that photo).
That photo is the 18th photo below here (large vertical photo with me in a white T-Shirt, troweling for the basement toilet).

At this point, the house had already been gutted by my wife, Carolyn, and myself of most plaster and lathing which was a good thing, as it made it easier to jack and level the structure.  The interior was in such poor condition anyway, that it needed to be replaced, and I wouldn't have been satisfied unless I was able to insulate it fully, rewire and re-plumb the entire building before putting up new walls and many new ceilings (we only saved two of sixteen ceilings, and even those two were completely redone to look like finished plaster).

Below is my friend with the excavator.  I have the hard hat on in the right picture where he has a chain around a piece of foundation that didn't want to budge. We eventually got it out using two machines.  Also notice in the right picture (over my head) the new front sill my father and I had installed just two weeks prior.
      

Left photo below shows the office space. The floor was so rotted and structurally compromised that it was actually easier to remove the entire floor structure to excavate for the new foundation and then install entire new floor structure afterwards (observe the backhoe literally inside my office!). When someone walked across the floor, it was just like a trampoline!

Observe the new sills around the perimeter of the office (with corner irons).  Until the sills were replaced, lifting the old structure was like trying to lift Jell-O with your fingers (a term one of my employees came up with while jacking another large building of the same vintage) ,  being very precarious and extremely time-consuming, labor-intensive work!
Once sills were replaced, jacking and lifting the structure to support it at its final height was a lot easier.

The front footing and concrete foundation wall was the first to be completed.  You can see the front sill has been replaced.  Here is the front concrete footing just after being poured.  Notice the steel pipes holding up the front of the house.  Also notice the keyways in the top of the footings to provide interlocking of the wall to be poured onto the new footing.  The new front footing was poured at the end of the first day of excavation!

The steel pipes remain in place when the concrete is poured and hold the house up during concrete forming and pouring.  Since there may be a weakness of concrete in any locations where these poles are located, numerous sections of horizontal rebar (steel concrete reinforcement) are placed alongside the vertical steel poles, in addition to the rebar that is placed both vertically and horizontally throughout the concrete.  For this big old house, over thirty cubic yards concrete were poured and miles of rebar were installed in the concrete footings and walls.  All foundation was replaced in 1988.
     

After much excavation, jacking, pouring new footings and then forming for concrete walls, the one end of the house (shown below) was almost ready to have concrete poured for the new foundation.  First, though, a ramp needed to be excavated into the grade - around the building - to facilitate driving the concrete mixer truck around the back of the house, since so much ground was removed during excavation.  Also, angled boards needed to be installed all along the top of the forms to direct the concrete so it will flow into the forms up to the undersides of sills that are in place by "head pressure" of concrete above the height of sill bottoms.  Before the concrete is completely set, the boards and excess concrete are all broken off, leaving concrete walls poured up to the undersides of sills.

 
After the foundation hole was dug under the office, we realized we had
run into underground water veins as the hole was beginning to fill with water.
A trench had to be cut in the lower back grade beyond the back of the building
to facilitate drainage of the hole so footings and walls could be poured.
 

 
Charles E. Guest (Richard's father - Summer, 1988), screeding off
newly-poured footing under office.  Observe the amount of rebar
in the new footing and the newly-installed sills overhead.

Incidentally, the concrete being poured for these footings was
5,000# mix due to the extent of water in the ground. We didn't want
the walls for this portion of basement to go anywhere which is
why we used the additional strength concrete in the footings.
All footings for the entire project had rebar laid out in this manner.

   This was the room where the complete floor structure was removed in
order to facilitate excavation, since the original floor structure
was compromised anyway.  This is also now the "zone room" in
the basement where all the zones are located in the 12 Zone
Boiler Installation Video shown above on YouTube.

         
Vertical Key-Loc (shown above) was installed in front foundation wall to allow for concrete expansion/contraction.
Observe how much rebar has been placed through the Key-Loc to prevent concrete from shifting and moving.
Since drainage was installed both along the perimeter of the foundation and also in the front yard
approximately 12' out from the foundation, water is not a problem with this planned vertical joint.

 
The ground is clay and was extremely poor drainage. Not only
was perimeter drainage around the new foundation installed, but
there was also 380' of 4" perforated pipe set in crushed stone laid
around the front of the dwelling, lower than the newly-installed
foundation walls and footings (approximately 9' deep).  This was
backfilled with gravel to stop underground water veins and divert
them around the building and to the back yard before they reach the
new foundation.  There is a hill in front of the dwelling and a lot
of water runs underground off that hill which was a problem before
the new foundation was installed.  After the new foundation and
drainage was installed, the problem was completely resolved.  There
is constantly water running from both ends of this "horseshoe" shaped
pipe which has both ends exposed in the lower back yard.  As shown
above, heavy plastic was carefully installed along the house side of
the trench so any water that may make its way to the trench would
be cut off and drop to the crushed stone and perforated pipe below.

The angled pipe you see above is a cleanout which terminates just
below grade at the right-front corner of the building.

UPDATE!  Since the new foundation was installed under the house, the drainage has all worked perfectly!  The "biggest-test" of all was all the rain we got during the big storm of August 28, 2011 (23 years after installing all the drainage and new foundation) where we had flooding around the state, many buildings and infrastructure washed away, etc.  We did not get one drop of water in the entire basement!  Some would consider the work we did to install all the necessary drainage "overkill"—However, that sure beats having a foot or more of water in a flooded basement, especially since that is where I store most of my power tools!

Dimple-type membrane was installed on all foundation walls facing
the upper slope (hill), to help prevent water infiltration through the
concrete walls.  The type that was installed is capable of draining
500 gpm per lineal foot of membrane material on an 8' high wall.

This photo was taken in 2008, 20 years after the membrane was
installed.  This shows the durability of the material (both the black plastic
and the outer filter material are visible).  This is in a location that
is exposed to sunlight, so any breakdown of the plastic through UV
rays has not occurred.  Water veins underground would reach this
membrane then run directly down to the perimeter perforated
pipe and away from the foundation!

 
An impressive photo of the extent of excavation necessary to ensure
proper drainage around the entire dwelling.  It was literally to the
point where we were running out of places to put all the dirt that was
being excavated as the dirt expands and takes up more space once
it has been dug (known as "fluff factor").
We estimated it was expanding by approximately 30% on this job.
Also, the fact that there were 20 tractor trailer dump truck loads
of crushed stone, gravel and sand brought in exacerbated the
problem of where to put the excavated ground until time to backfill.
Most of these dirt piles were eventually taken out back and filled in
where there was originally a steep bank just beyond the back of the
house to create a rolling lawn landscape.

 
Here I am, ready to pour the floor under the office space.
Notice that the new concrete walls have been poured. The
stone wall remaining on the right side is stone on the office
side of the basement which is embedded into poured concrete
on the opposite side. That wall is entirely inside the basement
and all stones have been checked (with a 20 pound sledgehammer)
to ensure that all are tight within the concrete and are not going
to fall out of the wall. You can see the new sill along the front
wall (the chute is extending through one of the original front doors).

 
I remember this picture well.  "Baby-sitting" the main concrete floor
as it was curing.  I didn't get to use the power-trowel until after midnight.
Here I am, after power-troweling, flattening the area of the sloped
floor where the basement toilet will be located.  Then, I had to trowel
over my footprints when I got the area troweled.  This would have been
around 2:30 am.  I slept well after this floor was troweled.
This is the same basement as shown in a picture above where a pile
of rocks and boulders made up a low-height crawl space.

Incidentally, this is the same basement as in the above photo showing stones
and a crawl space with four new vertical steel support columns supporting
a new left-right 6x6 carrying beam under the main original central beam.

 
While the foundation was being replaced, a dug spring was replaced with a drilled well.

Same house, replacing rotted roof structure and roof sheathing in the valley between the barn and attached shed where water had been leaking for years.  Notice the new deck that has been installed.  This was after all foundation work was completed under entire house and new concrete footings under the barn.  As always, work from the ground up!  Since the foundation was in, it was time to add the back deck and time to work on the roof as all lower structural work has been completed.  This guarantees nothing will move that is finished up above.  Third picture shows hoisting up the round-top window into the second-floor studio back dormer.  These pictures were taken circa 1991.

The house was gutted for all new insulation, wiring and plumbing.  Some rooms, including the kitchen had such bad flooring and floor structure that the floors were also gutted down to structure.  Below shows a photograph of the gutted kitchen and I'm measuring for new floor joists to be installed where original floor structure was compromised.  The kitchen floor had five layers of flooring, one on top of the other.  There were actually children's toys between the layers of flooring which were approximately 6" overall thickness!  We had to live with a temporary kitchen in the dining room for several years until the kitchen was completed.
 
Also, observe the new sill visible behind my ankles and the new outside sheathing boards and newly-spliced stud bottoms.
Where you see new wood along the exterior wall (behind me) was all completely rotted in the original wall (remember the
picture up above on this page that was taken underneath the sink cabinet where the outside was visible?)!

 
Observe the original kitchen wainscot ceiling (white). It was more costly to repair the existing
ceiling than to install a complete new ceiling to cover up the old ceiling.
Here, Richard & Carolyn (Richard's wife) are installing the new kitchen ceiling (1989).

 
Moving along, all structural work has been completed and the kitchen is in the process of being finished (1989)

This is how the kitchen looks today (2012)

 
Hardwood flooring was installed throughout much of the first floor.
Here a pile of unfinished maple hardwood strip flooring is being
acclimated to the humidity of the dwelling prior to installation (1989).

After over 20 years of renovations, this is how the house looks today!
 
Would I do it again?   Only if I am not living in the house during renovations!

Richard rewiring a Square D 200 amp main breaker panel
to isolate grounds from neutrals to convert to a sub panel.
 

New isolation ground bars not yet installed in this panel.

Completed work, the panel is now a sub panel ―
all neutral conductors are isolated from ground conductors.

NOTICE:
Effective January 1, 2011, there is a Cancellation Fee of $120 for any inspection appointment that is cancelled within 72 hours of the Scheduled Inspection time - regardless of when the inspection appointment was made.

When the inspection appointment is scheduled, the client (buyer) must furnish us their name, full mailing address and physical address (if their mailing address is a PO Box or different than the physical address).  The client must also furnish us with the subject property owner's name and full physical address (no PO Boxes).

Payment to HBIS, LLC for any inspection cancellation is due immediately upon cancellation and is non-refundable.  If the client proceeds with an inspection (same property or any other property no further than 60 miles from our office) within fourteen days of cancellation day and time, the $120. cancellation fee will be credited toward the inspection that is performed.

Call Richard Guest   802-748-5505

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Richard W. Guest
Home Buyers Inspection Service, LLC
Saint Johnsbury, Vermont, USA
(802) 748-5505
email:   r.guest@vermontinspector.com

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Created: 01/02/2006
Revised: 02/07/2012 07:51:38 -0500