crawlspace horror - part 1

jambaloney here!!!

first off - winter is still upon us... pretty though!!!

okay i left off my last post with a pic of a bottle jack - here it is...

where is it... under the crawlspace - i am finally getting to the job of  adding support to the older half of the manor.. you will see why i waited so long in a few... part of the job is preparing the footings. they will be slabs of concrete with pressure treated lumber glued to them - had to dry out the pt lumber as my `lumber yard lost the tarp!!

 k helped me draw out a nice plan of the floors and walls..

and i found the old plan for the greenhouse roof... ah memories!!

here is the upstairs again...as it turned out, it was impossible to apply in the crawlspace - you will see why....

 oh - a tip to you circular saw users - this diablo 40 tooth blade it the best i have found so far - get one!!!

 see that buried phone pole?? it is holding up two railway ties which support the floor joists - this single post is carrying about 1/4 the load of the whole 1/2 of the manor - great job butt-head (previous owner)

so in we go!!! you can see the plug for the hotub and wiring for the bathroom heater - both my work and well installed!

garbage from previous owner..

squirrels have wreaked havoc on my insulation job... we had a weasel in the basement that i THOUGHT would keep them clear.. alas our young cat didn't take kindly to him.. nuff' said!

hey look - greywater from the bathroom sink!!!

 i |THINK this was supposed to be extra support - too bad it isn't!!

here is one of the middle railway ties connected to the concrete foundation with.. uh... ??????

oh yes.....  the concrete foundation, you might remember that buddy left all the framing in place to assist in collecting mold and rot  - the foundation is buckling a bit at the bottom - i will have to fix that later..

 look at this mess - i don't know where to begin - this is the SE corner of the manor...

LOTS of spiders..

 a COMPLETE pos (piece of sh*t!)....

daddy longlegs...

this single post sits in the middle of the whole half of the manor - two railway ties (only 1/2 thick ties)  the roof and stove are pushing down...

here is the middle of the end - at LEAST this post is in concrete (sorta)

back to the post at hand - here is another view..

the floor joists underneath the kitchen have little pieces of wood stuffed as shims - they don't go all the way under so 1/2 of this joist that is supposed to be sitting on the tie is touching nothing... i had to shim the other side of all of them (forgot to take pics - it is only about 15-18" high here - hard to take good pics)

above the post is this mess....

at the end there seems to be more support

i decided to prepare all the footings at once ..

the wood was dry - see that log? that is tamarack or larch that i dried - it is rot resistant - i will use it for support  in this pic you see the cement that our friend w told me to use...

here is the pt lumber as it was drying..

after it dried - i applied the cement to each piece and glued them to the concrete - they will keep the wood off the concrete footings AND keep the concrete from cracking by distributing the force with a BIT of give.. ( i cracked one piece of concrete under a jack when making the mini-cold storage)

i clamped them together for a day..

 and de-barked the larch...

i used the husky carpenters axe as it has a more squared blade - no drawknife yet...

and that is part one i wanted you to get a feel of the crawlspace - there is something wrong with you if you don't want a shower now ;-)))))

here is a nice sunset....

cheers all!