Project Basement - Level in Ballard cont'd

I am so glad that Mike & Edgar didn't throw this away. This is the old 6x6 beam that was sagging & cracked. It's now apparent to me why it was so bad. You can see not one, not two, but THREE very large knots in the wood that weakened it. It was very cool to see and equally reassuring that it's down and will be replaced with a slightly newer version. :-) 

Project Basement - Level in Ballard cont'd

A boring shot but a critical component. The brown board on the floor down the middle is pressure-treated lumber that will serve as the base of the wall that'll run down the middle of the basement - serving to support the center of the house. Once Mike frames in the new wall, he'll be able to take down the temporary structural support (left 4x4s). He'll need to cut and repour the concrete slab where the temporary wall was, because it's pretty badly cracked...a testament to the weight of the house and the need to support it adequately! 

Project Basement - Level in Ballard cont'd

A cool shot of the window on the northwest side of the house. You can see the concrete cut - roughly 2x the width of the window. That's the cut for the new window, which gives you an idea of the size & how much light it'll let into the new bedroom downstairs. 

Project Basement - Level in Ballard cont'd

Just a better shot of the jack & the sizable nature of the beam. The other thing I forgot to mention is that Mike decided to support the weight of the house on top of the new foundation as opposed to using the spaced pier pads. The logic is that we now have a very, very strong foundation (14-16" of it depending where you're standing) and there's no reason to stress the floor, even with 10" concrete pads. Mike mentioned he was still a bit concerned with cracking the pads, and that this approach would solve that challenge. 

Project Basement - Level in Ballard cont'd

This 4x10 beam is resting on top of a number of (I believe) 20 ton jacks that span the length of the south side of the house (and north as well, tomorrow). The west portion needs to come up a couple inches, more so on the northwest side than the southwest and more so on the southwest than the northeast.

It'll become a bit more clear tomorrow as tomorrow is jacking day. I'm looking forward to having a level house and Heidi is looking forward to having things solid beneath us again. To that end, Mike believes he'll actually have the downstairs framed at some point next week...so these pictures should really start to take shape!  

Project Basement - Level in Ballard

This is the week where the house will become more level than it has been in many, many years.

For those of you who have been in the basement, you've seen "the beam" - the cracked & sagging and generally dangerous beam that bookends the chimney and is generally in the center of the house. This is the new one. This isn't cracked or sagging or dangerous (although it's toe-nailed in at this point so it's not holding up much of anything). You can see where it butts up against the old (and very intact) beam in the upper-right corner where light brown turns to white.

Ignore the copper piping in the picture as it's definitely not going to be popping out anywhere near where it currently is. 

Project Basement - New Foundation cont'd

This is looking north from the southeast corner of the house. The exterior door would be in the upper-right corner of the house. You can see the thickness of the concrete a little better here. 

Project Basement - New Foundation cont'd

Now looking east at the door to the outside. We ordered a new composite door from Frank Lumber (The Door Store) in Shoreline and Mad Dog will put that in probably in a week or two.

Hopefully you can see the new concrete walls and the difference in thickness and, well, newness. We (Mad Dog) added an average of 6" of concrete around the perimeter and poured a bunch of 10" deep areas to support the weight of the house when we (again, loosely using the pronoun) jack it up. Said jacking will commence on Tuesday 2/14. Who wouldn't appreciate cracked plaster and a lopsided deck for Valentine's Day? All in the name of a level abode.

Project Basement - New Foundation

Different angle, same steps. Mad Dog did a terrific job; there is some minor concrete patchwork to be done but I am very pleased with this portion specifically.

Also, although you can see it, the bottom of the stairs (where the concrete is level with the slab) has a 10x10" drain that is tied into the the same piping that collects water from under the foundation and routes it to the sump pump. So any big rainstorms where the water isn't collected by the downspouts and instead trickles down the stairs won't cause any problems; the water will just be routed to the sump pump. 

Project Basement - New Foundation

This is a fun shot, for me at least. This is looking at the exterior entrance to the basement with the new steps poured & pretty much completed. You'll recall that the goal of this portion of the project was to eliminate the need for the extra headroom as you enter the basement. Said headroom had created the need for an awkward raised-closet-type thing in the office-soon-to-be-Wombat's room.

The plywood screwed to the old door is our version of a high-tech security system. Between that, the guard cat, and the semi-automatic, I think we can keep Seattle's would-be intruders at bay. :-P