The contractor took a step back.... fireplace foundation

[TucsonLawrence]

Long story short- we had a fireplace right in the middle of our 1950-built house. We wanted to remove it... so I opened up the basement to check out the chimney foundation.



Open up the basement sheetrock and .. whoa, wait a second



Yep, it was time to call a professional... with good insurance When the house was moved here in the 60's it looks like they decided that a couple of trees (not poles... tree trunks with bark and limbs was appropriate for use as a foundation. More "support" appears to have been added on willy-nilly through the years, including loose cement blocks and wooden wedges... also the sheetrock was several layers thick and had "peepholes" which suggest I wasn't the first to see it... though in previous cases they apparently just cursed and then added on more sheetrock) The weight on the main floor included the chimney, a VERY heavy fireplace and a poured concrete pad under the hearth (about 6 feet long x 2 feet and 5 inches thick at its thickest- this is actually the part that made the masons the most nervous as it was resting on a little wooden lip and balanced onto loose blocks which had shifted)

Well, over a week later, the fireplace is gone (brick sitting in my barn for a future project), an 18 foot long, 13.5 inch tall gluelam beam is in place, and the bottom live-in basement is now OPEN.

Our checkbook is a bit lighter, but the contractor commented we're surprisingly well below the estimate because we did so much of the basic labor (prep, cleanup, haul etc) ourselves and I "was on hand to help when needed, but kept my mouth shut and didn't get in the way like most homeowners" (we've gotten to be friends too)

Next up, complete kitchen remodel including electrical, plumbing and cabinets. A peninsula will go where the fireplace was and LOML gets her open concept house.

Gotta love older homes.

Lawrence

[Bob10]

I had to remove my fireplace after the 89 quake, how did you like all that dust and carrying bricks out of the house? If I ever find myself doing that type work again it will be with an air chisel cleans the bricks off fairly well and fast too. I think the hardest part of the job besides moving all the bricks had to be working between floors and the roof

[EatenByLimestone]

But where are you going to put your tv?

Good thing you're getting that out of the house. That's a heck of a thing to come loose at 3am!

[R Clark]

Good work on finding the issue and getting it taken care of. Would have been a heck of a thing to get a minor shake and then find out about that foundation. I don't know that I would have thought to look.

[woodhead]

Drywall with "peepholes" is called Roc lathe. The product would be finished with plaster.


Al

[EricU]

looks legit.


I'm impressed they manged to find a mason that would do that. In the end, it doesn't seem like it would really save that much money

[tomsteve]

well,thats,ummm....unique framing?

[Snipe Hunter]

Those are the things home inspectors get sued for. Or at least the buyer tries to sue.

I can't believe anybody tried something that risky.

[jteneyck]

I wonder how that passed inspection. Homeowner probably did it on the sly and had his friend the wannabe mason do it.

John

[TucsonLawrence]

Yeah, funny right!

The peepholes are definitely peepholes (4x6 cutouts) there are two of 'em and I know for sure one is a peephole because I asked the previous owner and he admitted as much (he made it) I know it should have been in the disclosure when we bought, but this house has a lot of "interesting" building techniques in it.

Just to be clear- the chimney/fireplace was not built this way- the house was built with a proper foundation (we found evidence of it at the bottom of the chimney) and the whole house- including chimney and foundation- were moved on site from the I-5 construction site on the mainland in the early 1960s. When they brought it to site, they braced it up in the basement with (it seems) whatever they had laying around as the new "foundation". We live in the country/county and I guarantee the inspector never saw it (or any of the other funny things here on the property such as 12 ga romex running from box to a piece of sheetrock... behind the sheetrock the romex was tied into knob and tube... then to 14 ga romex and on to receptacles on the other side... luckilly, this was in an outbuilding (our property has a much older barn and outbuildings built around the turn of the century- it appears the house wiring never saw anything older than cloth-wrapped.

I'm fixing as I go along on this house... and am learning A LOT.

Lawrence