Round Two

Friday, October 26, 2007

Round two has us feeling a little battered but still confident. The log house foundation is still a mystery. It had a curb poured around the bottom log – a few houses on the block have this same foundation curbing. STUPID. Curbing needs constant caulking or moisture enters behind it and – surprise – rots whatever is back there. We couldn’t tell what was up w/the foundation till that curb came off. One of my students, Blake, has been working for us and he and Sean jackhammered the curb away and the result has been discouraging.

The foundation was always an issue. I had a home inspector and a log home restoration specialist inspect the curbing before I bought the house. They said the same thing – looks like there is a problem but it’s fixable if the floor joists are not tied to the logs. The log guy gave me a bid of $5,000 to remove the curb, remove and replace the bottom logs.

Really the whole deal depended on that foundation. Remember this place was built 1937 in a poor town in a poor state. One day, while I was still considering whether to buy the property, I was driving to work and decided that I just had to know what was under there. The drive takes an hour – plenty of time to think. I was dressed for class and not for crawling around under houses so I stopped at Pamida (a general store in Powell) and bought a shovel, sweat pants, and cheap shoes. I went to the house, dug a hole into the crawl space and went in.

Yeah, it was creepy and spidery but I saw that the foundation extends 2ft. into the ground and that the walls and floor joists are framed normally and sit on the foundation. The joists are 2×12 and sit above – not touching – the ground below the house. The logs seem to provide some structural support but I was encouraged to find that there is a foundation and that the interior framing is not dependant on the exterior structure.

So I bought the place. Then Sean and Blake removed the curb and found the foundation is rotten all across the back of the house.

Ok so now we need more information. How do we replace the foundation along the back of the house? Options are swirling and Sean is worried about the cost. Before I bought it, I figured $8,000 for the foundation … we shall see.

posted by renee claire at 3:35 PM

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