Grit happens

As you, dear reader, are almost certainly aware, Janelle's parents are building "in-law quarters" onto the Northwest corner of our home in rustic Keezletown. In general, the project has gone very well, and we are more than satisfied with the quality of the structure.

Our more construction-savvy readers will readily assume that integrating an existing structure with a new one involves some tricky maneuvers, some unknowns, some risks, some surprises, some disappointments, some headaches, some serendipity.

That is to say, occasionally things happen or are discovered which cause me to smack my forehead or inspire a wish to slump in a corner and weep. Other times, things happen or are discovered which cause me to grin with satisfaction or inspire me to walk around a corner and whoop!

The discovery of an expanse of rock-free soil to the north of the stairwell between the old and new parts of the home was the kind that inspired whooping, as it allowed for the formation of a root cellar in that very handy location. The discovery of a four-foot slug of tar (which had oozed out of a half-full tar bucket discarded against the foundation during the backfilling stage of construction in 1981 or so) in the foundation drain was the other kind.

This week has been well-stocked with grins as usual, but it's also been a little heavy on the forehead-smacking.

I think the root of the problem is that our house is a little odd. This has suited me more or less o.k., since I am also a little odd. But oddness is hard on contractors. Contractors generally do their most dependable and efficient work in an environment of consistent circumstances. This house, bless its heart, is a bit of a scalp-scratching chin-stroker.

In this case, the contractor was attempting to:

1) Remove from the 1000 square-foot rear portion of our house three (three!) layers of worn-out asphalt-type roofing, the moisture-degraded plywood sheathing below it, and the critter-infested insulation below that.

2) Replace the insulation with a superior type, and re-sheath and pre-roof it with a plastic temporary roofing paper.

3) In one day.

The day before the big day, the crew started making their preparations. We were out for the afternoon, and Kali and I had left the house around noon. We had company for supper that evening, and we arrived home around 5:30...just enough time to throw together some food. Upon pulling in the lane, I was surprised to see some fiberglass insulation sticking out from the top of the trash trailer. "I guess they went ahead and got started!", I said. This turned out to be an understatement. They had apparently seen the clear weather predictions and the cloudless sky and had (reasonably enough) decided to hedge their bets and do the entire demolition portion of the work that afternoon.

Enter the structural oddness of our house.

Most ceilings are made of plaster or drywall. Those that are not are usually made from tongue-in-groove boards. There is a reason for this. Contiguous ceiling coverings form a relatively flat surface that is easy to clean and paint, and which forms a barrier between the ceiling and the attic space, framing space, or insulation cavity that is above it.

Most of our ceilings are drywalled. Two of them are made of planed boards with rough edges screwed onto the bottom edges of the roof rafters. Predictably, there are gaps. Ahem.

Remember those three layers of roofing? Remember the critters in the insulation? Remember that we had just enough time to throw dinner together?

We didn't have the luxury of time for finding a corner (preferably one free of roofing grit and mouse turds) to weep in, so Janelle got lentils and rice on the stove (fortunately the new kitchen has a drywalled ceiling) and I grabbed a broom. They had, reasonably enough, decided to remove the old roofing and sheathing by cutting through the whole mess with old blades in hand-held circular saws, then prying the chunks of plywood loose as whole units rather than stripping things apart layer by layer. This was by far the smartest way to go about the job, and building smarts is why we hired them. It did, however, loosen a whole darn lot of roof grit. In the afternoon's glare, I guess they couldn't see down through the cracks of the ceiling wood well enough to realize that that's all that was there between the roof cavities and the floor below! So when they conscientiously swept all that crud out of the cavities, VOILA! Grit happens.

We had a nice supper, and the next day's construction activities went very well. The roof cavities got crammed full of fluffy cellulose insulation, and new OSB sheathing was installed. Grins all around, with the satisfaction of knowing the job was done right by people who know their business.

Don't get too comfortable yet.

There is another odd thing about our house. The pitch of the rear roof is really very low. Something like a 3 inch rise per 12 inch run. This makes it prone to leaks. This roofing paper stuff is pretty new, and its uses and limits are still being debated and tried. In real time. Right here.

A day or two after the roof project, it rained about a tenth of an inch one day. Everything seemed fine, except that due to the temporary arrangement of materials, a puddle formed which threatened to replicate an earlier water problem we'd had that had done some minor damage to the cork flooring in our guest room. We went on our church's retreat this past weekend without much worry. But this past Tuesday night, everything was not fine.

I went to sleep around 10:30, but awakened at 12:30 to the sound of torrents of rain on the new roof (which is going to be much louder in the rain than the old one...a welcome development for weather enthusiasts like myself). I wanted to enjoy the thirsty soil's relief, but couldn't escape nagging thoughts about that puddle upstairs that I knew was growing every minute. When I couldn't stand it anymore, I trudged up in my bare feet and boxers with a flashlight. Sure enough, puddles. But not imminently threatening infiltration, so I came back down, wiped the wet sawdust off my feet and climbed back in bed. Sleep did not come, however, as the intensity of the rain only increased. I laid and listened, checking the puddles (growing, becoming worrisome) once or twice before deciding at around 2:30 to break out the trusty squeegee to put my mind at ease. When I returned, I found Janelle in Kali's bedroom. She had gotten up to come check on my whereabouts and was detoured by the sound of water dripping in Kali's bedroom. Kali's nearly brand new cork floor had a sizable puddle right in the middle of it, which was spreading rapidly across the floor.

The rain continued unabated for a while longer. Neither Janelle nor I slept much or well the rest of the night: two other small leaks showed up and periodic squeegee work upstairs was necessary. Finally at around 4:30 the worst of the storm seemed to have passed, and we got a little rest in before the alarm, though Janelle was able to sleep more than I (and in that time was able to squeeze in a dream of the drywall ceilings starting to show water stains). My mind was busy with problem-solving wheel-spinning and some cold sweats regarding what we were going to do if the new insulation was ruined by water.

In the morning, there were two and a half inches of rain in the gauge. The newly-planted strawberry beds looked so chipper, and the developing heads of broccoli so crisp and clean, I almost couldn't stay grumpy.

During that long night both Janelle and I experienced feelings that reminded us of some of the many long nights we spent caring for Nora. At some point in the night I remember Janelle mentioning that she was keeping perspective by thinking about the many, many Indonesians who had lost their lives or homes by way of simultaneous tsunami damage and volcanic eruption. Those thoughts and memories helped me to keep from getting too caught up in frustration.

All the same, I did not wish to repeat that performance, and when the rain continued in the morning and I felt the need to take time out of my work day to check on the house and squeegee the puddles, I decided to write a fairly direct, perhaps somewhat sleep-deprived email to the builder indicating my unwillingness to be on the hook for more emergency hydrology. He is a healthy communicator, so he took my concern seriously and there is now a giant tarp in place to tide us over until the metal roofing can be installed on Monday.

My thanks go out this afternoon to Janelle's dad, who has spent a lot of time this week sweeping roof grit and mouse turds out of various crevices (including the many created by my disorganized stacks of paper on this desk I'm writing at), to A.M. Yoder Construction for being a generally excellent outfit with a healthy, non-defensive sympathy for the plight of the homeowner, and to Janelle for making me go to bed early last night. I feel much better now.