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PHASE #5 of Home
Remodeling Project
"Now the REAL destruction begins -- my stance was to leave this to the
professionals (or so I was lead to believe)"
[On to
Phase 6]
[Project Overview]
[Home Design Reference]
[Lien Waver Example]
[Buy
a House] [Heating & AC]
After
completing all the previous work now it was time to sit back and watch professionals go to
work. During this phase everyone was to leave the house just in case it
collapsed. I dare think of what I would have done had it collapsed - this
was a scenario that I didn't even account for. This phase lasted only a day (surprisingly) during which much of the tear-off
(as contractors call it) occurred.
Tools Used:
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Reciprocating Saw
(Saws-All): There is a reason they call it a saws-all. They can cut through virtually
anything and even cut hard to reach places. |
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Circular Saw: Terrific tool
for cutting up roofs into sections to be lifted up and away. Problem is that roofs contain
lots of nails that take their toll on saw blades. |
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Sledge Hammer: Great for dismantling the chimney. Each
block comes apart a little easier with a little force. There is a saying if all else
fails, force prevails! |
The Actual Work:
 On a Saturday morning
a large crew arrived and our house
began to shake with activity. Here some of the roof was torn off near my son's room. Work
was steady and fast paced! After about an hour the clear sky became cloudy and thunder
began to roll -- our roof exposed, rain started to come down... Luckily it was a freak
shower and barely rained at all. However, I couldn't stand the anxiety so I left to go
fishing with my neighbor Peter.
 In my absence, a crane showed up and workers
took to the roof to begin to tear it off. In my absence (as I was on White Bear Lake
fishing), neighbors gathered across the street to watch my house being
torn apart. It was the talk of the neighborhood for the whole day and then
quite a while after that. Heard there was quite a collection of people watching this. Many neighbors
brought lawn chairs, drank beer, and enjoyed the spectacle. The workers
on the roof drank beer (if you can imagine) while straddling trusses,
climbing high ladders, and operating heavy equipment. I guess in hind sight,
I should have had them all sign insurance wavers as with all the drinking
going on, it was a miracle that no one got injured.
 The spectacle being the destruction and removal
of this once fine (not really) roof. Here was the first chunk taken from the house. It
represented a 2 foot by 12 foot piece which was first cut with various skill saws and
saws-all and then hoisted (or torn) off the roof by the crane. Once this
piece was removed, the other pieces came increasingly easy until they
reached the point where the dumpsters were full and the sun was going down.
 Once broken off from the house each section was
walked across the roof and lowered into one of several dumpsters. Within each dumpster was
a worker who would further cut up these chunks of roof to make room for more.
 When I returned from fishing I basically had no
more roof! Both dumpsters (50 cubic yard in size) where overflowing with roof sections.
In fact, I later found that during the destruction, a third dumpster was
brought in to replace one of the ones that was already full. There was a lot
of material lying around including nails, broken saw blades, shattered
glass, etc. Interestingly, because I was not keeping the windows, the crew
just cut out the walls around the windows and pulled the whole thing out
rather than worry about having to untangle the trim. In this way, the
windows came out with ease.
 Upstairs was even more revealing! Take camping
to the extreme and you get a house with no roof. My house was one with nature as you can see
trees skirting our house -- tree branches at arms reach from the upstairs floor.
All interior walls were gone and you could see all the remains of the
different remodeling what went on.
Neighbors houses in clear view!
The remaining walls were hanging on by a thread.
In the end we only saved 6 foot of wall on the entire second floor.
This is all that is left of the chimney next to
the stairs. The chimney would later be dismantled all the way down to just below the
second floor.
The only vehicle that would fit in our driveway
was this crane (boom) truck. For some time we would not even be able to park our cars in
the garage. This crane leaked oil like crazy and we had to spread
plastic under it to prevent huge slicks that quickly formed under the truck.[On to Phase 6]
[Project Overview]
[Home Design Reference]
[Lien Waver Example]
[Buy
a House] [Heating & AC]
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