Blog

The beam is up! The beam is up!

In producing the as-built drawings, we discovered the roof was being held up by momentum. That is, there wasn’t much real support holding the roof up, so it looks as though the roof is staying up because it already is up. Since it’s sagging and big snow events may happen in the future, I decided to put in new supports. This means tearing out the old ceiling. A big mess. It also means new structural support, not only for the ceiling but for the floor, because support must go all the way to the ground.

Alone in the hovel today - tearing it apart. Feeling a mixture of relief, anxious anticipation and revulsion. I wish I had done this right away after I bought this place. I would have known what this thing is really about. But I was not in a position to do it at the time. I was a full time student and reeling from some major changes in my life.

Now that Greg Willis is here to help me with this … project, we have developed a plan. The first step is to map out what is here and put it down on paper in the form of drawings. This is often called “as-built” drawings. Important to have these for communication purposes. This will probably take another couple of days to finish up.

When it comes to the hovel, I’m afraid of things I don’t know and don’t understand. I have put off doing a thorough inspection of this house for years. I guess I didn’t want to know what is really going on under the floor and above the ceiling, partly because it is a huge mess and partly the feeling that I wouldn’t understand what is going on anyway. The stuff I’ve looked at so far just doesn’t look good. What frightens me is the prospect of finding things that will require a huge amount of work and expense.

Finally, help is on the way and this means that the hovel is moving to the next stage!

Did I say that I’m in funk? Did I mention the weather moved inside me— no forecast, just gray.

I just can’t seem to get it together to fix my plumbing. Same old thing. I come to the house, I feel overwhelmed, get distracted, then leave.

Gotta go back down there, I thought to myself. No choice. I assumed if I inserted myself in that hole again I would feel a little more comfortable. So I did. I needed to squirm into the next bay to get access to the problem. I had stuck a light down into the hole from above so that I could see the point to which to crawl. When I managed to get into the bay, I just lay there for a bit. Looked around.

With my friend Tony helping me out, we prepared to go down under. I borrowed a pair of coveralls, and we got lights and some tools in place.