Electrical challenges

This is the reason we haven't turned on the electricity at the house. If you look carefully you'll see cloth-wrapped wiring at the top of the box, circa 19...20's?? They did upgrade part of the wiring at some point, but they left all the old wiring in place, making things very confusing.



There's no cover for the box (and there are so many wires it would be impossible to close a cover anyway).

The other reason we haven't turned on the power is that when it rains, the garage roof leaks and water runs down through the electrical outlets on the garage ceiling.



Perhaps we've been overly cautious. I think we're about to find out just how bad the existing electrical really is. What's the worst thing that can happen? The house burns down? We're already planning to burn it do, so how bad is that really?



Of course, we started off thinking rationally about the electrical. "The power in the house looks scary, so we'll get a temporary power pole installed," we said to ourselves. That's a separate power source that we would use during construction. It would allow us to disconnect all electricity to the house and have power to the trailer. It seemed like a great idea all around.

Yesterday these two gentlemen came to install the temporary power. They dug a very deep hole, planted the pole, stabilized it, and ran a special cord to the trailer so we'd have 30 amp power. Then Elmer, the fellow on the left, called the county to follow up on our temporary power permit application.

At this point he found out that the county will not approve a temporary power pole unless you already have an approved building permit. What's involved in getting a building permit? You need detailed architectural drawings (we're six weeks away from this), and an approved flood plain development permit (which takes six weeks to get, and you can't apply for this until you've got detailed drawings), then you need to go through the building permit approval process (another two weeks).

So while we have a lovely pole in our yard, we are still three or four months away from actually being able to have power at the pole. Which means we need to find a different way to get power to the trailer.

Which takes me back to the beginning of this post. What's the worst that could happen if we turn on the power to the house and plug in the trailer? And if we go that route, are we being brave or just desperate. Wait, don't answer that.

If things start on fire, I'll post pictures.

In the meantime, I wonder if we can get some kind of "do not resuscitate" order in place for our house so the fire department doesn't respond if it catches on fire...

Trouble in Paradise

Meet Melissa. She sure looks cheerful. Melissa works at a lab where they do asbestos testing. She's holding samples from our house in one hand, and our testing application in the other.

We had several materials that were...suspicious. The insulation in the attic was scary, since there is LOTS of it and it flies all over the place. And, I've been spending a lot of time in the attic. Breathing. Wearing a flimsy little mask, but breathing nonetheless.

I won't go into all the details but we heard back from Melissa within 24 hours that we do indeed have asbestos in our house. Darn it. Fortunately, it's not in the attic insulation. It's in the linoleum tiles downstairs AND in the mastic that helps them stick to the floor.


I've started making progress on getting the floor tiles up. Unfortunately, I have no idea how to get rid of the mastic. That's the black stuff you see under the tiles. It's a concrete floor that's thoroughly covered with mastic.

Oh, and you might notice the burgundy trim where the wall meets the floor. That's carpet. Yes, burgundy carpet used to cover this whole area and wrap up the walls. Because you just can't have enough burgundy carpet.

On a more positive note, the bluebells are up in great profusion and the flowering trees in the yard add clouds of glorious color and perfume. Spring is really here, making it hard to be anything but hopeful.
I plan to stay positive at least until we find out what it will cost to remove the mastic. We'll see how that goes, and I'll keep you posted.

Logistics

I've been recording the more aesthetic and spiritual aspects of having a sense of home, but it turns out it all comes down to plumbing.

While we now have a 5th wheel on the property, we haven't moved in yet because all systems are not yet go. We need power, water and sewer to make the place really functional. Though this seems like it should be fairly straightforward, I thought I'd share some details.

Running water
First, we have very nice neighbors. They have offered to let us hook up a hose and extension cord to their place any time we want. How thoughtful is that!

However, since they've already mowed our giant lawn twice, we're reluctant to impose on them any more than is absolutely necessary.

Now, there is already a house on the property. So one would think getting running water to the trailer would be no big deal, right? Well...picture this.

The guy from the water company comes to turn on the water at the road. So far so good. We turn on the water in the house at the main valve. We hear water making it's way through the pipes. Very exciting! It's working! Then we realize we hear a bit more water noise than we should.

Racing upstairs from the bowels of the basement we find a geyser shooting up the middle of the kitchen, soaking the thick, burgundy carpet and spraying everywhere. Much shouting, running and fumbling for shut-off values ensues.

It turns out the previous owners had cleverly removed the dishwasher and not capped off the line. After all, why would they? They wouldn't be there when the water was turned on again.

This adventure with water happened before we took possession of the house. We quickly ripped out the lovely burgundy carpet in the kitchen to reveal about 1/4 inch of mud/sand, lying over stylish parquet oak. Sheesh.

At any rate, yesterday was a blue ribbon day since I got that dishwasher line capped off properly and was able to turn on water in the house. Which caused...a riotous leak at the hot water heater. Grab the bucket to catch the leak, turn off water to the heater and drain the heater down to a level below the leak point. Phew.

It's official: we now have running cold water in the old house and we can hook up a hose to the trailer. Why do we care about running cold water in the house? Because...

Sewer
...it means we have somewhere to go to the bathroom.

Now, there's a perfectly nice (though tiny) bathroom in the RV. We're just not sure what we're going to do when we fill up the waste tank. And, there's now some concern that the tank might be full of solidified gunk anyway. This is based on talking with other trailer owners and thinking about what the sellers told us. It may not be true, but we're concerned. So, we're doing anything we can to keep material out of the waste tank.

Longer term, we hope to get a cleanout put into the sewer line in the yard and then hook up the trailer to that. However, there's some concern that the trailer is too far away from the exisiting sewer line for that to work very well. Another reason to minimize waste.

On the upside, in addition to indoor toilets in the old house, we're two blocks away from a gym. Can you say "warm showers"? I certainly can.

Power
We are not turning on power to the house. No way.

When we first bought the house it was raining. Inside. Dripping down through the electrical fixtures on the ceiling. Kind of a neat effect if you don't mind being electrocuted.

It's dry inside now so maybe we're being paranoid but really - what are the odds the electrical is safe to turn on after five years of roof leaks? Also, they were a little free with their staple gun when they secured the wiring so there are several scorched spots where the wiring meets other materials - like the wood floors.

Our plan is to get a temporary power pole installed. We'll need one anyway for construction, so it's not a big deal. The last quote came in yesterday so I'll get an electrician lined up soon and PG &E approved a big area where we can put the pole.

All of which means we're well on our way to moving into the trailer. I've moved in my knitting books and removed the horrible cabbage rose bedspread, so it's already feeling more like home. Now if I can just figure out how to get the cable hooked up...

The 5th wheel

After getting stuck in the soggy front yard several times, the 5th wheel trailer we'll soon call home is now in place.

At the moment, it seems surprisingly spacious. The big windows in back help, and the living room and dining nook (picture miniature versions of whatever's going through your mind right now) slide out to form a wider space.

Shopping for one of these was quite a trick, mostly because of Brian's height. I kept making him lie down on all the beds of all the trailers we went into. Eventually he started saying, "This could work. No, really, I think this could work," even when his feet stuck off the bed by 3". He'd gotten used to having them stick off the end 6", so the improvement was marked.

With this trailer, he just sticks off the end of the bed about an inch and I attribute that to his wearing tennis shoes. Surely we'll be able to make this work, as long as we don't thrash around too much. Otherwise, someone's going to end up with a black eye. Hopefully we'll get the hang of this pretty quickly.

Aside from having to coax the trailer out of giant divots in the lawn, the next biggest surprise was that the former owners had left many useful items in place. Like...silverware. A corkscrew. Plates. Mixing bowls. Pots and pans. Bath towels. A charming cabbage rose bedspread. And best of all, a coffee pot.

This makes me ecstatic because I have no idea where we would find those things in our boxes and boxes of stuff that is still spread out across two states and five separate locations.

That sounds like it would be stressful but it turns out I don't really care about knowing exactly where everything is. I need to know where Brian and the dogs are, and my computer. Best case, I can also locate a toothbrush and a good book. Other than that, it's just not that big a deal.

On another note, we're starting to talk with potential designers and I've been haunting building material salvage yards all over town. We're getting close to starting the fun part!

A Sense of Place...?

When we first moved down to Portland, we lived with my husband's parents briefly, then moved in with some extremely kind and gracious friends, and their octogenarian mother. They didn't seem to mind that we had tons of stuff and two dogs. And they had two dogs. And three of the dogs are big. And they all like to run around together. Fast. On wood floors.

At first, it was really disorienting to move into someone else's home. We were encouraged to make the house our own, invite friends over, etc. So, we really moved in. Undies in the drawer. Toothbrushes in the holder. Art on the walls and books on the shelves.

We were treated to gourmet meals and a housecleaning service. We quickly adapted to having a commercial espresso machine at our fingertips. And we learned to pick up after ourselves and keep everything but our own room tidy.

It still felt weird. Like reverting to childhood where your room is your sanctuary and the rest of the house is your parents' domain. It was hard to feel comfortable cooking in someone else's kitchen. I mean, what if that salt I used was the last of some special salt from a rare sea that ran dry in 1893? I would feel terrible.

It felt weird not to wander around naked looking for my glasses. (Now I wander around in my robe looking for my glasses.) And it felt weird to virtually always have someone else around the house. It turns out I get very stressed out by not having some time each day to be completely by myself.

The dogs, however, acclimated quickly. If anything, they're happier sharing space with other dogs and humans. Their sense of place seems to be defined by where their dog bed is, where the food container is kept, and meals on a regular schedule.

It turns out, they don't even need us. We shuttled them around for two weeks before settling in with our friends, then we sent them off to stay with my parents for a week while we went to Hawaii. They did great! Loved it. Why? They had their dog bed and they knew exactly where the food container was at all times.

Personally, I'm not sure of my human equivalent to doggie beds and Scooby snacks. Privacy and aloneness are important pieces. I need to be outside of anyone else's thoughts and space, so I can fully tune in to how I'm doing and what I care about. I find I can't do that very well unless I'm completely alone.

That's a good thing to know before building a new house. I wonder what it would cost to add an isolation tank to the unfinished basement...

Out with the old (house, that is)

One of our first challenges was figuring out whether or not we could save the existing house. Responses ranged from enthuastic about making some slight modifications (replacing the roof, scraping off the mold and taking down the mirrors that were hanging EVERYWHERE), to mockery at the idea of trying to make it work. (Thanks, Dad.)

Once we got expert advice about the cost of bringing the current structure up to snuff versus the cost of new construction, we had to face the sad fact that our 1920's bungalow would need to go.

Which brings us to an interesting dilemma. This being Portland, there are lots of "green" options. The greenest is probably the DeConstruction Service provided by the ReBuilding Center. This service takes buildings apart piece by piece, by hand, and recycles/resells/reuses every last bit possible. They run site field trips during this process to teach children about the benefits of salvaging building materials. They bring in the media to highlight their good work. They pay "living wages" to their workers and any profit goes to support their program supporting communities in need.

The blackest option, and I mean that literally, is you can have your house burned down as part of a local fire department's training program. I've gotta say, the idea of watching this structure of mold go up in smoke is pretty appealing.

Somewhere in between falls the option of demolition, with some salvage and recycling happening around the edges when the materials make that worthwhile.

While I would like to say the moral dilemma of all this weighs heavily on me, I've got to be honest. This is going to come down to money and risk. The "green" option, as is often the case, is likely to be the most expensive. The "black" option is likely to be cheapest since it will leave the least debris to be hauled away. Both let us feel good about making a contribution to the community, though obviously one carries a lot of emotional baggage about contributing to global warming. But, hey! The firefighters here don't fight a lot of structure fires. I don't want them out of practice when the real thing hits. It's a selfless move, really.

On the risk side lies...asbestos. The fire department requires an asbestos survey of the property and abatement if asbestos is found. So, we have a dilemma. What if we do an asbestos survey and it turns out there is asbestos? Then we have to take care of that (which adds expense - sometimes a LOT of expense), before doing anything else. If we go the straight demolition route, we don't have to risk finding asbestos and being required to abate it. At least, that becomes the problem of the demolition people. And they're trained professionals, right?

This is still a hypothetical discussion of sorts, since we don't yet have bids back from the demolition and deconstruction people. I'll let you know how this all works out.

Welcome

In the fall of 2008, my husband and I reexamined our lives, sold our house, moved to a different state, bought a house, then figured out we needed to tear down that house and rebuild from scratch.

Along the way we've dealt with a job loss, family judgement and disappointment, moving out of one home without really knowing where we're going to sleep at night, and in the new home, lots and lots of mold. And maybe asbestos. We hope not. We're afraid to find out. Did I mention the mold?

Since that's all happened in the first few weeks, it seemed worth keeping a diary of sorts as we build a new life together, in a new place.

WARNING: In this blog you will read about the challenges of balancing financial pragmatism with environmental responsibility. You may be offended by some of the choices we make. That's fine. We may not be too happy with some of our choices either. Then again, we may just have a different perspective and priorities. Feel free to share your thoughts on our progress and vent where you feel the need.