Landfill

Seminole Road Landfill, Dekalb County GA

It's nearly impossible to re-purpose the debris from a tile shower so it has to go to the landfill.

It's way down in South Dekalb county. If you are a resident you can take stuff there but it isn't free. They charge $33 per ton. They check your i.d. when you arrive.

There is a scale that you drive onto at the entrance and they weigh you again on the way out.

The debris from the shower weighed 1080 lbs. I paid about $18. A dumpster rents for over $300. A fairly long trip but for a small job it makes more sense than renting a dumpster.

Bathroom Demolition

Original bath

Demolishing the shower was not easy. The mortar bed that they installed in some places was over an inch thick. It was dry as a bone after 40 years. The tiler on this job did not get any call-backs I believe.

The amount of weight all of the mortar adds is incredible. The new materials will be a lot lighter.

There's at least one layer of wallpaper that's been painted over so all of the drywall has to go.

Behind the shower wall you can see the roof line of the first floor. (note the angled section). This wall gets really hot from the exterior. This will get another 2" of rigid foam insulation before the shower goes back in.

Sanitary waste and vent stack

I don't have the heart to smash the cast iron tub with a sledgehammer, so it stays.

That bundle of wires is heading down to the panel box. The new code doesn't allow any plumbing to be above any electrical.

Hot & cold water supplies

All the plumbing behind the walls is in good shape.

Bathroom Renovation

The seventies called...they want their bathroom back. They can have it.

This bathroom has been pretty grody since the day we moved in even after I re-caulked the tub and replaced the toy sink they had installed.
The floor is unlevel and there is a hole in the wall near the tub. It's pitiful.
Yesterday I bought some new tile and today I began the demolition.

I've yet to determine if the tub is cast iron or steel and though I would like to remove it I'm not sure it's going to be feasible.

I had always assumed that the existing tile was laid over another floor. Today I found out that the original tile was removed but the original mortar bed was left in place and then built up on top of it. The bathroom floor was alway higher than the hall floor. It's why it was so uneven and very heavy. There was so much weight that I believe the floor was sagging. It is very, very squeaky in the hall outside the bath.

Anyway, under the old mortar was the metal lath that was always used for tile floors back in the day. Apparently there are some who are still using this system, but no so much in the South. The subfloor isn't in too bad a condition for it's age though you can see there has been some moisture here and there.

It's been a while since I've remodeled a bathroom and these days there are way more products out there than there was back then. It's really a matter of who's technique you choose to go with. I'm still trying to decide.

Bye bye window!

Today our door from Marvin arrived. It will be an outswing french door that will replace the two double hung windows that are there now.

Before the deck was built this window was about six feet up. There was a small amount of demolition to do with the brick beneath the window.

An entry door will be an improvement from having to walk into the garage to access the deck. It will also be a thermal improvement over the two heinous single pane windows that leak air terribly and won't open and close anymore because someone painted them shut. Lovely!

Hole in the wall

I can always count on finding an example of shoddy workmanship every time I remove something and this time was no exception. When the hvac register was installed they cut all the way through the exterior gyp board as you can see on the left. They also hacked up the rim joist and sill.

So for the last 30 yrs hot and cold air has basically been venting to the exterior. Not that the gyp board provides much R value, but it's at least an air barrier. This probably means the registers on the other side of the room could be the same way. I demo'd this register and it's duct back to the y fitting and capped it off.

Cutting the brick turned out to be easier than I expected. I bought a 6" masonry cutting disc and installed it on my angle grinder. It made a lot of dust but wasn't real hard to grind thru the bricks at all. No water necessary. It only took about an hour to demo the entire section.

Ugly eaves

When you find interior products used in an exterior application you had better investigate because it's probably just the tip of the iceberg.

I found a piece of medium density fiberboard (MDF) behind the gutter on the second story. Needless to say it was waterlogged and inhabited by ants. There is also a piece of interior trim running the perimeter of the soffits all the way around the house. I've pulled lots of bright nails out of the fascia board as I've been taking it down, more interior product.




It's hard to see, but there is a piece of romex running on the exterior under the eave to flood lights. This is a code violation. There's a good reason romex has to be enclosed. Squirrels had gnawed the casing off of the wire. A good way to start a fire.



This is where the two sections of the house connect for a split-level.

Here is a shot of the old exterior grade gyp board they used to use. I don't see it used these days, however it is still around.

Between the rafter tails where they extend beyond the exterior wall I am adding 2" of rigid foam insulation. I will seal the cracks with expanding foam insulation.

When the contractor sprayed the foam insulation against the roof deck they did a good job of sealing everything from the inside. But out on the eaves where the angle pinches down it is hard to reach, even with the wand.

Here you can see where the foam blew out against the exterior at the eaves. From the inside it is sealed and airtight but as you can see there is still room for more sealing.

I've filled these voids with rigid foam and expanding foam. The rigid insulation adds another R10 to the system. The foam prevents air flow, moisture and bugs moving into the interior.

For new construction all of this can be accomplished during the construction phase with all spray foam insulation and it makes for a nice tight envelope which saves lots of $$$ on heating and cooling.

Not Pretty

Since we bought the house, I've known that the soffit was rotted out underneath the valley where the garage is attached.

I haven't been able to address it because of the very steep slope and rough terrain that was beneath that area. Since the deck has been extended out over that tough terrain it is now much easier to work on the eaves there.

Today I got started demolishing the rotted out sections. The gutter had to be taken down and it's the main reason for the problem as well.

The fascia is toast, and a lot of the soffit has to be replaced. Some of the rafter tails are in bad shape and need replacing. But the rafters are okay and the decking is in good shape.

It's not in too bad a condition. They went to great lengths to hide the damage which was mostly the fascia. It would have been as a simple or even easier fix to just have done it right.

It's what I've come to expect though. I've found lots of shoddy work throughout this house that could have been just as easily done correctly. It's laziness. Cutting corners never saves any money, in the long run.

On the upside, I will be able to add another couple of inches of rigid foam insulation before I button everything back up. This will add some significant R value to an otherwise weak point in the wall system that I could not reach from the interior.

The air sealing that I did last year was visible after removing the soffit and it was a good job. I didn't see any voids or crevices that air could be moving through, I'm happy to report.

Being able to seal and insulate from the exterior will be a bonus that I didn't think about until I had the eave demo'd.

Demolition Week

Demolition began in earnest on Monday. We are taking down the old sheet rock to expose the uninsulated exterior walls. As you can see from the photo the walls contain absolutely no insulation at all!

Demolition wasn't fun. We found two previous rat nest's. Not pretty.

 Kitchen demo

 Exterior wall kitchen demo. Temporary sink.

Domestic water and sanitary waste piping