August 8th, 2011

This workweek got off with a bang with our first Team Build on Friday August 7th for our dual-house project. This was promptly followed by a regular Saturday workday, ensuring we got a lot of work done quickly. After much debate, mostly ended by the discovery of termite damage, the decision was made to gut 1632 down to its outer shell. The plan had originally been to leave as much there as possible, but the floors were slightly uneven due to settling and due to some improper construction techniques by whoever remodeled the home two decades ago. The termite damaged wood was disposed of while the good joists were saved with the intent to use them again.
Some of this demolition work was somewhat dangerous due to several holes in the party (shared) wall between 1632 and 1634 N Gilmor St. Someone of ill-repute broke into 1632 while it was inhabitable and ripped the brick out to gain access to the copper pipe, which was then stolen and sold for cash. As a result everyone wore a hard hat at all times and care was made not to stress the remaining brick and cause a collapse.

Here are two views of the holes in the brick party wall that exposed the plumbing. Sandtown will have professional brick layers fill in this structure to ensure it is sound prior to us returning for our next work day.



Here are some pics of the front and back of 1632 N Gilmor:



1630 N Gilmor was in fairly good shape and did not receive a whole lot of attention during our two day effort. However, the first floor had a wall and hardwood floor ripped out to get all of the first floor joists exposed. Since this house did not suffer any termite damage, the plan is to leave these joists in place and lay subfloor on top of them.





Thanks to Saturdays crew for posing for a picture: