When you buy a very old house, part of the process of restoring it is making some non-glamorous repairs and updates. This is the brief tale of three such events.
We didn’t notice it at first, but upon closer inspection, the exterior of the house was hardy plank on the first floor and wood on the second (attic) floor. Looking closely, we could see that the paint was already starting to chip and peel away from the wood but not the hardy. So, since the crew was already there working on the porch (which, incidentally was also wood-sided, not hardy like the rest of the first floor), we had them go ahead and replace all the wood siding with hardy plank, making sure to leave the scalloped siding over the front two windows.
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We also discovered after moving in that although the HVAC unit was relatively new, none of the ducts were. And there was almost no insulation covering the ducts that were there. This was causing a significant moisture issue underneath the house and a pretty high humidity inside the house as well, so we had all of the ductwork replaced. The team actually found a part of the ductwork cut out and slid around a joist under the house – completely unsealed and blowing tons of air around (and dirt back in the house). While the crew was under the house, and all the ducts were removed, we had a heavy-duty vapor barrier installed. To finish up, we got new vents cut into the floor in more convenient places, which was great because the current wall vents prevented us from putting furniture in places it should best fit. This also helped us get our layout settled to some extent. It took about four days of hanging out with some pretty scruffy, but incredibly personable guys.
To add insult to injury with the HVAC system, we found out that Duke Energy had a “special box” on our air conditioner which allowed them to kill the AC during peak hours. That was compounding our humidity issues in the house. Since we’re big fans of the Ecobee programmable thermostat and work from home during the day we do not want our air conditioning randomly cutting out. Believe it or not, it took quite a while on the phone with Duke Energy to unenroll from that “special offer,” but we were finally able to get them to send someone out to remove the control box.
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Finally, we knew we were dealing with a septic tank but we had no idea how old it was…or how full it was. After having one septic tank overflow in a previous house, we didn’t want to take any chances. We were also told that there was potentially a second septic tank for the salon (now Trey’s office building) which houses our washer and dryer. The thing about very old septic tanks is that they’re not very well marked. So the septic company basically had to make a few educated guesses and just start digging.
During these early days there were, at any given time, guys tearing down and replacing siding all around the house, guys crawling in and out from under the house beside the HVAC dragging old and new ductwork and laying it all over the driveway, and giant holes being dug in multiple locations around the property looking for the septic tank(s?). Of course the septic tank was located right in front of the HVAC unit so the biggest hole of all was right in front of the only entrance to the crawlspace.
In the hunt for the second potential septic tank, they dug a giant hole behind Trey’s office only to discover that it was just a pipe to let the water from the washing machine drain into the yard and that the office was in fact attached to the main septic tank along with the house. We also learned that the main septic tank was made of concrete and there was no way to open it to see how full it is. Our only hope is that the house sat vacant for so long that whatever was left in the tank had time to deteriorate and that we’re not sitting on a ticking time bomb…
While none of it made for any great before and after photos, we were very glad to have all that work done.
