Some old books

Last year, during the first few weeks at the cabin, we undertook some early demolition efforts that complemented the roof work and other major projects. One project dealt with getting rid of a lean-to that was added to the little shed in the back yard - many of the panel boards had visible termite damage and there were also plentiful signs of carpenter bees (and woodpecker damage).

This little cabinet was mounted under the lean-to, and it was filled with old books. They'd been outside for some time and showed the kinds of damage you would expect from this rough handling: stains, mildew, and tears in the covers and some pages, even some damage from insects.

We found them quite interesting. There are two or three sets from several owners. Most have a location incribed on the front cover from West Virginia. We haven't been able to track down any of these former owners through Google searches, but we'll try again someday.

As far as what to do with them, we haven't decided that either. We took them down from the cabinet and laid them out to dry in the sun, and we now store them in the garage where they are out of the direct elements, but not in the best environment. A used book seller told us restoration is not worth the effort on these, as once mold has started there isn't much you can do without a museum's facilities and curatorial expertise.

So we are holding them for now, maybe we'll cut out and save the graphics and printings (the WW1 set has a number of maps and prints that are interesting, for example).

Revisiting where we've been - that wtf moment

When I was looking at a couple of the blog posts this month - the progress on the pool, where I show the elevation photo of the cabin from poolside, for example, or where we show the new roof and chimney - both posts from just this week, in fact...I can't help but think about where we've been with this thing in just less than a year since we bought the place last August.

I last documented this reminder in a post last December: http://hawksbillcabin.blogspot.com/2007/12/wtf-moment.html

But here for convenience are the photos of what we had to do after we found out about the termites - example of termite damage first, then the first of many big projects. (Henry, we found out about the snakes after...)

It really is an incredible job that Jesse has done. For readers in the Valley area - he's a talented resource for your building projects (or rebuilding projects, as in our case!)

Battle of the Species - It's about to get ugly

As many of our readers know, one of the joys of owning a cabin in the country is frequent encounters with nature. I suppose that one could be called a naturalist, or even an environmentalist, for taking on a project such as the Hawksbill Cabin – we respect the environment and do our best to consider the impact of our actions while we are out there; and we respect the heritage of the place at the county and community level and we’d like to contribute to efforts to preserve these things. We have altruistic goals that offset our other selfish ones.

For me though, there is also the simple matter of a man needs a place to go where his fellow global travelers won’t accompany him. When I speak of global travelers I mean my fellow species – those that don’t quite understand the concept of a symbiotic relationship…snakes, termites, and carpenter bees among them. In the next week or so I have a new tale I am about to unfold, a tale that will comprise the sixth episode of the ongoing Battle of the Species.

For now though, for our readers’ convenience, here are permalinks to the past installments in the series.
http://hawksbillcabin.blogspot.com/2007/09/battle-of-species-introduction.html
http://hawksbillcabin.blogspot.com/2007/09/battle-of-species-part-1-carpenter-bees.html
http://hawksbillcabin.blogspot.com/2007/10/battle-of-species-2-snakes.html
http://hawksbillcabin.blogspot.com/2007/11/battle-of-species-3-termites.html
http://hawksbillcabin.blogspot.com/2008/04/snake-in-laundry.html

WTF Moment

Mary had some digital photos I didn't know about that add to the chronology of this summer's repairs. I am including a few of them today in order to communicate how significant the roof repairs were after we found the termite damage. In these first two, there is a view from the back of the house with the debris pile of old beams and roof materials that were demolished. That's Chris taking a look at the new tech beams in one of the shots.

Also, there are a couple of photos of me as I encountered the scale of this problem. That is my patented "WTF" expression, by the way.

We had planned on a cabin work day that day, but with the construction under way there was no way we could undertake any of our minor projects!

Battle of the Species 3: Termites

One of the main problems we identified at the cabin was potential termite damage. There was a visibly damaged roof beam that we knew had to be repaired, and an early diagnosis indicated that there was a possible termite issue there. Here is a photo of the original ceiling and the roof beams.

First, a note about termites, from http://www.wikipedia.org/:

“Termites, sometimes known as white ants, are a group of social insects. They usually prefer to feed on dead plant materal such as wood, leaf litter, and soil, but about 10 percent of the 4,000 species are economically significant pests that can cause serious structural damage to buildings. Their habit of remaining concealed often results in their presence being undetected until the timbers are severely damaged and exhibit surface changes. Once termites have entered a building they do not limit themselves just to wood, also damaging other cellulosic materials such as wood paper and carpet. ... Termites usually avoid exposure to unfavourable environmental conditions. They tend to remain hidden in tunnels in earth and wood. Where they need to cross an impervious or unfavourable substrate, they cover their tracks with tubing made of faeces, plant matter, and soil. Sometimes these shelter tubes will extend for many metres, such as up the outside of a tree reaching from the soil to dead branches. Most termite barrier systems used for buildings aim to prevent concealed termite access, thus forcing them out into the open where they must form clearly visible shelter tubes to gain entry.”

The wiki entry goes on and includes a very insightful article about avoiding termite troubles…unfortunately, a proactive title like that would prove to be of little use to us.

As Jesse, our general contractor, prepared to do the demolition before installing the replacement beam, he took down some old metal siding from the back of the house, over the clerestory windows. When he did this, the surprise he discovered was that each of the beams in this area, ten in all, had serious infestations. In fact, each beam sheltered an active colony that had bored into the beams to a distance of 10 – 12 feet!

Here are photos of the damage, discovered during the demolition and afterwards.

The first one is the area where the metal siding covered the ends of the beams. In this photo, the ends of 2 or 3 beams should be visible, but termites had devoured them. Keep in mind the scale of the beams - they are 20-plus feet long, 12x6 inches. At least two feet of each beam extended into this space!

The second photo is of one of the beams - relatively intact - after demolition. Mostly, as the old wood was exposed to air, it simply disintegrated, as shown in the final of these three photos. This damage led to our decision to take the entire roof off of the original part of the cabin – the stone part. The construction project is documented in earlier blog entries.

We decided to use the new technology beams rather than the original solid wood ones, first because the original type costs $1,500 a pop, and second because we actually needed more than 10 beams to be safe structurally. The beams we chose were $250 apiece in the length we needed, so this element of the construction project came in significantly below budget and actually improved the house. The photo below shows the construction progress with the new clerestory windows and tech beams.

The end of the story is the installation of the standing seam metal roof, and the new interior paneling and lighting. So far we have not found any damage in the addition – the newer part of the house. But we are keeping an eye out for any signs!

Long Weekend Plan

It has been a slow week for posting on the blog for several reasons, including a two-day trip to Los Angeles early in the week, and some important meetings at the end of the week. I plan to make up for it by early next week, as Mary and I are going out to the cabin for the weekend, and will be there Saturday through Tuesday.

Several activities to report on during this trip:

1. The heating system has been updated with a new thermostat controlled propane fireplace. We’ll see how that works and talk about the installation.
2. I hope to write up the termite entry on the battle of the species; also on this topic there was a related article in the Washington Post about why rodents get into houses during the winter – I am sure it is full of surprises.
3. On Tuesday, my hiking partner – trail name Musical Fruit, and also known in this blog as Chris – will attempt to climb Old Rag Mountain in Shenandoah National Park – link here: http://www.hikingupward.com/SNP/OldRag/ .

So those updates will appear next week.

Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters

New Roof Progress!

At several points thus far I have mentioned the roof issues. We visited the Hawksbill Cabin on September 22 to check progress – remember last week, the roof was off and we were shocked to encounter the cabin in that condition!

I have some extensive documentation of termite damage to share down the road in the next Battle of the Species entry, but for now I want to write about the roof technology we selected.

Basically, when we first identified possible roof damage, all that was revealed was one beam and a wet spot in the roof above it. There is a photo early on of the suspect beam and the ceiling around it.

As the GC and roofer got to work, it became clear that the termites had gotten into all of the beams in the original part of the house. They eat wood from the center out, and had made their way across the ceiling, 12 to 15 feet into the span of each beam – a hard freeze and wet snow would have brought the whole thing down.

The pitch of this roof is not optimal for shingles, as water will tend to wick under the lower edge of each shingle, leading to early failures of the roof. Complicating the situation was the fact that each time there was a leak in the roof, the previous owners put a new layer of shingle on, rather than demo/removal of the old system. During demo, six layers of old shingles were removed! Finally, a layer of corrugated metal was put over that, and then, on the original side, that metal was even tarred!

We had secured escrow money to repair the beam and re-roof the entire building with new shingles – not optimal as we were learning. Then we discovered the full extent of the damage and worked with our GC to put together a better – and more expensive solution.

The original beams, assuming you could find enough trees to produce the 12 joists needed, cost $1500 each; we had $5K in escrow so you can see this wasn’t going to be an economical choice. Plus in the do-it-yourself original design, the beams were spaced at 36 inches, which we were concerned wouldn’t meet modern code.

The roofer suggested a new engineered wood product: http://lpcorp.com/ijoists/ijoists.aspx, which was available in the length we needed for about $250 a pop. Plus, we could fix the beam spacing problem for more support.

The photos below show the newly installed ceiling – not finished, but the advantages of this technology are clear.




Back to the outside part of the story: because shingles were not the optimal solution, we looked at two alternatives – a membrane roof and standing seam metal. Both have their advantages and disadvantages – the membrane is cheaper (much cheaper!) but it only lasts a few years and given the overhanging trees, there is much risk of puncture. Standing seam metal, on the other hand – expensive, but is a “100-year roof”. It is a typical material for the area out there. So even though our quote was $7K for this, we opted for the peace of mind.

During yesterday’s visit, the roofing team from Knott’s Roofing and Siding was putting on the finishing touches, shown in the photo below. The second photo shows the new porch area, which has been completely rebuilt during this project.





When they finished, Allen Knott invited me up to “see my new roof.” I can’t tell you how great it felt to see the projects this far along.

Blue Skies Above

These are pictures of the inside of the cabin with the roof off. In photo 1, behind the tarp is the bathroom. In photo 2, the boards behind the scaffold protect the big picture windows.



























We visited the cabin over the weekend to check progress on the roof job. Earlier I had reported that they took the old roof off of the stone portion of the cabin. That means demolition – messy job no matter how you slice it. So as we hit the road we were steeling ourselves for the worst.

We found incredible piles of debris everywhere. The old beams in piles in the front and back, the old roofing materials (Jesse told us there were six layers of shingles!) here and there. The termite damage on the beams was incredible, and I still have that battle of the species episode to write.

As we entered the house, the feeling of not having a roof overhead was very strange. Even weirder, having plastic draped all over to protect the contents – there really isn’t much there yet; and then all the scaffolding inside, the rig they jobbed up to move all the big pieces of wood.

We were definitely there for the worst of it….

They've torn the roof off the sucker....

The news from Stanley is that they have torn the roof off of the cabin. This is one of the major projects on our list - I've written before about the damage to one of the beams and the legacy "triple threat" roof system. It turns out to be an interesting project, one I'll post a longer description of in a future post.

Foreshadowing: the damage was not limited to one beam after all.

We hear that clear blue sky is the current roof when you are sitting in the living room right now!