Progress Update - Week 4

This week we got the trusses down and worked on processing the material that’s been produced. To get the trusses down Brad basically cut them out, lifted them off, and set them down on the ground. The whole process took a long time. Both the Jig lift and the Tele-handler got flat tires and had to be repaired before we could continue work. Then it took a while to cut the trusses lose so they could be lifted off.  Bridgeport Rentals weren’t our favorite people for the week. In general we are having terrible luck with tires; the wheelbarrow also got a flat, now it takes two people to move it, one to pull and one to push.

In order the take down the trusses two sections of wall had to be removed to allow the Tele-handler access. Those walls in addition to the roof and exterior brick created a substantial amount of material we have to “process”. When we process something we remove the nails, screws, any attached wood blocking or lathe and electric cables then cut off any non-square or damaged portions. After we process a piece of lumber we know exactly what we have to re-build with. In order to process efficiently Chris built a great deck to work on with a sun shade tarp. We have several special tools to remove nails where the head broke off, but the best tool by far is the the combo cat’s paw, pliers, and chisel. It doesn’t have a name, but it was invented by a guy specifically for this purpose, Brad ordered them for the project. We call them the “red handles.”

Processing under the sun shade tarp

Ariel is our best de-nailer.

This is the best tool for pulling buried nails.

Deconstruction is about making piles, it’s basically a giant exercise in organization. We sort all the material so we know what we have to use. The lathe we have removed is not usable for us, so we are sending that stuff off with Duane to be burned for fuel along with any pieces of lumber that are too damaged or short for us to use. So far we have produced 2 trailers of wood for him. The brick has been going in its own pile under a tree. Because our design calls for the brick to be crushed into pieces for a rock garden we are not removing the mortar, thank goodness because that would take forever. Our local friend Jim did come by to clean up some brick and take it to the church for folks to take home. We also have multiple piles of lumber sorted by dimension and length. We stack them on pallets and place “stickers” in between each layer to keep air circulating through the pile to prevent rot. The stickers we use are shortened pieces of lathe, but really it can be any small piece of wood. Anything that is waste goes in the roll-off dumpster. For this project the waste has been mostly plaster, carpet, gypboard ceiling from the basement and any wood with lead paint. So far we have filled two dumpsters but from now on we don’t intend to produce much waste, so the dumpster has been removed so we have more processing and pile space.

Pile of lathe ready to be hauled away

Our piles of processed wood

Every pice is labeled with the length on it's side.

The brick pile

Here we are unloading the lathe in Duane's yard

 In addition to cutting and nail removing we also have to occasionally have to test the paint for lead content. 

The test is a liquid inside a tube you break to fill a cotton tip, you then rub the tip on the pain and if it turns red you have lead. We performed the test on various surfaces and found that all the paint has lead. This means we have to throw that material away or design a way to encapsulate it. You can encapsulate the pain by either applying a coating or by not exposing the painted side. We haven’t decided what to do with the 8” cladding on the outside of the building, we would really like to figure out a way to use it since it is such good material, but not at the risk of the occupants.

Lead paint test, pretty much as much lead as there can be in this white wash paint on the exterior clapboards.