Beam Project 2005

We knew when we bought the house in early '04 that there were some water issues and some wood that needed replaced under the house.  Summer 2005 was the target date and the weekend after our Laguna Trip was choosen.  Friends Susan and Ben came to help.  The "boys" decided that they would tackle it alone and the women touched up paint in the kitchen....

Here are pictures of the crawl space, the beam, and the 'boys'.

 

Louie

Boy #1 -- no before pictures - just grimy ones!

Ben

Boy #2 -- the coveralls CAME with paint on them - the dirt is all his though

Under the house

Looks comfy - Ben mentioned wanted to rent the space to live there - I think he changed his mind after being in the Lotus #1,000 position for 14 hours.

Beam

yup - this was part of what was holding our house up. *shudder*

Louie working

Cutting the old beam out of there - between the space constraints and the weight of the beam, it had to be cut up (and out) to remove it.

Jacks

Yup - our whole house was being held up by 20ton jacks. 20tons sounds like a lot but we still weren't allowed to walk through the kitchen yet.

Louie & Ben

Still working....so much for this being a 4 hour job.

More shots of the jack

...and just how dirty it is under there!! Yuck.

Beam

doesn't look too good - does it?! I'm glad we finally got around to replacing it - next up, the wet joists.

Beam

picture's worth 1,000 words

Ben & Louie

No - he's not taking a break - this was one of the positions he worked from in order to kick the old beam loose and get it out

New Beam

now THAT'S what a beam SHOULD look like! One new glulam coming right up (or going down?). they had to cut the old one to get it out...trick is, NOT cutting the new one to get it in!

Louie, Ben & Gunner "the Boys"

discussing getting the beam under the house....

Louie & gunner

And check out that SAW!! Now THAT'S a "boy toy"

Ben & The Beam

Harder, Ben, harder!! (kidding..just kidding)

Ben Pushing more

Yup - THAT is the only entrance to underneaththe house. And they did manage to get the 18' length to go under there and install it. It's still daylight in this picture but they didn't finish until past 2am...and it's still not quite done.