04/05

The Build

Once the demo phase started we found that we had just opened up a a big bag of worms. The kitchen floor was pieced together by odds and ends which included old pallets from tucking companies and various old pieces of timber that they must of found here and there. The previous builder didn't even span to the walls or beams and were basically being held together by four layers of plywood and ship-lap. As a result, the floor was a little bouncy. In case you were wondering, floors shouldn't be bouncy.

When the drywall was removed from the walls we found the existing old 20's balcony railing and spindles still in it. No one even tried to remove it but instead just built around it and incorporated it in the existing space. We found that the post system meant to hold up the 2nd floor above the kitchen did not transfer the point loads down to the basement foundation. The second floor joist were laying flat with 2ft centers rather than standing on edge with 16" centers as per the BC Building Code.  

As per the Level One construction process the Engineer came out for a site visit & stopped all work immediately as the structure was deemed unsafe and could collapse . He needed to re-access the site and give us direction as to how we could correct the situation. If we wanted to achieve the proposed open concept floor plan that the designer envisioned we needed to rebuild both floors according to the BC Building Code. This included digging down the foundation walls in the basement in the locations of the point load transfers and under pinning as per his request. The video below shows our guys hard at work rebuilding both floors.