FNB: Renovations of Old...we'll be fixing that...Part 1

Many of the folks who are following along with our project have asked me some form of the question: "Have you found anything interesting?"  Usually it's accompanied by a gleam in their eye - hoping for a story of mafia treasure, local trivia or maybe some sort of time capsule.  Alas, no...except for some bits of (hideous) wall paper and fragments of old window trim we haven't found anything that is old and/or interesting about the building or community in the building.

We have, however, found the remnants of renovations and incomplete repairs that have done harm to the building.  Thankfully, because we have embarked on a substantial renovation, we are going to fix many of these problems.

The first - and most heinous - is the scary modifications made to the building to install plumbing.  

   

So far we have only uncovered the plumbing for Apartment C. Here, you can see from below the interesting diagonal track that the plumber took from the toilet to the existing drain that runs along the wall and down to the basement.  The course is not the issue.  Next you can see, after we removed the plumbing (and flooring above) the HUGE holes that this plumber cut in the joists!  Finally, a view of the beam that supported the landing for the old stairs.  You can see how the weight of the floor (and everything else above it) has deformed the beam over time.

This is particularly troubling because there are some very handy rules of thumb about how much beam / floor joist you can cut without significantly ruining the structure.  Apparently this plumber wasn't consulting his handbook.

The solution: Thankfully this whole section of floor gets removed to accept the new rear stairs...we PLANNED to take these joists out anyway.  You can see in the photo below where we have removed the plaster and lathe - this is the location of the hole for the new stair.

It's too bad that you find this type of work in almost every renovation project.  More of these to come...