Wind Damage - Part Deux

Well, there are still about 600,000 people in the Cincinnati/ NKY area without electricity. Including the rehab house. Funny thing is that where we live only seven blocks away from the project - the electricity never went out, which is why, of course, I'm able to update the blog :-)

We dropped by the house to see the condition of the fallen tree in the backyard -- more specifically, on our neighbor, Jim's house. It pretty much took the brunt of the cracked tree on both sides of his house.

This first picture is the *tree of concern* and you can see why. Half of the dead branches are hanging from the others. There's a whole section that's hanging upside down.

But really, most of it's being upheld by the roof of the yellow house behind us.


The bad news is he's the caretaker for the rental property with the *TOC*. And now, more than ever, he understands how heavy this burden is.

You can see the huge limb that would have crushed our car in our backyard.

I just got word that most of the traffic lights in Covington are still out, there are power lines still dangerously hanging in the roads, and even telephone poles have been knocked down.

I cannot express how thankful I am to have taken down that massive catalpa tree in our backyard when we did. I have no doubt the damage from that broken down hollowed out trunk would have been more than I could take.


Even down the road from the house, a smaller tree was just completely blown over, taking the power lines with it.

It's gonna be tough working on the house without electricity.

Windy day in Covington. A little TOO windy.

It started about 3PM. It's still going on. They say gusts of wind of 50 MPH.

I say they underestimated. This is Hurricane Ike.

The Ohio River had white caps and a lot of people are going to be calling their insurance companies tonight.

We've been worried that a nearby tree on the property next to us (our neighbor to the West) was old and could fall apart at any time. When we cut ours down and found out it was hollow, we were even more concerned about hers. It became the *tree of concern*.

Today, after the winds started picking up, we drove by the site to see if there was any damage.

There was.

If our car had been parked in the parking area, it would have been crushed by a huge branch. I didn't have my camera with me at the time, so I didn't get a shot of the mess, but when we got home, I grabbed my camera and walked around the neighborhood in the wind, with sand and leaves whipping around so much, it stung the backs of my legs just walking down the street. These are those pictures.

The caretaker of the property (next to our rehab) with the *tree of concern* called us about a half an hour ago to let us know that the tree was blown over even more; not just branches this time. The tree cracked.

It landed on HIS house.

I'll take pictures tomorrow. We're told our house is ok for now.

I'm just thankful that we hadn't put up the fence in the backyard yet. It would have been trashed.

So on our walk within a 2x5 block swath around of our current house, we found about 40 cracked or collapsed trees, 8 damaged cars, many many live wires pulled into the streets, shingles in the streets, store signs pulled off the sides of buildings, siding being ripped from the sides of houses, awnings flying down the streets, broken windows...

And I don't think we've had a moment of silence since 3PM. The ambulances and fire trucks and police cars have been non-stop.

We parked two blocks away from our house.

In a parking garage.

Roof Insurance

I took a look at the roof. It was lifting up quite a bit, and it was actually "tented" in one spot. Still, at the insistence of wifezilla, I didn't try any fixes. We moved lumber and did cleaning and hepa vacuuming instead.

That is, until the snow storm blew in. I want to stress "BLEW".

The entire shed roof was lifting off the decking. I paced a bit and then went down for a drill and some deck screws.

I kissed the Missus, promised her she'd not be made a widow this night, and crawled out in the snow. Fortunately, it wasn't too bad. Just some gusts of wind and a little snow with little accumulation. I crawled out the window and up to the peak of the rear roof, where the tin had actually pulled apart and drove a screw in. Alas, I managed to pick a spot right between the decking and cross member so I had to back that one out. I moved down a couple inches and drove two screws on either side of the separation. Then I moved a few inches to either side and drove two more. Then I moved down 18 inches and repeated the process and then down another foot or so.

The roofer may hate me, but at least that roof isn't likely to blow off. I'll sleep better...

As if moving a ton of lumber wouldn't make me sleep better as it is.

We made some progress today, besides that, and there'll be more soon, along with some pics of our joist stiffening work.

M

It's still raining.

And the wind has kicked up and oh, yes, tore off all of the felt paper the box gutter fellas put down. It's all over the yard now.

And I think they must have pulled off some of the flashing from around the chimney and the apex of the west roof line, because we're getting as much water inside as the Titanic.

I did take a picture of what I rigged up in the meantime to scuttle the water outside instead of pooling (or freezing) on the floors of both the first and second floor. It's rather rudimentary, but it's working like a charm so far.

If you ever have a REALLY leaky roof and need to divert some moisture out a nearby window, I suggest buying a large roll of plastic and grab your staple gun.

We were told that the Benchmark guys would be back when the roofing materials came in (should be another week, week-and-a-half or so) but I really hope we don't have to wait the entire time with no flashing on the roof.

The winds were howling and we noticed that every once in a while, we'd hear the existing metal roof being picked up and off the sheathing. Hubby wanted to get up on the roof and secure the roofing materials so that we didn't have an even bigger problem than we have now, but I wasn't about to agree to that. Gusts were recorded between 47-50 mph. Yeah, go on, Gidget. I dare ya.

Not on my watch.

The next problem to tackle is the rear door. Everyone seems to think that replacing an exterior door is no big deal. Yeah, that's if you already have a framed in door. -----We don't.

The rough opening for the door is 39" wide by 101.5" tall and 9" deep. The transom was covered over in 1x6 and painted white. The door is
hanging on by a few nails. There's a 6" gap between the 1" door frame on the left side of the door (where the hinges are) and the rough brick exterior wall. If we pull out the door and frame, I fear the lintel above the door will collapse.

I think we'll need to carefully pull the door apart, temporarily support the lintel with a 2x8 and 2- 2x4's on each side, and rebuild the hinge side of the door frame with some connected 2x8's tapconned to the exterior brick, and seal up the gaps with expanding foam sealant. Once the lintel in once again supported, then we can work on the door frame itself.

As you can see in the image here, the pink area is where the lintel is (behind the white painted wood covering). The lintel is supposed to deflect the downward pressure of the wall above the opening towards the side walls left and right of an opening. That's not happening here and explains why there's a small crack in the exterior brick just above the doorway.

You can also see the gaps above the door and on the side. What a pain in the @ss.

On to better news: our first shipment of lumber is scheduled to arrive tomorrow. We bought from Riemeier in Norwood, Ohio and delivery cost is only $35. The lumber is a little bit more versus Home Depot, and I just found out why.

First, the price comparison:

Lumber Size: Riemeier Prices vs. Home Depot $
2x4x10 :......... $2.99........................ $2.69
2x4x16 : ........ $5.69 ........................$4.67
2x8x8 :..........$5.87 ........................ $5.25

So Riemeier is about 5-10% higher in prices, but from what I've seen and what I've been told, unlike the other lumber yards where the toss in about 10% of grade 3 lumber in with their grade 2 lumber and use 5 year old growth, Riemeier uses much older growth lumber (25 years?) so the lumber doesn't twist as soon as you cover it with drywall like the stuff from Home Depot.

I've also been told that the grade 2 lumber is as good quality as grade 1 lumber from Riemeier. I've walked through the drive through (Yes, they have a drive through!) and from what I've seen, the lumber yard is packed with high quality, no warping, no knots, no split lumber.

Also, Home Depot's delivery charge was $65, so if you're getting lumber delivered, overall, it's about the same cost for a small shipment from Riemeier.

But don't take my word for it. Check it out yourself. I'll let you know how it goes from this side when the lumber shipment arrives tomorrow for the reinforcing of the ceiling joists (see bouncy floors previous post) and for furring out the walls with the tapcons.

G'night.

ADDENDUM from M:

We were still shipping a ton of water around the chimney. Actually, because flashing and the cricket were disturbed/destroyed by the roofers and box gutter guys in the process of doing their work and diagnosing the situation, we're bringing in much more water than we were before. I'm getting worried about deterioration of the brick at this point.

Sooooo, I gambled on a bit of spray foam. This isn't a solution, of course, but it is a stop gap measure. I sprayed AMPLE foam between the brick and some goofy framing at the roof line from inside. It took a lot of foam, but it seems that the fast majority of the water is no longer eroding my brick. That should hold if we get some more snow or rain between here and when the roof arrives.

I'm sweating bullets about that roof popping up with high winds, too. I'd rather not lose that, thank you very much. That's a water leak that I can't patch with spray foam. I'll be checking on it this morning.

M