S&H City Hall pavers

Existing rear patio had about 2000 S&H City Hall pavers, which are water-struck bricks that are kind of pretty and practically indestructible. So we saved them on pallets in the back yard.

Perennial rescue successful

After	Before

The plantings are wintering in the back yard, and large rhododendron from the back has moved to our neighbors.

Site plan

Here's the plan for the site, showing the new house superimposed on the existing house. The front face of the new house, excluding the porch, is approximately in line with the existing.

The biggest change is the new foundation, although about the same 25' width as the existing, will be located 6' further south. If you look at the current house from across the street, you can see this move makes visual sense. It also makes the landscaping easier on the driveway side, where there's a fairly steep pitch down to the driveway, and on the southwest corner, which is where the back door will be.

Even on the narrow lot, all sides are well within required setback dimensions.

Kitchen elevations

Here are simulated views of the kitchen - first the north side:


Then the south side, looking through to the family room. The "magic" refrigerator has a deeper interior than exterior (like Mr. Weasley's car in Harry Potter...), thanks to the extra wall depth at the inter-module boundary.


And the view through the kitchen to the back yard:

Plans

Here are plans of the first and second floor. These were done with a consumer architectural program (the Better Homes and Gardens one, version 6.0), and aren't exactly accurate, but they're pretty close. We used this to help visualize design decisions.


On the second floor, I think there's probably a door for that closet :-), and the roomlet next to it is a laundry room.

Permit applications filed

Our permits for demolition and building are complete and under review. We've postponed demolition until the building permit is granted, partly to make sure we have zoning approval, partly to optimize the use of the excavator. The same machine used for demolition can stay on site for the day or so it takes to inspect the cleared site and get final approval of the building permit, then can proceed with excavation.

The only zoning uncertainty was that our lot is only 60 feet wide, and is supposed to be 80 feet per a 1940 statute. But the lot dimensions have never changed, and we've spoken with the head of Newton zoning who says there shouldn't be a problem.

Sad day for spruce tree

The tree was taken down Friday morning. Took about an hour, with a tall crane. The 14-inch logs at the base are shown here. The logs and branches 10-inches and less were ground up by a monstrous machine.

73 years in the life of a tree

By my count, the spruce tree was 73 years old, so it was planted 7 years after the house was built in 1926.

Soil drainage test successful

Our surveyor Frank Iebba said the soil is fine, just sand and gravel (*). They actually had trouble with the perc test pit collapsing. Newton nominally requires us to build an elaborate drainage system of plastic pipes routed from all the gutter downspouts to a large concrete drywell in the backyard. Based on the soil, and a basement that's been dry since 1926, we really don't need to do this; perhaps we can work out a suitable compromise.

(*) the landscaper who put in the front retaining wall a couple years ago hit sand several feet down, and immediately halted digging; he thought it might be the warning sand that the gas company sometimes backfilled gas lines with. "No," I said, "around here we call that topsoil."

Activities this week

Thursday: water/sewer disconnect

Landscaper will be moving tree and perennials from front garden.

Friday: Surveyor/Engineer will be conducting soil drainage test in back yard.

Friday: Large spruce tree on side of current house will be taken down. That tree is almost exactly where our new back door will be in the new house.

Saturday: asbestos removal

Recycling scrap metal

Our house has a lot of metal in it: the boiler, pipes and radiators, copper supply pipes, copper wire. There must be a couple tons at least.

Normally, when a house is demolished, it all goes into the landfill - wood, metal, glass, lead paint, and all. I want the metal to be recycled, just on general principle, and I found a removal firm that will do that. At first Newton said we couldn't do it without the demolition permit, but now they say it's OK, so we've scheduled that for Tuesday.

Demolition permit

I spoke with our inspector Bill Case yesterday, and have a much better understanding of the permitting process.

Once the water disconnect and asbestos removal is done, we can get a demolition permit any time, "over the counter". So we could do this anytime after Saturday.

Getting the building permit, however, might take 2 weeks, for zoning review and drainage review. We need to get that application in ASAP, but it doesn't have to be granted for demolition to proceed.

The ideal setup is to have the building permit filed early, so that excavation can proceed as soon as demolition is certified complete, while the machine is still on-site.

House under construction!

MSI started building the house on Monday. It will be built in two weeks by 45 guys on a factory floor in Pennsylvania. Scheduled delivery is Jan 17.

All I want for Christmas is a building permit.

Asbestos delay

We discovered asbestos pipe wrap in the basement (corrugated paper stuff under fiberglass), which needs to be removed before demolition. It's a small job (1/2 day), but there's a mandatory 10-day waiting period before it can be done. That will delay our demolition until at least Dec 20.

No idea what the motivation is for that notification period. Most other states waive the requirement for residential projects, so it was probably intended for large-scale industrial asbestos clean-up. You would think the policy objective would be to make proper asbestos cleanup as easy and inexpensive as possible.

Module placement plan

Derba and Heinlein and I met with the module setting representative from MSI, and the crane operator (Pick Construction) last Wednesday, to figure out how to get the modules in place. There are 4 modules: 2 are 44' long and 14' wide, and 2 are 47' long and 12' wide. Tight fit! Fortunately our street is 34' wide, so we can successfully back them down our driveway.

The 75-ton crane is almost 40' long, and will go in the front yard. To get there, it needs to drive over the nice new wall and garden we built a couple years ago (when we thought the equipment would go in the back yard). So we need to stage a perennial rescue mission, particularly for the stewartia and azaleas, and the only rose I've successfully grown.

But the good news is that the modules can definitely be placed successfully, and all 4 can be placed in one day.

After, our proposed new home

This drawing is not entirely accurate, but shows the basic idea. The new house will be 25' wide, same as the old foundation, and about 44' deep. Our property is 60' wide unlike the usual 80' lots in this neighborhood, which is why the house is narrow.

Before, our home of 15 years

Picture taken last May of our existing home. We moved in in May of 1991.

Project background

In May of 2006 we decided to replace our home of the past 15 years with a new one designed by architect Terry Heinlein. This weblog describes the project in-progress for our friends and neighbors.

We moved into our home in 1991, as an unmarried dual-income couple. We loved the property and its location by the aqueduct, and the house suited us fine. It was a 1600 sq.ft. 2-bedroom colonial built in 1926. We married in 1992, and over the years we kept up the house and made some improvements.

By the year 2000 we had two children, our life was quite different, and we knew that at some point we needed more bedrooms and more space. We found a good architect, Terry Heinlein AIA of Weston, and designed an addition to extend the back of the house. It was lovely on paper, with a new kitchen and family room, and two more bedrooms. Building it would require significant foundation work given the slope of our property, but it was only 800 sq.ft. and we were confident we could get it done for some reasonable price.

We were wrong.

For a year we met with a couple dozen contractors, and worked through a half-dozen detailed proposals, changing the design along the way to omit the most expensive or risky or unpredictable parts. The proposals resolutely stuck north of $200 per sq.ft., with most at around $250. Paying that much money for a half-renovated house just didn't make sense, and we put our plans on hold.

In the meantime, I started volunteer work with Newton's non-profit affordable housing developer, CAN-DO. Led by our executive director Josephine McNeil, CAN-DO has built about 30 units of affordable housing in Newton since 1999, using federal funding (HUD, CDBG, HOME), state (affordable housing trust fund), and local (CPA community preservation act) funds. We don't build large-scale housing like Avalon Bay or National Development - we build affordable houses that fit in neighborhoods just like any other, in hopes of preserving Newton's economic and racial diversity.

In 2003 CAN-DO purchased two adjacent properties on Chestnut St in Newton Upper Falls, and proposed to build on the site using modular construction. We engaged Terry Heinlein as architect, for his experience with modular technology and public projects. After considerable investigation, we selected Modular Structures, Inc. (MSI) of Pennsylvania as the modular builder.

I had not understood the recent advances in custom modular construction until I saw that project unfold. Terry worked with MSI to understand their practices and constraints, but he could design pretty freely and creatively to meet CAN-DO's needs. The end result was 20 modules, delivered in February of 2006 and erected to produce 3 2-family houses in 3 days. The build quality was excellent, and as delivered they were plumbed and wired and inspected and certified to meet MA codes. The light fixtures were ugly, but that was about the only bad thing you could say about them.

After seeing this and pondering a bit, we asked Terry if our original design could be reworked and implemented as modules. I think he said "Of course," before he realized that we were serious. Our daughter was 9 years old, and needed her own bedroom. The time for dithering was over.

So in April we had Terry redesign our plan for implementation by MSI; in May we reviewed them with our neighbors; in June we sought approval from Newton's Historic Commission to demolish our existing house. We did have some trouble finding a local builder to do all the on-site work - which is a significant project since the modules form only the core of the new house. But in October we engaged Derba Construction of Walpole, and were on our way. In December we ordered the modules from MSI, and they built them over a three-week period.

It was difficult and sad to demolish the home in which we shared so many memories with family and friends, including our marriage and the birth of our children. However, our attachment is to this place, this community, and the people who live here, and that transcends the structure of wood and concrete that has stood on the property for 80 years.

The new house is larger, at 2200 sq.ft. with 4 bedrooms, has a nice kitchen, fits more properly on the site and has a back door to our lovely backyard, and has a full porch across the front. It's a bit more contemporary than the 1926 colonial, and uses "best practice" energy efficiency techniques. It's not "My First Mansion", but it's a sound 21st century house, and we plan on making it home for many more years of family and memories.