! LIVING IN THE PAST AN OWNER'S GUIDE TO UNDERSTANDING & REPAIRING AN OLD HOME ! ! ! ! BY SCOTT AUSTIN SIDLER ! ! ! ! Copyright 2014 © Austin Home Restorations Inc. All Rights Reserved !
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!1 TABLE OF CONTENTS ! WHO NEEDS THIS BOOK? 4 INTRODUCTION 6 ! UNDERSTANDING YOUR OLD HOUSE 10 ! WHAT IS A HISTORIC HOUSE? 11 WHY SHOULD I BUY AN OLD HOUSE? 19 BEFORE YOU BUY AN OLD HOUSE 25 PRESERVATION OR REMODELING 31 DEALING WITH HISTORIC DISTRICTS 37 THE GREEN OLD HOME 41 MODERN LIFE IN AN OLD HOUSE 53 RENOVATING THE RIGHT WAY 63 THE DANGERS OF DEFERRED MAINTENANCE 71 HISTORIC HOME MAINTENANCE 101 81 THE 5 WORST MISTAKES OF HISTORIC HOME OWNERS 87 OLD HOUSE HEALTH HAZARDS 101 !
!2 TABLE OF CONTENTS ! REPAIRING YOUR OLD HOUSE 108 ! WORKING WITH FLOORS 109 WORKING WITH WINDOWS 123 WORKING WITH DOORS 155 WORKING WITH PLASTER 165 WORKING WITH EXTERIOR WOOD 175 WORKING WITH PAINT 189 WHY DOES ANY OF THIS MATTER 207! ! !
!3 WHO NEEDS THIS BOOK? ! So you've bought an old house, or maybe you haven't yet and your wondering if an old house is right for you. Either way this book is for you. Everything we buy today comes with an instruction manual. Some are more helpful than others, but they all give you insight into how to care for and operate a particular item. They’ll teach you how to troubleshoot problems and give you a list of potential causes and solutions. So what do you do when you’ve just purchased something that didn’t come with and instruction manual? And what’s worse, the designer/builder who made it has long since passed away so you can’t ask them any questions? The answer for most people is, “You guess.” You try your best to ascertain what the problem is and how to solve it. While you might get a few right, there are thousands of things you couldn’t possibly know. The way we build houses has changed dramatically since World War II, and there aren’t many folks around from that time to tell you how it used to be done. Materials have changed, techniques have changed, designs have changed. Everything has changed. While some things have gotten better, others have fallen behind. If you own, or are thinking of owning an old house, you need an instruction manual for it, and that is exactly what this book is. I have purposely put together hundreds of years of knowledge from various sources about the what, why and how-to of working with and maintaining old houses. This is not a dry technical manual full of theories and useless trivia. I’ll walk you through a host of repairs that almost any Do-It-Yourself ’er can accomplish on important elements, such as: old windows, floors, plaster, doors, weatherstripping, painting, siding, and more. You’ll learn how to setup a simple preventative maintenance program for your old house that will save you loads of time and money. You’ll learn the why behind old house design to help you gain energy-efficiency by using elements in your old home the way
!4 they were meant to be used. Most importantly, you’ll learn the joys and trials of living in an old house, and hopefully come out with a greater appreciation and understanding of how amazing an old house really is. If you have already made the plunge into old house ownership, you might be wondering what you got yourself into. Your friends and family have probably already begun their cautionary tales about the dangers of an old house. "The pipes are so old they probably leak like a sieve." "Aren't you worried about lead paint?" "You're gonna go broke trying to feed such an old house." "You're crazy," "You're insane!" "You're absolutely bonkers!" Well, they might be right! They are likely planning an intervention right now. Buying an old house is not for the faint of heart. It’s for those who aren't afraid to buck the trend and deviate from their peers. A person who doesn't like to "fit in." It takes a brave soul. Some people stumble into owning an old house, and for them it's often not a very pleasant experience. For those folks I recommend moving out and finding a house that is more their style. But for the unique folks who actually want an old house this book is for you! Hopefully, you're not afraid to get your hands dirty and use some tools (for some that tool might only be your credit card). You won't settle for some run of the mill, ordinary, cookie cutter house in the ‘burbs. You live a unique and extraordinary life, and you want your house to be unique and extraordinary too. When you're done with this book, you'll wonder why it took so long to buy your first old house. You'll feel empowered to do a lot of the work yourself, and in the process potentially save yourself tens of thousands of dollars! Old houses are surprisingly simple to work on compared to today's homes. The technology is simple which makes repairs simple. I promise that you'll walk away from this book with a big boost in your DIY confidence and the tools you need to get the job done. You ready? Then let's get started! !
!5 INTRODUCTION ! I haven’t always loved old houses. Initially, the fact that my parents had purchased a 1759 colonial in Highland Mills, NY really bugged me. Not so much because it was a really old house, but because they were moving. I was 19 and off at college near Houston, TX, when I really wanted to be at NYU (New York University) in what I thought was the coolest city in the world. My parents felt that going to college that far from our home in suburban Dallas was not a good idea. So, I begrudgingly accepted my fate and went to a state school. Then, after my freshman year was coming to a close they announced that they would be moving to New York for my dad’s work, and due to circumstances beyond my control I was powerless to transfer. This house was already on my bad side and I hadn’t even seen it. It wasn't until the Thanksgiving break that I first visited their new house. Honestly, I was a little unsure. We had moved plenty of times in my childhood since my dad was a serial entrepreneur, but we always lived in suburbia, in a house that was no more than 10 years old. This 200 year-old house was completely foreign to me. To me, home was all about familiarity. While each of the houses we had lived in during my childhood were different, they all looked pretty much the same and had the same features. They all had wall-to-wall beige-ish carpet, stairs that I wouldn’t hit my head on without ducking, fireplaces behind glass screens, and windows that actually opened. This house had none of those things. The floors creaked with every step and were ice cold in the winter. It had a room that my parents called “The Parlor,” whatever the heck that was. The basement ceiling was only 5 ft tall and had a creek, aka "French drain", running through the middle of it when it rained. The heat came from noisy radiators which squealed painfully during the cold New York nights. In short, it was weird!
!6 At first, I complained like any teenager who didn’t get their way. I was huffy, pouty, and honestly an all around annoying sour-puss...but slowly my curiosity got the best of me. My father had always been handy with a hammer. My grandfather was a painter and handyman for a time and taught dad a lot about fixing up a house, which he imparted unto me over the years. But, this house was a little different. Helping him work on this house, I learned that it came with its own unique set of rules. Even something as simple as putting a nail into one of the huge hand-hewn timbers on the basement ceiling required special attention. The wood was harder than anything I had ever seen before. I listened as he described how the 10x10 timbers were almost certainly cut from the trees on our property, and shaped with the use of hatchets and hand tools, which is why they had such a different and irregular look to them. The trees were likely hundreds of years old when they were cut down and that, combined with the fact that they had been drying out for an additional 240+ years as part of our home's massive timber-frame, had left them almost petrified. Wow! Another time he took me up on the roof to check the chimney flashing. While up there I asked about the shingles since they were different from any kind of shingle I had seen. The roof on our house was the original slate roof mined from the quarry just down the street. Double wow! I never knew there could be so much history in a house. History was one subject I always enjoyed in school. I was excellent at memorizing dates and events, but what really captivated me were the pictures and the stories. These were stories about people and events that were long gone from an era that was completely different from mine. As my father worked on our old house and researched its past those same types of stories began to be unveiled in our own home. Learning that the Dutch door in the study (which was originally the kitchen) was there to allow fresh air into the hot kitchen and to keep the animals out. I could just picture some colonial mom cooking dinner for her family in the huge cooking fireplace and going out to the well just outside the door to draw up some water. I would stare out through the wavy hand-blown glass windows in my bedroom and wonder how on earth the early inhabitants ever recognized their visitors before opening the door
!7 and seeing them face-to-face. When the night got brutally cold, which they often do in the Catskill Mountains, I would marvel at how incredibly warm and cozy a Rumford fireplace could make a room in just a few minutes. This, my first old house, lit a small flame inside me. A flame that burned slowly for the next decade until my wife and I purchased our first old house. After we moved in, I knew that all I wanted to do was restore this house to its former glory. You see, every historic home tells a unique story. They weren’t built in the age of mass-production on huge tracts of land by builders who churned out thousands of nearly identical homes each year. Historic homes were built and designed mainly by their inhabitants. They were built for a purpose greater than profit and weren’t concerned with resale value. They were built to last generations. The were built to be a home; not a commodity. To me, old homes bridge the gap between yesterday and today, and help to tell the story of who we were as a society. They are an ever present reminder of a time before our own. That is why I have dedicated my time to teach people like yourself the importance of these historic buildings and the joy of living a life surrounded by the beauty of true craftsmanship.
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!9 ! ! ! ! ! Section 1 ! UNDERSTANDING YOUR OLD HOUSE
!10 ! ! ! ONE ! WHAT IS A HISTORIC HOUSE? ! He who loves an old house never loves in vain. -Isabel La Howe Conant
!11 For the purposes of this book I will often use the phrases “historic home” or“old home” interchangeably. Arguably, all historic homes are old, but not all old homes are historic. Confused yet? Don’t worry because in this case the terminology isn’t that important. If your home is old then this book is for you! According to the National Register of Historic Places a structure qualifies to be listed if it is over 50 years old. That’s it! That is the only qualification required by the government. While that may be all the government requires to consider a structure historic I believe there is a bit more to it. For the purpose of this book my definition is a little bit different. I define a historic building as: Any building that was hand built before WWII. Residential construction has two very distinct periods in America. Pre-war and post- war. These two periods represent two radically different forms of construction. Before the second world war, neighborhoods and the houses they included were built very differently. The tracts were plotted and sold off slowly as demand dictated. Each new house was typically built by either the homeowner or a contractor they hand selected. As a result, homes were custom tailored to the needs and wants of their owners. At the turn of the last century it was not uncommon for a new house to take from 8 to 12 months to be constructed; compare that to 2-3 months today! Power tools have made a huge difference in the speed of construction, as have standardized building materials like plywood, drywall and nominal sized lumber. The benefits of this are speedier construction and low prices. If the standardization of building materials and processes that accompany them had been the only change in building practices since WWII then we would most likely have houses of equal quality built faster and more efficiently for less money. However, the American desire for more space and property was also at play during this time. According to the US Census Bureau the size of the average American home was 2,306 sq. ft. in 2012, up from 1,525 sq. ft. in 1973 (which is the first year they tracked median house size).
!12 With the average size of the American house growing so rapidly the price would have to do the same unless a builder can find cheaper materials, faster techniques, or a combination of the two. In order to keep house prices down so much throughout the decades it couldn’t have been only one or the other. It appears, from the quality of our current housing stock, that it was a combination of both faster and cheaper Figure 1.1 construction. Today’s homes are all about quantity whereas a pre-war historic home was about quality. In 1945, millions of GIs came home from the war ready to settle down and start families, which was just what they did. The baby boom created an insatiable demand for new housing in America. Since 1929 America had been in the grips of the Great Depression and then was swept into WWII in 1941. Due to the economic hardships of both of these periods Americans had not been building many houses. The population continued to grow and a flood of pent up demand for new housing was just waiting to burst forth after 1945. Until this time most builders were still using hand tools to slowly build their houses, but starting in the 1950s, the demand was for quick, affordable housing. Mass production was about to reach the housing industry, and its effects were far greater than anyone could have imagined. ! WHEN THINGS CHANGED ! In the early 1930s, a man named Abraham Levitt started a small custom home construction company that occasionally dabbled in real estate development in the New York area. The company enjoyed modest success building high end homes and a few
!13 small residential developments on Long Island. Abraham had two sons William and Alfred who joined the business. Alfred was concerned with design and William with development. When war broke out, both sons served overseas until they returned in 1947. William, the oldest, returned from the war with a newly developed expertise in “mass-production building of military housing using uniform and interchangeable parts.”1 He convinced his father and brother to implement these techniques in a new development they had planned in undeveloped onion and potato fields on Long Island, NY. In 1948 Levittown (Figure 1.1) broke ground and suburbia was born. The Levitts couldn’t keep pace with the population's insane demand for their affordable middle-class houses. At their height they were completing one house every 16 minutes! Using pre-cut lumber shipped directly to the home sites they began an assembly-line type setup with each crew doing a specific job then moving on the next house in line while another crew stepped in to complete the next step. The efficiency was spectacular and so was the sprawl. The neighborhoods got so big that they began adding post offices, town halls, and eventually became their own towns. Levittown changed the way Americans built and bought houses. Houses were no longer a place that you built yourself with the intent of generations of family residing there over the coming decades. At a starting price under $10,000 the house had become a commodity. It was good enough…for now. The idea of a "starter home" took root. It became a stepping stone on our way up the socio-economic ladder. Suburbia was born with Levittown and nothing would ever be the same. America was growing so quickly at this time, that we were fast depleting the vast virgin forests that once covered our continent. New, fast-growing trees were planted to replace the old-growth lumber that was running in short supply even before the baby boom. Plywood, which was a relatively new product, began being used extensively in construction. Drywall began to replace plaster walls in many houses due to speed and labor costs. Inexpensive asphalt shingles ruled the day on roofs. The rise of air