LIVING in the PAST an OWNER's GUIDE to UNDERSTANDING & REPAIRING an OLD HOME ! ! ! ! by SCOTT AUSTIN SIDLER ! ! ! ! Copyright 2014 © Austin Home Restorations Inc
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! 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 ! ! ! !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.