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Sill Joist Finally Finished

It’s taken a while but now it’s done and it’s even had two licks of paint. Overall pretty pleased with the result especially considering the state of it before. I also epoxied and screwed some pressure treated 2×10’s to the back of the beams which will help spread the weight over the wall.

As a reminder this is what it looked like after I had removed any crumbling mortar and rotten wood (note the lack of wooden sill joist which had completely rotted away, leaving corner of house hanging for about 10′),

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and after I had repaired the wall and ground the top flat.

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My first attempt to replace the beam used pressure treated, didn’t like it so that got replaced by old growth timbers from the house.

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I didn’t dimension the old growth timber so there were minor gaps etc. but those got filled in with an epoxy paste towards the end.

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Here you can see the beams reinforced with 2×10 pressure treated. The original beams were placed on the very edge of the wall and some are even over hanging so it was good to spread the weight inwards.

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Finally the completed rim joist, with all cracks and gaps filled with West Systems Epoxy and then two coats of exterior paint. Eventually this will all be covered with the sidings. The wall will be parged again as the beam is still over hanging in parts, plus I spilt a fair amount of epoxy on it. Good for another century.

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Next project is to replace the rotten floor joists and I’ve already started to cut the joints as can be seen in the following image. I’ll epoxy and bolt everything and possibly that would be enough, but will probably sister in a 10×2 or a LVL beam just to be sure. Tricky cutting these as they are awkward to get at, one down and two to go. Using a sawzall to rough cut and then a trim router with template. Finishing off with a combination of Tenon saw, Japanese saw and hand plane, basically trying everything until I find what works best.

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A Virtuoso Performance…

Whatever …

From the Hudson Valley One

Kingston’s Wilbur and Ponckhockie neighborhoods rise out of obscurity

Kingston’s Wilbur and Ponckhockie neighborhoods have long been overlooked. Insufficient attention has been paid to how improvement and investment could enhance the architectural richness and historic heritage of these Rondout Creek communities.

No more. The City of Kingston has just released a draft architectural and archaeological sensitivity report that surveys each neighborhood’s buildings to determine their suitability for designation in historic districts or as individual landmarks.

The report’s public release in late June marked a first step in getting segments of the two neighborhoods or individual buildings on the National and New York State Registers of Historic Places. Residents have had an opportunity to learn about the initiative this month.

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The survey of 246 properties in the Ponckhockie neighborhood revealed an abundance of valuable historic structures, for possible individual listing on the National Register or as contributing properties within a potential historic district. Ponckhockie has a potential historic district of 184 contributing properties, built from circa 1856 to circa 1940. Twenty-one of the 184 may be eligible for individual listing on the National Register. The neighborhood has a high concentration of notable examples of Italianate buildings and early vernacular interpretations of the Federal style, plus a lesser number of examples of Queen Anne, Gothic Revival, and Second Empire styles.

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Potential candidates for a historic district include 1 Ponckhockie Street (c. 1870), which the survey calls “the finest and largest brick example of an Italianate house” in Ponckhockie; 9 Grove Street (c. 1880), one of the few high-style Queen Anne houses in the neighborhood and one of two executed in brick; and 54 Gill Street (c. 1869), the former home of David Gill Sr., for whom the street is named and possibly the largest wooden Italianate house in Ponckhockie. Rhoads wrote in his Kingston architectural guide that the owner of 54 Gill accomplished “a virtuoso performance with Italianate paired brackets supporting the projecting eaves ….” Its rehabilitation is being documented online at the Disaster Mansion website.

Not sure what this will mean to us and big shame that we missed the public meeting. Hopefully they will have recorded it.

Personally I think the only reason that Kingston politicians are interested in Wilbur and Ponckhockie is pure financial. These areas have been around for centuries and it seems a coincidence that now Kingston is deemed desirable that these areas are gaining interest.

If any historical branch starts telling us what to do they can shove it up their a#@s. We’re doing the best we can do to restore this grand old house and we need help not barriers or regulation.

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Mistakes were Made

We decided a while back that utility room floor would remain un-tiled but we’d add a coat of epoxy for protection and to make it easier to clean. This weekend we thought we’d tackle this project so Saturday was spent prepping, I went over the whole floor with a random orbital sander with a diamond pad to scuff up the surface and to remove any dirt, then swept and vacuumed a few times.

Sunday was the application of the epoxy and it didn’t go as well as I had wished. I’m hoping it’s not a disaster, but we’ll see. Main issue is that the epoxy still hadn’t cured after 24 hours and was sticky in parts. 48 hours later it did seem a little less sticky. This epoxy should have cured in about 6 hours.

So what went wrong, well lots of things really and in order of most severe to least:

  • I usually weigh my resin and hardener on a gram scale† to get the correct ratio, but this time I used the dispensing pumps which should supply the resin in the correct ratio. I’m using West Systems which has a resin to hardener ration of 5:1. One press of each pumps should deliver that ratio and to be fair the instructions do tell you to check this which I didn’t.
  • Didn’t tighten the screw caps on the pumps and one of them came apart, fixable but I had to guess how much resin was dispensed whilst trying to fix it.
  • I should have mixed the resins in larger batches, using a drill/paddle mixer. This would have helped in the color matching as I was tinting each batch.
  • I probably should have used some sort of primer as the porous concrete produced loads of bubbles.
  • I should have mixed downstairs so I didn’t have to carry everything down the ladder.
  • I didn’t calculate the the correct amount of resin for the job so I had to leave it incomplete. I did manage at least to cover the whole floor but half of this was a very thin coat and you can see the concrete through it.

So what’s next? I’m hoping the epoxy will cure in time and if not the un-cured portions will have to be removed. If it does cure then I’ll go over it again with my diamond pad and knock down all the air bubbles and the re-coat and this time I will mix the whole gallon of resin in one go.

† I did have my scales at hand but they only go up to 500g and I was mixing more than that until the end when the resin was running low and then I used the scales, so at least some of it cured correctly.