Contractor Heather Thompson (left), project manager Mark Pollard…
Contractor Heather Thompson (left), project manager Mark Pollard (center), and client Will Crosby (right) share a laugh at the job site in January.
Will Crosby
Before: A classic island vacation home, the existing house had l…
Before: A classic island vacation home, the existing house had light framing, no insulation, and deteriorated finishes inside and out. New owner Will Crosby bought the building at a foreclosure auction, and a Boston architect advised him to tear the building down (or at least rip off the entire second story). Instead, Crosby hired a local architect and builder to carry out a complete gut-rehab, including an above-code energy retrofit.
Will Crosby
After installing temporary shoring, Thompson Johnson Woodworks b…
After installing temporary shoring, Thompson Johnson Woodworks begins demolition of the existing front porch in September.
Will Crosby
A view of the house with the front porch removed.
Ted Cushman
The house in January. In this view, the foundation underpinning …
The house in January. In this view, the foundation underpinning is complete and the floors, walls, and roof have been jacked into shape and reinforced.
Will Crosby
Project manager Mark Pollard reframes the porch structure in Nov…
Project manager Mark Pollard reframes the porch structure in November. Pollard says that the work on the porch had a significant effect on the effort to jack up and reinforce the roof. Evidently, settling of the porch structure was pulling down the roof hips above the porch. Only after the porch was removed and a new carrying beam was installed across the front of the house and jacked into level was the crew able to jack up the home’s ridge beam and pull its balloon-framed kneewalls into realignment.
Will Crosby
When jacking up the home’s roof and straightening its walls pr…
When jacking up the home’s roof and straightening its walls proved difficult, says Pollard, “we realized we had to start at the bottom.” Step one was to install new beams in the basement under the first floor frame and level the floor system.
Ted Cushman
After leveling the first floor, the crew installed new LVL carry…
After leveling the first floor, the crew installed new LVL carrying beams along the long dimension of the house (from front to back). The existing floor was framed with 26-foot 2×7 sawn floor joists, spanning the entire width of the house. Over a century in service, and supported only by light board partitions, the floor had sagged more than four inches. The crew cut the existing full span roughly into thirds, installed engineered carrying beams, jacked the floor up, and supported the new girders with Douglas fir posts.
Ted Cushman
With the first and second floor straight, the crew returned to t…
With the first and second floor straight, the crew returned to the effort of pulling in the upstairs kneewalls and jacking up the ridge. When comealongs across the span of the house couldn’t do the job, they installed four posts with bottle jacks under the ridge to lift the ridge directly. But the house still resisted — until the crew reframed the porch at the front of the house and jacked the new beam into level. “Then the comealongs immediately sagged and the ridge started to go up,” says Mark Pollard.
Ted Cushman
With the ridge and hips jacked into position, the crew site-buil…
With the ridge and hips jacked into position, the crew site-built a pair of structural trusses spanning the house, using engineered lumber. The ends of the trusses rest on full-height LVL posts that bear directly on the foundation. The site-built engineered trusses are the backbone of a new structural system, serving to support the ridge and hip members at the apex of the roof frame.
Ted Cushman
Another view of the site-built LVL truss, which spans the buildi…
Another view of the site-built LVL truss, which spans the building and provides support at the point where the roof ridge meets the reinforced hip rafters.
Ted Cushman
Mark Pollard installs blocking into the new ceiling for the upst…
Mark Pollard installs blocking into the new ceiling for the upstairs space.
Ted Cushman
Framing the new upstairs ceiling.
After reinforcing the rafter system and installing structural tr…
After reinforcing the rafter system and installing structural trusses and collar ties, carpenter Shane Fenton and project manager Mark Pollard ease off on the comealongs they had used to pull the outside kneewalls into alignment.
A view of the reframed and reinforced roof system after comealon…
A view of the reframed and reinforced roof system after comealongs and jacks have been removed. Visible here is the pair of site-built structural trusses that now support the roof’s ridge beam and hips, as well as the new ceiling collar ties.
With the structural reframing and reinforcing of the roof comple…
With the structural reframing and reinforcing of the roof completed, carpenter Ed Muennich works on the task of framing down the roof system to create space for insulation.
A view of the roof system showing the thickened rafter assembly….
A view of the roof system showing the thickened rafter assembly. The crew attached new 2×4 ceiling members to the existing rafters using plywood gussets, in order to create a deep space for insulation. Later, three inches of spray polyurethane will be applied to the underside of the roof, and the remaining cavity will be filled with dense-blown cellulose.
Another view of the second-floor space with new site-built struc…
Another view of the second-floor space with new site-built structural trusses installed, collar ties and new ceilings framed in, and the roof build-down mostly completed. A new dormer still remains to be built at the back of the house.
Another view of the roof build-down, constructed so as to provid…
Another view of the roof build-down, constructed so as to provide additional space for spray polyurethane and dense-blown cellulose insulation. The hip rafter here has also been supported with new LVLs.
Peaks Island, sitting in the Portland, Maine harbor a 20-minute ferry ride from downtown, falls into Portland’s municipal jurisdiction. The small island community (about 600 fulltime residents, but swelling in the summertime to host thousands of summer visitors) is served by Portland schools, Portland police, Portland firefighters, and — the important factor for builders — Portland building officials.
The building code on Peaks Island is a recent version of the International Residential Code, and it’s enforced. But most of the existing structures on the island were built long before any such code was in place, and have been modified over the years without strict oversight. So contractors who remodel homes on the island routinely face the challenge of bringing an antiquated, primitive, and idiosyncratic building into the 21st century.
This winter, contractor Heather Thompson (Thompson Johnson Woodworks) and her project manager Mark Pollard are tackling a classic example: the structural rehab and deep energy retrofit of a typical island house — a lightly framed structure, with a simple masonry block foundation, no footings, and no insulation. The job was designed by local architect Rachel Conly, with engineering services provided by island engineer Andrew Jackson. JLC’s Coastal Connection has been following the project. In December, we reported on the foundation underpinning work. This week, we take a look at the structural rehab of the building’s upper story floor system and roof (see Slideshow: Island House Structural Rehab).
Before they’re done, Thompson’s crew will have transformed the building into a modern air-tight above-code energy-efficient house, with frost-protected footings, a basement insulated to R21, walls insulated to R40 or better, and a roof insulated to about R60. The structure will heat with a miserly pair of air-source mini-split heat pumps. But the crew is a long way from that result — because first, they have to repair the home’s egregious structural deficiencies. The main structural challenges are excavating under the unreinforced masonry block walls to place concrete footings; jacking up, straightening, and reinforcing the first floor system (which sagged more than four inches across its 26-foot span); and straightening and reinforcing the complex dormered hip roof of the building.
Along with the extensive structural reinforcement, Pollard and his crew are also packing out the home’s walls and framing down its roof to create space for insulation — a complex challenge that calls for meticulous work because of the existing frame’s (for lack of a better word) out-of-whackness. For a closer look, see the slideshow.
