Sunday, January 15, 2006

What Lurks Below

In this case, the question "What lurks below?" refers to below my house, and the answer is: a foundation in serious need of repair. So I spent most of the day crawling in and out from under the house, working on things I really have no idea how to fix. Somehow, though, I improved the situation. I think. At least I gave the rest of the family a good laugh when they saw me in my kneepads and elbow pads and the light attached to my head. This is the first time I've been under the house since the plumbing fiasco of last spring. I haven't missed it a bit.

In other news . . . there ain't none. I spent nearly all of last week sitting in my studio and writing. I'm reading a little, but I'll save my comments on that for a later post.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I have been searching the Internet today to see if anyone observed REH's 100th birthday at all. Glad to see Two-Gun Bob did get some kind of birthday bash.
Would like more details about the house foundation issue. If a house is settling, what can you do about it, and for how much?
Yes, families always snicker when you crawl around under a basement-less house.

James Reasoner said...

We've been battling termite damage for quite a while. In this particular case, one of the support beams under the floor joists in our living room was giving way, putting the floor in danger of collapsing. What I had to do was crawl under there with a couple of eight-foot 4X4s, place them on each side of the damaged support beam, and jack them up with hydraulic jacks until the floor was reasonably level. That's just a temporary fix, though. In fact, the jacks are already starting to give a little. What I need to do now is get back under there and replace the jacks with some permanent supports, which I'll make from cement blocks and some shorter lengths of 4X4. We had to do this in another area of the house a few years ago, and that repair job is holding up pretty well. (Livia and her parents did the work on that project, not me.) The only cost involved in all this is for the boards and the jacks, so it's not real expensive. Hard work in cramped quarters, though, especially for someone who's just a little bit claustrophobic.