Boohaker & Associates, LLC

Prior to the early 1960's, a large percentage of homes available on the market were custom built. Conversely, most homes built since the early 1960's were designed and built to appeal to a large portion of the home buying population. More attempts to "Customize" can be found in the older the latter group of houses. Unfortunately, in many cases there wasn't enough planning, budget or imagination to achieve success in the renovation attempt and often there is a need to reverse those previous attempts before your renovation can begin. Signs of these deficiencies can be found in an illogical, cumbersome floor plan; exterior veneers that do not match; roof planes and slopes that seem out of place and Mechanical and Electrical Systems that are inadequate for the areas served. If you have one of these homes, take a look around, imagine the house prior to previous attempts to repair, renovate, enlarge or improve and use this as a starting point while evaluating your needs.

Demolition is my favorite part of a remodel. Within the wall cavity is a time capsule of a home builder's sins. Well...not all the time. Many homes are built well and most problems are the result of deferred maintenance. A recent trend in real estate has been 'flipping houses'. An investor buys a home, makes cosmetic upgrades and resells for a profit. At least that's the intent. Of course, there is nothing wrong with making a profit. When one cuts corners to maximize profits, however, somebody is going to suffer. The new buyer inherits these built-in defects. A good home inspector is usually able to see past the 'cosmetic upgrades' and alert potential buyers to these latent defects.

This picture is not a defect as much as it's just an interesting way to patch a hole in the sheetrock. We discovered this during a bathroom remodel. During the demolition stage, we removed all the drywall from the walls. It looks like they broke a yardstick ruler into three pieces and glued them to the edges of the hole. Sort of like the lathe in a plaster wall assembly. Once the yardstick pieces were 'secure', they glued, taped and mudded the patch. As you can see, one of the 'lathe' strips has fallen off the patch.
There is a correct way to make a repair like this - this attempt is not even close! We did discover some very serious defects. The tile shower floor substrate assembly consisted of concrete poured directly on hardwood flooring. To add insult to injury, the assembly did not include a pan! (Sorry, no picture) Needless to say, the shower leaked like a sieve and the first stages of rot had begun. There were numerous other plumbing infractions including a tub without a vent. We are still not sure how it was ever able to drain!
We have not gotten into the electrical yet, but obvious issues include a junction box with exposed wires and no cover hidden behind the sheetrock and several terminated circuits that while still hot, were simply taped and left to dangle in the wall cavity.

This is a video clip of the tree removal phase of the site work to prepare this lot for new custom home construction. The previous posting includes a video clip of the demolition of the existing house that was located on this property.

The tree removal was selective and only included removal of trees to make room for the footpring of the house. In the interest of saving some of the nicer hardwoods, we decided to re-route the driveway slightly. All of the pine trees were removed since they are the first to fall during strong storms and high winds. Most of the trees on this property are very sick as a result of the neglected overgrowth of ivy on the trunks. The ivy is so heavy that most of the trees have no low-hanging branches. The canopy of leaves on the entire property is at about 120'. Below the canopy, the trees are literally 100' posts. As such, all of the timber removed from the property is being sold to a mill for flooring or lumber products.

This is a video clip of the existing house demolition phase of the site work to prepare this lot for new custom home construction. The next posting will include a video clip of the selective tree removal phase.

If a property does not already have underground utilities or if those utilities are undersized for the new developement, you may have to do something like this...

These pictures are of a pit that was excavated for a boring machine to bore a lateral hole under the street and insert 8" ductile iron sewer extention. The sewer main is across the street from this developement. I think the developement will have three homes. The boring machine has to be located at a specific elevation so that when the line is bored, the sewer pipe will intersect with the main while maintaining proper fall.

As you can see, this is an involved proceedure...and the pictures are only half the story since the boring has not yet been started.

I am not sure what costs were involved, but is is apparent that halfway into the boring machine pit excavation, rock was encountered. When rock is involved, the job can get expensive fast!