On this new workday, the following was to be carried out:

• Removing the siding, house wrap and damaged particle board sheeting
• Removing the storm windows
• Removing the entrance door with its frame
• Rebuilding the exterior walls
• Waterproofing the bottom part of the walls
• Applying house wrap

2) The rear addition, formerly part den and part kitchen (and future kitchen/dining-room), had also been completely gutted earlier.

The photo on the left shows part of that east wall, as it was initially; below, the abundant rot that lay beneath the wallpaper mural.

(Note: The sunroom walls had the same kind of water damage, but not as much.)

On that same day, the rear addition east wall would become the location of the main entrance, requiring:

• Cutting out an opening in the aluminum siding
• Building a proper structure to receive a door
• Installing the old entrance door with its frame

The Crew Arrives And We All Get A Nasty Surprise

Jerry phoned the night before to confirm their arrival time at the job site. That's the kind of professionalism that I appreciate.

I showed up early with my weed whacker to trim the grass around the sunroom's foundation.

Jerry and his men arrived at 8.30. They didn't waste any time getting to work.

Taking off the vinyl siding was quickly done. However, as I had noticed when I bought the house, that siding went all the way to the ground - and even beyond - which is something that should never happen.

And so when the men started digging, it soon became apparent why this is not a good idea: the sill plate was completely rotted out in some spots. You could scrape it out with your bare fingers.

I already knew that the particle board that had been used to build the sunroom walls showed some water damage - which was the reason for the rebuilding in the first place - but I had no idea that below that particle board there was nothing but wooden floor joists and a wooden sill plate.

This looked like it could be really bad and Jerry's first reaction was "Gina, we'd be wasting your money; get somebody to come and jack up the house and replace this before doing anything else."

This was a huge shock because I expected the sunroom walls to be all rebuilt that day, and besides, I didn't know anyone who could fix that problem.

My eyes teared up with frustration and despair.

Old Bricks To The Rescue... And The Crew Comes Through

Luckily, Jerry wasn't the type to give up so easily. He made his men dig all around the foundation. We discovered - as the photos show - that the sunroom walls were actually sitting on a nice concrete pad (and not directly on the dirt, as feared), and in one part the sill plate was indeed all rotted out, as well as the ends of the floor joists on which the floor rested, but in the other parts it was still intact.

I asked if maybe concrete blocks could be inserted as supports (I had a few salvaged ones around) but Jerry measured the gap and determined that concrete blocks would not fit in there.

He went to the back yard, where I had a pile of bricks that had been salvaged from the demolition of the back porch. Excellent hard bricks, high-fired, made from local clay in a former local brick plant.

There were two different sizes and by stacking one of the smaller ones on top of one of the bigger ones, the result was the exact size of the gap left by the removal of the rotten sill plate below the sunroom walls.

However, as it got nearer the center of the wall, the gap was too small, by a mere quarter-inch.

Ensued a discussion about how to jack up the wall there... in the end Jerry had to go and get some material, and he instructed the men to insert the bricks wherever they could between the floor joists and then he left.

I had to get some breakfast and check the mail, so I left as well.

When we came back, we got a fine surprise: in our absence the men had used a steel bar and some bricks to make a lever and they had lifted up the sunroom walls just enough to slip the bricks in everywhere that they were needed!

I was at once jubilant and upset that I had missed the best picture of the day!

Rebuilding the Walls, Finally

Jerry Gives Me Some Homework

Jerry did remark, though, that the floor joists would have to be repaired from the inside. An easy job which he described in full detail, and which a helper and I could carry out, and for which I would get to use some of the valuable 4x6 lumber that I had salvaged.

Repairing the floor joists would also allow me to level the floor, which, due to settling, was tilting about four inches towards the outside at present.

Finally once the flooring is off, proper insulation can be put in to replace the thin rigid Styrofoam that's there now. This will greatly improve the sunroom's energy efficiency.

Click here to see the step-by-step insulation project. which includes the sunroom walls, floor and ceiling.

Another Surprise

While I was watching this and taking photos, Jerry was at the back investigating the future entrance, and by the time I got there, an entire wall had been taken down - siding, sheeting and all - instead of just an opening for the door as we had planned.

Jerry said that the particle board was so badly rotten that when they touched it it crumbled into sawdust - which is what it was made of in the first place. (Particle board was never recommended for exterior applications, but people used it anyway.)

And so they had had to strip off the siding and now they were replacing some rotten two-by-fours with new ones.

Once the framing for the door had been built, the old door slipped right into place. (I hadn't yet decided if I would change that door, install a storm door and/or build a vestibule, but it wa a standard-size door and so whatever happened later wouldn't require any major adjustments.)

Here is what that east wall looked like at the end of the day:

And this is what the sunroom walls looked like, at the end of the day:

All's Well That Ends Well

I am grateful to Jerry and his team for their patience and for a job done well and with care. It's hard to find people who take pride in their work nowadays, and that makes all the difference.

I hope that this account will be of some help to you if you encounter unusual problems in your own green building project.

There's always a solution! The important thing is not to panic and not be afraid to think outside the box.

Don't be afraid to apply your own instinct and creativity!

How Much?

The sunroom walls project was extremely reasonable. Total cost was $859.98, all taxes included, broken down as follows:

Labour: $638.45
Materials: $221.53

You can see all my expense reports at my Dollar by Dollar page.

GREEN NOTES

REUSING SALVAGED BUILDING MATERIALS: I was pleased that we were able to reuse some of the materials salvaged from the Deconstruction phase and also from last year's shed demolition.

From the former, we used two 36-inch pieces of 2 x6 lumber for creating the new door header and from the latter, those precious bricks.

However, we had to buy ten two-by-fours, even though I had several salvaged ones in storage.

In spite of the best intentions, it's not always possible to reuse those old two-by-fours. For instance, they can't be combined with new ones because whereas in the old days a two-by-four actually measured two inches by four inches, nowadays it only measures one and a half inches by three and half inches.

That's why the repairs to the sunroom walls and rear addition had to be done with new lumber, as you can see in the photo, above.

Those two additions are from the 1970s, whereas the main body of the house - whence most of the salvaged lumber came - was built in the 1950s.

OSB BOARD (Oriented Strand Board - a form of engineered lumber): My small village has only one supplier, and I was unable to ascertain whether this material contained any formaldehyde or not. Otherwise, this sheeting is much more eco-friendly than solid wood, because it's made of scrap material. That's why they often recommend it for green building projects.

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