Under the House

After I spent a couple hours working on the yard and "A" worked on the tables we set down outside to relax. She had her frozen mocha frappuccino from Starbucks that had been in the freezer for a couple days. I tried to make a double espresso with the machine we bought last month at a garage sale, but it just turned out to be a REALLY strong cup of coffee.

For the last four years I have wanted to go under the house and check out the footings but never had the motivation to do it. After having that cup of mud (which was good), I found my motivation and donned coveralls that I had back when I was in my late 20s. Surprisingly, I found that I had put on a few pounds and the coveralls were pretty tight, oh well.

With flashlight and camera in hand I went in. I have to tell you, if you have just a little bit of claustrophobia, then this was not for you. I was doing a serious low crawl. At times I actually had to exhale to crawl under the joist. I also had to snake my way around because some places I could only get through if the ground dipped a little here or there.

I made it about halfway to the fireplace and was really tired, so I decided to turn around and come back. I did find an old milk bottle at the fireplace, probably discarded from a worker. It has cement stuck on it and I need to find a way to get it off without damaging the bottle. Looks like it came from Arden Farms which merged with Gelson's up in LA.

Apparently the entire floor of this house is concrete with the wood sub-floor laid over. Interestingly there are a few holes in the concrete with metal plates that have screws going into the sub-floor. I guess that was to ensure the sub-floor didn't come loose or buckle. It looks like the used tar over the bottom of the sub-floor to keep the wood from rotting since it is laid on the concrete.

Overall it looked pretty good with a few exceptions of rust on a few re-bar joists and some of the cement sagging through the metal lathe. There are a few pillar supports and quite a few wall supports that bear the load. But I think there should be a few more pillar supports and might have it done sometime in the future.

To crawl through this I had to put my arms through first, like I was diving. I still barely made it.

Very rusted.

Coming out

Almost there!

Finally!!