The dumpster has arrived; George, one of our carpenters, waits for the Mark One crew.
We’re writing a series of blogs about an accessory apartment that we’re building in Newton. Once our clients approved the plan and selected their finishes, we were able to finalize the budget and sign a construction agreement. As soon as the ground thawed this spring, work began. We first had to remove the existing room above the garage. We teamed up with fellow NARI members, Mark One, to do the bulk the demolition. Like all our subs they’re meticulous about keeping the jobsite tidy and safe—especially important during an inherently messy phase like demo.
As a rule, we try and salvage and reuse materials. In this case there wasn’t much of value but we were able to reuse a couple of doors.
We always strive to minimize disruption to our clients – especially when they are still living in the home. In this case we carefully separated the area of the house to be demolished before the demo crew arrived, setting up temporary walls at the connection points on both the first and second floors. Just inside this partition we set up our HEPA air handler to capture any particulates that might make their way through.
Looking Ahead
When we originally estimated the project, we knew that the existing foundation under the garage wouldn’t be sufficient – knowing that allowed the homeowners to make informed decisions about the project and avoid a costly surprise during construction.
In fact, excavation had told us the foundation under the garage only went down 2 feet, not enough to support the new structure (or even the old one, really). Our structural engineers, Seigel Associates, had provided a tentative solution. Once the demo was complete and the structure was fully exposed we called them back to confirm our approach.
Read more about structural repairs next week!
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