The Sad Story of Kalmar Ave.

    For those of you who do not know, I am a REALTOR and have been for about 25 years altogether. I took a long break in the middle of my career and then decided to come back and build my retirement. In the process I met a wonderful man (through his Godfather whom I met at an Open House!!!) and married him. He was just about to retire and had just had a baby Grandson. I retired early to share in providing child care for him, the absolute LIGHT of my life! I am so grateful for the experience of bonding with such an amazing little boy.
     During that blissful time, we set about renovating the basement of our home so that when our grandbaby started school, we would be free to travel in our Airstream trailer, which we had purchased to take him and his parents to our wedding in Nova Scotia. The retirement building was going extremely well, it SEEMED.
   Upon removing the drywall from the already finished basement, (to build a kitchen so that we could take in a tenant to help pay for our travels and be eyes in the house while we were gone), a PILE OF SAND fell to the floor from the removed wallboard. Our basement foundation was turning to sand. :-(

    After seeking the advice of my brother-in-law, a City Building Inspector, the engineer he recommended and the engineer that THAT engineer recommended when he deemed the job "over his head", we also met and interviewed seven contractors. We got quotes ranging from 50 thousand dollars (laughable in retrospect) to 170,000 and gratefully had a choice of two who seemed competent and aware of the depth they were jumping into. The engineer we eventually found had been called in on a job in the area, to solve the problem after the contractor had the home cave in on his remedial construction. This process of investigation, sourcing and interviews took a year and a half!!




The shoring up process was the most important. It was vertical and also supported by crossbeams, all done under the guidance of a laser level.
My contractor designed it and also used 2X8's instead of 2X6's so that he could cut them in half later and use the 2X4's for framing the basement!

Why didn't you just build new?

    Before you ask, I will answer the questions that will come up in your head, as I have answered everyone else who asked  as this story unfolded and in order of the most common questions:

1. I did not choose to "knock it down and build from scratch" because a) I love my house AND b) there's a huge difference between $150,000 to fix and probably 350 to rebuild; not sure where people think everyone has 350 large stashed away!

2. No, insurance doesn't cover it. AT ALL!

3. Yes, I did have a Home Inspection and so did the people next door but the problem was not caught on either house. If a basement is finished and the problem is "hidden", the Home Inspectors are protected from a law suit because of this. In retrospect, hindsight being 20/20 and all, there were many signs of coverup by the previous homeowner that an engineer should've been brought in to speak to. Since it took me three engineers and 7 contractors to diagnose and cost out the problem, I have no regrets at my decision to buy and again: I love my house and am glad I still own it even as I watch it slowly, slowly be repaired from my window seat at the dinette in my Airstream trailer, across the street in the middle of winter as money flies out the windows!

4. Yes, I could have sued the Seller because they did know they were passing on this problem and covered it up, but they had no money and were elderly so I didn't have the heart on the one hand. On the other hand, because I am a Realtor, my lawyer and I were pretty sure there was only a fifty/fifty chance that I'd win.
If savvy, the Sellers would have sued the Real Estate Brokerage I worked for, which is owned by a good, old friend of mine and the suit would be of an agent I've known for more than 30 years who did NOT know they were passing on this major problem. Most importantly, their Errors and Omissions Insurance company is also my insurance company, one of the largest in the world and I'm pretty sure they would have fought like hell to make sure I did not win. If I were them, I probably would.

5. I didn't start it in the Winter! I even had a total stranger who lives on the street knock on the Airstream door to express her sympathy and in the middle of our conversation blame her husband for asking this question. We started in May getting permits and in the middle of our requests, the City of Toronto shuffled their Zoning By-Laws. As became a harsh reality over and over when dealing with the City, and Enbridge, the head never knew what the ass was doing! After a nearly 3,000 dollar fight for the right to put our porch BACK on the way it was, (because of a variance of 9cm's in the new Zoning Regulations), we finally got started at the beginning of October. The projection for the new foundation job was 2 months, so it should have been over by the end of November, except that the previous owners had ALSO covered up and hidden massive amounts of concrete so near the new foundation that it had to be chipped and excavated with jackhammers instead of faster, albeit more expensive large machinery. Living in our Airstream for that length of time and in normal late Fall temps in Toronto, would have been a piece of cake, even if until Christmas, IF we had had a normal winter! Of course we didn't, we had record breaking low temperatures, for record breaking lengths of time and with record breaking amounts of snow!

The Good News

     Through a good friend, I was given a referral to his best friend, a contractor unlike any I've ever met, let alone heard such glowing praise of and now know first hand, is amazingly good at his job. He is smart, compassionate, considerate, beyond ethical and has achieved the level of success those of us who will never truly retire, all dream of: he works only with nice people that he likes, that are referred by the nice people he likes and has worked with. So, I guess that makes me nice and I try hard everyday to live up to his first impression of me. I have a great working relationship with my contractor and I hope at the end of this job I can call him a friend too.

     We live in our Airstream!!! I'm living my dream. (except that the view never changes, so I'll include that in future visualizations of our dream of full-timing.)  Rick and I are getting along pretty well under the circumstances; it's 174 square feet in here and we have 3 labrador retrievers!!! It's a very good experience of managing the systems. The black water pipe froze and we had no toilet for a couple of DAYS!! It was a drama and I kind of melted down, but invented a composting toilet and bucked up again once we got it melted and emptied. Thank you, airforums.com and my many, many Airstreaming friends on Facebook! The support has been overwhelming.

     Our neighbours to the north went to their house in Mexico for a month while we excavated their driveway. Our neighbours to the south offered us showers and laundry, their 3 year old made hot chocolate for our workers and charmed them all to pieces and most appreciated of all,  they drank copiously with us when we really needed it. Our neighbour across the street gave us a campsite in his driveway with a hydro hookup and we used his water (fortunately he had a special outdoor device that allows for him to leave the water on in winter....the LUCK on us!) It would have been aLOT harder to live in our trailer and watch the renovation without him and we are super grateful to him and almost all of our neighbours.
    Strangely timed, our least friendly neighbours decided to put their house on the market just before we started excavation and so we indirectly got to make sure the same problem did not get passed on to an unsuspecting Buyer since it made it pretty obvious that the problem could be there too and probably is.
We did have neighbours calling the Parking Authority to target our cars parked on the street because we couldn't be in our driveway. I guess we have p.o.'ed someone in the neighbourhood but with generosity from others we juggled, although not without a public ranting from me one evening towards the poor parking officer so that whatever neighbour was lurking behind their curtains could hear. Of this I am not proud.

Organic Compound Breakdown

                 This is one of our workmen, pushing the foundation wall in by hand with a stick

We're not alone.
It's a pretty widespread problem because it was not uncommon in the 1930's and 40's when a lot of the homes in southern Scarborough were built, for builders to use local sand in the poured concrete basement foundations. Over time, the organic compound that contaminated this sand broke down and left the concrete turning to sand.
     I mostly wrote this blog post to bring awareness to the problem for my Realtor friends in the area, so that they might better protect themselves and their clients from lawsuits and potentially bankrupting repairs.
     While lots of people in our neighbourhoods will lose a substantial part of the equity they thought they had in their homes and a few will likely unethically pass the problem on, the replacement of these homes, mostly bungalows with 2 storeys, is raising the value of mine. The up and coming neighbourhood I bought in, is speedily arriving at "up and came" and it appears that eventually I will recoop the loss. I'm currently dreaming of adding a second storey! (ya, my contractor is JUST THAT GOOD!)
 I just hope that the many topped up bungalows with second stories I see around me have had the foundations checked! and I tell every Realtor who'll listen, what has happened to us, so that they can help their Buyers BEWARE! of this problem.
     In the meantime, it has been just an incredible lesson in how strong I am and how strong my marriage is and how very, very fortunate I am!
OH, and I almost have a brand new basement!!!

Things I've learned about the Airstream Part 2

We've been living in our neighbours driveway in our Airstream, a 25 ft, '04 Safari for five months now in Toronto, Ontario, Canada and it's officially been declared the "worst" winter in 28 years with the coldest temperatures for the most amount of days and the most precipitation...SNOW!!

We have learned alot of things about our Airstream! and please be assured these are just the facts Ma'am...we still LOVE our trailer.

1.There is a carbon monoxide detector.

We found ours in the middle of the night one night when we simutaneously found the manual and the section that mentioned it will indicate that it needs to be cleaned or else it beeps loudly  every 15 seconds until you push and hold the test button to clean the dust off of it. Apparently it only gets clogged in the middle of the night.

2. The dinette set is not set up to play guitar at.
     (I know, I know, preposition blablabla...I think it provides a certain gangsta emphasis).

^tongue firmly implanted in cheek^

Fundamental design flaw, no?

3. The heat vents in the 2004 25 ft Safari SS are in about the absolute worst possible positions they could be and they also point in the worst possible directions as well!

 The front vent points right across the draughty door and directly at the right side of the front, sleeps 2 (humans, 3 labradors) pull-out sofa, so a human would have to have their head facing the other way for sure and their feet intermittently on fire as the heat cycles on and freezing as it cycles off.                                           ......                                                     .................                                                                      ............                                                             ....                                                                        .                                                                       The propane had run out in this picture and you can see the smart dogs curled up where the furnace WOULD be blasting hot air, were it not without fuel.    

     The other heat vent is in the bathroom and points directly at the top of the toilet seat.         

This is unpleasant if you're sitting there when the heat comes on and VERY unpleasant if you have to pee before a forced outing to get propane. The fact that it's the second of only two heat vents means you have to leave the door to the toilet open all the time and at night, because the bed is right beside the door, whoever is sleeping on that side is SURE to kick it closed as soon as they fall asleep.        

.

I found this ideal Safariesque curtain to at least hide the open lavatory door during the day and I figure it's lightweight enough that it allows some hot air to flow towards the front.
We also keep the shower door closed so it doesn't suck up the heat
and presumably, the heat bounces off of it and forward somewhat. My longterm plan is to find some directional vents and force the air at least sideways into the coach instead of directly forward or directly backward at the toilet seat.

4. The insulation is inefficent for temps between 0C and -7 and especially below -10C

The windows frost up on the inside in these temperatures (below freezing) and then, when they defrost, the water seems to seep down into the walls... especially from the exit window, which is over the bed.

I read somewhere that while sleeping, a human being releases more than a pint of moisture into the air through their exhalations. Since the Airstream walls are covered with the absorbent mousefur material, behind our heads while sleeping, is a breeding ground for mould!

I found this stuff for cleaning it. It's supposed to be safe for pets and children, so I'm guessing it's also safe for us to breathe. After a few applications it took off most of the black mould spots and turned the worst of it to pale brown. I sprayed it, then we left for the weekend just to not take any chances at all. 

     All the "fixes" for condensation build-up I read about on the Airstream and Winter Camping forums talk about "not cooking" DUH, I LOVE cooking in my Airstream. I use the fan whenever I cook anything, and I find my slow cooker and electric frying pan, when hooked up reduce the amount of steam that goes out. We used to perculate coffee in the vintage Pyrex glass pot you see on the stove, but WAYYYYYY too much steam into the Airstreamosphere with it so it necessitated us buying the N'espresso coffee maker. We are super grateful for THAT! Also all this saves propane, BUT obviously we have different methods when not on shore power.

    The other fixes are about cracking a vent: see above with the insulation. Our Airstream is FAR from being air tight. The wind whistles in behind the fridge like nobody's business and the door is "vented" all around. We are trying to keep the heat IN, so I don't get how opening the vents is anyway a fix.

     Another long term fix I have in mind is to find a miniature but powerful dehumidifier. If anyone knows of one, please leave it in comments. (UMMM, the moving the trailer to warmer climes during winter in Canada fix, notwithstanding!)

We learned that propane heating is a very moist heat and because the hot air flows on them from this heat system, you have to keep it running so the pipes don't freeze. Because the insulation is so poor they do anyway and the constant moist heat exacerbates the condensation build up. On the trailer we keep in the countryside, we will skirt and insulate underneath at least to combat this problem for next winter.

5. The water heater is right beside the food pantry cupboard so anything you keep in there in the winter, (while you have to leave the water heater on all the time to keep the kitchen taps from freezing up) needs to be heat resistant. I lost a jar of peanut butter to rancidity to find this out, amongst various nuts and seeds. On a positive note, this is an excellent cupboard to keep coconut oil and honey, molasses or any other food that is easier to serve at a softer consistency and that is used to long term tropical temperatures.
We also found it an ideal place to ferment our milk into kefir and cabbage into saurkraut...just be careful when sliding the shelves out with the jar top open.

I'm a big Thrift Store junkie (check out my Facebook page, ThriftAddicted for proof!)




...and I have special thrifting powers :-) so I just measured the space on the back of the wardrobe door and visualized the shelving unit I wanted to put there so I could move the perishable foods out of the heated cupboard and after a couple of weeks, I found this <<<<<<----PERFECT fit, three tiered wire shelf at our Habitat for Humanity Restore ......FOR FIFTY CENTS, YO!!!!!

lucky, lucky thanks Boss!







I thought this was a no-brainer, but hubs asked me to add it:

5. The outdoor compartments freeze stuff, so if you don't completely empty your water filling hose, it freezes shut. Same goes for Stinky Slinky only, it cracks when you try to use it again and you could end up running up to Camping World on the outskirts of the city in rush hour to avoid your wife having to "go" on Kitty Litter in the lined but full to brimming Dometic!.
I guess you haveta seal it tightly in a bag and store it under the front sofa, which incidently you have to keep open so that the air circulates in there.

The closet behind the refrigerator needs to be left open when temps dip below about -7 C, too and the overheads if you keep anything liquid in them, because it gets frosty  in there too. We loaded the compartment under the bed with insulation.


6. In hindsight, this now seems like a no brainer as well, but our Airstream is not built for the Canadian winter. One of the reasons we bought it, was to travel during winter anyway, but if we did like living here in an Airstream in winter, we would for sure invest in a top off rotisserie reinsulation and systems modification by Colin Hyde Trailer Restorations.

We are grateful for the experience of Winter 13/14 because we really got to know our trailer and had the time to read the manual and cruise the forums, but also to learn how to modify our Airstream to live in.
Hope this doesn't sound negative, as the kids say,
Just Sayin'