While most of the demolition is now finished, there are a few items remaining. The most notable was a low ceiling in the bathroom area that had several layers of drywall pressed together, so I put this section off for a while. Well, I finally cleared it out and it was far and away the worst section of the ceiling! (I’m glad it’s the last section as well.) This photo shows all the “critter crap” that was stuffed away in this little 6′ x 6′ section of the ceiling. It ultimately amounted to three full 35-gallon trash cans of natural debris (rodent bedding) even before including the wood and drywall that was removed.
As soon as I started removing the ceiling I could tell by the stench that this was not going to be good. I was wearing long sleeves, a hat, safety goggles, and a breathing mask. Even still, I had to leave the house periodically to get some fresh air as the smell was truly stifling. But as bad as this experience was, it was completely worth it and this is precisely why I’m doing a gut renovation – to be sure I’ve removed any “crap” from the home before rebuilding.
Further, opening up every cavity in the house assures that I’m getting a complete picture of what I’m dealing with as I rebuild. For example, I’ve already noted that there are basically no bearing walls and no headers, so I’ll be adding proper headers over every window and door. And in today’s demolition I uncovered two additional items. First, this ceiling joist that has been gnawed away by the critters that were living in the ceiling cavity. Thankfully, these joists aren’t supporting anything other than the ceiling I just removed, so I’m cutting them out anyway.
On the other hand, these roof rafters are absolutely structural – and not installed properly. This section of the house was an addition, probably added in the 1970s. And while the photo is terrible, it shows a notable problem that needs to be corrected.
You can see a raw wood colored rafter in the top third of the photo and, if you look closely, you can see a “rafter tail” painted white just behind it where the white wall on the right is seen. That wall was the original exterior of the house, still sporting the white shingles. The white rafter tail is where the original roof ended. When adding the new roof rafters, these should have gone “into” the previous exterior wall so they were resting on the exterior wall for support. Instead, they “die into” the wall (meaning they don’t penetrate the wall) and are, instead, nailed to the rafter tails. This means that there’s effectively no support at that junction and it is a potential failure point for the roof.
To wit, this has withstood years of Catskills winters and there is no apparent sagging or notable issues. But that doesn’t mean I won’t be putting in new rafters that are properly supported by that wall as I rebuild. So far, most of the things I’ve uncovered during demolition haven’t had significant impact on my plans. And what I’ll need to do here isn’t too bad, but it will be a few days of additional work to replace the rafters and do it right. Then again, that’s why I’m doing this!