Our Philly Money Pit

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OurPhillyRow
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Our Philly Money Pit

Post by OurPhillyRow »

Surprise! Our 165 year old brick rowhouse has structural problems. Ugh, where to begin!? This is a long post (a story really) with LOTS of images, so sit back and let the insanity settle in.

Before you start, I want to be clear that in spite of all of this and the $$$ spent to fix it, we still love our old house and can't wait to make it our home.

Backstory: When we had our inspection in January, the inspector missed a few things which were obvious issues. But he also passed a few things off as being not that out of the ordinary. This included some cracks in the plaster walls on the rear of the house he said looked like settlement cracks. When pressed about the cracks, he did say, “You could bring in a structural engineer” and left it at that. His response didn’t seem alarming or of real concern, so we didn’t do that.

Instead, we allowed our hearts to make our decision and moved forward with the purchase hoping that the cracks were not a big deal. The day we took title of the house and I had the opportunity to examine the cracks much closer, my concerns about the cracks began to grow more serious. During the initial tour of the home in January, and even during the almost two hour inspection, I was not able to see what was before my very eyes. Cracks, cracks, cracks, everywhere on the rear wall of the main house. Mostly hairline which are generally of no real concern, but a few looked like they had been patched and painted.

Keeping in mind that we are still living two hours away (and will be for the next six months or so), I contacted two structural engineers, both of them very highly credentialed and well respected in the Philadelphia area. I went with the lower priced one, but she was slow to respond and when I was finally able to meet with her, she said the issues could be solved with a few star anchors. But then things got really crazy....

Fast forward a few weeks, and I was back at the house on a Sunday night as we had electricians coming to replace all of our knob and tube. I was chatting with my best buddy on the phone and enjoying some wine. After a few glasses of wine, and conversation, I got curious about one specific area on the second floor of the main house where I knew there was drywall. So I took my phone, my glass of wine, and a hammer and went upstairs and started hacking away at the drywall (we were planning on renovating this area, so I wasn’t concerned about doing a bit of demo). As I broke through the wall, I began to see scary things. First, I could see that someone in the past had haphazardly covered the area with 1x4 firing strips to build out the wall enough to add the drywall. Then I saw the cracks and crevasses! Big cracks and big crevasses! The crevasses were mostly stuffed with insulation.
...Houston, we have a problem.

It was at that moment that I knew that star anchors were not going to resolve this problem. My heart began to sink, dollar signs began to flash in front of my eyes.... The wine did it’s best to comfort me in my sudden terror, but nothing prepared me for the sense of “Oh Sh*t, Oh Sh*t, Oh Sh*t” that took over my thoughts. What do we do now? It was time to bite the bullet and call in the other engineer.

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I was not able to go to Philly on the day the second engineer came because of work , so my partner went for me. He met with the engineer, and a contractor whom the engineer brought along with him to put together an estimate. Thankfully, my partner was able to video record the hour long inspection, so I got to see (mostly listen) to the entire top to bottom inspection of our house.

There is a long laundry list of items the engineer suggested we needed to fix, but for this post I will stick to the big one... The cracks. I put together a couple of nifty visual diagrams to help all this make sense. The first one shows the floor plans with the highlighted yellow area being the wall which is the problem. This wall is the rear wall of the three story main house where it connects to the two story rear wing (highlighted in purple). The rear wing has low 7' 9" ceilings on both floors and was used as the kitchen on the first floor and living quarters for the servants on the second. The numbers on the diagram correspond to the images which follow to indicate what area the image is showing. Some areas have several images with the same number because they are either different angles or were taken at different stages in the process.

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The second diagram is of the rear wall itself. This is to clarify where the wood beam is located and to show where the wood structure and the brick structure combine for the rear wall. You can see the area where the beam rests and how the weight of the entire third floor brick wall (about 8,000 lbs) was dependent on this one small area.

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The repairs are mostly completed now, and I have included images of the repairs as of last weekend. Also, I am posting more detailed information about all of this on my blog over the next few days. Link is in my profile.

Area 1 - The main source of the problem was the crumbling brick caused by water infiltration and probably freeze thaw events.
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Area 2 - This is the corner to the right of the source. The vertical crack extends up through the third floor.
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Area 3 - This is the vertical crack on the third floor. The wall looks as though it is ready to shear right off.
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Area 4 - This area is at the ceiling level of the second floor rear left. You can see the wooden beam on studs holding up the brick wall above. This area wasn't repaired until this week.
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Area 5 - This is the scene from the other side in the second floor rear wing. The ends of two of the three beams were completely rotten. They cut them out, filled them in with new pressure lumber and then sistered a LVL beam to the side with carriage bolts. This will all be hidden once the repairs are complete.
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Area 6 is in the stairwell halfway between the second and third floor. It is just to the left of where the beams rested atop the end of the intersecting rear side wall.
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Area 7 - This is the view from the first floor dining room in the rear wing. They had to support from the basement level up through the first floor to the second floor to work on the beam repairs.
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Devyn - Old House Lover
1852 Brick Rowhouse - Philadelphia

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Nicholas
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Re: Our Philly Money Pit

Post by Nicholas »

I was sent an article about the Logan Triangle, where they had to condemn an entire neighborhood because of the improperly filled Wingohocking Creek.

I was told by my father about the underground creeks that were causing settling in our Philly row. In 1965 a sinkhole opened up on the next street and swallowed the back of a '50 Buick. In the accompanying article was the original map and current map of these underground creeks.

Take a look at South Philly, you will have to use google map to pinpoint your area. Our house was in the area of that little tributary just to the left of the "S" at Sandy Run in the northeast.
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OurPhillyRow
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Re: Our Philly Money Pit

Post by OurPhillyRow »

Very interesting about the buried waterways in Philly. Looking at the map, there are certainly some nearby our house, but from what I can ascertain, our block is on solid ground.


I should probably clarify that the cause of our structural issues have nothing to do with our foundation or settlement. The only damage below the second floor is a hairline crack continuing below the large vertical crack on the second and third floors (areas 2 and 3)

The issue started where the rear shed roof connects to the rear of the second floor of the main brick structure. Through years of water seepage, the brick under the support beam became saturated and began to decompose. Add winter freeze thaw cycles to this and you can see how the bricks became so disfigured. This also ties with the ends of the beams being rotted along with the top sill.

Part of the work we had done was cleaning up the loose parging on the basement walls. It's beautiful now. :thumbup: :thumbup: According to the engineer, our foundation is in good condition for its age, and talking with neighbors who have lived on the block for a long time, they have never had water infiltration issues in their basements beyond a broken water pipe. For that we are thankful.
Devyn - Old House Lover
1852 Brick Rowhouse - Philadelphia

JRC
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Re: Our Philly Money Pit

Post by JRC »

Those couldn't have been a cheap repairs, but don't underestimate the value of peace of mind. :)

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Re: Our Philly Money Pit

Post by Manalto »

I agree with JRC and add that you also shouldn't underestimate the value of being the owner of a beautiful brick row house in Philadelphia.

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OurPhillyRow
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Re: Our Philly Money Pit

Post by OurPhillyRow »

JRC wrote:Those couldn't have been a cheap repairs, but don't underestimate the value of peace of mind. :)

You are right, this was not an inexpensive endeavor, but peace of mind that our home is solid is completely worth it. We were fortunate to find an excellent structural engineer who introduced us to a reliable (and also reasonable contractor) who could handle the work. I asked a lot of questions about his experience with old houses, and he did a good job of addressing my questions and my concerns as well as reassuring me was well versed in 19th century structures. The best part is that in general, the rest of the house is in very solid condition for having been there for the past 165 years.

Manalto wrote:I agree with JRC and add that you also shouldn't underestimate the value of being the owner of a beautiful brick row house in Philadelphia.

We are absolutely thrilled to have found this house. Unfortunately, the overwhelming majority of 19th century rowhouses in Philly have been remodeled multiple times leaving little to none of the original detail intact (I don't consider an exposed brick wall original detail) Even with the additional expense, we have zero regrets about buying the house.
Devyn - Old House Lover
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Re: Our Philly Money Pit

Post by Manalto »

Now the fun begins, bringing it back to life. (Yeah, exposed brick is a 70-80s thing. 19-, that is!) I have a special fondness for the Philly row houses. Could you post a photo of the front?

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OurPhillyRow
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Re: Our Philly Money Pit

Post by OurPhillyRow »

Manalto wrote:Now the fun begins, bringing it back to life. (Yeah, exposed brick is a 70-80s thing. 19-, that is!) I have a special fondness for the Philly row houses. Could you post a photo of the front?


Ours is part of a block of 14 homes we think were built in 1852, overlooking a park. Located in close-in South Philly (Pennsport neighborhood). I have traced residents to the house (as well as several other houses on the block) back to the 1853 Philadelphia City Directory. Prior that that year, I cannot locate any residents on the block, and an 1849 map of the area shows the block as undeveloped. The house was occupied by E. Ovenshine, Omnibus Proprietor in 1853.

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The house retains most of the original pine floors, original plaster crown on the main floor, rim locks on nearly every door, much of the original window and door casings, and the original switchback (almost colonial) staircase. We can be sure of several elements being original as they match our neighbors house.

It will be six months or more before we will be living there full time (still have to sell our old home), but we are looking forward to restoring what we can, and doing thoughtful updates to make modern life possible (we will convert a small bedroom next to the master into a master bath and closet). All with the intent to retain as much of the original as possible.

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Devyn - Old House Lover
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Manalto
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Re: Our Philly Money Pit

Post by Manalto »

It's an elegant house, and with a park across the street - very nice. I see you have a handsome cornice and the shutter hardware is in place. (I have a "thing" for functional shutters; unfortunately, they're not correct on my house, so I'll have to live vicariously.) Enjoy the ride and keep us posted on your progress!

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Re: Our Philly Money Pit

Post by Gothichome »

Devyn, you saved it, good for you. The world needs more folks like yourself and those here in the District. You can bet you neighbours will be looking a little closer at their home now.

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