Heritage – Hammond Forever House

Snowed in without Power!

I wish I could show you a photo of the house today. It is buried in snow. Unfortunately, Leanne’s computer is still too full and I can’t download the photos from the camera yet.

This photo from New Year’s 2017 will have to suffice.

We thought this was a lot of snow. (Ha!) Besides less snow, the other thing that is different in this photo is all the lights are on.

Over the past weekend, due to heavy snow breaking branches, we have had 6 separate power outages.

They are not the most relaxing events, but the kids love a good black-out. We light candles and revel in the adventure. “I love Earth-hour!” says my daughter.

Beneath the fun of it lies my worry that the decisions we have made on the house leave us vulnerable to power outages. Specifically, back-up power.

I have this insecurity that there is a silent mass of onlookers waiting for us to fail. “Let’s see how this ‘Forever House’ handles a power outage” they say in my head. “Bet they wish they had a gas generator!”

Well, I must admit it was a bit shaky, but we did okay and I remind myself that we’re not done yet.

Surprising to many, my master plan calls for no fossil fuels and no wood-burning. I want to keep the brick fireplace but insert an electric fire that looks good and gives a little heat. When the power went out, however, it was very comforting to be able to light a fire. It reminded us of the winter of 2014 when we challenged ourselves to live without buying more fuel oil and so we relied on wood and a little electric heat.

Leanne wants to keep the fire, but we don’t have to decide now, because we have a lot of other things to do before we come to that.

The fact is, we moved in before the house was done. I am not finished insulating and sealing the basement and top floor. The root cellar door is not sealed and insulated as well as we plan to. I’d also like to re-apply the weather-stripping to the windows, seal up the stained-glass transom lights in the front rooms, and improve the front door.

All this insulation and sealing is key, because we are counting on it to keep our heating bills down.

At the moment, our heat is supplied by the same water heater that used to heat our tap water before the renovation. Hot water is pumped through pipes stapled to the underside of the main floor and it warms the floor above.

Heating water with electricity is 100% efficient, but it is expensive, so I have been steadily trying to finish insulating wherever I haven’t reached yet.

The first time the power went out for more than an hour, I was anxious that putting our eggs in the electricity basket had been unwise. However, we noticed that the house did not cool very quickly. The insulation we had done so far was having an effect. It was the front rooms with their thinner walls and heritage windows that cooled the fastest and that’s where the fireplace was.

I also noticed that the bathroom floor, where the water heating pipes are embedded in concrete just below the tile, stayed warm for two hours or so. I realized that one great advantage to heating with underfloor hydronic pipes is that once the water is warm, it continues giving off heat for some time.

Once the house is finished, we will be able to last a long time without feeling the chill, but maybe you still think we need a back-up source of heat for longer emergencies. They tell you to be prepared for 72 hours without assistance.

My answer to that is my father-in-law Dave’s idea which he has helped us implement: the Toyota Prius as back-up generator. Read more about how we’re doing that here. When the wiring to the garage is complete, we can use the Prius or any other hybrid or electric car to power important stuff in the house like the fridge.

A more obvious solution is a large storage battery like Tesla’s Wall. Charge it in the daytime with solar panels and charge your car from the battery at night. If there is not enough to completely charge the car, BC Hydro will tip it up.

Incidentally, this is the same principal we hope to implement with the solar hot water panels someone handed down to us: heat a large tank of water in the heat of the day and use it (or simply let it warm the basement) in the evening.

It seems I have to get used to the idea that the house will be completed bit by bit. There will probably not be a ribbon-cutting ceremony. That fantasy of moving back in with all systems working perfectly is just that, a fantasy.

Meanwhile, it looks like it will be sunny tomorrow so the kids will go back to school. Then, later in the day, another winter storm is expected. At least now we know we can handle it.

Oops, we’re a little low on dry firewood…

Anybody got some?

Storms of Protest

We’re entering a new phase in the renovation and retrofit of Hammond Forever House.

If you would like to visit and learn more, send me an e-mail at [email protected] and we’ll try to arrange a time for me to show you around. There is lots of work still to be done and if you are willing to pitch in, we will not say no!

This past week was a difficult one. To make it possible to build the addition and upstairs dormer in the middle of winter, our contractor erected a huge plastic tent over the house. Smart, right?

Unfortunately, it leaks. Leanne and I have been mopping up the floor and setting containers under drips so that not too much water gets through. It’s not too much of a problem if water gets through to the new construction which will all dry out, but we have been noticing signs of water damage on the ceiling of the living and dining rooms which makes it hard to sleep on these rainy nights.

This photo might be upside down on mobile devices–sorry!

On Thursday evening, January 27th, Leanne and I contributed to a panel discussion after the screening of a film about environmental activism. The film was called “Disruption” and it was screened in Maple Ridge Council Chambers by Cinema Politica http://www.cinemapolitica.org/ridgemeadows.

Here’s what the movie synopsis says:

Disruption takes an unflinching look at the devastating consequences of our inaction. It lays bare the terrifying science, the shattered political process, the unrelenting industry special interests and the civic stasis that have brought us to this social, moral and ecological crossroads. We are living through an age of tipping points and rapid social and planetary change. We’re the first generation to feel the impacts of climate disruption, and the last generation that can do something about it. The film enlarges the issue beyond climate impacts and makes a compelling call for bold action that is strong enough to tip the balance to build a clean energy future. We still have much to do.

The film echoes my own belief that climate change is a crisis that demands immediate and radical action from all of us. The normal processes for changing the systems in our societies to respond to a threat are too slow and so mass protest is appropriate and reasonable to accelerate government response. It pointed out that many people are looking for a “silver bullet” to “solve” climate change, but that the problem is not so simple.

Just as we look to find a single solution, I think we also search for a single cause–a single group we can blame. However, consumers, governments and industries are all part of the system that needs to change. Our problem is the status quo. Our problem is inertia. One wheel can’t turn the car around, we have to work together.

It’s not going to be easy, but it could be exciting.

I did my best to share what we’re doing with Hammond Forever House but we’re in the middle of perhaps the most challenging part of the whole process, so it was hard for me to say how wonderful it is and how everyone should do it because I don’t know how it’s going to turn out.

Certainly I don’t want to simplify the challenge of reducing home energy use to something like, “homeowners should buy more insulation” because, as I’ve said before, homeowners are stretched in time and money. Only the rich among us can really “afford” to perform deep retrofits on their homes, but they are also able to afford paying high gas bills to heat their large houses, so few retrofits actually happen. People like Leanne and I with limited budgets and inefficient homes could make a big difference, but we don’t have the cash.

Do you see the opportunity there, Mr. Trudeau? TrudeauVan

I say we don’t have the cash, which is true, but, as you know, Leanne and I are doing it anyway. This is my personal form of protest. It’s only impossible until we do it, right?

I rambled a bit in the discussion, but that’s understandable. Leanne and I were both exhausted because the night before (Wednesday night) the plastic that was supposed to be covering the rear half of the house pretty much blew off, exposing it to the rain. For two hours we clambered all over the house in the middle of the night trying to secure the rain cover in a rain storm.

It’s hard to describe what happened, but Leanne did take a little video. In it you can see the top floor as it was last Tuesday and then what happened the following Wednesday night in the storm.

If the video is not playing for you here, you can watch it on youtube here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vKLthhmZe2Y

The next day we found some more plastic and secured another layer over the top. Now that the dormer and addition have been framed and the roof has its plywood sheathing, the rain cover can sit right on the roof instead of above it like a tent. The wind can’t get under it so easily now and, so far, it looks like the insides are drying out.

Soon we’ll have a new roof put on and then we’ll sleep a little better.

The First House

WH1930sLYH — Do you recognize these people sitting on our porch?

In 1922 when Carl, Leanne’s grandfather bought this property, there was one house on it with two rooms. Two rooms for his wife Lempi, Lempi’s mother, Lempi’s two daughters, and Carl. Quickly they built two front rooms onto the house.

If you would like to see a map of Hammond in 1912 click here.

By 1923 they had built a larger house next door, inspired by another Finnish family’s house in Webster’s Corners, a neighbourhood on the east side Maple Ridge. The big house is often called the Whitehead Residence, but we’re calling it Hammond Forever House these days.

The first house–we call it the Little Yellow House–was added on to again at the back when the municipal sewer was built. By 1937 both houses had the same footprint they do today. This is a page from the Statement of Significance we created as part of our Heritage Revitalization Agreement with the City of Maple Ridge.

Carl built other houses on the block and rented them out to men who worked in the mill like he did.

Lempi passed away and Carl married Leanne’s grandmother Anna. They had two children together: Julie, Leanne’s mom, and Jim.

Jim’s initials are carved in the side of the house and his BB gun pellets are embedded in the door of the garage. Apparently he was quite a scamp. Recently, he turned up some photos from the days when Carl’s first wife Lempi was still alive. These are from her photo album.

The first thing Julie noticed was that in one photo there is a doorway and small porch on the south side of the house.

That door doesn’t exist today. We don’t know who the people on the porch are. Do you?

Carl is on the left and Lempi is sitting third from the left. Do you recognize anyone else? This could have been on a beach in the lower mainland or in Chase, BC, where Carl and Lempi met before they moved to Port Hammond.

We have not had time to research who, what and where the rest of the photos depict, but I thought I would share them nevertheless. If you know any of these people (or dogs), please let me know! Click on the photo to enlarge it.

Steel Tube Extraction

And now, Ladies and Gentlemen, the moment you didn’t know you were waiting for…

the incredible James Rowley will extract a two-and-a-half-story steel tube from the pinnacle of the roof of a 1923 Craftsman-style cottage!

Can he do it? See for yourself!

Modern chimneys are built so that no liner is needed. But in an old brick chimney like this one, even if it is only being used by an oil furnace, the risk of fire is too great so my in-laws put one in.

Another way to avoid the risk of fire posed by chimneys is not have one and turn your home 100% electric like we hope to do. Electric heat pump, electric hot water heat, electric everything. That way, when we can afford solar panels, we can move our BC Hydro bill downwards and avoid burning fossil fuels.

Read more about the chimneys here, here and here!

Wood and wallpaper

Speaking of the living room, here is a little photo essay of that time in 2013 we got fed up with waiting for the renovations and refinished the living and dining rooms.

The floor was covered by old mangy carpet, the wood was pretty beat up, and the old heat registers were coated with asbestos.

Part of the reason was our tenants in the little yellow house were wood artists expert at finishing wood. They replaced the cabinets in the yellow house beautifully for us, so we hired them to work on “the big house”, too. We would never normally be able to afford such expertise, and they gave us a deal.

As you might expect, it wasn’t as simple as taking the carpet out, sanding everything, staining and then lacquering.

First, some of the slats on the wainscotting were cracked, so we wanted to replace them. Our tenant couldn’t find a matching size of wood in the stores, so if we had wanted the slats to match, he would have had to plane a thicker board very carefully down to half it’s thickness. He recommended replacing all the slats so they would all match, and that’s what we decided to do.

The blown-in foam insulation shows when the slats are removed. We put green tape on cracked wall boards.

Even back then, in 2013, we were planning to put the house on posts to dig down the basement, so it was a little crazy to be finishing the floors–there would inevitably be cracks between the boards as the house shifted–but we went ahead anyway. Two years later and just starting the reno now, we’re glad we did.

We started on the living room, the room with the fireplace. It took some planning. All the furniture was moved into the dining room and we put a plastic sheet between the rooms to contain the dust. Then we started sanding. First sand, stain and lacquer the wood around the windows and mantel, then do the same with the floor and finally paint the walls. The sanding and lacquer (he sprayed the lacquer) can make a mess of your paint, so leave the painting for last.

Please click on the photos to enlarge them.

With the mantel and window done, next the fir floor.

Leanne and I agreed easily on colours. Her parents believed the walls should be light to make them feel bigger. We felt the wallpaper print, with it’s gentle texture, cream colour and tiny flowers, was pretty bland. We thought darker, bolder colours would make the rooms warmer, cosier and more fun.

The problem I wrestled with for a few years was how to get around the wallpaper. We knew that there are several layers of old wallpaper going down to a very thick base layer. It would be a big job to strip it to get down to a paintable surface. I learned that there is something called “paintable wallpaper” you can buy and I almost did, but the idea of putting up wallpaper AND painting seemed like a lot of work.

Then it hit me. Why don’t we just paint THIS wallpaper? Is it “non-paintable wallpaper”? Will it dissolve if you paint it?

Apparently not. And it has a nice texture to it now.

The primer is tinted so you don’t need so much of the coloured paint

The dining room is larger and, with its wooden wainscotting, more complicated. When we removed the slats on the exterior walls, we discovered gaps where the blown-in foam had not reached. I was determined to fill them.

You may recall that Dave the father-in-law helped us by paying for half-pound foam insulation to be blown into the exterior walls through holes drilled from the outside. In these rooms, that’s the only way we could insulate those walls without ripping the exterior siding off or ripping apart the beautiful interior walls.

Unfortunately, it was very difficult to fill the irregular cavities to the max without over-doing it and bursting through the interior walls. That happened in a few places. I used a simple can of expanding foam to inject more foam into the cavities that I discovered. It was satisfying, but that stuff is not a cost-effective way to insulate a whole wall.

Here is the room with the carpet remaining but the slats removed:

On the wall of the dining room between it and the kitchen is a patch where an old stove pipe used to connect to the central chimney. We think there was a heating stove in each room at one time because the uninsulated house was so cold in winter.

Originally, of course, there was that great big sawdust furnace in the basement which would radiate heat up through those registers I showed you at the top of this post. Carl would get sawdust from Hammond Mill where he worked and Leanne’s mom Julie would play in the pile of it in the basement. But that’s another post, I think.

Our tenant suggested a lacquer with a glossy finish, but we thought a satin finish retained the original character of the room better. We ended up with glossy slats, which were stained and lacquered in his workshop, and everything else satin. It looks quite nice, but I learned a lesson about being firm and clear.

In the photo above left you can see the air compressor he used for the nail gun and sprayer. Next came the floor:

Iago and a doomed gerbil — Iago, Othello and a doomed gerbil.

And then the paint:

When people talk about electric cars, solar panels, energy efficient appliances, etc. they often tell you how long it will take for the thing to “pay for itself” in savings. The same standard never applies to other improvements like refinishing floors or walls. We do these expensive and challenging improvements because we want to, not because we’ll get cash back. I suppose we do talk about “resale value” which is a term probably invented by the real estate industry to keep us in the mindset of selling our home and “moving up” when we could retrofit and put down roots, instead.

These rooms are where we have had big Christmas dinners for the past 5 years. I would post a photo but my Dad doesn’t want to be famous.

Firewood after Christmas: one branch at a time.

They are also where we work on projects, like my nice big Home Energy Retrofit Project sign. When will that make its next appearance?

“That’s Carried”

Sorry to leave you in the dark for a couple of weeks. Were you wondering what happened at the Council meeting? Our Heritage Revitalization Agreement and Tax Exemption Bylaw had its final reading.

MayorCouncil — Maple Ridge Mayor and Council

It passed, of course, and that has triggered a flurry of activity at the house. I have been more busy working on the project and less busy blogging about it.

You can watch the council discuss our project at this link. Skip to slide number 80 just after the 1 hour 25 minute mark.

For all you document geeks out there, the agenda and reports can be found here. We are item 1006.

I don’t know how many of you really want to watch the historic moment, so here is a description from someone who was there, namely, me.

As I noted in my last post, after a public hearing, Council is not allowed to hear new information on a project. They may ask staff questions to clarify their understanding, but if new questions are coming up at final reading, something didn’t quite go as it should.

Nevertheless, with only two members of Council who were there for the first readings in 2013 plus a new Mayor, it was possible someone could get creative. Thankfully, that didn’t happen.

Looking back, I realise the big moment was when the planning department let us know that we had fulfilled the requirements asked of us to go to council for final reading. After that, which including laying down $16248 in security for a new storm sewer connection, the council vote was mostly a formality.

Mayor Nicole Read asked for questions or comments from the rest of council.

Councillor Masse spoke first, saying he thought it appropriate for staff to inform us what the tax exemption implies in terms of cost-benefit for the City.

Staff stated there is a 5 year tax exemption, on the municipal portion only, which we are interested in extending beyond the first 5 years. However, the application for extension can happen at a later date.

Councilor Masse said he sees a real benefit to the public in preserving these heritage buildings and that the applicant has gone through considerable expense to
comply with the process. Yes, a tax exemption is involved, but,

we’re getting great value for that.

It’s true we would like to extend the tax exemption if possible. In fact, I would like to see a precedent set whereby if the owners of a heritage house not only agree to preserve it but also improve it’s energy efficiency they become eligible for a further tax exemption. My reasoning is that many older buildings are inefficient and revitalizing and retrofitting go hand in hand if we want to achieve a community of liveable and viable heritage homes.

I don’t think this should be available to projects in which the density is being increased, for example when a house is moved to the corner of a lot so that townhomes may be built on the rest of it, because the developer is already profitting from the HRA. I want to address the people like us who simply want help preserving their heritage home.

Homeowners naturally want to retain flexibility. They want to be able to alter their home. The Heritage Revitalization process is cumbersome, but it is more flexible than people realize. Yes, we must consult with the heritage planning dept. before alterations are made. Yes, we may not bulldoze the house. However, reasonable alterations/modernizations can be made with a Heritage Alteration Permit. The tax exemption is not designed to cover all expenses, but it is something.

Of our roughly $10000 of tax exemption (our $2000 2014 municipal taxes projected forward 5 years) we have already spent more than $6000 on surveying the property and $4000 on the Statement of Significance and Conservation Plan. These could be done more cheaply (ours are excellent), but not by much. Even in a case simpler than ours the survey, SOS and Conservation Plan would be hard to avoid in the current process. How many homeowners, after all that, would invest in insulation and a heat pump?

Aside from being restrictive, I think another reason homeowners might be wary of heritage agreements is concern over comfort and heating costs. “Am I going to be stuck with a drafty, expensive-to-heat house? I want to preserve it but if it becomes too expensive to heat and I have trouble selling it, I want to retain the option of knocking down and building new.” We could take the sting out of that problem by adding a further tax incentive for retrofitting the home in a way that is sensitive to its heritage character.

Governments giving incentives to improve energy efficiency? What a good idea! That would stimulate the local economy, too! Jobs, jobs, jobs!

Of course, this is really the purview of the Provincial and Federal Governments, but the Conservative federal government killed the EcoEnergy grant program and BC’s Liberal government has passed the buck to the utilities. In the absence of leadership from higher levels, we are left with our over-burdened municipal governments who may offer tax incentives, but can barely afford that. Maple Ridge can certainly use all the property tax revenue it can get.

After Councilor Masse spoke, Councilor Spiers said,

It’s a great pleasure to vote for this and support it. What I would like to do is mine this for further opportunities where we can offer incentive for folks that own a heritage home–it’s three or four generations that have gone through these homes…and make the process a little easier. I know that there was a little bit of frustration on the proponents side but we could use that to make it easier next time. This will come through the heritage commission and I’ll certainly mention that we could bring other mechanisms forward that would make it easier for people to step up. These folks were stepping up no matter what, so I really appreciate what they’ve done.”

Councilor Duncan,

“Things like this are dear to my heart because I used to live in a heritage home, so for me I think the idea of preserving heritage homes is fantastic. I’m very happy to support that. It’s a great way to not only preserve history in our own community but also add to the character. It’s the kind of thing that doesn’t come up very often, but when it does I think the community is very much behind it. It’s what helps build a really unique community. People love seeing these houses restored and kept. I think it’s great we’ve got an application coming forward and I hope that we have more and I would agree that if there is any way we can help support that, I think that would be great.

Councilor Shymkiw,

“It’s an impressive piece of work. I think it’s going to make a real contribution to both the neighbourhood and the community.

Finally, Mayor Read,

“I just want to myself give a big shout out to James Rowley and Leanne Koehn for all of their hard work. It’s amazing. Heritage is so incredibly important to this community and all communities, so I’m grateful. I trust that there were probably some learning experiences along the way so I really look forward to having those shared potentially through the heritage commission and Councilor Spiers and back to Council. Anything that we can learn from the process will help us to improve our process going forward. I support Councilor Speirs in saying I’d like to do all we can to encourage further revitalization of heritage homes.
All in favour? None opposed. That’s carried.

That was it.

Sort of anti-climactic.

Now the real work begins!

The Secret Passage

My grandparents’ house had a secret passage.

When we stayed at their beautiful stone house in Langford, Oxfordshire, England, my two brothers and I slept in two upstairs bedrooms. One day we looked behind the red curtain which hung on the wall behind the dresser in one of the rooms.

There was a door.

It was clearly (in our imaginations) a secret door that Granny and Grandad wanted noone to discover. Everything became instantly more interesting.

We opened the door and found the best thing a child could possibly find in an old stone house: spiral stairs leading down. Whispering all the way, my brothers and I crept down into the darkness.

At the bottom there was another curtain. We had no idea what to expect if we drew it aside. We could have ended up in some underground lair or a passage to London. We peeked carefully, not knowing if there would be bad guys on the other side or monsters.

It was the sitting room.

Did someone tell me it was used as a servants’ passage or did I make that up? I can’t believe such a small house ever had servants scurrying about in passages.

There was an off-shoot passage halfway down the spiral staircase that had a very small door. Behind the door was the room above the garage. I stayed in that room later when I visited my grandparents as a young man travelling on my own. Good memories.

That house was magical for three boys. The large English garden with its stone work, paths and fishpond, the thick stone walls, the wooden floors and the smell and the echoes. And the secret passage. It was all fantastic.

It’s the kind of experience you want to give your own children.

I shared with you a little of what Hammond Forever House was like when we first moved in. The closets between the upstairs bedrooms share a wall. In the summer when it became unbearably hot up there, I considered cutting a hole in the wall and mounting a fan to create a draft from one room to the other through the closets. With the windows open that might cool the rooms a bit.

I joked that we could cut a door–a secret passage–when the kids were too young to notice and then let them discover it when they were older. I could imagine their expressions and how their eyes would bug out just like mine had all those years ago.

By the time Leanne and I were certain that we would put a bathroom between the kids’ bedrooms in place of the awkward closets, the kids were too old to fool so easily. There was no reason not to alter the closets since they would be gutted anyway.

The plan -- any room for magic? — The plan — any room for magic?

I told them the story of the secret passage in Middle House, Langford and got them good and worked up.

Then one day I cut a hole, sanded it down and showed them. They loved it and still do. It is a major attraction to any child who visits the house for a playdate. The only down side is the hole makes the closets even less useful for storing anything. One is full of stuffed toys (soft to clamber over as you head to the passage) and the other is just a small playroom, really.

The Secret Passage in the girl's room — The Secret Passage in the girl’s room

Just like the bathroom walls, covered as they are in memories and child-art, we will be sad to see the secret passage be destroyed for the sake of progress.

My son who is 6 has been very excited about the prospect of having a trapdoor that leads to the basement, but I had to let him know today that it will probably not happen. He took it well.

I believe it is important to build magic into your plans. Annabel the Architect told us that she may be able to find a place for a secret passage or two. Now if only magic were free.

The Secret Passage in the boy's room — The Secret Passage in the boy’s room

PS: After my Grandad died Granny couldn’t live in the house any longer and it was eventually sold. I wonder if anyone has since tried to turn it into a net-zero energy house? It would be an even bigger challenge than the one Leanne and I face.

Category: Heritage