Water management, big and small

Last Saturday, Jackson and I participated in a workshop focused on water management that featured presentations by several area experts on urban planning, hydrology engineering, environmental science, and building science.  

Ramiro Diaz of Waggonner & Ball Architects described the work their firm is doing to imagine and plan for a wholly new way of handling and living with the enormous quantities of water that surround our city all the time and fall on us in storms both small and -- cross your fingers -- large.   They are developing the concepts that resulted from the Dutch Dialogues, a partnership of "Dutch engineers, urban designers, landscape architects, city planners and soils/hydrology experts and, primarily, their Louisiana counterparts."  The gist of Dutch Dialogues, and Mr. Diaz's subsequent work, is to find ways of increasing the city's capacity to detain water and remove water and reducing the long-term costs of drainage, all while using the drainage system as an asset to the community, rather than their current status as invisible or ugly. 

Louis Jackson of CDM described the work he is doing under contract with the City to assess and propose ways of increasing the capacity of the current drainage system.  A major part of his project has involved mapping the city's existing drainage on a block-by-block level and modeling how it would perform in storm events of various intensities.  The long and short of his conclusions thus far, paraphrased: bigger pipes, more pumps, lots of money.

Jennifer Roberts of Bayouland RC&D presented the environmental impact of drainage water on the Pontchartrain Watershed as a whole (it's polluted, but progress is being made), highlighted major sources of pollution in drainage water (oily & littered streets, soil runoff from construction sites, pet- and human-related bacteria), and described how citizens can help improve our watershed in their own homes and neighborhoods (keep storm drains clear, and don't dump your trash/paint/crawfish boil down them; reduce or slow down runoff from your property).

Steve Picou of the LSU Agcenter discussed some of the primary ways of reducing and slowing runoff, as well as a few other water management issues for homeowners: keep water away from your foundation and out of your house; reduce impervious surfaces like large, circular concrete driveways; include gravel in your landscaping; and plant rain gardens.

A local organization called Groundwork NOLA specializes in helping people set up rain gardens, as part of their larger mission for "sustained regeneration, improvement, and management of the physical environment by developing community-based partnerships that empower people businesses and organization to promote environmental, economic and social well-being". 

This Old House magazine offers a variety of tips and plans for installing your own rain management system: link.

Hire EPA-Certified Contractors

There are numerous reasons to think carefully when hiring a contractor.  Liability issues.  Reliability.  True knowledge of a craft.  Real value versus initial cost.  Proper tax filing and employment policies. 

This morning's Times-Picayune points out another reason: 60% of New Orleans homes and yards have dangerous levels of lead.  Link.  When you prepare to remodel or repair your home, be sure to ask your contractor whether she has been certified by the EPA to protect your family and your neighbors from the dangers of lead poisoning. 

Learn more at the EPA's web site for the Renovation, Repair, and Painting law : Link.

By the way, it is a federal law that your contractors follow these regulations.  Add it to the list of laws being skirted or broken by that cheap guy with a pickup and a couple tools.  Please, think carefully when hiring a contractor. 

A New Kitchen, Nearly

Now with cabinets installed, Simone & Michele's kitchen awaits quartz counters, appliances, and a custom range vent surround.  Jackson is modifying an old, salvaged, cypress door casing and mantelpiece into a retro-fashionable focal point.  The piece will also serve to hide unsightly but beneficial ductwork for the range vent. cabinets. 

The salvaged trim details in this new kitchen came from The Bank Architectural Salvage on Felicity Street in New Orleans.  We'll have them painted with a faux finish to approximate the finish on the cabinets.

The window on the left takes the place of a door to the former upstairs apartment on this house.  Now the cased opening by the mantel, which used to be a wall and bookshelves, is one of two pathways to the stairs.

Update on Master Suite & Kitchen Remodel

Keen readers may recall Michelle & Simone's remodel project, a combination kitchen overhaul, master suite creation, and unification of two apartments.  I've been remiss in not posting updates on that project more often: the last photos on this page are of bare studs, but believe me we haven't been idle.  Here are some more recent images, soon to be followed by current ones.

First, the exterior.  Nearly midway through the interior projects, we increased the scope of work by removing vinyl to reveal the house's original siding.  After making repairs to squirrel-eaten cornice returns and re-glazing windows, we and our painters, M&R Painting, removed all the old lead paint (being as much in compliance with RRP rules as possible in a Louisiana July).  The house is in the final stages of prep for a new coat of paint and the addition of operable shutters on the front.  Oh, and we also removed the door on the right hand side, replaced it with a window, and added another window above it. 

Jackson and I are adding the final pieces of tile on the tub deck.  The orange on the floor is a ballyhooed, possibly over-sold, possibly genius material called Ditra-mat.  (www.schluter.com/) We've used it on numerous tile jobs, putting faith in the material because it is both German and expensive.  Therefore it must do its job, right?  I should confess that I suffer a form of neurosis regarding tile floors.  I'm not comfortable with standard practice.  We added a plethora of  reinforcing blocks in the framing, a layer of cement backer board, a high-end Swedish leveling cement, plus the Ditra-mat.  I hope to report in two hundred years that the tile is holding up just fine.   I'll admit there is an unfortunate consequence to all those layers.  The tile floor is now an inch taller than the floors in adjacent rooms.

This is the shower, nearly tiled, and undergoing a second water test before having the tile finished.  We plugged the drain, filled the shower floor with water, marked its level, and left it alone for a day.  Tiled showers too often develop leaks, which quickly causes the need for major, expensive repairs.  We like to be extra-sure that leaks aren't present from the beginning.  Then, when completing a project, we bombard the homeowners with reminders to check regularly for cracks in the grout, and to deal with any cracks immediately -- just in case.

This is a view from the hallway into the master bedroom.  The differing floor color is a result of us re-laying the section of floor on the right.  Where the lighter colored floor on the left is used to be the hallway wall, which we removed to add about forty square feet to the bedroom. 

Finally, the kitchen-slash-storeroom.  It's an embarrassing mess in this photo, but I include it for the sake of contrast.  We had the cabinets installed yesterday by Sexton Cabinets. 

After wind and rain

Now that Tropical Storm Lee has passed us by, it seems a good time to urge all you homeowners to be prepared for the next time we see one of these close up. 

First, clean your gutters out.  They're sure to have a lot of debris that will lower their effectiveness in the next rain. 

Second, consider your windows.  Any leaks?  Rattles or loose pieces?  Panes that need to be reglazed?  (Hint, if the glazing is missing, dried up, cracked, or generally looks ancient, it should be addressed.) 

Third, are your shutters in good, operable condition?  If you don't have shutters, do you have plywood already cut to cover your windows in the event of a big one?  And is it accessible, or buried under a thousand paint cans or a compost pile? 

Fourth, how is your roof?  Check your ceiling, attic, and rooftop for leaks, loose shingles, floppy flashing, exposed nails, missing or dried and cracked caulking.  Even if you didn't have leaks during Lee, investing in some maintenance work by a roofing contractor could save you from spending a lot more money with roofers and a lot of other contractors in the future. 

Finally, back to the windows: can you open yours?  If not, will your central air system work if the next storm knocks out power?  Air conditioning has convinced many people to caulk their windows shut -- a terrible idea if you ever lack power.  Plus, Lee seems to have blown in autumn, a time of year when a one-time investment in window screens could allow you to turn off that central air machine for a couple months. 

Please allow me to introduce 2020 Baronne Street, the new, very old home of Kerby & Co.  This spring Jackson and I encountered a small housing crisis when our longtime landlords suddenly announced they intended to sell, preferably without us in our apartment.  After a scramble, a few lucky breaks, and a frenzied month and a half, we moved in to a home of our own.  During the next eight years of renovation, we'll be posting pictures of it like a first grandchild.  Here are a few:

The front foyer ceiling boasts the only surviving medallion.  Three others have already fallen.  We hope to eventually make replicas. 

A view from the back yard looking forward.  We have work to do!

A More Efficient Attic

My last post (posted an eon ago) focused on the drawbacks of having central air equipment in an uninsulated attic.  Here are a couple photos of the attic in another house we're working on.  This attic has had open-cell spray foam applied to the underside of the roof deck and rafters.  The central air equipment will, therefore, be operating in a much less hostile environment.  The equipment should run less, last longer, won't collect condensation, and if any ducts leak, no problem: they'll still be leaking into the house they are conditioning, rather than into an attic that's vented to the great outdoors. 

However, I cannot unequivocally endorse this spray-foam approach.  There are a few drawbacks.  First, because the foam creates such an impermeable barrier between the interior and exterior of a house, any moisture released inside the house -- from breathing, showering, cooking, laundering -- is trapped inside.  This has been known to cause mold problems and deterioration of drywall and wall, floor, or ceiling finishes.  Thus, in addition to the relatively expensive foam insulation, extra money needs to be invested in ventilation systems, and a more sophisticated central air system. 

The second drawback, from my point of view as a remodeler, is that spray-foam is far more difficult to work with than other types of insulation if a home needs an addition, or routine repairs. 

My third concern about using foam on the underside of a roof is this: a tiny leak in shingles over a conventionally insulated attic will appear as a stain on the ceiling below it, but a roof leak over a foamed roof may not be evident until an entire section of your roof's framing and decking is so rotten that it sloughs off to the ground below.  That is no doubt a paranoid, worst-case scenario, but it ought to be considered. 

Much more about the missing months of posts coming soon.