I haven’t mentioned it on the blog, but I was a huge fan of Oregon Measure 63.  It allows home owners to forgo building permits for work on their own homes other than electrical.  Considering the fact that many states don’t require any permits for work done on your own home, I suppose I had a naive hope that it would pass with a healthy margin.

But no, it failed.  Amazing what a little ‘buy or die’ advertising funded by contractors, labor unions, and home builders can accomplish.  I mean, you can’t blame them.  If even small home improvement projects didn’t require delays, red tape, and multiple inspections your average Joe not-a-plumber might actually try to fix his own leaking water pipe.  Oregon media outlets have no excuse however.  I read almost all the coverage on this measure, and most of it was written by people who blatantly hadn’t read the measure.  The few who didn’t make huge false statements resorted to pathetic sensationalism.  “Unsafe and unpermitted changes could expose public health officials and neighbors to dangerous plumbing work!”  Oh my.

So, it seems the whole “liberty thing” is so 1776 with the modern voter.  Benjamin Franklin once wrote “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.” Hmm, sounds like he was talking about building permits.

But hey, the people have spoken.  For everyone who voted NO on measure 63, I’m proposing a new measure I’d like to get on the next ballot.  All you anti-63′ers will love this too–it promises to save at least 100 lives a year while reducing air pollution and increasing tax and ticket revenue to the county.  Heck, the anti-63 crowd could only drum up a couple fatal incidents involving non-permitted work for all their scare campaigns.  Presenting …

Proposed Oregon Measure 2305

Each year over 500 Oregonians die in tragic car accidents.  It has been observed that a disproportional number of these accidents occur at night, particularly when alcohol is a factor.  Thus, in an effort to protect citizens from the risks of nighttime driving, a ban is proposed on all driving between the hours of 11PM and 5AM.  This ban extends to the use of all motorized vehicles. Emergency vehicles are exempt from the restrictions.

Of course, the state of Oregon would not want to infringe on behavior that some might consider an essential liberty.  Thus, certain reasonable exemptions are allowed.  Commercial drivers working for an Oregon licensed taxi service are of course allowed to operate a vehicle during the restricted hours.   As the state would not want it to be obvious that we forcing our citizens to pay a business for their evening transportation needs, a permitting process will also be established to allow ordinary citizens to operate a vehicle during the restricted hours.

Remember that nighttime driving permits are issued for your safety and that of others.  If you do not remember this, the fines and legal trouble will assist you.  Permits for vehicle operation between the hours of 11PM and 5AM are charged based on the distance that will be driven at a rate of $.50 / mile.  There is an additional $5 ‘technology’ fee for all trips under 2 miles, or a $20 fee for longer trips.  We’re calling it a ‘technology fee’ even though you won’t be able to apply for these permits online.  Trips made using a car or minivan require only a brief description of the route to be taken.  Trips made using a pick-up truck will require a detailed map.  All trips which follow a road with a speed limit above 50mph will be subject to an additional 40% route review fee.  All permits are subject to a 20% administrative fee, a 10% issuing fee, and a 30% roadway safety fee. Refer to the associated fee schedule if you have trouble calculating the exact dollar amount for your driving fee.

We have streamlined the process of permit issue for the maximum convenience of the driving public.  You can apply in person for permits at the Department of Nocturnal Motor Vehicles which is open during normal business hours of 9AM to 5PM.  The application process should take no more than 30 minutes, unless there is a line.  The Department will then respond to your permit request within 2 weeks.  You must pick up the permit in person as well.  Once approved, you should call to request a vehicle mileage inspection prior to your nighttime driving occurrence.  You must schedule the inspection before the evening on which you will drive.  If our schedule is full for that day, you should schedule it on the day before and then not move the vehicle.  The inspector will visit your home and verify the starting mileage of your vehicle.  You will then be allowed to proceed with your nighttime drive, being careful to display your permit in the back window of your vehicle.  Upon completing your driving event, you should again call to schedule an inspection.  It is not permissible to move the vehicle until the follow up inspection occurs, which may also be one to two days after the evening in question.  The final inspected mileage must agree with your permit mileage or your vehicle will be red tagged and cannot be moved.  You will have to repeat the inspection and nighttime drive to gain final approval.

Note that during periods of increased demand, the entire process may take 4 to 6 weeks or more.  Be sure to schedule early to ensure that you are able to exercise your “right” to nighttime driving on the evening planned.

We could go into further detail about all the penalties and pain involved in violating any of these rules, or even just catching one of our mileage inspectors on a bad day .. but what would be the point.  Be assured that this proposal will ensure a healthy income to the state from permit fees and will greatly increase the profits of local Taxi services (who are a major sponsor of this measure).

If you don’t see the humor in that, you might need to visit the Lane County Building Department.  I’ve read basically everything on that site, and the above passage is modeled closely on the existing system.  And don’t think that a ridiculous measure like this couldn’t get passed.  I could probably get broad support for it.  The older demographics and families with kids would probably support it, because they are rarely on the roads during those hours anyway.  Taxi and Limo services would support it for the revenue gains.  Road workers would support it for the reduced traffic at night.  Throw in some general support by anti-DUI groups and a few poorly written pieces in the local media, and I can see the signatures rolling in already …

Who, me?  Bitter?

As I’ve said before, the blessing and the curse of gutting a building is that you find all the flaws.  Ever since I gutted the walls in the back bedroom I’ve felt suspicious about the closet.  The closets upstairs were just tacked on additions with no ulterior motives.  But this closet downstairs .. it was framed out with 4×4s and on a pedestal.  I decided to leave it until after the ceiling was out.

I’m glad I did.  When the dust settled from falling plaster and the last hazel nut rattled to a stop on the floor, this is what we saw:

From my reading on timber frame construction, I know that notching a horizontal member greatly diminishes it’s strength.  How does that translate to stick construction?  Well, the book Code Check 5th Edition says that the middle 1/3rd of floor joists may not be notched at all and the outer thirds may only be notched to 1/6th the depth of the joist and only on the top.  Yeah .. um .. how many of the rules do these notches break?

It appears that their solution to this damage was to create a ‘load bearing closet’.  Then they framed in some cross members with joist hangers to pass some of the floor load above onto this closet.  I believe at least one of those pipes is an active water line, so we’ll have to have a second bathroom functional before trying to straighten out this particular mess.

I’m certainly no Bob Villa.  I’ll even admit to sitting at a desk in my day job.  But if you do a bit of reading on home construction topics, you realize that there is a central theme to it called “common sense”.  Gravity is trying to pull everything down, heat travels from warm areas to cold areas, electricity will follow the path of least resistance, etc.

Unfortunately, Horace Greeley was right: “Common sense is uncommon.”  Old homes are often great demonstration grounds for this sort of thing. Decades of hacked solutions to immediate problems layer onto neglect and complacency .. perhaps some pictures sum it up best:

My wife says I say “Oh crap!” a lot while tearing things apart.  Maybe this is true.  Gutting an old house reveals all the flaws you didn’t know about when you bought it.  Sometimes they are things you are suspicious of, like this bee’s nest:

The bees entered through a hole in the cedar shakes left by a cable TV installer, and built a nest at the bottom of the stud bay.  Since it took about 5 minutes to deal with them (a can of Raid and running away), why do people just let nests live in their walls?  I like bees.  I might even have a few hives at some point .. but they will be outside in boxes!

Another “Oh crap!” moment came when we first knocked out the insulation bats in one room so we could see the roof:

On closer inspection I realized we had skip sheathing on the roof.  I don’t know why this came as a surprise.  I knew the roof was originally cedar shake with 3-tab composite on top.  Cedar shakes are normally installed on skip sheathing to allow them to breath better.  Well .. new cedar roofs don’t meet fire code unless doused in nasty chemicals, so we’ll be re-sheathing the whole roof in OSB for a different roofing product.  Not an expense I had expected, but not that costly either.

The last two pictures are not of “Oh crap!” moments.  The first simply shows the current state of upstairs gutting.  No walls at all on the bedroom.  Plaster off in the hallway.

And finally, lest you think everything we tear out is going to waste, this shot into the other bedroom shows the huge pile of trim lumber we have saved.  My hope is to reuse original trim wood where possible.  All of this trim was painted, so we’ll have to find similar painted uses for it.  There’s also two baseboard heaters, and a huge pile of the veener siding in that pile.  The baseboard heaters are going to scrap metal.  It is quite possible that we will end up with baseboard heat to supplement our wood stove, but I’ll be searching for “baseboard heaters least likely to burn down your house” before making any purchases.

Duct tape of course. We found two of these fix jobs in the house.