Fun Facts and Figures

This is one section that I'm experimenting with at the request of the reader. It's hard to think back to all the interesting facts info we have learned or experienced so far, but here are a few fun facts and figures from the project so far.


Dumpsters:
We've gone through six dumpsters so far courtesy of Frey's Disposal, and we're working on our seventh. Apparently to anyone who knows anything about dumpster capacity and use (not me) that's quite a few. As I've recently learned a roll-off (another term for a dumpster) is twelve cubic yards. It costs us $100 to get one dropped off and then when they get picked up and weighed we are charged $45/ton. The bill so far(just for the first four): $893. If you do some quick math that means we've hauled 13.7 tons of debris out of the house!

Recycling:
Believe it or not, that's not all of what we've pulled out of the house. Ryan and Mike brought all the metals that have been taken out so far to Price's Salvage and Recycling last week. Copper is really what's worth separating, because it can be used again in more ways than general scrap metal. For our dirty copper (copper that hasn't yet been stripped of any fittings that may be made of other metals) the going rate is $2.25/lb (apparently very high) and Ryan made it out with $175 for the copper, which means he went in with almost 78lbs of copper. For the mix of other metals that came out of the house the pay-off is $40/ton, we got $15 back for that.

Paperwork:
Outside of the physical labor there's not only planning to be done, but permits to be obtained. Because Lewisburg is classified as a historic district, all renovations must maintain historic integrity on the street facing side of the house. We filed for the historic permit last week and we must appear at the meeting of this historical board this Tuesday evening to present the work we plan to do so that we can get their approval to go ahead. Luckily, the idea of preserving the exterior of the house is exactly our plan, so this part of the process should go well. In conjunction with the historical permit we have to file for a zoning permit, even though we don't plan to change the existing footprint of the house. Lastly, we just need a basic building permit for the work we are doing as a whole. Although none of these should present a problem, it will be nice to have what we need so that there are no holdups in the work.

Skilled-Labor:
As far as any tips or instruction on what has been done so far, most of it has really been grunt-work. Of course Ryan has supervised, but when I have been around he has pretty much just handed me a hammer or a shovel or a crow-bar and given me free-reign. Some of the specifics of labeling the "hot" (active) wires and taking out the dead ones has certainly taken some more skill, but I hope to keep readers informed of some of the more skilled work that is up and coming.

Items of Note:
Last but not least, we like to keep track of anything interesting we find as we go through the house. So far two things of note. One, a barely readable postcard found in one of the fireplaces with a postmark from 1898. It seems to be a short note and recipe, but we can't decipher who it was written to or who wrote it and where they sent it from. The only other item of interest is a large, long, fully intact snake-skin that was hanging from the ceiling of the back addition. Hard to tell how long it has been there, but we're hoping it's the only one we find!