Vision of a new office part 2 – This Old House

Being the experienced Project Managers that we are, we planned this project meticulously with budgets, projections, decorating plans by individual rooms, screening contractors, receiving multiple written quotes, etc. From this, we put together a solid and tight schedule and budget with confidence in our abilities and work ethic. And then of course, as anyone who has worked on an old house will tell you, our plans almost immediately smashed upon the hard rocks of reality……

The house had a modern electrical panel indicating that the wiring had been replaced and the house inspection agreed.

However….

We were removing an interior wall and found Knob and Tube electrical wiring from around the 1920s. “How quaint,” we thought, “must be leftover…..wait a minute that’s livewire!”

The past renovators had replaced the panel but not the questionable 100-year-old wiring.

Vision believes in safety, and this was not safe. Following our values, we decided to rewire the entire house. Which meant a lot of this:

And once you look behind the walls of a 110-year-old house you also find:

-The plumbing is a mess and touching it means bringing it all up to code.

-The HVAC is a mess and touching it means bringing it all up to code.

And, yes it gets worse….

Once you start disturbing old walls and floor coverings you find.

Asbestos.

Not a lot, but having any means:

Wrapping half the house in tarps, air movers, portable showers, clean rooms, permits, monitoring, training, consultants……. 3 days of setting up and 3 days of tear down for about a day and a half of work, (suited and under a mask). But it’s all done now, and we have an ‘Asbestos Free’ certificate for the house. It also means the teardown part of the work is finished and it’s time to rebuild!

Electrical, Plumbing and HVAC permits are getting pulled and the rebuild is starting.

Stay tuned for our next update!