Todd S Construction LLC
This project started out as a well/pump house, with its T-111 siding falling off and vines growing behind it along with extensive insect and bee penetration. Pictures below. The homeowner wanted to add a shed to it for storage space for garden tools for the garden he wanted to make. The building was 12'x8' and he wanted to add on 12'x12'. Initially we were going to re-side the pump house and replace the shingles on the roof when we tied in the new roof but that would come later because first I needed to do the footing and slab for the new building. It needed to have the same floor elevation as the pump house but it also needed to have an outward swinging door that the homeowner wanted to be 4' wide to get things like wheel barrows in and out. So I cut into the hill and formed up stem walls on the uphill side leaving enough room for the door frame and opening radius of the door. I poured the concrete and set my wall tie downs, then framed the 3 walls. I turned my attention to the roof next and went up to strip the old shingles off the roof. What I found was that it had 3 layers of shingles already on it, more than is supposed to be in the first place, but also because the building had been neglected for so long and the flashing around the roof had been installed incorrectly, dry rot had eroded a lot of the sub structure. I talked with the homeowner and we both decided it would be best to just replace the roof entirely and build one roof over the whole building. Once the roof was off however, the race was on because now the insulation in the ceiling was exposed and rain was coming on Monday. I ended up working through the weekend to get the roof on and fully shingled just in time for Monday's rain.
Next came replacing the siding. I removed all the siding except for the front where there are water and electrical penetrations I would have to deal with and I didn't want to needlessly expose to the elements prematurely. Also, the back window on the pump house was an old aluminum framed window with a crack and a hole in it so it needed to be replaced. I had ordered 2 windows, one to replace the existing and one for a matching window on the new shed. The frames were close, but the existing window was about 4 inches wider, so I had to fur in the frame of the wall and install the windows. Siding was definitely challenging. The homeowner wanted to do Hardie board siding, which 4x8 sheets of cementitious siding are very heavy by yourself. I got the building fully sided except for the portion at the front of the pump house with the door and water and electrical penetrations. The door to the shed was a bit unique for me because the homeowner wanted something outside the standard and of course not too expensive either. The only thing I was able to find were sliding barn doors for interior applications. So after some research I found that I could use them in exterior applications so long as they were properly protected. I was able to find a sliding barn door that wasn't pre-drilled for the sliding pieces and I custom made a door frame with hinges for the door.
Finally came the hard part. I needed to cut the old siding off around the electrical connections and live water lines and find a way to reinstall without notching the siding and trying to patch in areas that would make water intrusion more likely. The lower water connections I couldn't really do anything with, but ultimately, notching around those wasn't a big deal because they were at the bottom of the wall. The hose bib and electrical coming in like 2' up was an issue. The water line had no valve for the hose bib, it was plumbed in between the pressure pump and the pressure tank, so I turned everything off, drained the lines and added in a valve making that pretty simple. I removed the bib to install the siding, and drilled through to reinstall. The electrical wasn't so easy, the building was sheeted on the inside and too much stuff in the way to remove the wall panels. Since there was already a junction on the outside of the wall, I cut the electrical line there and was able to put the new siding up with holes pre-drilled and the position I needed to match and fed the electrical wires through while putting the sheet up. Challenging for sure, but the end result made it worth it. I also had to replace the existing door to the pump house. The door's frame was falling apart and dry rot was evident in the studs adjacent to it, not to mention termite or ant holes. The door was an odd size too. It was 30"x70" so I was able to find an exterior door that was 30" but everything is 80" tall now so I had to cut into the wall and replace the header. What was fun was the amount of bees nested INSIDE the wall, preparing for hibernation in the insulation. Fortunately for me, it was cold that morning when I opened up the wall and they were pretty inactive.
