Starting a Job Ensures Wet Weather
Clearly, we were goading the rain gods and tempting fate when, in the midst of Southern California’s winter, we stripped away the roof over our Venice home. Cynical folk wisdom and Murphy’s Law insist that simply washing your car in the morning guarantees that dark clouds fat with moisture will be overhead by dusk. Our rash action was sure to bring a deluge. Indeed, soon afterward a record rainfall besieged Los Angeles, much of it falling directly into our living room.
We knew we were risking bad weather when we began a major remodel and addition to our home last November. The roof had to come off to allow a new second story to rise above it. To compound the difficulties, we intended living in the house while the work was being done. For a major part of the anticipated seven months of construction, our home and our lives would be exposed and vulnerable to the elements.
Friends and neighbors were convinced of our folly. Why not just wait the six months for spring, they asked. But our patience had been worn thin waiting for loan approval and the required coastal development and building permits. And our architect, Rick Davidson, suggested that, although there were weather risks, you can often get lower bids on a job in the winter when the construction trades are slow.
Rain can cause many problems during construction. It erodes the trenches dug for foundations and impedes the curing of concrete. Wet wood is harder to cut and to nail. Boards warp and twist as they absorb water and then dry. Plywood loses its smooth finish. Unwanted fungi suddenly appear. Black stains mark the location of rusting nails. Dry wall, insulation and pressed wood can turn to mush. Some paints, plaster and wall board compound refuse to dry when rain sends the humidity skyrocketing.
With reasonable care and patience, rain doesn’t have to stop a project in its tracks. If that was the case nothing would get built in the Pacific Northwest, where rain is a fact of life. “We just put on boots and jackets and do it,” says Casey Voorhees, of the Western Building Materials Assn. in Olympia, Wash. “It’s slow and it’s no fun. But we work right through in the rain.”
Southern California’s semi-arid climate can quickly dry rain-logged construction materials. “The problem here isn’t working in the rain,” Davidson says. “It’s when you open an existing house. You have to be extremely careful of everything in it.”
The specification we provided to potential contractors included a provision that the work and home be protected from rain damage. We got reasonable bids for the work and the contractor we selected assured us he would make every effort to seal out the rain.
The rains greeted us almost immediately, turning the excavations for our new foundation into irrigation ditches. Later storms soaked the framing lumber and our new stud walls and joists groaned and cracked for several days after they were nailed in place, straining as the wood dried in the sun.
The contractor was patient and waited until a span of dry weather was projected before demolishing our old roof. When it was over we had, as a carpenter joked, a room with a view. Actually, three rooms and a bath were open to the skies. My wife prepared meals in the kitchen while watching the stars in the sky above. From the living room you could see jetliners and police helicopters passing overhead.
The next storm surprised us completely. Weather reports had given rain a relatively low probability. The sky felt tropical and seemed unlikely to bring more than a quick sprinkle. But suddenly, just at nightfall, thunder exploded and a torrent was unleashed upon us. This rain was relentless. Water poured off the white kitchen cabinets and washed across our linoleum floor. It drenched our appliances and turned the living room rug into a shaggy swamp.
The sudden onslaught tore our contractor away from a televised hockey game. Clad in a sailor’s bright yellow foul weather gear, he balanced on the beginnings of our second story joists and struggled to fasten down sheets of protective plastic. “Just part of the job,” he later said.
The tarps and sheeting gradually slowed and contained the rain. Despite the deluge, the real damage was minimal. The carpet, reeking of mildew, was lost. Bubbles formed under the kitchen flooring. Luckily, they were due to be replaced, anyway.
Subsequent rains brought more attacks. Each time, despite everyone’s effort, the rain invaded with, as they say in the boxing world, bad intentions. During one downpour the rain collected in the unfinished upstairs plumbing and poured out of a pipe that aimed it right into the kitchen. Some hastily nailed scrap-wood diverted the flow back outside.
The day before the roofers were scheduled to arrive, the skies opened up again. Rain seeped in through a vent that punctured the roof sheeting, dripping through the light fixtures and seeping into the bathroom medicine cabinet. Again, scrap wood nailed together formed a path to lead the water away from areas where damage might occur.
Living with a remodeling job in progress isn’t easy and rain certainly heightens the tensions. Viewing the world through the foggy “clear” plastic sheeting that wrapped the house quickly grew tiresome. Every threatening weather report and gray cloud increased our anxiety. Wind and pounding rain lashed and creaked the protective plastic on the house, creating fearsome sounds that made sleep impossible. Shrouds of blue plastic prevented late-night refrigerator raids and made meal preparation inconvenient--at best. Avoiding electric circuits that were exposed to the water often meant using flashlights to get around in the dark.
Still, the work slowly moved forward and the rains lessened and gave way to spring sun. We finally had a roof over our head and crews were doing the interior and exterior finish work. Somehow we had survived. Our days of remodeling in the rain were finally over.
