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Residential Historic Preservation Project: Carmen

A miner's 1890 cabin complete structural remodel

By High Altitude Finishes

September 20^th, 2021

Our company acquired this 1890's miners cabin located in the Colorado Rocky Mountains at 9,250 ft of elevation. We performed a very comprehensive remodel of it in order to address significant unknown structural issues present at the time of purchase. Prior to our acquisition, this cabin was a summer only residence for over 100 years. We transformed it into a year round well insulated residence. We took the cabin literally down to the ground, removing old floors, joists and drywall.

If you don't have the time to read our story, you can find pictures of the end product at the end of the story. This project was done from November of 2020 to June 2021 as an eight and a half months full time endeavor. It entailed attic insulation, taking all the floor structure down to the ground, cutting 18" of wall around the perimeter, mitigating mold, encapsulating & insulating the crawlspace, installing a radon system, rebuilding the floor structure, reframing walls, installing two new windows, adding a new kitchen and a building a new bathroom. We also changed the perimeter drainage installing perforated pipe around the house and adding a gutter system.

There were several issues with this property. We performed our own inspection and everything looked "perfect". Crawl space inspection is always a must. The issue with historic structure oftentimes is that not all crawl spaces are accessible. This was our case. We could not inspect the crawl space. Upon failing to do a crawlspace inspection we missed a whole house full of mold and a rotted floor structure.

This is how the house appeared when inspected. We call this look the "Zillow Face of Homes". Think of Zillow as the true real estate Botox. The house appeared to be in perfect condition.

Residential Historic Preservation Project: Carmen

Most miner cabins were summer only residences. As such, many of them have designs that are truly not the best for all year round living. This particular cabin has two doors right under the sloping section of the roof. At 9,250 ft of elevation in Colorado this is a really bad idea. Adding a deck without properly addressing the positive drainage in this part of the house, was yet another bad idea. The lack of positive drainage around the perimeter created a significant water issue under the house. Our solution entailed removing one of the doors and replacing it with a large window. We also addressed the positive drainage around the whole perimeter and added gutters for water diversion.

Another issue that we encountered was the fact that vinyl floors improperly installed over the original hardwood floors created a closed underground space that accumulated moisture. Over the years, moisture transformed all the joists into a mold world. The whole floor structure was destroyed. Our inspection failed to capture the problem, given that the previous owners installed 3/4" particle board under the vinyl flooring. This system was sealed with tar paper over it.

Our Remodel

Attic Insulation

Insulation of the attic did not pose any major issues. In order to do the job correctly, we began bagging about 30 50-gallon bags of cellulose in order to fully expose the attic. This cabin (as most old cabins in Colorado) came equipped with a cold roof system. The issue we had to confront is that all of the plumbing resides in the attic. In our opinion, this is a poor design. We decided to go with a middle of the road approach, which unfortunately entailed getting rid of the cold roof system. In order to prevent ice dam formation on the eaves, we added fire blocking prior to adding the close cell foam insulation. This makes it such that the eves remain cold at all times preventing the freeze/thaw cycle that rots roofs. We plan to control the temperature of the attic by adding back the cellulose on the ceiling. It is our goal to keep the attic at about 40 F enough to prevent freezing of the plumbing system and not too hot to cause excessive condensation. One of the drawbacks for spraying close cell foam is that it is harder to monitor the condition of the roof from the inside. This makes it such that one has to monitor roof quality from the outside only.

Let's just say that spraying close cell foam insulation is an art. It requires properly addressing many different steps, including shaking the foam really hard and spraying the product at the right temperature.

Barnwood Wall

Prior to knowing that the house had significant structural issues we were having fun updating cosmetic elements. We built this barnwood wall to add character to the dining area.

Bathroom Remodel

We noticed that the bathroom had some movement in the floor. This movement was noticed only when we removed the floating floor. Buyer be aware. Never trust an inspector who jumps up and down a floor to confirm structural integrity of a floor system. Prior to tiling, we had to remove a floating floor that was present in the bathroom. When discovering the subfloor, one of us fell through the rotted subfloor. This is when the nightmare began. We decided to gut the whole bathroom floor so as to understand why we had fell through the subfloor. As we moved through the process, we found out that the seller had hidden rot and mold with several layers of subfloor and by over nailing floor joists to completely molded and rotted old joists. It was pretty unbelievable to see how far dishonest people can go. Mediocrity causes tremendous strain on the planet. How hard is it to do things correctly from the first attempt? In this case, it would have saved thousands of dollars on materials and countless hours in labor.

We did not like the idea of having particle board decking as a subfloor. Given the movement, we decided to inspect the joists.

Fortunately for us, we found rot on the main structural floor and the joists. We are currently replacing joists with treated wood. We also think that the toilet was incorrectly installed and leaked for years.

This is how the joists looked like. This bathroom had been leaking for a really long time.

We decided to use travertine stone in the shower. In order to make the design work, we added a row of glass mosaic as well. We installed an old iron sink over porcelain mosaic floors.

Door Removal & Window Replacement

The living room of this cabin came with an interior door that was used for exterior purposes. This is NEVER a good idea. To make things worse, this door was located below the junction of a poorly designed roof line. In mountain homes, we really dislike the presence of roof valleys. Snow has the tendency to accumulate and freeze in the valley. Valleys are really not ideal from a drainage and roof durability standpoints. In addition, it is never a good idea to put a door right below a valley. In mountain homes, entries should always be positioned at gable ends. This home came with all entries positioned on the eve side of the roof. In this case, we have to work with what we have. Hence, we decided to change the wood door and install a high end metal exterior 57" by 53" window. Doing so increases the amount or early morning sun in the living room. A window will make it such that any snow accumulation in the deck does not result in rot at the bottom of the house. Given years of moisture damage from snow sitting on the deck and hitting the interior door, we found unpleasant surprises.

The sill plate of the door was completely rotten. Our two solutions are:

Replace all rotten wood with treated lumber
Replace the deck which is causing snow accumulation against the door. Decks should have positive drainage away from the house. They also need to have the correct gap in between boards.

In this case, we had to rebuild the whole wall. The humidity had moved inside the living room causing the living room floor to mold.

We removed two layers of untreated 2"*6" and replaced them with treated wood. The exterior plywood was left alone as it was surprisingly treated.

After fixing the sill and making sure that everything is plumb is time to cut the wall out. We re framed the wall and replaced the old door by a window.

Master Bedroom

After installing the south facing window, we finished the drywall and put back in place the old historic trim boards. Just like in the rest of the house, we replaced sill plates as needed and all floor joists after a full crawl space encapsulation. The end product is a very bright mold free, rot free master bedroom.

The Caveats of Water Damage

Water damage is complex. Mitigating the damage is usually simple. The complexity relies in truly understanding what caused the damage to begin with. Historic houses settle overtime for a variety of reasons: the soils can be expansive, water can go under the foundation and actually can movement, water can make sills rot, joists can sag, etc. Truly understanding what makes a house move is a skill.

In our particular case, lack of positive drainage was extremely damaging. The seller of the property made matters significantly worse by enclosing the house perimeter with a concrete wall sealing moisture. To make matters worse, we think the lack of gutters in the house caused all the water coming from the roof to go under the house. The long term benefits of gutters is underestimated. In our case, we are investigating the benefits of single half round gutters. The issue with gutters at high altitude is that wind might freeze the downspouts. In order to circumvent this issue, we are considering installing ice belts around the house, just like the do in the East Coast. Ice belts are about 16" and run around the perimeter of the roof. We are also considering a combination of gutters with heat tape.

As water hits the ground, unless directed otherwise, it will percolate into the crawl space. We will be circumventing this by slopping the ground away from the house and adding a neoprene layer that spans about 4ft away from the house. The neoprene layer will be brought above ground by the foundation. We will add a layer of gravel over the neoprene and install a line/french drain on the gravel bed. We will also be installing gravel all around the house to move water away from the house.

How to Properly Deal with Mold

Mold is one of those creatures that you don't want in your livable space. The issue is, because there is an abundance of mediocrity in the construction world, chances are, you will eventually find mold in your mountain home. People love to cover mold. Our seller did a great job at it. It is both easy and cheap to hide mold. This cabin came plagued with mold in the floor joists, original floors and subfloors. Mold loves moisture. Mold loves unaddressed crawl spaces. Old homes without positive drainage are a magnet for moisture problems. In our case, the previous owner decided not to address the drainage issues, not to encapsulate the crawl space and add a several layers of 7/8 thick particle board decking with a layer of a floating floor on top of it. A complete disaster cake. The system looked beautiful during the home inspection.

Our company decided to tackle the problem from the root. Our floor moisture control system involves five steps:

1. Extensive excavation

2. Take all floors and subfloors down

3. Properly encapsulate the crawl space (notice the word "properly")

4. Insulate the rim boards and sill plates

5. Install new subfloor and floor.

This system sounds easy but it requires a lot of skill to do all steps properly. It is critical to NOT CUT CORNERS at any step.

We also found out that several floor joists were completely rotten. Given that this house is old, we had to study how the structure was originally built. If the walls had been sitting on the floors, we would have had to sister the existing joists and use the new sisters to lay the new subfloor. The old joists would have become incidental. In our case, the walls were not originally built over the floors. As such, we decided to take all the floors down and begin them from scratch.

Ready to cut some moldy floors?

The End Product

We followed a methodical approach of floor design and installation. Given the historic nature of this house, we decided not to lift the whole structure. Instead, we left the treated sill plates in place in direct contact with the stone boulders. In order to provide insulation, we used spray foam on the rim boards and sill plates. In order to provide moisture control, we encapsulated the crawl space with adequate plastic after a full radon system that we designed in house. For additional protection, we decided to use treated lumber in areas that were previously known to have moisture issues.

Plywood Floors

Kitchen

In what used to be a dark kitchen/dinning room, we added a new South facing window and completely redesigned the kitchen using recycled kitchen cabinets. We also cut and installed our own granite countertops using recycled granite from an old project. We also replaced the existing vinyl floor with custom sized oak plywood floors. We cut the plywood planks in house. We also tiled the entryways with slate stone.