House Renovation - Major Work

I started a major house renovation. It's a two level colonial with an addition.

It was always planned but never executed. But my brother moved in with me. He has a learning disability and family takes care of their own. He was living with my sister but that devolved into a bad situation.

The house was originally built before 1900. Exact date was unknown because the county courthouse burned down in the early 1900's and all records were lost. So everyone had to get new deeds registered with estimates of when the houses were built.

Anyway, it's an old house, all walls and ceilings are plaster/slats. There was an addition put on in the 1940's, also all plaster. The strange part of the addition is that it has a flat - pitched roof (pitched about 8" over 15') BUT the pitch was built from the ground up, for the most part, if you can imagine that.

The addition is where my bro is getting his room. It's 15' x 22' room and in that footprint will go a bathroom and small closet. The second floor of the addition will become a master bedroom.

I've never done any residential demolition and remodeling. I have industrial experience in demo and construction as a mechanical engineer.

Sadly, I underestimated on demolition, leveling of the floors and stripping the exterior fiberboard/strip sheathing.

Both levels of the addition were taken down to floor joists and wall studs. Interior plaster/slats walls & ceiling are gone and exterior 1940's era strip sheathing & fiberboard covering (homesote?) are gone. The first floor leveling needed a 5" correction and the second floor needed 3 1/2". This meant ripping up the flooring on first floor and shimming the joists. The second level floor was jacked up and shimmed.

Anyway, thought I'd share and introduce a topic to the gen'l discussion section that's not related to the same old same old.

I'm on a T&M basis. The contractor is charging $25/hour per man. He was hesitant to go firm/fixed price because of all the unknowns with old houses. So far I'm happy with the production and charges.

By my new and improved estimate I'll be in at about $50/sq ft for the renovation. Not bad, IMO, but I'm thinking I should have let some Jewish lightning hit the house. (BTW, that's not really a derogatory term..in NY, where I grew up, it was a commonly used saying)

Anyone else have any experience with gutted house renovations?

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House Renovation - Major Work