Bronze Construction Services was chosen to provide a full remodel of a two story, older home with a full attic in the small Vernonia, Oregon. Vernonia was a small logging town in the Cascade mountains of Oregon which has since become a pleasant vacation community with a rich history. Hopefully restoring this house will help contribute to the local culture and help the city retain some of its past.
From the foundation to the roof, this house needed a lot of work. Once the frame of the house was exposed, we found that this house still has some good ‘bones’. This is a fairly older house and Vernonia is a mountainous city so there was typical damage that occurs in houses in similar climates.
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The main issue with this house was the condition of the foundation. Since this house was originally built in the early 20th century, building codes were not up to current standards and we found some interesting construction techniques. The foundation of the west wall was basically just sitting on tree stumps. The house sits on a gradual slope which caused the house to ‘slide’ downhill and this type of foundation is not capable of supporting this type of construction. Due to this ‘slide’, sometime in the recent past, owners poured a thick concrete slab along the interior of the east wall foundation to help support the house and keep it from moving. The original eastern foundation showed evidence of cracks and movement of the concrete foundation leading to wall failure.
After inspecting the complete foundation, it was determined that the existing system needed an almost complete new construction. Due to the poor foundation of the house, we ended up jacking up the frame of the house and replacing most of the foundation. New concrete along the west, north, and east walls and slabs poured where needed. This brought the house up to code, and made it more supportive for sitting on the sloped lot.
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