Kitchen: From Framing to Pre-Wall Inspection

We’ve been working on a renovation on an older wooden frame house, located in Florida. The age and dampness of the locale caused rot, mold and a termite playground.

In the first photo, I want to point out the small window that we expanded. In the dark space under the window, we had rot from water issues and a rats’ nest. The soffit experienced water intrusion from an external vent, with water dripping from the canned lights.

The window installer re-framed the area below the window so that he had a good clean run of wood structure for the kitchen window installation. Where there had been water, termite and rat damage, he replaced that with plywood. On the outside of the house, he used waterproofing membrane, followed by cement siding. There is much more light in this small kitchen as we doubled the area for light to enter. While the kitchen wall is down to the studs we called the plumber and electrician.

Electrical. I must have called a zillion electricians. We are doing this renovation in a post-hurricane frantic emergency-repair situation that leaves no electrician free. One told me it was a big project, but that he liked doing this kind of deal; then he didn’t show up again. When I called another and asked for a complete rewire of the house, I was told that the project was too big. After getting a dozen NOs, I asked the next if I could simply get one room rewired at a time. This is when I found out that local electricians get their “bread and butter” income from the servicing of generators. They couldn’t be troubled to leave this stream of income in order to do one house. Once I understood that, it became clear that I needed to ask the next electrician to come rewire one room at a time. The electrician pulled a permit and when they were done, we called the building inspector to do a pre-wall inspection and then later a post-wall inspection.

Plumbing. I called Mike from Hydro and he didn’t stand me up, as several others had done. First, he pulled a permit. With both plumbing and electrical, we must have a permit pulled and have a licensed contractor do the work. We had the old plumbing removed from the kitchen, and replaced to local building code. The photo above shows the hot water heater under the stairs, and the photo below shows that same space with the hot water heater removed and replaced.

The plumbers disconnected a small hot water heater that was located under the stairs, and connected up a new on-demand hot water heater. We had the on-demand unit located in the mud-room on the other side of a wall from the original location. Additionally Hydro ran plumbing to and from the laundry room, and then connected up the stackable washer and dryer unit. Lastly, they ran a line for the ice-maker aspect of the refrigerator.

The team of plumbers cut a hole in the sub flooring, removed the old lines, and replaced with modern plumbing, to local code. In the photo above, new plywood replaces water and termite damaged wood, plus the rats’ nest.

At this point, the kitchen is ready for the pre-wall inspection.