[AT] OT- Pex

[David Bruce]

Indiana Robinson wrote:
> I have a mix of working space in our house. The old original house I
> grew up in is still in the middle of this house. It was a 36'x36' with
> a 10'x10' cellar with only about 6' 2" of height under part of it. The
> rest was "slither" space. It also had an about 8'x36' unheated "back
> porch" on a slab "lean-to" across the back. About 1970 the porch was
> removed and a 36'x40' (a little over 1400 sq. ft.) addition with a
> full basement (also a little over 1400 sq. ft. with 8' height) was
> built on. Everything is easy to access there and there is a door that
> connects the new basement to the old cellar. About the late 1980s a
> 12'x36' "all purpose" room and a 12'x20' slant window mostly glass
> solar room were added to the front of the old core house in an "L"
> shape which wraps the south-west corner of it. The GP room/solar room
> area opens off of the library and is where I keep my computers and
> Diana has her sewing machine. The GP room is on a modern crawl space
> and while the solar room floor is the same height as the rest of the
> house it is on concrete with ceramic tile so zero access there.
> I have plans to hire some cheap labor to dig out the "slither" space
> under the old core house at least down to the depth of a deep crawl
> space. We did dig a few "channels" in that area back in the 1950s to
> give limited access to parts of it for plumbing and to add some needed
> support under an area where the floor was a little springy. That part
> of the house was built around the 1840's and had a pretty long span.
> We added a long 6"x6" beam (also in the 1050s) across that area which
> supports it well but is very much in the way as far as access goes.
> We stuccoed the old brick foundation inside and out back in the 1950s.
> I with my intense claustrophobia did most of the outside and the part
> accessible in the old cellar and a classmate/friend who worked for us
> that summer did the rest of the slither space. It didn't bother him at
> all but I hated to even watch him.
>
>   

In my case the house was built on piers the a "foundation" was added 
(except for the bump out that contains the bath which was built on a 
real foundation).
The clearance under the house varies from 24 inches to 12 - kinda tough 
on a FATG  <g>
I got another example of potential issues of the construction last 
summer - after several years of significantly below normal rainfall some 
portions of the house had settled enough to create sticking doors.  Now 
that we have had several months of above average precip they don't stick 
anymore.
Given the lack of clearance in the crawlspace I keep all the crawlspace 
vents open as many days as possible - currently closed as Mr. Gore's 
global warming apparently isn't in effect this winter for us.

David
NW NC