This last Saturday it was just our family and the brothers-in-law, so we made the decision to allow the kids and cousins to come along and help.

It was a little chaotic!

We cleaned up the now-exposed crawlspace, then dug down to a consistent depth that will be reasonable to crawl in when the floors are back on.

A common question we have been asked is, “Did you guys have an inspection on the house? Did it find any of this stuff?”

Yes, we did have an inspection. The extremely shallow crawlspace was part of why we ended up with undisclosed problems: the inspector merely noted “unable to visualize” on his report of some items underneath the house. He apparently wasn’t able to squeeze into the crawlspace for a sufficiently good look into the farthest corners. And…all the worst stuff was hiding in the farthest corners.

Matt braced the second story with a jack and put in a temporary header board…

then carefully removed a rotten beam from the top of the crawlspace foundation.

Saturday evening rolled around before the new beam could be put in. Everyone was tired! The kids worked very hard.

Matt and his brother-in-law returned Monday night to set the new beam in mortar prior to next Saturday’s work.

They had to reset a lot of loose bricks too! Slowly but surely…