April 23, 2011

Blog for April 23, 2011

This past weekend I helped a friend do some demolition work on his old sauna at camp. We left Thunder Bay at 5:30 Friday night with his company truck, his new 12-foot trailer, and his son-in-law in tow. We arrived at his Open Bay camp on beautiful Lac des Mille Lacs about two hours later. It was surprisingly cold, very cold for the middle of April. The wind was strong and out of the north. We quickly unloaded the truck and Shane, the son-in-law, began deep-frying chicken wings in the old sauna (it was too cold to cook outside), and Bob and I unloaded the trailer.
By 8 o’clock the wings were ready, the rum was chilling in the large, ice-laden glasses and the hockey game was on the big screen TV. So much for the socializing; we had a big day ahead of us, especially considering the next day was supposed to bring a heavy snowfall.
When I got up shortly after seven, it was snowing steadily with very little wind. By the time Bob and Shane got up and we had finished breakfast, the snow had to be at least two to three inches thick. We immediately cleaned out the sauna, turned off the power and began to gut the interior of the 12x20 structure. I cut all the electrical wires, and Bob and Shane began tearing down the interior walls. The previous owner certainly liked to use a lot of nails. The entire interior comprised 1x6 cedar tongue and groove. The boards were nailed not with one but two small nails in each stud. I’ve never seen two nails before, ever.
Once we had pulled all the nails and ripped out the insulation and vapour barrier, we had to knock down the brick wall that surrounded the woodstove, the huge woodstove. This demolition actually went very quickly and we loaded all the brick and the stones from the sauna stove into Bob’s trailer. Having cleaned all this up, we then tried to figure out a way to move the large woodstove. Its sheer size was compounded by the fact it was buried in the cement floor. However, we were able to dislodge the stove and move it slowly but surely out the door.
Once we had the stove out the door we had to maneuver it onto the trailer; this was more problematic than we had anticipated, but we were able to finally, with the help of Shane’s winch on his side-by-side quad, slide it onto the trailer. That was one heavy stove. We then filled the trailer to a height of about 7 feet with insulation, vapour barrier and the odd piece of wood. Thus began our second trip to the dump to unload all the detritus of a 20x12 building. It is now completely clear of all materials, as the old sauna will be converted to a shiny new bunkhouse for the family. Next week Bob will be replacing the existing windows as well as adding a few more.
Alas, I will not be on that job; I have home duties to perform this weekend. I have always enjoyed putting on my tool belt and hammering and sawing and all sorts of other productive and manual projects. It gives me immense satisfaction to build something, even as we did this past week to tear things down. I’ve been like this my entire life; the only caveat to all of this is that I much prefer to work with someone or others who know what they are doing. I don’t have enough confidence in myself to tackle big jobs by myself.
Sometimes I think my daughter and son-in-law think I can do all sorts of things by myself. Alas, I cannot. I just don’t give myself enough credit I suppose, but back to my main theme. There is a satisfaction I get at the end of day when we’ve actually accomplished a lot. You can see it physically and concretely. I built those walls or I tore those walls down, etc. There is also very much a camaraderie that I enjoy too. Most projects require some help usually 3-5 other people; there is also, of course, the cold beers that follow a long day on the jobsite.