Category: Me

Two-flat journal 8: Adding a third unit

Over the years I waffled once or twice about adding a third unit, in the basement. I hired a structural engineer to draw up plans for the replacement center beam in the basement’s ceiling. To “future proof” the plans, I also asked him to draw a plan and create specifications for a floor excavation in order to achieve a code-compliant ceiling height in the potential basement unit.

The basement, looking towards the front entry. Notice how smooth the floor is.

The waffling was based on the cost of the necessary digging down. Excavation will add about $25,000 to the cost of the project. (That’s based on one bid, the only bid that called it out specifically. I asked all three bidders to separate the costs of the basement unit so that I would know exactly how much the basement unit – excavation, walls, finishes, etc. – would cost as an “add on”.)

I think my architect also helped convince me to design and get bids for a third unit because of the flexibility it could provide for me and my tenants (which may include one or more family members), as well as the possibility of additional rental income.

I’ve settled on adding the third unit, and I’m excited to do it, in part because of my well-known enthusiasm for accessory dwelling units. (A note about Chicago’s ADU ordinance: this property is outside the ADU pilot area but it has unused zoning capacity per both the FAR and minimum lot area per unit standards so the additional unit is allowed without the ADU ordinance.)

Excavation

The Chicago Building Code requires that the ceiling height be a minimum of 7′-6″ in most of any dwelling unit (that’s measured from the finished floor to the finished ceiling). A limited amount of area is allowed to be lower to get around existing or newly installed pipes and ducts in the ceiling.

To achieve that, crews will demolish and remove the existing floor slab (which I’ll be a little sad about because the previous owner did a nice job pouring it) and excavating earth 10″ down. They’ll also underpin the foundation walls in an alternating pattern of rectangles around the perimeter. I hope I can explain underpinning well (otherwise watch Darren Voros’s video): This means they’ll dig under half of the foundation dispersed around the perimeter (the A sections), leaving unexcavated space between each to hold up the other half of the foundation (the B sections); then they’ll switch and repeat the process for the B sections.

A foundation wall detail showing the 10″ of excavation and the addition of a perimeter drain tile.

Water

After every rain storm I go and check the house. The basement has been dry every time. I’m surprised, and thankful, that it seems that water doesn’t seep into the basement.

One time I noticed that there was water pooling on the basement floor – when a rain storm had not occurred. It turned out that when I closed the water service line I didn’t close it well enough and water was very slowly leaking out. Tightening the valve handle was a simple resolution.

During the excavation there will be a perimeter drain tile system installed under the floor slab to steer water toward an ejector pit. An ejector pit is different than a sump pump in that it has a mechanism to grind the house’s sewage before pumping it to the city’s sewer main. I believe an ejector pit is a requirement when the lowest dwelling unit’s plumbing (i.e. the toilet) will be below the city sewer main.

Bob Vila’s website describes interior drains like this:

Similar to exterior drain tile, an interior French drain features a perforated pipe that carries water to a collection pit where it can be pumped to the surface. This type of drain is located along the interior perimeter of the basement and lies below floor level.

All You Need to Know About Basement Drains, Glenda Taylor and Bob Vila

Apartment

The new dwelling unit is drawn as a 1-bedroom apartment with a small bedroom that has two short windows and a closet. It has a large, combined living room, dining room, and kitchen.

The entryway is partially separated from the big room using a hall closet, creating a sort of mud hall. The bathroom is of a typical size for small apartments in Chicago and there’s a considerably sized utility room for laundry and storage. Overall, the apartment has an area of about 720 s.f.

I believe in-unit storage to be an important amenity. My current apartment is a studio and I selected it in part because it had good layout with a lot of scattered storage (there’s a walk-in closet, a large nook between the living area and the bathroom, a small closet, and a linen closet in the bathroom).

When I was looking for a new place to live in 2022 I didn’t want to have to move any of my stuff into a storage locker in the building or a storage unit in another building.

Other space in the basement

The rest of the basement, about 100 s.f., will have two hybrid heat pump water heaters, the ejector pit, electrical panels, and a little bit of room for storage. There’s also a rear entryway and the basement apartment will have a rear exit through here.

Two-flat journal 7: Plans are issued for bid

My architect has issued architectural plans for bidding!

(This happened a month ago, and I don’t dedicate enough time weekly to send the bidding instructions to general contractors and to follow up with them asking if they’re still planning to send a bid.)

If you’re an interested GC, look at the “bid package” where you’ll find…

  • links to the architectural plans
  • structural plans (for the basement)
  • photos of the interior and exterior
  • schedule book

What’s happening in the neighborhood

The house is one block away from the Kedzie Green Line station, which offers a 20-minute ride to downtown or to Oak Park. Behind the station is The Hatchery, a major shared commercial kitchen and food business incubator.

The Cook County Land Bank Authority owns several properties on the block and is marketing these to developers for new housing.

Starting in 2022, the City of Chicago began the process to redevelop land it owns adjacent to the Kedzie station into mixed-use buildings.

How I’ve found general contractors

I’ve already had a few GCs walk through the house and tell me they’re going to submit a bid. I found them either by asking architects I know, and by scouring the Building Permits Browser on Chicago Cityscape.

I filtered the permits, looking for “renovation/alteration”, set the estimated project cost from $100,000 to $400,000, and then skimmed the project descriptions for words like “two-flat” and “rehab”.

I made a list of those contractors and found their phone numbers and emails elsewhere (the city used to include their phone numbers in the building permits dataset, and took it out in 2019 or 2020).

This photo gives you a glimpse of some of the exterior issues (look at the cornice, especially at the far left corner). All of the windows and doors are proposed to be replaced. The awning will be removed eventually (it helps keep the snow off the front porch).

I’m here in Rotterdam

Untitled

I arrived in Rotterdam last Saturday, 9 April. A friend of a friend, PK, picked me up at Rotterdam Centraal, the main station, the design of which I find fucking fantastic. By “picked me up”, he really did. He used his fancy “OV-chipkaart” multi-use transit card with associated “OV-fiets” bike-share membership to check out two bikes for me and him. I carried two pieces of my luggage, and he carried a third, and we biked back to my friend DS’s apartment. (PK had been living there temporarily while he looked for an apartment somewhere in the country.)

I’m posting frequent updates to my Tumblr. And my photos get automatically uploaded to Flickr. I also post photos to Instagram, and to Twitter.

All the luggage I brought for three months in Europe

PK let me into the apartment and then we went to the Albert Heijn grocery store. PK soon departed to catch a train to another city for a birthday party. I took a three hour nap. I didn’t do anything else on Saturday. DS would return from his holiday on Monday evening.

  • On Sunday I biked around the city.
  • On Monday I met with Meredith, an expat living in Amsterdam. I also slept a bunch off and on. DS came home and we went out to dinner. We also went back to the grocery store and tried to figure out why neither my debit nor credit card would work. Albert Heijn, since I was there in September 2015, has changed their machines and policy and won’t accept my bank cards!
  • On Tuesday I met with my friend Stefan. I found “Bataviakade” in Delfshaven. And slept at odd hours. I fell asleep on the couch at 20:00 and went to bed at around 00:00.
  • On Wednesday I slept until 13:00. I then followed up on some emails, fixed some stuff on Chicago Cityscape, and vacuumed the carpets. Then DS and I went out for beers and burgers. On our way home I bought a six-pack of (small cans) Heineken beer for €7 at a “night shop” called, well, “Night Shop.”

Bataviakade street name in Delfshaven, Rotterdam

“Bataviakade” means “Batavia quay”. I grew up in a city called Batavia, Illinois. The city was named after Batavia, New York. Batavia is the Latin word for the “Betuwe” part of the Netherlands.

It’s now Thursday and I’m going to try and open a bank account here. This means I’ll get a debit card which will open so many doors; many places don’t accept international bank cards. It also means I can pay rent and for a bicycle without lower or no fees. After I get a bank account I can get a discount travel card to use on NS, the national intercity train operator.

For €99 per month I can take unlimited trips on the intercity trains during off-peak hours and on weekends. I’ll be able to visit a lot more cities with this card, and I already have plans to use the train tomorrow, Saturday, and Sunday (that’s three round trips). The train fares add up! At least this weekend I’ll be traveling with DS; he has a travel card and companions can buy travel together with a 40% discount.

I didn’t get to publish this before I left the house. I went to the bank and the kind worker said it wasn’t possible to open a bank account for someone who’s staying here for such a short time. She said there’s a monthly maintenance fee, and I said I would be okay paying that while I’m not in the Netherlands between visits.

Anyway, my friend is going to help me get the discount travel card, which, to me, is the most important product I need.

I also need to file my American tax return today.

Streetsblog Chicago deserves to come back

John and Steven dining at a restaurant table

John and I at Taqueria La Zacatecana in Avondale, where we first hashed out the details of what would become Grid Chicago that later transitioned into Streetsblog Chicago.

I haven’t talked about this here, but two months ago this weekend I got the message that Streetsblog Chicago wouldn’t continue because we didn’t raise enough money in the last fundraising round.

I didn’t talk about it here because I was busy with dealing with shutting that down, working with my partner John Greenfield to come up with a transition plan (to resurrect the site) and because I have myriad side projects that quickly and easily captured my newly-available attention. I eased right into developing those more and into involving myself in new jobs on a freelance basis.

Our readers dutifully expressed their support for my and John’s work at Streetsblog Chicago – providing an alternative voice for transportation and land use policy discussion.

The most heartening and unexpected expressions have come from the very agencies on which we report and criticize.

Our reporting was thoughtful and necessary they said, even though, and this has been unanimous, they sometimes disagreed with our perspective.

I believe their appreciation of our work has always been there but there was never a good moment, or a necessity, for them to make it known.

It’s heartening to know that our writing – advocating for safer streets, funding allocation that promoted efficient and active transportation, converting street space from moving cars quickly to moving people – was making its way in the corridors of the bureaucracies and street managers and place makers and bus operators.

I think what we did with Streetsblog Chicago was necessary, too, and I waited and worked to make it happen since 2007. I bided my time with this blog until meeting editor-in-chief Ben Fried in 2010. The conditions weren’t right then, and a friend at a 2011 Star Trek watching party (don’t ask) in Logan Square put me and John together after which we made the next best thing: Grid Chicago.

I want to keep writing Streetsblog Chicago and we need your help. John and I are raising $75,000 to resume publishing at very-close-to-before rate of five to seven original posts per week. Donate now.

We’ve already raised $36,905 and the Chicago Community Trust will give us $25,000 when we reach $50,000. The catch is that we must get there by April 8. Otherwise we’ll return all of the donations.

Since the January 8 hiatus we held a fundraiser in the pedway, which Moxie founder Daniel Ronan organized. We’ll be holding another fundraiser in Revolution Brewing’s taproom on Kedzie on Wednesday, March 26, at our donor appreciation party: Everyone is welcome but those who donate $100 on or before the party will get John’s book “Bars Across America” and their first round on the house.

I’m also putting together a tour of developments around Chicago near transit stations that have taken advantage of a city ordinance reducing their parking minimum. Save the date, Saturday, April 4.

Why architects should learn OpenStreetMap

I’m teaching OpenStreetMap 101 at the first MaptimeCHI.

Architects will learn that OpenStreetMap can be used as a data source when developing projects and as a basis for designing custom maps in project publications (website, anthology, monograph, client presentations).

This meeting is about getting an introduction to OpenStreetMap and learning to make your first edit in the “Wikipedia of maps”.

Thursday, July 17th, from 6-8 PM
Thoughtworks office
200 E Randolph St

RSVP on EventBrite.

Here are two examples of how architects could use OpenStreetMap data.

Example 1 of how to use OpenStreetMap. Instead of publishing a screenshot of Google Maps in your documents or website, create a custom design map like this without having to spend so much time tweaking it in Illustrator. This map was created by Stamen Design using TileMill.

Example 1 of how to use OpenStreetMap. Instead of publishing a screenshot of Google Maps in your documents or website, create a custom design map like this without having to spend so much time tweaking it in Illustrator. This map was created by Stamen Design using TileMill.

And the second.

Willow Creek Church on OpenStreetMap: After

Here’s one example where OpenStreetMap could be useful. Let’s say you’re working on a site plan for Willow Creek Church in South Barrington and you need a general layout of the parking lot. 1. You can get it from OpenStreetMap because it’s already there. 2. You can draw it in OpenStreetMap yourself (to benefit all other OSM users) and then extract it as a shapefile.

Maptime is time for mapmaking and it’s taking the country by storm.