A resident is interested in finding detailed, structural plans regarding framing, materials, etc. used in converting our turn-of-the-century mill building into the current condo units. She’s found the architectural drawings from 1988 at the Registry of Deeds but they’re a fairly broad outline. We’ve sent an e-mail to Cathy asking if she has info about in-depth plans and I expect we’ll hear back come Monday. In the meantime, I figured it wouldn’t hurt to see if any other residents had ever tracked down construction details or had first-hand knowledge about what went into making our units a reality. Please feel free to share anything you know in the comments.
I neglected to ask said resident if she was requesting info for practical reasons or simply out of historical curiosity. If anyone’s interested in a broad history of this complex, there’s one here. I also know a fair bit about the Ingram and Axminster weave mill that used to be where the garage is now that I learned while researching my dance history book; I can post that info at some point if anyone would like.
As for construction history stories, for my own part, I can say that when we opened up our upstairs hallway to expose the wooden support post by the bathroom, it had some interesting graffiti. And my old hairdresser from Billerica once told me that her uncle and his son were on the construction crew that did the conversion and talked about walking those beams high above the atrium.
I have practical information given recent renovations in our unit. It is uncertain if this will be true for any other unit.
This a pretty full explanation and not for a casual read. Continue at risk of complete boredom.
Previous renovations on the unit: minor gyp-crete repairs under the living room carpet.
Inside the bathroom and kitchen utility chases: framing is a combination of 2 1/2″ metal studs and 2×4″ wood depending on location. The kitchen chase has a vent stack, waste stack, and square metal kitchen vent stack. Inside this vent stack are 3″ flex aluminum tubes. One per unit, surmised from inspection on the connection end. This tube must run all the way to the top of the building near the roof. Other wise moisture would condense in the stack and odors would leak into other units whenever the vents are engaged.
The bathroom chase has the same combination.
I replaced the vent fans with modern high pressure, high volume, low noise units. Very quiet and they will vacate the bathroom in short order. The 3″ vent pipe inside that square vent stack is shared by both bathrooms. So it is critical to keep the back-flow preventer clean of dust. Otherwise it is just venting one bathroom into the other. The old ones were full of 28 years of dust and whatever and did not work to prevent back-full. Plus they are the cheapest units out there. It would be wise to put a dust filter on the air intake.
Speaking to odors. Before closing the utility chase walls I sealed the utility chase’s floor with 12 inches of rock-wool to prevent odors from other units entering ours and to slow down a fire moving out of or into our unit. It worked to stop the odors. No more cigarette smoke issues entering our unit. Lets hope it is never fire tested.
The utility chase walls are metal studded on the closet and bathroom kitchen sides. Not on the bathroom first floor end walls. There 2×4 studs were used. Over this is 2 layers of 5/8″ drywall. Unfortunately they did not put 2 layers of 5/8″ drywall on the bathroom 2×4 studded end walls. A quick glance makes it look like it was done. However the workers just places drywall inside the chase making it look like it was properly done. It is not. The chases are fully open into the side walls and second level floor joists. That is one reason for the rock-wool. There is no way to fix that issue short of removing the end-wall drywall from the unit hallway side and from the common area for end units. Shoddy work. I chose to fire block at the floor levels.
The walls between units are very well done. There are 2 2×4 wood studded walls between units that do not touch each other. Sheathed with 1/2″ sound deadening board and 5/8″ drywall. The gap between these walls is as much as 6 inches on the inside with fiberglass insulation in this gap. Surface to surface distance would be about 12-14 inches.
The electric utility is 200 AMP.
Second level floor joists are 2×6, with every other doubled up, for strength. This would not meet current code. The floor is very bouncy. Refastening the plywood helped reduce the bounce a little and reduced the noise. Hardwood flooring helps also.
First level floor is original 4-5″ thick board with a rabbet cut on each side and a 3/4 board set inside this rabbet. A sort of tongue and groove approach. Keeps the boards better aligned. On top of that is 3/4 southern yellow pine hardwood flooring soaked in whatever the factory used to lubricate, keep dust down etc… That is covered with a pouring of gyp-crete. On top of that is 3/16-1/4″ flooring nailed using 2 1/2″ hardened steel screw nails. These nails were commonly used to nail flooring down before nail guns with glue coated nails took over. Finished floors went on top of the 1/4 plywood.
The first level exterior walls are 2×4 studs with 1/2″ drywall.
The second level internal and exterior walls are mostly 2 1/2″ metal studs with 1/2″ drywall. Except between units as described above.
Feel free to contact me with any questions. Very willing to answer them.
Dana
Hello Dana,
I would love to talk further about this! What floor level are you on?