The Fourplex at 393 Buchon Street <p> </font>

The Fourplex at 393 Buchon Street
December 1995

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Numbers in parentheses refer to the pictures.

      We finally paid our 30 year mortgage in 1993. I thought we should find some way of using the equity instead of just letting it sit there. So we contacted Gordon and Diane Hansen, realtors, and explained what we had in mind.
      They came up with a fourplex that was 25 years old and had an absentee landlord. They had it for a good price but we did the novice approach and made several lower bids and finally met their price and signed the papers. A short time later she wanted to back out, apparently having gotten a higher bid. She was warned about the probablility of court action if she tried to back out after having signed the papers and she dropped the idea.

      I was there with the inspector when he went through the building. He was very impressed. As a matter of fact he told me it was the cleanest fixer-upper he had ever seen. There were a few minor problems, of course, which we got fixed. The main problem was that it was an all-electric home, built in the 1970's when people believed that electricity was going to be cheap.
      When we bought the building it was in our mind to convert it to gas. We borrowed extra money to make the changes that we wanted and needed. The first was the installation of gas. I contacted the gas company and after a bit of time they brought gas in from the street and installed four meters and a stub should we ever want to put in a laundry. I was prepared for a bill from them but they had a complicated system of rebates and when they finally gave me a bill, there was no charge!
      I got a backhoe to trench from one end of the building to the other to bury the pipe and a plumber to make the installation. Actually the design of the building made it very easy to do. The second floor was the same floorplan as the first. There are two large bedrooms in the back and a kitchen, dinette and living room in front. The right and left kitchens had outside walls. We were able to bring the gas through the end walls at floor level and run a line at the back of the area under the kitchen counter tops. This way we could supply gas to the new stoves and water heaters and provide a connection to a new furnace. We could run a line up in the water heater cabinet through the ceiling and make the necessary stove, heater and furnace connections in the apartment above. I had a plumber there when the trench was dug. He installed the pipe and the backhoe filled the trench. We had to make a cut in the approach sidewalk for the pipe. My son worked for a heating and air conditioning firm so he was able to get and install the four wall furnaces.
      While the structure and the interior were in good shape, the exterior was miserable. There were a lot of plantings, none of which were worth retention. There were a number of small Eucalyptus trees that did not seem to have been planted on purpose. There were a couple small "lollipop" bushes that added nothing. (1) There had been a 10" caliper fig tree bordering the sidewalk on the north side that had been cut to the ground and four suckers had grown to about five inches caliper each! (5) The ground on this side of the building gradually sloped up to the parking lot, a rise of between two and three feet.

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      I will post a number of the pictures in pairs, then and now.
      It was a terrible mess, a yucca, a lot of juniper and other junk. There was a sidewalk along the side of the building leading to the parking lot. There was no external lighting. There was a bit of fence along the outside of this sidewalk. (3,4) It appeared to be a great place for someone to hide in the dark. I don't think the women dared come down that walk at night. So out with the fence, the yucca, the junipers and a myriad of bottles and cans that passersby had thrown.

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      I asked the City Tree Committee for permission to remove the two Montereys (8) but they rebelled because they thought I was going to leave the place bare and an eyesore.
      I had plenty to do so I was not put out. There would be another time.
      We planted seven or eight flowering trees. Then I went back again and asked them to let me remove one of the two Montereys so I could get some growing time for the replacement. I went to the next meeting expecting to have to argue. But we had the place in pretty good shape, had repainted it, installed the 2x12 redwood bellyband and the huge deck. They told me they had visited the project and congratulated me on what we had done. They said the one I wanted to cut was the healthier of the two but that both of them were sick. So they told me I could cut both of them down. I just sat there with a grin my face, saying nothing! I called PG&E the next morning because the trees were getting into the powerlines. They sent an arborist, truck and chipper. I told them to not be careful, just cut them, that we were going to remove what was left. They only had to cut one of them but they went ahead and cut them both down below the level of the powerline. My son and I got out the next morning with a chainsaw and cut them to the ground. My backhoe friend took out the stumps and dressed the area.

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      The backhoe leveled the major portion of the area alongside the building where the deck would be in the future, creating a several foot drop on the parking lot side, about four feet from the parking lot except where the parking lot access sidewalk would be. He created a drop on the street side about two feet from the sidewalk.
      My son, Daniel, and his wife moved into one apartment and helped with all these improvements. He is very capable and was most helpful.
      We built a redwood wall along the cuts using 4x4 posts and 2x12 rough redwood boards. The 4x4 posts were tall enough to allow us to build a fence at the sidewalk level. (7,8)
      We started by adding the bottom rail, a horizontal 2x4 with a half inch hole drilled part way through. Then we drilled a 2x4 with holes drilled through it to match the holes below. Next we placed two foot pieces of half inch rebar through the top holes into the lower ones. We capped this with a redwood 2x6.

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      It was time to start building the deck. We built the entrance walk, covering the cut we made to install the gas line. It tapers up from the front sidewalk to the entrance to the building. This makes it wheelchair accessible to the first floor.
      We made a walk to connect this front walk to the large deck on the Carmel Street side of the building.

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      One takes a number of 12" x 16" pieces of 30# felt tar paper, bends them into a cylinder and staples them, with two staples, toward the top and toward the bottom. (19)
      When you have about twenty of them place them, standing up, on level ground. Then mix up a sack of Sakrete or equivalent, and using a spade, put about 4" to 6" in each of them. Then insert pre-prepared one foot strips of plumber's tape, bent into a U with a 1 1/2 inch gap to accomodate the 2x4 stringers. If you agitate them as they are inserted, the upper concrete surface will level off. Make sure 2-3 inches of the tape stay above the surface of the concrete.
      When they have hardened the tar paper is taken off and the procedure is repeated until one has enough for the deck. (20)
      You then fasten them to the stringers using 1 1/4 inch deck screws. Place the first one about a foot from the end and then every 32 inches, the last one about a foot from the other end.
      When you have enough stringers, place them where they are going to be, place them 32 inches apart.
      Next, using bricks or blocks of wood, raise the stringers to the level you want, just a few inches above the ground. It is a good idea to put some 2x4s across the stringers and screw them in so the eventual deck will be level. Use a level to make sure.
      Go around and take a little dish of dirt out from under each of the piers. Mix up another sack of Sakrete and put a small shovel of concrete under each of the piers.
      Lastly, using 2 to 3 inch deck screws, fasten the 2x4's across the stringers. You should leave a space between them. One of the common things I have used is 16p nails. Make marks on the stringers every two feet or so so you can tell if you are straying from having them parallel.

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      Finally, as everything seemed to be getting into shape I began to concern myself about the Acacia. I got on the Mediterranean Plants list asking for information about it and other people's experiences. I got several replies which told me that when it was mature (as ours was) it would get brittle and begin to lose large branches. One person told me that a city up north had planted three blocks of them many years ago, but that there were only three of them left.       So I called my property insurance company and inquired about my coverage. They assured me I was fully covered. I asked what they might do if there was a large settlement. They said they might go after the City since I had proof that they had denied me the privilege of cutting it down!
      I went down to talk to the City Attorney whom I knew. I told him I was no longer worried in spite of the horror stories I had heard about the tree. I told him that my insurance company told me that I ws fully covered and that if any judgement was large enough they might try to recover it from the City. He just smiled and I left.
      A bit later I went back to the Tree Committee to ask if I could remove it. They told me that they had visited it and it seemed that the major crotch, about four feet up, appeared to be in trouble and was supurating sap and that a split may be likely. They recommended I should consider removing it. I contacted a tree company and they removed it. I wanted to document it with a time lapse movie. I went to the local Junior College where a man claimed to have such an apparatus. I set it up, ran it and got nothing. I took it back and told him it didn't work for me and gave him the $70 check. He never cashed it. But I never got my movie!
      This may be a good time to mention Landlord Principle #1. "Never fix anything yourself!" I believe I could have taken down this tree myself and would have enjoyed the challenge but then I would have the legal responsibility myself. So I never fix anything, I hire a professional and then the resposibility is his/hers or their insurance.

      I'm going to go into detail about this construction to impress you with the idea that if I can do it, so can you! I think most of the work in construction is rather logical and if you give it a bit of thought you can work out most of the problems. If you can read a blueprint and do what it says you will stay out of trouble.
      At various times you have to stop and let an inspector see what you have done. They really want to help and will keep you out of trouble and you should never get angry with them. They know their stuff and you don't, so just listen and ask questions! Yes, if they say "Jump!", your answer will be, "How high!?"
      I think the city is a little lenient with people that are doing their own building. They probably hold professionals to a stricter timeline than people like us, doing our thing.
      There will be a lot of pictures and I want them to be relatively large and informative. So they may not coincide with the text describing them but the text will not be very far away.