Rooms Without a View

I'm having some work done on the back side of the house. The ramp and back porch started tilting towards the house in the last couple of years directing rain water and snow melt right to the house. So replacing with a larger back porch (not much bigger), and changing to shallow steps. But first things first. While they have the porch/ramp off, they blocked in the basement and garage windows that are useless (and of which at least 2 of the 4 panes in each were broken/missing when I bought the house) and of which the sills and framing were rotting away.

The ramp/porch removed. Last year I had crawled my way under the ramp and installed concrete backer board over the windows and rotting sills to keep them from getting even wetter (or letting critters in).

Both windows removed and blocked in

Close up of Garage then basement windows blocked in

Basement window from inside. There were some challenges they had to overcome including the safe, that is 600# empty, so wasn't going to be moved out of the way.

Someone on a forum asked why I didn't just replace the windows, or put in glas blocks. Well, here is why not:

Those are where's Waldo pictures - find the windows - LOL. The basement window is under, and partially blocked by the ramp so doesn't really supply any light, nor does it supply an egress (not that the window opened anyway). The garage window is blocked by both the ramp and railings.

In 2017 or 2018 I had covered up inside the basement window with rigid foam insulation and sheetrock,

I had already torn that section out last year when I thought I had someone to do the block work (without removing the ramp). But they bailed on me after doing the outside painting.

Hopefully the new porch and stairs will be installed next week. We'll see how well the weather cooperates as we are entering an unsettled pattern.

Comments

[Cop Car]

Great progress, Bogie! You are going to be so much happier when the installation is complete.