How to Bring New Life to an Old House with Katherine MacPhail

March 14, 2023
76.  How to Bring New Life to an Old House with Katherine MacPhail

In this episode of Tell Us How to Make It Better, host George Siegal sits down with Katherine MacPhail, an old house architect from Eastern Massachusetts. Katherine is a specialist in finding environmentally friendly solutions to old-house problems, which is important given that the construction industry produces a lot of greenhouse gases. She emphasizes the importance of considering the carbon footprint of the materials used to build or repair old homes. Katharine shares insights on upgrading electrical systems, retrofitting older homes, the importance of reusing high-quality wood to repair old windows, and the challenges of renovating older homes. 

She delves into the impact of the built environment on neighborhoods and how builders, architects, and government regulations can make buildings safer and more eco-friendly. Katharine’s Talking Home Renovations podcast is a helpful and friendly community for homeowners to learn more about renovating homes. Listen to this episode of Tell Us How to Make It Better for more on how to make sustainable choices when renovating old homes.

"As an architect who specializes in restoring old houses, I've realized that finding local materials isn't easy. I wish there was a one-stop shop of sorts for all of us to access, that would help easily source what's available as well as offer recommendations for what materials are most suitable. As individuals, there's so much we can do to create a positive impact on the environment." - Katharine MacPhail, on the challenges of sourcing local materials while retaining a sustainable approach to restoration.

Here’s how you can follow Katharine:

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Website: https://www.talkinghomerenovations.com 

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Transcript

George Siegal: 0:00

Hi everybody and welcome to the Tell Us How to Make It Better podcast. We talk a lot on this podcast about new construction and all the challenges in building. That also brings up the topic of how strong the building code is where you live. Now, the flaw in this discussion is the amount of existing houses that we have. The median age of a home in the US is 39 years old, so most people are not buying or living in new homes. That means there's a huge industry in buying and fixing up older homes. My guest today is Katharine MacPhail. She's an old house architect practicing in Eastern Massachusetts. She believes in new lives for old houses, environmentally friendly choices, and loves to investigate new technologies. Catherine has great advice on everything from roofing to foundations, sustainable building projects and practices, interior and exterior considerations, the emotional side of renovations, and how to work with professionals. I'm George Siegal, and this is the Tell Us How to Make It Better podcast. Every week we introduce you to people who are working on real world problems and providing actual solutions. Tell Us How to Make it Better is partnering with The Readiness Lab, the home for podcasts webinars and training in the field of emergency and disaster services. Katharine, welcome. Thank you so much for joining me today.

Katharine MacPhail: 1:20

Well, thanks for having me, George. I'm really, I'm, I'm excited to talk about this as always.

George Siegal: 1:26

I found you on LinkedIn. I go, wow, this, this is an interesting woman. There's a lot of cool stuff that you do. So I wanna learn more about it. So let's, let's jump right into it. Tell me what you have identified as a problem and then what you're doing to make it better?

Katharine MacPhail: 1:40

Well, I don't think it's any secret that the construction industry is a big generator of greenhouse gases and pollution and the carbon footprint potential for everything we do to our houses. We can either, , you know, much improved or not even thinking about it at all. Not think about the fact that we are importing let's say countertops or glass shower enclosures or anything else. The carbon footprint of the stuff we put into our house. There's so many different elements of architecture. I'm an old house architect or I'm an architect and I specialize in old houses, and we can get local materials, but it's not easy to find the local materials. There's not, I wish there were some kind of clearinghouse that each of us could have in our own areas, like what's from New England that I can use for countertops or for windows, or for any of these things that need to be shipped around the world. You know? So there's a lot of ways we can have a positive impact on the environment even as individuals.

George Siegal: 2:36

Absolutely. And I would think if you could find it locally, especially with all the I, you see houses that are just sitting for a long time now as they're waiting for things to be imported, if we could generate all that stuff within the United States, it seems like it could even speed up the process of building.

Katharine MacPhail: 2:51

Well, there are lots of good reasons to support local businesses, but yeah, I mean, having less shipping time. Shipping time lately has been a big, a big issue from overseas over covid. It became much more obvious where things were coming from before they just arrived or your dishwasher just arrived and you didn't think about all the other. The foam that went in it, or any of the other little elements that might be coming from Vietnam or somewhere else that, you know, it's just like we are such a global humanity, I guess, what would you call it? We, we just, we just don't even think about where a lot of what we use comes from and that's big impact.

George Siegal: 3:28

Absolutely. When I look at anything and it says, made in China, my first thought is, oh, come on. Could we? Yeah. Could we not, not have gotten that somewhere else. So I, I love older houses. You know, I used to live in San Francisco and I loved the Victorians. Here in Tampa there's an area called Hyde Park that has all the older houses. But now that I live in such a vulnerable hurricane area, yeah, the older homes scare me. What does somebody have to think about when they buy an older home?

Katharine MacPhail: 3:54

Well, of course I'm not in Florida, I'm in Massachusetts where we don't have as much hurricane. We don't have as frequent hurricane issues as you do. But for one thing, we were just talking about this last night, cause my house that we just bought isn't was built in 1794 and there may be this idea that it has survived. I, I got a book about the 1938 hurricane, which on the east coast was, was a really bad storm that nobody knew was coming. And so but it's withstood that storm and other storms. So I feel like people have this tendency to think that these older houses, they've been here so they can probably withstand more bad weather., you know, they stood the test of time as you if, if you will. I don't know whether, whether that's true or not. It may be I mean, any, any house can have a tree fall onto it, of course. But old houses are often overbuilt for one thing. The dimensional lumber that they had back in. But they're also underbuilt now that I think of it about my own, like my own framing.

George Siegal: 4:49

My question is about, and I know it affects the Northeast too, when a, when an nor Easter and a storm comes up that way, probably not as much by the time it gets to Massachusetts, but the sometimes the point is the, the, the, I guess the crux of the question is when you have an older house and now building codes have evolved and fire codes have evolved, and electric codes mm-hmm. all the codes have changed. Mm-hmm., what are the challenges when you come in there to bring that house up to code?, and are there things you can do that now make it a safer house?

Katharine MacPhail: 5:17

Oh yeah. So, The electrical is one pretty obvious thing that has changed a lot and most old houses still have some of the older electrical in there. So for example, in our house, which we're using as a case study for a development that we're planning moving forward, which has taken these old houses and modernizing them is it was a fuse box. A lot of knob and tube wiring. So we have replaced all that. That definitely makes it safer because it's not really that safe to have old, I mean, electrical's a big risk factor with older houses, but it's not hard to fix. So that's the good news. You can, you can use insulation and other air sealing methods to make the house warmer and therefore less drafty and energy. They're more energy efficient. That kind of is a little bit more complicated because it kind of depends on how the wall is constructed, what's the best way to insulate, but, and whether or not you're gonna gut the whole house, if you've got the whole house, it's way, it's a lot easier. It's a little trickier when you're trying to retrofit it without gutting it, but it's still, it's still possible. So, I think people rebuilding windows. The old windows that they have, those are higher quality wood that they use for those. They have, they are repairable. And once you, once you switch them out for new windows, especially vinyl windows, which are not my favorite you have to buy a new one when it, when it fails, whereas you can reglaze it yourself. So that's not really a safety thing, but just kind of like a whole reuse. a whole reuse idea of using all of these old materials that are still in the house.

George Siegal: 6:46

What I always hate is when you see, and especially when I lived in San Francisco, when you'd see a Victorian torn down and they'd put up a new square modern building. Yeah. And you see that a lot of, a lot of the houses that are going up around where I live, and it, it really loses the character and the charm of a community. Mm-hmm.. Yeah. And so how important is it to maintain that? I mean, I, I think it, it dramatically changes things and makes it less appealing.

Katharine MacPhail: 7:10

Oh yeah. I mean I think we're really affected by our built environment and whether or not we recognize it. I think the height and the, the bulk of the buildings really define a street, especially how much you want to walk on the street and how much people want to come out on the front porches that many of these Victorians might have had that the new houses maybe are more inward looking. So it just changes the nature of, of the neighborhood cuz people aren't sitting out on their porches like yelling hello to you in the morning when you're going by with your dog. It's just, it seems more isolating to me a lot of the time.

George Siegal: 7:43

Yeah, no, I tried flipping a house with some partners when I lived in Texas and it was, it was a much older home. And when you start breaking open walls, I guess the good news is you're improving things, but the bad news is you don't know what you're gonna find until you start cracking in there. Yes. How big a challenge is that when you go into an older house to to, to fix it up?

Katharine MacPhail: 8:02

I mean, it definitely depends on the house, cuz there are different levels of when that person built the house where they, what was it built, built for Hauser housing mill workers? Or was it someone who owned a brewery, you know, so if it's someone who was better off in, in the first place, then they would have higher quality hi, higher quality materials that are put in the house in the first place. So the woodwork and just the, the framing. Maybe done better. So there's some houses, honestly, that I go to that I think this isn't really worth the effort it's going to take to make it what it needs to be. It was so underbuilt to begin with, let's say, or it's been just MacGyvered so much over time that it's, it's gonna be pretty difficult. So we try to figure out what to do, what to do about that. But often those need to be like a gut, a gut rehab with structural and everything. But there are other old houses that are in really good shape and have so much material already in them that you don't have to go buy again. And I dunno, it's just really Good example of how we can reuse materials.

George Siegal: 9:04

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Katharine MacPhail: 10:04

Well, the garage is definitely something that can come back at you because even if you do have a garage, for some reason the garages were much smaller back then. So you have to, you, you could barely fit a car into a 1920s garage, for example. Our current our current car, so other things you might need to think about is like how do you want to live in the house? I'm a big advocate for keeping walls in old houses because I think there is a benefit to having smaller rooms in the house. If you really want to live in a craftsman house, for example, maybe don't buy a, a split level ranch and try to make it into a craftsman. Just try, start with something that you actually like to begin with. I, I do see people trying to change a lot of houses into something like a a farmhouse where it's actually not close to a farmhouse in reality, you know, so there's like a lot of effort that's required to really change the the house. So figure out how you want to live in your house, how many people will be there, how often you entertain, what kind of spaces are gonna be the best for you, and then find a you know, the phase in history that appeals to you the most, and then fix that house up.

George Siegal: 11:12

Yeah. I think everybody always sits there and watches HGTV and they see where they're knocking out walls and all of a sudden the kitchen's gotta look out to the backyard. And a lot of these older homes weren't built with that, so you gotta move a lot of stuff around to achieve that. Mm-hmm.. And they make it look so much easier than it probably is in the real world.

Katharine MacPhail: 11:29

Yeah, they definitely make it look easy. I mean, they don't have that long for the show. Right. So it happens pretty fast within the arc of the show, but it isn't. It isn't that fast usually going forward. But I mean a lot of the kitchens do need to be replaced, meaning all of the appliances and I guess you don't, you could argue you don't have to replace the countertops, but just they're not in fashion anymore. So stuff, people just want it to be their own kind of imprint on the house, which is fine cuz we all have our own, we all have our own preferences, but I just don't love taking out a ton of the walls in a house. Cuz for one thing, and people might not really understand this, but., you really can't take out all the walls or you can't easily take out all the walls on a, on a first floor of a house that's already been built and has certain structural systems in place. And there are lots of different forces. Not just not it. It's just not that simple. And so I have been involved with projects like that where the people wanted to remove most of the walls and my engineer says to me, Katharine, this is just aggressive, so I just want you to keep that in mind. That's aggressive to take out all the walls and hard to, and hard to safely make it work. You know.

George Siegal: 12:38

It's interesting that each style as you go to fix it, like today, if you're building a concrete house, , those walls have to sit on top of each other. If you want a concrete house in the old days, it's, it's finding those load bearing walls and, and having access to it. But what I think, what would be the cool thing about the houses, it sounds like you work on, that's before asbestos was blown into the cottage cheese ceilings and all the things that could kill you. So I, I mean, those things are a pain to deal with.

Katharine MacPhail: 13:02

Oh, they're still there. I mean, they're there. They came in a, you know, when asbestos was the big thing, whenever that might have been in the house's history and a lot of the walls that went up in even the sixties and seventies. So if there have been any work done over the life of the house, now we're finding asbestos in the in the drywall mudding and taping and stuff like that. And so in Massachusetts, we have to check all of those surfaces for asbestos. So yeah, there's a lot. Even in old houses, there might even be more. And of course there's lead paint a lot of the time. Yeah. And so just being aware of all those toxins in the house while you're working on it. And my own, my own uh, I have three children. My oldest one became lead poisoned because I was probably not as safe as I could have been, but I actually, I actually think he got it from being outside and eating. Being outside and eating, eating, paint that it was in the soil from out there. Not that he ate a lot of soil, but you know, you just have to be careful around these these older houses when it comes to trying to live in them and renovate them at the same time. Even for adults, I think lead poisoning, it doesn't, it doesn't do us any favors to be inhaling all that lead either.

George Siegal: 14:13

Now I know in, in places like Florida, Texas, places that are in more in the bullseye of, of hurricanes and, and natural disasters, the building codes have changed, the elevations that houses need to be at to get insurance. Yeah. What kind of a challenge is that in Massachusetts, when you have an older home, have the building codes evolved way past that? So there's a lot you need to do to bring it up to code?

Katharine MacPhail: 14:35

Well, in a lot of places where a house might already be in a flood zone, there are regulations as to how much you can improve the house before you have to get up to code with the current laws about building in a certain flood zone. So that is involving putting houses on stilts, as you see a lot in, in Florida. And it's, it's something that I've been talking about a lot actually, because, speaking of changing the fabric of a neighborhood, I mean, having some houses lifted, other houses not lifted, what is that, what is that all going to look like in in these very established areas that we have up here along the coast? So yeah, I've been involved with projects where you do have to lift the house up to a certain level. You need to have a different type of, you can't have a basement because, , they want the water just to be able to rush through. A lot of the houses up here already have basements, so it is a big issue that I don't think we've been quite addressing enough. And Nantucket, for example, are starting to put houses up on stilts, but I haven't seen it yet. What does it look, I, what does it look like? I did a show, I did a show once on a house mover who had lifted a, an historic house in Charleston, South Carolina. And so they designed the whole underside of it and the stairs, you know, so were these grand stairs kind of going up to the level again, but that's like a whole nother level of redesigning our communities. It's gonna be interesting to see how that plays out.

George Siegal: 15:56

Yeah. They have a lot of flooding issues in Charleston and it's, it's if you raise one of those houses that would throw the whole block off. I mean, the way that that look is, it's pretty set. One of the things we noticed too is builders seem to lobby to keep building codes from being as strong as they possibly could, at least in a lot of the places that I've lived. Mm-hmm.. And, and that's kind of a challenge because I interviewed an architect recently who said he doesn't like the term built to code. He wants built architects and builders thinking of the next wave, what's coming up, and to be forward thinking. Yes. How important do you think that is?

Katharine MacPhail: 16:32

Oh, it's absolutely important. I mean, I couldn't, it's, I don't know how we're going to I don't force people to do the right thing unless we regulate it through the government. That just sounds weird, but maybe that's the only way that we can get people to build more responsibly.

George Siegal: 16:50

It seems like it is, but it also seems like a problem that's so easily fixable if, if builders, architects, people that were in on the other side of this were forward thinking and just said, look, this is the way it should be because people are gonna choose the cheaper option if they can. You know, when we were in Oklahoma, they changed the building code and they could stop houses from being destroyed by tornadoes in Moore Oklahoma, and it ended up costing a couple dollars more, which roughly was the cost of granite countertops. And a builder we talked to said if people had had the choice, they would still choose the granite countertops over the safer house. Mm-hmm.. Whereas if you just told them, look, you have to do it this way, then they, they would do it that way.

Katharine MacPhail: 17:31

Yeah. I, I'm not generally a huge fan of just telling people they have to do things a certain way, but sometimes, yeah. If they're gonna, if they're gonna choose something like the countertops over building a safe house, then I guess we're just, I dunno, it just feels weird to say, well, we're just saving you from yourself. But on the other hand, why allow these, these houses that can easily be destroyed to be built, you know, from all sorts of points of view on that one. I dunno, it just doesn't seem like, it doesn't make any sense to me. So we are in Massachusetts, there's you know, at different energy energy codes are changing all the time and getting more and more stringent. So that does affect the old houses here because a lot of houses don't even have any insulation at all. So and that's in that sense, you can make, it could be a lot better than what you have, but it's not gonna be as tight as a, as a new house usually. So.

George Siegal: 18:20

Yeah, I think there's some point where you've gotta tell people this is the way it has to be to be safe. I mean, we make people wear seat belts, we make people have airbags in their car. Yeah. We don't say, Hey, you can get that car for $10,000 less if we take out all the safety features. Mm-hmm.. So I think builders could, the builders or the architects that step forward could really be heroes here. I mean, it seems like a solvable problem. We don't have the complete cure, but we know how to make it better, right? People just have to be told, this is, this isn't safe.

Katharine MacPhail: 18:52

Right. I mean, hurricane clips, for example, on our, on our roofs, we just have to use them. It's not an option not to, you could save $50 not using hurricane clips. Nobody ever says that you just don't want your house to blow the roof to blow off your house. So, yeah, I, I I agree, but if the architects are only involved with something like 2% of residential, Projects in the country, so we can do some things. But I do think it has to be something that contractors are pushing or interested in. And I have found in my own, in my own time, I've asked people I have this homeowner's guide to environmentally friendly renovations that I put together probably like five or six years ago because I felt like people were just overwhelmed by the information that was out there. And they felt like, you know, I just can't, I have to make all these other choices anyway. I just can't deal with this. What I should do to make it green. And if things have changed a lot in the last 20 years, which is great, but this, so this guide that I have is basically like, these are the things that are really easy to do and these are the things that are a little harder to do. And these are the things that are like wacky and out there like gray water. Not out there, but that are less likely to to be done. But one reason I had to write that was because the contractors that I would work for, even if I convinced my, my clients to do, Something in particular, the contractor would always say, well, that's gonna be more money, and talk them out of doing it, possibly because it's not the way they've always done it, so they don't really know who to hire to do it that way or whatever it may be. But it, that was a huge, a huge part of the frustration for me. So I feel like architects are, for the most part on board the, all the architects I know are, are interested in this. Sustainability of, or the viability of what we do and the future of the buildings that we create. But the contractors are the ones I think we need to, we need to convince. And they're often just for houses. They're, it's kind of, could be like a very small business. They just always do things the same way. They need to well, I don't know, move along and have a new crop of younger contractors maybe come..

George Siegal: 20:58

I think that's a great idea. Really care. I, I think you hit on what I think a lot of the problem is. A lot of these people, first of all, a lot of contractors have trouble finding good people to work under them. Yeah. True. To come out and do the work. So good craftsman. So you may have a great idea of how something should be built and they'll go, I can't do that. Or they'll know it's gonna take 'em more time or cost 'em more money. And they're counting nickels as a business as opposed to doing what is best for the homeowner. So that's a very frustrating thing. And, and so, you know, I meant I think it's more of a builder problem than an architect problem. I, the architects I've talked to are like you. They, you guys are all you you see it. You want the be you have, I mean this, the stuff you're doing is all about Yeah. Improving things. It is, so it's, I don't know how we fixed that other end. I mean, we just. I.

Katharine MacPhail: 21:43

Well, I mean, like you said, one of the ways is to develop code that requires certain measures. Another way is to educate the public more so the, cuz I think it has to be driven by the consumer so that they're asking for this thing. So even when the contractor says, oh, you know, that's gonna be more money. Then some say I value that enough to like exactly how much more money, you know, things like, Solar panels, like I was gonna get some solar panels, or I am getting some solar panels eventually for my house, but then I find out they're$42,000 and then I think, well, 42 thou, okay, maybe I'll wait and see if I can get all the rest of this stuff done so that I need to get done to the house and then see what I could do with the, with the, it's just a lot of money, you know? And people have budgets and they don't maybe decide that they want to go for the. The local soap stone when they can get a much less expensive co countertop from, you know, home Depot or something.

George Siegal: 22:41

Well, don't get started on solar panels. I've had people come out and try to sell 'em to me for my house. Yeah, yeah. And they talk about, you know, this is gonna be good for the next 30 years and you'll save all this money. I said, I might not be alive for 30 years.. Well, that's true. So I ask, I ask them questions and I say, tell., like if I put a pool in, my realtor can tell me what the value is for my house, if I resell it. Mm-hmm., what percentage I might get back. Yeah. Solar panel people, and I haven't had one salesman tell me what that makes my house worth to the next person. Yeah. So I may spend that 42 grand and I may just be lightening it on fire and never see it again. Plus when they looked at my roof, they go, yeah, yours is gonna be really complicated. It's like, well, you should have told me that 30 minutes before you wasted my time.

Katharine MacPhail: 23:21

Yeah, I find the solar, the whole solar panel sales experience to be pretty confusing, even though I kind of know what I'm talking about when it comes to houses and energy consumption and other stuff like that. I don't understand what they're talking about and I wonder if it's because they don't understand what they're talking about. You know, because who are, are these people? They're not, they didn't invent them. So when we ask questions like, what is the return on investment on this? They don't, they can't really say. In my experience, I believe that when people have updated systems, when they have energy efficient houses, and they can use that as a selling point to the house, including solar. I mean, I think if it's a good solar array and it's not like you've rented it out to the company for any of their weird stuff that they do. Mm-hmm., I think it does add value to the house because the people who would be interested in buying that house would be people who care about stuff like that, like energy efficiency. I don't know how you make people care, but you know, like my neighbors, for example, they're, they bought their house from a flipper a flipper I flippers, but, and they bought a house from a flipper and they have rented solar panels. So it's like one of those things where the, it's like you can get solar for zero money down. And that's because they own them now. You don't own them. And so then they inherited this other thing. And so it's just confusing for people. I just don't think anybody It's too bad because that would be a great way for us to get more energy, you know, from the sun. But.

George Siegal: 24:48

There's no question, and I'm not saying I'm not a believer in, in that it's a great technology. I've, I read an article that where Elon Musk was talking about if you gave him a large area, how many places he could provide power to with solar panels. Mm-hmm., if it's on a bigger picture when you're going house to house and roof to roof, I think it leaves open a lot of room to take advantage of people, like a lot of contractors do, and a lot of, a lot of maintenance people do. And that's kind of what my film's about. And the one I'm making now, it's trying to start the grassroots from the bottom., we need to demand more and stop rewarding mediocrity from mm-hmm people. Just because it, it's a competitive market. I've gotta have that house. Well, it's got all these problems. Well, I gotta have it anyway. No you don't. Mm-hmm , if they built something crummy, don't reward' em for it.

Katharine MacPhail: 25:32

Well, that's true. You mean like these new houses that are, that have problems within five years of mold and all the rest of it? Cuz they're not built well. Is that what you mean? Like those types of things?

George Siegal: 25:42

I, yeah. Don't like DR horton. Did you ever see that story on, I think it was 60 minutes or something? There's a whole report of, of Dr. Horton homes and I just named them. It could be any builder. The whole neighborhood was falling apart. Mm-hmm. And these poor people, that's their biggest investment. That's their life in that house. And now they have to deal with all these problems. It's heartbreaking.

Katharine MacPhail: 26:00

Yeah, it is. It is. It's heartbreaking, overwhelming, disruptive to their., you know, to their families and their daily routines and their finances and everything, like your home is, I, I believe people's homes are part of their family, kind of. People are really attached to them. And when they're sick or not working, it can be very yeah, just more impactful than you might think. But maybe people don't care. Like, I don't know how you get everybody to care enough to demand better quality when that's gonna come with a price.

George Siegal: 26:29

Well, sometimes the price, you know, I had one gentleman on who was talking about if you replace all the toxic materials in your house and build, like you're talking about with, with green, environmentally safe things that aren't letting off gases. Mm-hmm., it shouldn't cost that anymore than doing it the, yeah the way they were going to do it. But the difference it could make is huge. You just have to put a little more time into it.

Katharine MacPhail: 26:49

Yeah. It's time. I mean, also people say time, time is money. Is it worth it? I would say yes, either in time or money don't do as much. Build smaller houses. They could build smaller places that are better built, that people don't need all this extra space I think that they are creating a demand for now. If you look at the size of houses, they've grown a lot, the spec houses over the last 50 years.

George Siegal: 27:15

And have you noticed the people that are yelling at us the most to have smaller houses, usually have the biggest houses? You

Katharine MacPhail: 27:21

know, that's uh, well my house isn't that small. I mean, my house is 20, 2400 square feet, which I think used to be the average size house. But I have friends who tell me about their 13,000 square foot projects they're working on. And I think that is just, in my mind, that's too big. Why do you need that much?, but I don't need to judge people. But I, I do feel like we could make an impact just by building, even if you're using bad materials, you're importing all this stuff. If you built it smaller, it would already be that much better or less impactful, you know? I don't know. Sure. I, I, what do you, what do people do in 13,000 square feet?

George Siegal: 28:02

Probably throw a lot of parties then resell it and make more money. I don't know. And I guess that's what they do.. That's a lot of space. So yeah. Give gimme a takeaway here. So somebody's going out and they're looking at a house, and they find a house that's 50, 60 years old. Mm-hmm.. Are there things they should be thinking about as they're walking around? What should be going through their mind?

Katharine MacPhail: 28:21

Well, I always like to go to the basement because, They can make it look pretty on the first floor. And if you don't know very much about buildings, you can bring somebody with you. But the basement reveals a lot. Well, not if it's finished, because then it's hard to see. But if it is an open basement, you can see if what the foundation walls are like, if there's any water, water's really the worst thing that could come into a house. So if there are leaks or any kind of water seepage in the basement trying to figure out, well, what's that about? And.. Other than that, there's huge, you can fix up, you can fix up anything. You can learn anything on YouTube. So if you love this house and even if it does have water, sea pitch in the basement, that can often be fixed. But that's gonna be a big, a big deal and it's not something that is gonna be as rewarding to spend a lot of money on. But that's what needs to happen to stabilize a house. So look at, look for the water coming into the house. I would say attic and basement.

George Siegal: 29:19

And do you tell people? I mean, if, if you see something as a problem, and this has happened to me every time I've owned a house, if I saw something that I thought was a boil, but it was okay, I could live with it. When I went to sell the house, that was the first thing everybody noticed. So if there wasn't enough closet space that bothered them if the garage was too steep, so you couldn't get a sports car in if the back faced the sun and it was too hot. I mean, people always pick on what you think. If you think it's gonna be a problem, it probably is gonna be a problem.

Katharine MacPhail: 29:47

Well, that's true, but I mean, I guess there are certain people who, like, as I was saying, certain vintage houses, they love a Victorian, even though it might not be have as much closet space or, you know, whatever it is. I guess you would think if you have an old house, that you'll probably sell that house to someone else who else, who appreciates whatever it is. You appreciate about the house.

George Siegal: 30:08

If you can find them, if they, if they walk through and it's for sale. Right.

Katharine MacPhail: 30:12

Right. They're out there though. They're out there. You just have to find your, you have to find your people and then tell 'em your house is for sale.

George Siegal: 30:19

I wish I had an old Victorian house, but I would just be too afraid in Florida that that was gonna go be airborne or underwater. Yeah. In the next big storm.

Katharine MacPhail: 30:28

That is true. That's a problem with, with Florida. Florida kind of scares me a little how, how., you know, you go to those, you go to those places in Florida, like down toward the Everglades, those parks that have, this is how, this is the 12 foot mark, this is the 13 foot mark. And then you see of the water level where it might be eventually. So Florida's a little bit of a different story than to me, than other places in the country because it's so close to being part of the ocean. You know what I mean? Sure. It's pretty low. It's pretty low. But I love Florida. I, a lot of people say bad things about Florida, but I think the history of Florida is really amazing.

George Siegal: 31:09

They're just jealous cuz they don't live here if they're trashing That's right. Our great state. Absolutely. They're, but I, but I think the same principles of caution that we should have here in Florida apply everywhere. I mean, when Hurricane Sandy came up the East Coast, I mean, yeah, every now and then you guys get pounded up there in Massachusetts and it's nice to know your house can handle it.

Katharine MacPhail: 31:27

It is.. It is nice to know. So, I mean, talking to a structural engineer too, I think people fall in love with houses, but if you come to a house and you really want that house, then having a structural engineer walk through it with you, maybe before you buy it, depending on your level of knowledge, just to see if, let's say the foundations are bulging or if you need to tie the, the, the roof down, or if you want to get solar panels, you need to augment the structure up there. That's a good person to know. Also, structural engineer when it comes to older houses, making them safer.

George Siegal: 31:59

Sure. People shouldn't be fearful of having that extra inspection, cuz that might be the person that catches something that can save them a lot of money. That was just getting mm-hmm passed on to them.

Katharine MacPhail: 32:09

Yeah. And, and also the home inspector that you choose if you're building buying an older house, buying, having an inspector who specializes in older houses, who understands the construction of older houses. And that's kind of key if you want to buy a certain vintage house, you know, because the things that might seem very surprising or upsetting to a one inspector who isn't familiar with old building, you know, methods and all that. It might, it might give you the wrong impression about, about a house, but if you're in, in love with old houses, you're probably already aware of that. But my ins my structural engineer, I showed him my chimney base. I did a FaceTime with him. I already owned the house. I didn't, I already owned the house. And he, he, he said, oh, Katharine, careful, careful. Get out of there. You should get it. Don't even, don't touch that. So that was a little alarming cuz he had known him for 20 years and he never, Seemed to get that, that kind of, so I, I listened to him when he told me that. So I had to rebuild the base of my chimney. So little things.

George Siegal: 33:13

Is that a big deal to do? Was that, was that tough to do?

Katharine MacPhail: 33:15

Well, I didn't do it, honestly. It wasn't, I didn't personally do it

George Siegal: 33:18

Right, but whoever came in and did it, was that a big project?

Katharine MacPhail: 33:20

Well, big as in expensive. Yeah. The whole, the whole chimney thing was, is a big, that's another thing maybe you should check is chimneys, cuz that's a big. If you want to have a work fireplace and a big deal, meaning it costs a lot of money Yeah. More than you wanna spend.

George Siegal: 33:35

Yeah. Something that's something we don't need to worry about down here most of the time.

Katharine MacPhail: 33:37

Right, right. And, and yeah. A lot of places, they don't have basements. They don't have chimneys, so they don't have to worry about it. But those can be a, an unwelcome yeah, an unbroken challenge in a lot of old houses.

George Siegal: 33:50

Absolutely. So, Catherine, what's the best way for people to follow? Can they, how do they get that information that you were talking about, that pamphlet? What's the, what's the best way to do that?

Katharine MacPhail: 33:59

Oh, well, you can send me an email for that. It's a work in progress, so I change it a lot. It has a lot of websites and things in there. So if you send me an email at well, you can send it at that, the House maven@talkinghomerenovations.com. That's my podcast that's my podcast email. I'm likely to see it there and I will send it along to you. We're on Instagram. Well, the, the podcast is on Instagram. talking home renovations, also Facebook talking home renovations, all the same. Not very, not very hard. And yeah, my, my podcast basically is in the fifth season right now, and we, I am talking to people in the old house community from Instagram mostly about their stories, about their houses and what they've learned from their renovations. So if that's something that you're interested in and you're not already part of that community, it's a very helpful friendly place to learn more about your house.

George Siegal: 34:50

Well, congratulations on five years of a podcast. That's that's great.

Katharine MacPhail: 34:54

Yeah. Well, let me in. It's only five. It's been three and a half years technically, but that's still a long time.

George Siegal: 34:58

That is, no, that's fantastic.

Katharine MacPhail: 35:01

Yeah. Anyway, it's fun.

George Siegal: 35:03

I will put all your links in the show notes and encourage people to check it out, check out your podcast and I appreciate your time, Katharine thank you so much.

Katharine MacPhail: 35:11

Thanks, George.

George Siegal: 35:12

Thank you for listening to the Tell Us How to Make It Better podcast. If you have a good or bad home issue you'd like to share, I'd love to hear from you. There's a link in the show notes to a contact form. Just click it and fill it out. If you'd like to hear firsthand horror stories of people whose lives were turned upside down in disasters. There's also a link to my documentary film, the Last House Standing, and if you enjoyed what you were listening to, please become a subscriber, share the link, and even leave a review. Thanks again for listening. See you next time.