Detroit Facility March trip

We made another trip to Detroit after the RM Sotheby's Amelia Island auction and spent 6 days working in the building. The place is now basically done with 'gutting' and cleanup and so we can start to think about the rebuilding and fitout process.

it was nice to get back there and the snow be gone and the temperatures be at a reasonable level!

The short week was the usual massive ammount of labor and dirt but we made good progress. The place is now more or less 100% gutted and cleaned up which is a huge milestone.

We had a 30yd dumpster delivered inside the building which was awesome! Although filling it with demo rubble took it out of us.

The area upstairs that will be the rental apartment has been boarded up for many years so with the warmer weather it was time to pull of the pywood and evaluate. We had to replace about 50% of the windows which we are doing throughout in 1/4 lexan. It was nice to finally see in there, it will be a cool space.

I also cut 4 test holes in the various roof areas to see what we are up against for replacing the roof membrane and wood structure. The main roofs need about 30-50% of the timber replacing, but that cant happen until the old membranes are removed. The test holes revealed the original roof was tar paper directly over the 2x6 T&G with no insulation layer, then a tar film and gravel. Then on top of that another tar and gravel layer and a final tar layer over the top. Removal will be heavy dirty work but once it starts to lift it isnt that bad. A team of us should be able to strip the whole roof in about 5 days I would think. Once that is off we can replace the rotted timbers and prep it to have a company come in and do the new rubber bladder over 2" insulation which should help keep the place warmer.

All good and we are excited to begin the actual building process.