[Image: front view of townhomes]After losing his family home in Hurricane Katrina, Al Petrie will move into his new home on the same site in early December 2009.
This grand stucco house at 6403 Vicksburg St., New Orleans, is not the first home Petrie built to live in after Katrina. First, Petrie began building a townhouse duplex at the site of a former rental property at 6376 Vicksburg St. in late January 2006. He intended to live in one of the two townhouses while he planned for the rebuilding of his new single-family residence.
The Petrie family has lived in Lakeview since 1965 and loves the city and the neighborhood. There was not much debate about whether to move back and rebuild. Now at the end of construction, Petrie looks back and considers his decisions.
"I must've been crazy to do all this without knowing anything!" Petrie said.
At the time he started, no one knew what would happen in the city or in the neighborhood. Petrie was the first to drive piles for new construction in Lakeview, yet he didn't know if people would come back and rebuild. It is only in retrospect that Petrie realizes level of the risk he took, but he is glad he did.
"People around here made a commitment," he said. "They're coming back and fixing their homes."
When Petrie began planning for the townhouses, the need to elevate any structure he built was foremost in his mind. In early 2006, there were no guidelines or requirements for rebuilding and elevating, so Petrie and his contractor tried to determine what height FEMA would probably require for his Lakeview neighborhood. They checked the waterline, but then decided to build higher. This way they would create usable space beneath the townhomes for a garage. Consequently, the garage is built 9 feet above grade and is enclosed.
Wanting structural stability and energy efficiency, Petrie originally considered building a concrete house. After looking into it, he found this would be too expensive. He also discovered there were not many builders in the area who knew how to build this way. So, Petrie decided to construct the ground floor out of concrete blocks, with typical wood construction for the living quarters above. The block cells were filled every 5 feet with concrete, helping to stabilize the structure and also to provide insulation.
In case of future flooding, all electrical instruments, appliances, etc., in the ground floor garage are located above Base Flood Elevation (BFE) at 4 feet 6 inches high. Flood vents were added according to code around the perimeter. The townhouses are 1,200 square feet per floor, yielding a total living area for each of 2,400 square feet and 1,200 square feet for the garage.
The building was carefully planned, but still a couple of problems were revealed during and after completion. The ground floor exterior is clad in brick, a decision that turned out to be very costly, Petrie learned. In addition, no waterproofing measures were put in place at this level, and moisture has become a problem, seeping through the brick. Steps are being taken to address this.
Petrie is pleased that he took [Image: front facade of the new family home]a two-step process in rebuilding. In constructing the townhouses first, he was able to determine what worked best and what he would do differently in building his family home. The first change was to build the foundation 1 foot higher than street level and to direct all water to slope away from the home. The second improvement involved installing heavy-duty waterproofing on the exterior of the concrete blocks and indoor waterproofing on the interior, which was then painted. The third change involved cladding the exterior with stucco, a much less expensive yet still attractive option than the brick used for the townhouses.
“We used every type of hurricane protection we could,” Petrie said. Three-quarter-inch plywood is used for sheathing; every floor is strapped to the next and then strapped to the roof; the roof has hurricane clips installed; and all windows on the third floor are impact-resistant. As a cost-saving measure, Petrie chose not to use the impact-resistant windows for the second floor. These window types are not required on the second floor of a house. In addition, the original house received no window damage from Katrina, so Petrie felt it was a safe course of action.
Energy efficiency also was a goal for Petrie in building his new home. Besides the insulating value of the concrete block foundation, open cell foam insulation was used on all perimeter surfaces, thus sealing the home like an ice chest. Because of this, Petrie was able to cut down on both the size and number of air conditioning units.
The house at 6403 Vicksburg St. was elevated 9 feet high. Combined with the 1 foot elevation of the foundation, the house sits 10 feet above grade. The home has about 2,200 square feet per floor for a total of 4,400-4,500 square feet of living area with a 2,200-square-foot garage.
Although Petrie is happy with his new home and the duplex, he admits it was not always easy. The permitting process and obtaining utilities were two particularly challenging processes, and he was concerned this might scare others away from rebuilding. He understands though, commenting that the city officials had never had to deal with a situation like this and at this scale.
"I felt sorry for them," he said. "Instead of maybe tens of permit applications a month, they were now getting thousands!"
Both the townhouses and Petrie's residence are beautiful homes that fit the character and context of the neighborhood. They show that homeowners are finding different ways in which to elevate their homes in an aesthetically pleasing way.