This Old House

The Billerica House - 3

Tom recounts the day the machines came to tear down Dick and Sandra's old house. All that's left is a hole in the ground. Arborist Matt Foti and his crew take down two 75-year-old Eastern white pines damaged by the fire and cut them into 2x10 planks on a mobile saw mill. An environmental testing crew arrives to take soil samples, as the fire department suspects fuel oil was spilled on site during the fire. If tests shows that concentrations are high enough, a mitgation will be required by the state's department of environmental protection. Another team arrives to re-establish the height of the water table, digging a hole by hand, to satisfy the town's building department that the foundation's proposed elevationis legal. Architect Chris Dallmus shows us a model of the house-to-be, a four-bedroom, three-and-a-half-bath structure whose style Chris describes as ""village Victorian,"" modelled after some houses he found in Billerica's town center.