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Is it ever done?

Posted by Jeffrey on Aug 1, 2005

Well, it’s been about 6 weeks or so since my last post. For those who don’t know (sorry about that…) we had a baby 5 weeks ago. Which explains why I haven’t had any time to work on the basement or post anything worthwhile. His name is Thomas and everyone is doing well, getting used to lack of sleep, diapers, car seats etc. Thomas even has his own website. (I don’t know where he finds the time to learn to type, read and blog.)
So in between diaper changes and work, I managed to finally put up the sliding doors and paint them the trim color which we have used in the rest of the house.

You can see the sliding door which hides the mess in the back of the basement.

Like everything else in the basement, the dimensions are not standard. Which means that even though I got a 78″ door, I still had to trim off about an inch or two from the bottom to make it fit. Since they are hollow doors, I had to cut the doors and then take out the solid wood filler piece from the bottom (off the scrap piece) and then glue it back into the door. Seems like a lot of work at the time, just for these sliding doors, but at least they fit.
Once the doors were in I could finish the rest of the baseboard. And yes, finally, (for those of you that may have noticed the lack of the insulation package), I installed the sound insulation today. It seems to make a big difference even when we are on the main floor.
You can also see the bookcase/storage unit we got from Neoset.

These hold a lot of stuff.

We actually got all our books that were in boxes into this thing and other stuff in the units underneath like some china, binders, and other junk. We still have the back area of the basement to organize, but at least now we can close the doors and pretend that it doesn’t exist.
When we had some family over, I had a chance to ask for some help in moving the couch downstairs.

The old couch with Winston actually not jumping on it.

I’m glad we did it because we have Thomas’ crib/basinet/change table combo unit where that couch was on the main floor. Oh yeah, that is our dog Winston by the couch hamming it up for the camera. In the back corner we plan to put an electric fireplace and a chair for reading (yeah, as if we’ll ever get the time to do that).
And here

On the left you can just see the bulkhead where I routed the duct for the exhaust fan.

you can see the bathroom. I just have to patch some tile on the floor where they originally had a bulkhead for the old gas meter. It was covered in ugly cedar panels and of course it was uninsulated. I installed a light in the shower stall and with the halogen lights over the sink and fixture, it really makes a difference in the room.
So, now only a few things left to do in the bathroom but now I am finding that it is difficult to match the floor tiles, so I will have to find something that at least is close so I can get that out of the way.
At least now we can use the basement where before the whole space was only storage that made it far too easy to simply pile boxes and just turn out the light and forget about them. Now I just close the door to the back of the basement and accomplish the same thing!

Operation Organization

Posted by Jeffrey on Jun 19, 2005

This week I have mainly been doing some finish carpentry such as baseboards (a pain) and the trim around the bathroom door (slightly less of a pain). I had to paint everything before I installed it so I set up a makeshift paint area on the washer dryer in the back room. And yes I used drop sheets to catch the paint splatters. It was still pretty crowded back there this week until Saturday when the installer from Neoset came back with the smaller replacement section so that he could fit the unit back flush against the wall.

The center section is smaller so that the unit will now fit flush against the wall.

The reason is was still so crowded is that there were still a fair amount of boxes back there, plus the miter saw, plus the shop vac, plus, plus, plus… You get the idea. So when the shelving was ready, we took advantage of it and spent Sunday morning putting books back and organizing other stuff which had been in the way for the past 6 months or so. I should say Kim organized the books by subject grouping and I just tried to keep getting the rest of the stuff organized so that the storage under the bookcases would be more organized than what we previously had.
Some of those boxes hadn’t been unpacked in a while so now we took some time to go through them and get rid of papers and stuff that had been hanging around for far too long. Felt pretty good to toss that stuff and Freecycle the rest of it. [Freecycle is a message board in Toronto that allows members to post stuff they they think others might want so it doesn't have to be thrown in the garbage.]
Also last week I took the door for the electrical panel into a shop that does mirrors and glass so they could set in a mirror in the frame I made to size.

The mirror hides the electrical panel.

I painted it first and dropped it off last week. I picked it up and installed it with some of those European full overlay hinges (which allow the door to be flush mounted but still open up.) I also found out you have to buy a 35mm forstner bit (at the Depot) for this installation to inset part of the hinge. This bit will now fall to the bottom of my toolbox where it will lie undisturbed for years as I will probably not install this type of hinge in the foreseeable future. Well at least it works… and the mirror really makes the space feel bigger as well.

Furniture- 1 for 2

Posted by Jeffrey on Jun 12, 2005

Well I guess you can’t have everything. Just as I thought we would be able to finally start organizing and putting away all our stuff, we ran into a small snafu: I think that the designer who put together the plan for our furniture miscalculated the length and as a result, only the first bank of storage fit in, and the second one was too long.

More books, but did at least they will be well sorted.

So as you can see here we put some books in and got the bathroom cleared out (that was where we stuffed all those 7 plastic bins filled with books until the carpet installer finished laying the carpet.)
Actually it was Kim who put all the books away, by Library of Congress Heading categories. I would have just stuffed them in according to size, but apparently that is a big no-no. How was I to know?
But the furniture (from Neoset) looks good and matches the carpet and paint and the best part of it was that they send a couple of installers to put it in for you. Its actually pretty reasonable and looks more substantial than the IKEA units we looked at.
After clearing out the bathroom, I wired in the potlights and wouldn’t you know it, they didn’t work either. Couldn’t figure out why and was just about to call my friend Graham, who helped me on my earlier electrical questions, when I just decided to call it a night. I woke up thinking about why it didn’t work and was dreading the investigation: if I couldn’t get them to work, would I have to rip out the ceiling in the bathroom (again)? No way! Then I thought some more and since it’s just wire, the only place that you could get problems is at the connections (assuming that you haven’t cut the wire somehow.) So I used the circuit tester and sure enough, there was current getting to the first fixture in the circuit, but not the second.
So I pulled apart off the marettes and out drops the end of the wire. Seems that it broke off when I maretted it the first time. When I put it all back together it worked! And then I put in the bulb in the shower enclosure and it works too! Now if you shower down there you can actually see versus feeling like you are in a dark cave.

Trim work takes forever…

I also put the piece of trim on the edge of the stairs and painted it out to match all the trim in the rest of the house. Now I have to finish the baseboard around the rest of the room while we wait for the furniture guys to come back. They will take out one of the sections and replace it with a shorter one so that the entire thing will fit.

Carpet and vacuuming

Posted by Jeffrey on Jun 5, 2005

The carpet went in on Saturday and now is the first time I can vacuum in the room without using the shop vac.

The carpet looks great with the paint color.

I was glad that there were no issues with the carpet because the furniture / storage units we ordered are scheduled to come next week and then, finally we can begin to put away all the books.
We have taken a look through all the boxes that we have stored for so long and have started to throw stuff out that we really should have thrown out months ago. But we might as well do it now rather than just close our eyes and once again pretend that it isn’t there.

Wait, where did all this stuff come from? And what is that insulation doing there?

That is why the boxes are in various stages of upheaval; we are trying to condense so that we only have to re-store what is necessary. And I have set up the mitre saw back where all this stuff used to be so I can finish all the trim work and finish carpentry that has to be completed. Today I worked on the door for the electrical panel. It will have a frame that will enclose a mirror I will repurpose that came from one of my family member’s old bathrooms. I also have to finish the cover for the water meter, but I have already cut the cover, I just have to add some trim to the outside.
The task for next week is to cut some baseboard for the edges so that I can get the furniture / storage in when they come to install it next weekend. Also have to put in a trim piece on the stair egde and paint that to match the rest of the trim in the house [Benjamin Moore 'Palace White' for those who care].

Have to get a piece of trim for that edge.

Finally, less crap, more light

Posted by Jeffrey on Jun 4, 2005

Finally, I moved all of the crap out of the main room so that the carpet installer could come on Saturday. As you can see, the room looks much bigger!

Now where did I hide all that junk?

I also installed all the recessed halogen lights this week which was a bit of a pain, but I wanted to do it before the carpet went in. I made a detailed drawing of where the lights should go in so that after the drywall went up, I would know where to put in the holes. I used a 3″ hole saw to cut out the holes and then wired up the lights to the 14/2 wire that the electricians fed.
The GU-10s look really good and they throw off a nice bright light. The one’s I got have a gimbaled head so that you can use them as wall washers as well or just to target the light. I haven’t really fiddled with that yet, I have just put in the last 2 Friday night so the next task is to put the two in the bathroom to complete the circuit for the one that is in the shower stall.

Oh yeah, all the junk is in the back room.

Paint, paint and more paint.

Posted by Jeffrey on May 29, 2005

The task for last weekend was to make sure I painted the entire room and bathroom on Saturday. After doing some final sanding near the stairs the area had to be primed and the beam painted with ceiling paint. While that was drying, I went around and cut in with the brush so that I could start on the other walls. I had put up the tape the previous few days so that I could make sure that the painting got done on Saturday.

I hope this is the last of the painting.

We got some help in choosing the paint color for the basement walls from Debra who is an Interior Designer. She really helped us in choosing the other colors that we painted the rest of the house. Again, it was a catch 22 situation as you are looking at colors and materials for a room. Do you start with the carpet and match the paint or vice versa? In this case, since it was a basement we didn’t want to go too dark but we still wanted to avoid the opposite effect of just white-bombing the entire room. Blah.
When I first put on the paint, I though “Well, it is pretty much yellow and it will match the walls in the main room of the house”, but I found that when it dried it had a more grassy green color than I had originally thought that really looked good so far, with the limited amount of lighting that is put out by the single clamp lamp I am moving around the room. Once I get the recessed halogen lights in (which is this week’s task) you will really get a sense of the color. [In fact the color looks much, much greener in these photos than what it actually looks like in real life, probably part of the effect of the flash on the camera.]
The west wall (which also goes up the side of the stairs)

It is hard to see but the post and the wall beyond are both painted the same color.

used to have awful stucco on the surface which was applied in the 70s. It was actually on every surface in the room, except the floor before I gutted the room. This wall was the last holdout. I was thinking about drywalling over the stucco, but more sanding and taping didn’t seem appealing. So I tried something else; I knocked down the surface of the stucco with a scraper to smooth it out somewhat. Then I applied a skim coat of drywall compound with a 7″ drywall knife which took rather a long time.
After all this dried I lightly sanded it to take off the high points and primed and painted it. It looks lightly textured, but not like those fussy ‘faux-finish’ treatments that can be kind of cheesy. All told it probably took less time than putting up new sheets of drywall on the wall and actually looks pretty good.
Now along with installing the lighting, I have to rip out all the ugly carpet on the stairs and get all the stuff out of the room so the carpet installers can come on Saturday and do the carpet. I bought about 75 feet of baseboard that has to be painted as well, but I might do that after in the back room if I can find some space back there.
[PS for those who can stand it I have put up a picture of the room after I ripped out all the old walls and primed the foundation wall.]

I have new respect for drywallers – Part 3

Posted by Jeffrey on May 23, 2005

So a lot has happened over the past few days. That’s what happens when you work for 3 days on something for about 12 hours a day. But the work needed to get done and now that the ceiling paint is on, you can get a real sense of what the final room will look like.

With the primer and ceiling painted it is starting to look like a room.

But just a bit of background; after the first coat of taping and mudding (which seemed to take forever) I went around with a scraper to take off the high points on the joints before sanding. Yes I did finally use that tool which attaches to the shop vac and it worked pretty well, but the simple $4.95 abrasive foam sanding pad actually seemed to work better. It is flexible so it can get into corners (and I tell you there are a lot of corners in this basement), where the pole sander is good for more of the straight runs. It does seem to suck up a lot of the dust, but by the time I was done, I was still covered in dust. I tell you, good thing I was using the mask.
It took a fiendish amount of time to go in and sand and then put on the second coat of drywall compound. I thought I could get by with a couple of the 7kg tubs in addition to the half empty 20kg pail leftover from an earlier job. No way. I kept going back to the Depot every couple of days or so to get a couple of additional tubs. Now I bet you’re thinking, “There’s no way you can use all that material.” Well yes you can. And you will. I went through over 50 kg of compound on this job and I tell you, it didn’t all end up as dust, although at times it did seem as if there was a fog bank in the basement. The fan in the window did a good job of exhausting the air and when the back window was open even got a fairly brisk cross breeze going.
After the sanding I realized that I should construct the door for the storage area under the stairs so I had to cut down the old opening with the sawzall and build a frame and set the hinges for the door. Then I had to cover over the old wood with drywall cut to the angle of the stairs.

The under-stair storage compartment door. I really should install that insulation instead of moving it around the room.

At the same time I also drywalled the post beside and put in corner bead and slapped more (!) drywall compound on it to set up overnight. Unfortunately it hadn’t set up properly to sand, so it will have to wait for the final sanding and priming.
Priming new drywall is important as the boards tend to suck up paint and also because of banding where the areas with joint compound will appear lighter than the surrounding wall if not properly primed. I used Para Primetech^TM which seems to work ok although it did require two coats to be effective. I say 2 coats because the “1 Coater” is the biggest lie in the paint industry. I have never found a paint / roller combo that can deliver this holy grail of paint nirvana. Maybe under ideal conditions when the sun is at the correct angle and the planets align but who has time to wait for that?
So after priming every surface which took a long time, I called it a night.
Then today was just doing a bit of light sanding on the storage area and the post and putting on the final coats of compound to ready for priming that later on. The main task was rolling the ceiling with this paint that comes out of the can pink and dries white. It is CIL Smart paint and it sure was pink. It was a bit disconcerting as I was putting it on but indeed it did dry up to a nice flat white. And it covered pretty well so that whole thing only took a few hours. Now the next task will be installing the recessed lighting so I can actually see what’s going on without having to move a clamp lamp around the room.

I have new respect for drywallers – Part 2

Posted by Jeffrey on May 15, 2005

The great thing about drywall is that when it goes up, it very quickly looks like you are making progress.

The first coat of taping and mudding.

All of the cluttered stuff that goes on behind the wall is quickly covered over and it makes you think that with just a few dabs of drywall compound, you will be ready to paint and then kick back with a few beers in celebration of the finished product.
Well, it’s really not that easy. Once again I have new respect for drywallers as putting up the mud is not as easy as it looks on TV. And in this case, I have lots of inside corners from all the bulkheads that I had to put in and the fact that I am pretty slow with the mudding and it adds up to a long time to apply the first coat.
I used a corner tool for the inside corners and that has helped a lot. I am hoping that if the first coat doesn’t have too many surface bumps and imperfections, that the next coats will go faster and there will be less sanding as a whole. I bought the tool for sanding that you attach to the shop vac, but I have yet to use it. All I know is that the dust from just scraping down the high points was enough. I will be taping off the stairs down to the basement with plastic sheeting and I have the window open with a fan to draw out the air which seems to be doing an OK job of moving the air through the space.
I have some more to do around the window and the whole (!) bathroom so I will be at it for a couple more days.

The first coat of taping and mudding.

I finally brought the radio down so I would have some tunes to help the time go by. I don’t know what I was thinking for the past few months; I didn’t want to bring it down there since I was worried about dust etc. gumming the thing up. When I do the sanding I will just keep it upstairs (behind the plastic sheeting, and turn up the volume!

How do you get 4′ x 8′ sheets of drywall into a Mazda 3?

Posted by Jeffrey on May 8, 2005

I took Friday night off working because the weather was pretty good and I didn’t want to spend the entire weekend in a dark room while the sun was shining; kinda like the past few weekends. Good thing for the most part, the weather has been crappy for the last couple of weekends. I didn’t feel like I was missing much.
So on Saturday, I got down to finishing up the wall adjoining the furnace room and other bits and pieces that needed drywalling.

Supply bulkhead is complete. Soon will start with the taping and mudding.

These are the things that take the longest. The big sheets go up fast: they give you a sense that things are progressing. That’s good because I needed to see that before tackling the smaller stuff such as the bulkheads in the bathroom and the ones that frame in the ductwork.
Unfortunately, I needed to go to the Depot Saturday night to get a couple more sheets. I realized that when I was driving there that if a couple of years ago, I someone had told me I would be standing over a flat cart in the middle of the Home Depot parking lot on a Saturday night cutting sheets of drywall in half so I could fit them in my car, I’d have told them they were crazy. But they did fit in there (thanks to the designers of the Mazda 3), so I was able to get them back home and down to the basement before I totally ran out of steam.
Sunday we were hosting Mother’s Day at our place so I had to get some stuff done before we had to start preparing for our family arriving around 3 or 4 pm. I got the bathroom finished. I got most of the furnace wall finished. I got the supply duct bulkhead finished.

Return air duct now enclosed.

I got the return bulkhead finished. Or was that Saturday? It’s all a blur now, but at least most of it is done. There are only a few pieces left to do and to frame an access door for the storage area under the stairs. Then on to putting up corner bead and taping the rest of the seams in preparation for joint compound and sanding. I am hoping that the device I bought for sanding (which you hook up to the shopvac) works well so we can keep the dust down in the rest of the house. We’ll see…

Some more drywall

Posted by Jeffrey on May 4, 2005

I got a chance to put up drywall on some other walls and got that up last night. Now I have to do the back wall of the bathroom and the wall for the furnace room.

Finally closed in the walls.

Looking at the rapidly shrinking stack of drywall (which is no longer mocking me, see earlier post); I am realizing that it is going to be quite tight on the number of sheets left to finish. I may have to get one or two more sheets to finish off all the bulkheads and other bits that tend to take the longest time. The problem is how to get them.
When I got all the materials from the Depot, I rented their van and my friend Chuck helped me unload the sheets into the basement. But for one or two sheets, I probably won’t go that route. Which leaves the car.
The car isn’t big enough to get a whole sheet in, so that leaves the roof or cutting them in half. I guess we’ll cross that bridge when we get there.

More drywall. Now you can start to see what the room will eventually look like.

So you may be asking yourself, what is that white rectangle thing in the middle of all the pictures? It is an inexpensive wardrobe for storing coats and things that we got because we have extremely limited closet space in the house. Eventually it will get replaced with something more permanent once the carpet goes down.

Hot and cold water stoppage

Posted by Jeffrey on May 3, 2005

On Sunday I had to also cap a hot and cold line that originally fed the sauna (even though it was a ‘dry sauna.’ I guess they used it to hose down the floor?) The original plan (about a month ago) was to shut off the water and cut the lines with the sawzall and solder the caps on. Should have taken about 45 minutes tops. What really happened was that since the two lines were actually the lowest lines in the house, (lower than the faucet in the adjoining bathroom), they would not drain and as a result, no matter how much I drained them, there was still a slight trickle of water dripping out. Which resulted in a problem for soldering: if there is any quantity of water in the line, the pipe will not get hot enough as the water is absorbing the heat from the torch.
To complicate matters, about 1″ away was an ABS pipe for the trap which runs parallel to the line, which I had to carefully protect when using the torch. After trying several times, I could never get the pipes hot enough. What to do next? I couldn’t leave the water in the house off for a few days. Off to the Home Depot as I had to temporarily buy some compression fittings to allow me to turn the water back on in the house and figure out possible solutions.
I asked the plumbing guys what the problem was and they explained the water thing and suggested I drain the pipes. When I told them that this was the lowest thing in the house they suggested I cut the supply, just after the meter (!) and install a drain valve from which I could bleed the lines. Seemed like a lot of work to cap two lines!
So my next step was to search the Internet for something that could help. After a bit of Googling, I found this product: Just for Copper. It is a liquid (non-toxic) which bonds copper to copper. So I ordered some and after a test, tried it out on the weekend.
You just have to sand both pieces of the joint and then apply to both surfaces, twist on and, it worked. So far so good.

I have new respect for drywallers..

Posted by Jeffrey on May 1, 2005

I was putting up the drywall to cover the walls (5/8″ Type ‘X’ Drywall for those who care), and soon realized that the pros make it look way too easy. Even though they have probably better tools than what I have, they have years of experience so can figure out the best way to for example, hang drywall around a window rather than having to think about it for a while like I do. I guess if I was doing this day in and day out I’d get better too. Maybe I should get them to come to my office and see how they do with Powerpoint?

Got the drywall over the rigid insulation; I was getting tired at looking at pink walls.

Other than the walls, I hung the wallboard on the ceiling in the bathroom which was kind of challenging as there is not much room to move around in there, so I had to bring the pieces in to test the fit, then back out to trim, then back in to test… You get the idea.
Before I could finish the ceiling in there, I had to fish the wire for the light which went in the shower stall. I had the electricians leave enough so that I could fish it along the joist space over the shower stall to hook up to the fixture, but I had to leave off a sheet so I could get my hand in there to fish.
I also had to cut through the ceramic tile ceiling so I was at the Depot last week (see previous post) and bought a carbide tipped hole saw. I wasn’t sure it was going to work so I tested it out on a scrap piece of tile and it seemed to be doing an OK job. I then marked the ceiling and started cutting. Man, there was dust everywhere! After the tile was finished, I got through the drywall (2 layers!). I did a pretty good job but when I test fitted the fixture (good for the diameter), I found that the part of the fixture that extends out at a 90 degree angle (the part on the left in the photo),

The part that sticks out on the left prevented the rest of the can from fitting through the hole in the ceiling.

couldn’t fit through the hole since the thickness prevented pushing that part of the light up and through. Out came the sawzall to trim the thickness out just enough so I could slide it up and through. Attached the wires and siliconed it in place. Now I just have to wait until I power up the rest of the lights in the bathroom to see if it all works! Hopefully that will be soon.

We have drywall!

Posted by Jeffrey on Apr 24, 2005

After looking at the pile of gypsum board leaning against the wall mocking me, I got the entire ceiling up today with the great help of my brother-in-law David; without his assistance, I would still be down there. Well, I actually still have a small piece to put up but we had to run out to the Depot before it closed today (more on that later).
The large sheets went up pretty quickly as I used the support I made (with a few modifications)

The large sheets went up fairly quickly.

so that we could support the sheets on one end while temporarily nailing them in on the other. This worked out well for the large sheets and the smaller ones basically could be held in place while I fastened them.
We had a few that had to have a couple of notches taken out, but nothing too tricky. I made a few measurements for where the recessed lighting will be located so I could set up for that this week (time permitting) and install those in the main room.
So we had mostly all the drywall up by lunch and after lunch David left and I secured the sheets with drywall screws. By the end of it my neck and arms were aching from working so much above my head. Boy, the pros sure make this look easy on TV!
Then by about 5:30 we had to go to the Depot to pay for the carpet and installation that will be pretty much the last thing to do, before the bookcases go in. So we show up and I have a plan: I got the Home Depot Credit Card which allows you to get 10% off the first purchase, so I load up with hopefully most of the stuff I will need for the rest of the job. Things like all the recessed lighting, some more lumber (just in case), bulbs etc.

Finally got drywall on the ceiling, with a bit of effort.

So we finish in the carpet section and get the printout to take to the cashier and after picking up the rest of the stuff, head for the front to severly damage the card. The cashier inputs everything and after she prints out the receipt, I ask about the 10% (it did not show up automatically on the bill). Then she has to call the head cashier, then she calls someone else. Nobody can figure out how to get the deduction. So someone else from the front desk comes over and I have to walk down there to watch him furiously punch numbers into the system.
Get this, they have to manually refund each and every stick of wood, then punch each and every item back in and only then can they give me the discount. So that whole adventure just added to my Depot experience, but at least they tried to figure out a way to make it happen. Good luck trying that at other stores…

Bulkhead overhead

Posted by Jeffrey on Apr 17, 2005

I finished the framing for the bulkhead and cut the largest sheet the other day. I installed about half of the sheets of plywood for the bulkhead so now you can start to see what the ceiling height will be like in that area. I have to cut all the sheets outside as there is not enough room in the basement to lay down a full sized sheet of ply.

Plywood on bulkhead. Yes, it will be primed and painted the same as the rest of the ceiling.

Besides, it really creates a dust storm and I want to keep the amount of dust to a minimum in the house. Except when I tape and sand the drywall, it will be very dusty anyway. I will likely tape off the basement and shut off the furnace.
I got this new sanding head which fits on the end of your shopvac so that, in theory, the dust gets contained there. We’ll see how well it works.
So I have to finish cutting the plywood for the rest of the duct bulkhead and also build the cabinet to enclose the electrical panel which will be challenging since there are several water supply pipes, the gas line and a tie-in to the vent stack (from the basement bathroom) to contend with. It also has to be a maximum of 35″ wide to fit the module of the built-ins which are being made and will be assembled after the carpet is installed.

Framing is a drag

Posted by Jeffrey on Apr 13, 2005

I have spent the past couple of days framing in the ductwork along the ceiling.

Roughed in bulkhead to contain main supply duct.

The original plan, last year was to relocate all the ducts to the side wall so we would have the full height ceiling but when I found out that the price tag on that event would be several thousand, that quickly dropped off the scope of work. So now I am enclosing with some G1S ply so that I can get a bit more height under the ducts and it is a bit more durable than drywall.
Of course as I was going along putting up the 2 x 2s I found the place where the former owners had hacked out a section of the main duct run, because, well, I guess because they could… Maybe it was the supply to the sauna which they later covered up because there were no registers in the sauna before I took it out. No matter, I had some sheet metal left over from the first patch job I did (which incidently increased the amount of heat we got in the Master bedroom), so I just bent it up and used some self tapping screws to fix it in place. Then I taped the seams with some of that metal duct tape. BTW, the traditional “duct tape” is good for everything but ducts. It dries out so that makes it useless for patching ducts. Who would have guessed?
The next task is to get the plywood cut and secured into place.

Roughed in bulkhead to contain main supply duct.

Sunny outside, who wants to be stuck in the basement

Posted by Jeffrey on Apr 11, 2005

So Sunday was beautiful outside so when I was given the choice about either working in the basement or going golfing, guess which one I chose?
Well, I still did work in the morning, setting up for putting in the bulkhead over the ductwork, but then found I didn’t have enough 2 x 2s so I had to make a trip to the Depot. It was surprisingly busy for a Sunday morning, but I guess everyone wanted to get a start on yardwork etc.

More ducts

Posted by Jeffrey on Apr 8, 2005

Well had to resume the work in the basement because there are a few more things to do before I can start drywalling.

Roughed in bulkhead to contain return air duct.

I had to frame in the stack anyway, so I figured I should combine this and the return air duct into one. The original plan suggested by the guy who did the home energy audit was to put the duct on the other side of the room, but I would have had a bump out in that wall and one on the other side, so it made more sense to combine the two.
I also have to build the bulkhead for the ductwork in the ceiling (which will probably take the better part of a week) and make sure all the inside corners for the walls have been taken care of so there is a surface for the edges of the drywall.

Framing corners.

I also want to finish the floor patching so this has time to cure. I think that it will look like I am making progress when the drywall goes up, although all the sanding etc does take a fair amount of time. I will need some re-inforcements to help me hang the ceiling since holding a 4 x 8 sheet of drywall on my head while I secure it to the ceiling sounds a bit difficult.
I can’t work on Saturday as this is when we have the ‘Class’ (pre-natal) all day.
I realized this week that I also have to do my taxes sometime. When will someone invent a more realistic tax form? Like this perhaps?

Done, at least the wiring…

Posted by Jeffrey on Apr 6, 2005

Well, I just got home and the electricians are done with their part of the job, running the wiring and installing receptacles etc. Now I have to clean up by patching all the drywall which will take some time, but probably couldn’t be avoided. Their wiring looks pretty good and the panel looks neat with the new circuits stapled to the backer board. So overall, a pretty chaotic three days, but probably par for the course.
So what have I learned from all this?

Even ’small’ jobs can get snafu’ed.

Write everything down (even small stuff) which helped when I had to create a list of what needed to be completed when I wasn’t here.

Explain, clarify in person when the job is starting.

Have lots of bandages on hand.

One day to do their job.

Posted by Jeffrey on Apr 5, 2005

Heard from the electrician late yesterday that they will be here this morning with 2 guys (rather than one) so they can hopefully finish the job in one long day. That would be great!

Bit More Demo

Posted by Jeffrey on Mar 31, 2005

A slight bit more demo last night. Took out the drywall on a wall for the furnace room; one which I though I would not have to tear down. Tonight have to rip out the studs and rebuild as it has to be extended for the door to the work/laundry area. Behind this wall are two jackposts which were put in years ago that I sure don’t want to touch, so I will just build around them. I have studs left over from the closet project Graham did, so hopefully I will have enough wood to construct all this.

Existing joists with plywood laminated and blocking installed.

I also took a look at the return air duct because I need to put in a floor level return and route it to the return duct which is attached to the ceiling. I put my hand up there (behind the water pipes, wires etc.) and found that there is a huge hole in the duct on the top surface. Normally this is not a problem since the way the return is done, there is sheet metal covering the joist space so that becomes the plenum for the return air. The problem is that the joist space is open on the other end so air just gets sucked in from between the wall and the floor. After the electricians finish with the wiring I will go in and close it off and route a return to the floor level.