Long time,.. no see

Sorry for the long delay... the blog kind of fell by the wayside.

Since my last post a lot has been done: insulation, drywall, plaster, paint, doors, wall plates, vents, etc, etc. Still to be done: tile, carpet, trim, media shelving, move-in.

The pic above is the office. The ones below are the bar and theater room. And the tile is the basketweave pattern in the bathroom and what will be in the foyer.

Ah Insulation Problems

So, I've been puzzled by some drafty cold air in our new house for several weeks now... and I think I may have finally found the problem.

The quick summary of the problem:
We have cold air coming out from under the baseboards on the 1st floor of the house, along the exterior walls.

The first theory:
My first thought was that the insulation below (in the ceiling of the basement) was not properly installed.

The first investigation:
Sure enough, I found that instead of the insulation following that ceiling to the wall, the turning 90 degrees and going down... it was instead "rounded off" (so to speak), such that there was an air gap where the ceiling meets the wall above the insulation. I fixed this by shoving the R-13 into the corners and cutting in new pieces of R-19 along the walls to make up the difference.

The first result:
The cold air seemed to go away. But I thought it may have just been because the weather had gotten a bit warmer. Sure enough. When it got cold again... the problem was worse than it was before. Yes, WORSE. I'll explain more later.

The second theory:
The place I was noticing it most was along the back wall of the 1st floor. I knew the house-flipper I bought the house from had re-done both rooms on the back of the house. So I thought perhaps the insulation had not been properly installed.

The second investigation:
There is a small 3-4 foot long area of wall between the cabinets in the kitchen and the door to the deck. I step in this area in my socks every morning, because that's where the scale I use to weigh my fat self is. I decided this was a great place to investigate. I removed the baseboard and then removed a small section of drywall that would be concealed entirely by the baseboard once it was re-installed. To my surprise the insulation did, in fact, come all the way down. I had postulated that the insulation had come short. The only problem I found was that the vapor barrier was not sealed to the floor. The lack of a seal there may well be a large part of the problem, but there's not really much I can do about it. For the time being I shoved as much fiberglass insulation in as many nooks and crannies as I could find in that area.

The second result:
That area is a good bit better, but it can still get a bit cold. A partial victory.

The third theory:
My brother was down a couple weeks ago and reminded me of a very simple fact: cold air moves downward. He postulated that my cold air problem was actually originating from above... in the attic. He mentioned some nifty little devices that people are supposed to install along exterior walls but are often left out. (I later found out that these are called baffles.) Basically, they are little "air gutters" that run vertically between the slanted rafters in the ceiling. They allow the air to flow from the rafter vents up to the top of the attic. The baffle ends about 2-3 feet above the top of your insulation. This essentially creates a giant "bowl" of cold air in the attic. Instead of the cold air hitting the insulation and spilling over the edges and down into the walls, it simply stays in the attic.

This would also explain why the first "fix" actually made the problem worse. When I shoved the insulation in the basement ceiling up farther, it stopped the air even sooner, so that it couldn't escape out of the exterior wall as easily. And thus, more of it was spilling out under the baseboards and into the house.

The third investigation:
I finally climbed my rickety ladder into the attic and found out... I do not have any baffles installed. Moreover, the attic in my new house is a twisted maze of 2x4s, pipes and insulation. Installing baffles is not going to be an easy job.

The third result:
I don't know yet. For now, I'm going to go buy some "caulk saver" foam rope and shove it between the baseboards and the floor on the exterior walls and see if that helps. (Essentially Jerry-rigging the seal that should have been in place as described in investigation #2.) If that doesn't help, I'm going to get to monkey my way around the attic and try to staple baffles in place while precariously positioned on the edges of boards. Then try to somehow install more insulation along the edges as well.

The good news is that this little problem will no longer delay the basement finishing.

Wish me luck...

Basement Build Log - Part 7

It's Christmas Eve and I'm exhausted....

Suffice it to say, the electrical outlets, bath fan and lightning in the basement are done. I should be ready for inspection, assuming the low voltage stuff doesn't need to be done for it. Woohoo, Happy Holidays to me! ;-)

Next up:
- cat-5 for the network
- 1 phone line
- coax for cable
- actually have the bath fan vent outside (this involves cutting a 4" hole in the house wall, so I've been putting it off ;-)
- then frame-up inspection

Probably going to have to hit Jason up for some help on the network layout. Think I'll wait till the new year for anything more though.

Basement Build Log - Part 6

The bar half wall is in. This took me about 4 hours today. Yes, it took me 4 hours to put up one 42" tall, 62" long wall. I took my time, staggered braces between the studs, screwed the footer into the concrete with eight 2-3/4" inch concrete anchors, and then strengthened the structure with a 1/2" piece of plywood on the front. (Actual pictures below.) All said and done, the wall has about 1/4" of play in it, which is much better than I was hoping for. (Plus I have leftover 1/2" plywood to make the header to cripple a few studs under the stairs later.)

I also mounted the bath fan and ran 95% of the ductwork for it. Everything's run except for the last few feet to actually get it outside. I'll do that some time later. Lowe's didn't have a satisfactory exterior vent... at least not in stock. And seeing as how I'm working on about 3 hours of sleep today I didn't feel like working outside anyway.

Also had 3 separate electricians scheduled to come out to give me estimates on just running the supply cable from the main panel to the new subpanel. One guy already called back with his "worst-case scenario" estimate. Another guy said he would call tonight or tomorrow. The 3rd
guy didn't show, I called and he had the "Monday of all Mondays" and was running way behind, so he'll be coming out tomorrow. About par for the course with contractors.

BTW, good rule of thumb for dealing with contractors: if they give you a "worst-case scenario" quote and then tell you that it "could well be $100 less"... plan on paying the worst-case scenario price because that's what you're going to get charged.

The guy that hasn't called back yet was very honest and forthcoming with information. He was very helpful. If he comes back at a reasonable price, I'll probably be hiring him for the job.



The New Electric Layout

Just a few minor changes here. I decided to put the ciling outlet (for the projector) onto the same circuit as the media cabinet. It'll save me cable, prevent me running cable in the wall I just insulated and it just makes more sense that way anyway.




The New Switch Layout

Just a couple minor changes here as well. I added a switch over the sink. Just in case code ever changes and I am allowed to put a garbage disposal on the sink. I also moved the 2nd switch for the office to be on the other side of the wall from the 1st one (just outside the office).... instead of on the other side of the closet wall (just inside the office).



The Media Cabinet Shelves

And here's what I was working on for about 3 hours from 2am to 5am this morning while I couldn't sleep... just the plans, I haven't even purchased the materials for it yet. The picture above is a side panel of the cabinet interior.

- I'm going to move the top of the media cabinet up about a foot and make the cabinet 5' tall. Both sides will have 3 outlets in them; 1 top, 1 middle, 1 bottom. Those are indicated in blue.
- The blocks at the top represent stud locations on the right side (looking in) and the blocks at the bottom represent the stud locations on the left side. The left most stud on the bottom isn't actually in yet, as I'm out of lumber atm.
- The dark gray vertical bars (without dots) on the outermost studs shows where the cabinet wall will be screwed into the studs.
- The light gray vertical bars, with dots, represent the horizontal location of the vertical line of holes for the shelf pins.
- The dark brown vertical strip on the far left is just a reminder that the back panel of the cabinet will sit behind the sides.
- The dark brown vertical strip just to the right of the other one is a stopper strip. It'll be about 1/2" or maybe 1" wide and will serve as a guide for where the back of the shelves should be.
- The dark brown horizontal strip near the top represents a shelf. The back of the shelf ends at the stopper and leaves about 2" of spaces behind the shelves to run cables. The front leaves about 1" of space to give me room to figure out some sort of door system later if I want to.
- Still need to work out where the other outlets will be: network, cable, etc.

Tomorrow

I need to mount the can lights and run some more cable to get ready for Mike coming up Saturday to hook things up. Also need to get the supplies for Saturday (outlets, switches, etc).


I Knew I'd Forget 'Em
And I did... and now: I can't seem to find the USB cable to get the pics off my camera. Will have to wait for another day on the actual pics.

Basement Build Log - Part 5

Well, I've done a lot since my last post. Though the current state picture won't show it all. What is noticeable...
- Put a small stud wall in the bar storage area to hold the electric subpanel. The subpanel is also in, just not hooked up.
- I also put in the side walls of the media cabinet; not big walls, but interesting to put in.
- I also cut out half of the bathroom wall behind the toilet and moved it back ~3 inches. This gives me the clearance I need for the toilet itself. It looks kind of sloppy, but it'll hold drywall. (note: I tore up a couple good reciprocating saw blades cutting through nails here. The nails I fire into the concrete on the floor must be some kind of special nail that's 10x harder than a normal nail.)

What I've done that's not in the image:
- Father-in-law and I insulated all of the 2x6 exterior walls with R-16, faced insulation. The basement stayed ~65 degrees last night as opposed to ~50. I was actually able to sit down here in shorts for 3 hours without losing any limbs to frost bite.
- I ran the 14-2 Romex for the behind-the-bar outlets, as well as for the room outlets in the theater room. Nothing's hooked up, but the cable is run and ready to be hooked up. Still a few circuits to run, but it's a start. I've drilled a lot of the holes for the other circuits, just haven't run the cable.
- I've begun running ductwork for the bathroom vent fan. I'm going to end up running 30-35' of 4" ductwork for this damn thing, since there is no wood wall anywhere near the bathroom. And I'm sure as hell not venting my basement bathroom to the front of the house. And I'm not venting it through a brick wall, because I'm not drilling a 4" hole in a brick wall.
- I've also actually gotten my permits now. This is a tail unto itself and I'll leave it for below. Sufficite to say, some plans have changed.




The New Bar Plans

You'll notice that the new bar plans above have been drastically simplified. The building inspector informed me that I am only allowed 1 appliance in my bar. Otherwise, they would consider it a 2nd kitchen, and I can't have a 2nd kitchen unless I re-classify as a multi-family dwelling; which would in turn mean walling the basement off from the rest of the house and installing a fire wall between to the "living areas" to prevent a fire from spread from one space to the other.

Now, one might think: "Okay, limit 1 appliance, no big deal. Put in a fridge with a built in ice maker and I'm good to go." One would be wrong (as I was). As evidently a SINK is considered an appliance. Yes, the 2nd thing you would use to try to put out a fire (if the fire extinguisher didn't work or if you didn't have 1) is considered an appliance that contributes to the limit that was put in place because of fire hazards. Ah, local code laws, gotta love em.

Lesson: Re-consider ever telling the city you're going to do any work. They seem to simply exist to make arbitrary decisions based on generalities instead of applying the actual situation at hand and determining a logical course of action.

Result: I will simply be installing a sink in the bar, and then a number of cabinets. When the final inspection happens, that's all that can be there anyway.


The Electrical Situation
I've spoken with god knows how many electricians now, including the inspectors a couple of time and continue to get varying information on what I can and can't do.

A little background info: First off, I'm no expert on electric, so I speak from a stance of mostly ignorance. If you've ever run electrical cable, you've probably seen Romex cable. It's that white or yellow cable stapled to studs running from outlet to outlet. It's used because it has all the wires you need, wrapped together inside a nice insulating sheath for you. So, you can run 1 cable instead of running 3 wires inside of conduit. SCR is basically the same thing, except it's supply cable. It's probably the big cable that's coming into your house from the supply outside.

So, I spoke with 1 insector who said "you can either use SCR or run individual wires in conduit." Easy choice... I'm not running conduit 70 feet if I don't have to.

Then I spoke with the guy at Kentucky Lighting & Supply: "no, you can't run SCR inside, that's a fire hazard." Fantastic, either he's lying to get me to buy conduit from him, or he doesn't know WTF he's talking about. He also mentioned to me that if I use aluminum wires, I have to buy the "black goo" used to oxidize the wires at connection points... you know, to prevent a giant fire from burning down my hotel... err... house.

So, I call the inspector again and they say the same thing they said before. And I'm going "WTF". He also said "no, you don't have to use black goo now. wire makers put that on for you when the make the wire now".

Anyhow, long story short, I've got 3 electricians coming Monday to give me estimates on hooking up the subpanel (and running the feeder cable) for me. I'm fairly confident now though, that we can just run aluminum SCR and be fine. But, if one of these electricians will do it on the cheap (HA HA, yeah right) I'll go with them.

That's it for now. Next weekend is the hookup day for electric.

Basement Build Log - Part 4

Above you have the current state of the basement. Got the closet walls done, as well as the last wall in the office. Other than that I just have the half-wall for the bar and a good bit of soffit work to do. That turns out to be a good thing to have not yet done. The cable I will need to run to put in an auxiliary circuit box it pretty thick (2 gauge), and will be much easier to run without a bunch of soffit studs in the way. I did make it to Lowe's to get the 2x2s for the remaining soffits.



Good friend of mine (with a good knowledge of all things electric) came down today to help plan out the outlets and lighting. One thing I was disappointed in with the last house was the lighting. We found some guidelines that said ~3 watts per square foot. We settled on 12 lights all at 100-150 watts. it's considerably more than I put in the last house, hopefully it works well. The above picture has rough layouts of the outlets and lights. I didn't honestly feel like measuring the pixels out, so they are not exact. Red = outlet. Blue = light. Green = switch. (Groupings below.) The new circuit box is going to be 100 amps and will be placed on the exterior wall nearest the water heater. The 2 gauge cable to link it to the main box will be ~65'. All the calculations said we were very close to being able to use 4 gauge, but recommended 3 gauge... we're going to go 1 better for good measure.

Some of the outlets are high outlets (especially in the bar area). One of the outlets in the bar area will be on a circuit by itself, that will serve the garbage disposal, and hopefully the ice maker. Both of those said to not use a GFI and both recommend them being on their own circuit. Hopefully they will be fine on the same circuit together. If the inspector turns me down on it, it's only another 15' cable run to give each a dedicated circuit. Won't be a big deal, and I'll likely have 15+' of cable left over anyway.



The red blobs represent the outlet circuits for the basement. The odd, sideways T-shaped circuit in the middle that covers the office, bathroom and theater room a little bit is mostly existing outlets. The existing basement runs off a single switch. There are 6 outlets and 6 lights on that switch. We're going to be removing all of the lights completely and adding 1 switch in the bathroom over the counter. The rest of the circuits will be completely new, I'll lay them out below.

Media Cabinet (20 amp)
- 6 outlets, maybe more just in case

Theater room walls (15 amp)
- 6 outlets

Bar, exterior walls (15 amp)
- 6 outlets, 2 will eventually be covered by cabinets, 3 will be above the cabinets, 1 will be off to the side to meet code

Bar, Sink peninsula (15 amp)
- 3 outlets, 1 will eventually be covered by cabinets, 2 will be above the cabinets

Bar, garbage disposal / ice maker (15 amp)
- 1 dedicated circuit for these 2 devices, this is the only one that will not be GFI'd

Office (20 amp)
- 7 total outlets, 3 on the front wall for the 2 computers to use; 2 on left wall to meet code; 2 more on the right wall to use for the computers temporarily until we have out final office desk.

Bath (15 amp)
- Adding just 1 outlet over the counter to the existing basement circuit



The blue blobs are the lighting circuits. The office, bathroom and 2 storage areas will be on 1 circuit. The bar and theater room will be on a 2nd circuit. The switch groups will be detailed below.



The green blobs represent the switch groups. The theater, the foyer and the office will all be 3-wayed. The back door will have a 2 switch panel on the right, 1 switch for the foyer; 1 for the theater room. There will be another 2 switch panel on the left at the entrance to the bar; 1 switch for the overhead light, the other for the middle outlet above the counters in the back of the bar. I hope to have a set of glass shelves back there to display bourbon bottles on, with a light underneath, this would let me control that light with a switch... this will be the only switched outlet. The other switch for the theater room will be near the media cabinet. The other switch for the foyer will be just inside the foyer from the office doorway. The 2 switches for the office will be: 1 in the stairwell (existing) and 1 just inside the office from the foyer doorway. Switches for the bath, and 2 storage areas will be just inside and to the left of the door to each area.

Basement Build Log - Part 3

I put in a new wall in the bathroom, ~12-13 inches away from the concrete. The finished wall needs to be 12" from the center of the toilet rough-in. Currently the new wall is 11.75" from that. Needless to say, I fucked up, and will now have to move that wall. That's going to be a pain in my ass.

I also put in the free-standing wall between the bar area and the water heater. The bar area looks a LOT smaller than I was picturing in my head. I think it'll be fine though. I put in an opening for a 36" door in that wall. I don't think it's going to open inward very well though, unless maybe I get a double-door-type thing, so that it really has 2 - 18" doors opening inward. Will just have to see.

Oh, I also finished the soffit along the exterior wall in the office. That sucked too, and it was the easiest of all the soffits I have to do. I also started on the soffit in the bathroom, just nailed in the runners for now though. I got my new computer in, so it's hard to focus on manual labor.