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.