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January 22, 2006
Back to square one
Well, not entirely. But, we're now almost at the same point with the basement bathroom as we were when we took possession of the house. Except for the fact that the toilet doesn't leak all over the place, the walls are flat and straight, and there's actually a floor, not just bare concrete with patches of prairie clay poking through. Here's the "before" picture.
Next is where we were at following yesterday's work--subfloor laid, floor levelled, drains installed, and set to re-install the toilet. The subfloor's framed with green treated 2"x4"s, laid on edge, which gave us enough clearance to level the floor, and leaves enough space that the floor won't be impacted by any ground water seepage.
Here's where we left off today. I'm impressed that the only thing we dropped down the open drain was a flat washer, for which we managed to find a replacement. Trent struggled a bit when he went to seat the toilet, because the wax seal was at basement room temperature (significantly cooler than what the recommended room temperature would have been) and because we had a few problems getting the toilet bolts to stay in their proper positions inside the flange.
We won't finish this bathroom off for a few weeks, as we've got to install the new beam directly over top of the toilet. We don't want to have to work around the sink/vanity, walls, or the door, so those will have to wait until after the beam's in place. As well, I'll replace the window as soon as the energy inspection is done, which is supposed to be the 30th of January. It definitely hasn't come soon enough, as the house is leaking heat at an alarming rate, as evidenced by our reading of the natural gas meter this afternoon. Ouch!
We're not entirely sure that the previous owner even had the heat turned on in the house. The thermostat's set at 50F when we're not there and the hot water tank's set to pilot, and we've used significantly more gas than SaskEnergy had estimated, which is not a good thing, especially when the winter's been as warm as it has.
One last brief item is a photo of the pond in our basement. It's shrunk considerably since yesterday, so I decided that it wasn't worth the effort to attempt to mop up what was left of it. Still, it covers a fairly large area, albeit at a much lesser depth than it did yesterday.
Posted by plainstext at January 22, 2006 09:17 PM
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