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February 26, 2006
Nearing completion
We're almost ready to put the fixtures into the basement bathroom. I put the last coat of primer on the walls this morning, then Dad filled the plywood on the floor in preparation for laying the lino tomorrow. The vanity's sitting in the basement, waiting to be moved into place, as is the toilet. The first coat of colour is on the walls, and I should get the rest of the painting finished tomorrow (hopefully only one coat, and not two). I left the digital camera out there, so no pictures until tomorrow evening (these will include several of the guys curling in this weekend's bonspiel at the new Aberdeen rec centre).
Posted by plainstext at 10:12 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
February 23, 2006
Bathroom walls!
The basement bathroom now actually looks like a real room, not a bunch of random studs and plates! The bottom half is sheeted with blue moisture resistant drywall (just in case), the top half with regular drywall. Our bargain door (not quite completely stripped) is in place, and the jamb that Dad made looks awesome.
Dad's already headed off to Aberdeen to sand the first coat of mud and add the next coat, while I'm shortly off to class. We're hoping to get to the painting stage by Saturday, after which we'll be able to re-install the toilet and add a vanity & sink. Now I've just got to track down a retrofit kit for the door handle, as the door is drilled for a conventional lock, but we'd like to use a handle set that matches the glass ones in the rest of the house.
The lights are in place in the area designated for the workshop. It's now so bright in there that, according to Dad, we're going to need sunglasses! He installed a series of split receptacles along the base of the new beam (we'll do the same along the old one, as well), all of which will be within easy reach. I can hardly wait to get the drywall hung as, once that's done, we'll be able to move the workbench into this room, and will likely add a series of shelves--no more tools all over the house!
We're also hoping, this weekend, to get the hole dug for the sump (a definite job for Dana). Once that's done, we just have to build the box for it, as the plumbing and electrical are already in place. I'm not sure if we're going to need it or not, but it's better to be over-prepared for moisture issues.
I'll close this post with one last thing that is definitely worthy of mention: yesterday morning's sunrise, which was quite pretty.
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February 20, 2006
Cold & windy
Or, at least, that's what it's been like for the last several days. We had our first and (hopefully) only taste of a real Saskatchewan winter over the weekend. Daytime highs of -33C, with windchill warnings of -43C, meant that we spent even less time outside than we would normally have. Poor Dad, just recently returned from Lompoc, CA, was really feeling the cold :-(
However, the extreme cold and wind made for some interesting pictures. We had spectacular sundogs driving out to Aberdeen one morning . . . and they lasted for a good portion of the day.
The weather also made for some interesting (and not too particularly pleasant) driving conditions. Driving back into Saskatoon one afternoon, the snow was blowing across the highway to the extent that we could barely see the lines. It's a good thing we'd taken it instead of the grid road, as I'm not certain we'd have been able to tell where the gravel road ended and the farmers' fields began!
Posted by plainstext at 10:40 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Toasty warm!
We've finished framing in the north-east corner of the basement, then added rigid foam insulation, followed by a layer of R-14 in batts (green stuff, whose name escapes me at present). It's much, much warmer down there now . . . and the main floor is also considerably warmer. Once we've got the R-40 stuffed between the foundation and sill plate/floor joists, it should be even warmer.
We've re-wired most of this section of the basement, and installed a sub-panel down there so that we're running less wires through the already Swiss-cheese-like floor joists. We'll have lots of plugs in what will be the workshop, and we've added separate circuits for all of the computer equipment.
The basement bathroom now has a door (pictures to come later, as I neglected to take any this afternoon) and new jamb. We should have drywall within a day or so, closely followed by flooring and plumbing fixtures.
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February 15, 2006
Sundogs
Just as we were getting ready to leave this evening, Dad pointed out a pair of sundogs in the sky across the street from the house.
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Structural repairs, part two
The basement beam has been raised into place, the jack posts added, and the beam levelled. The upstairs doors that previously were sticking now swing freely. We still have to add shims so that each of the floor joists is adequately supported.
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We've also added a tripartite water filter, just after the water meter, which has (at least in the last several days) filtered out a considerable amount of sediment. This should prevent our hot water tank from getting filled with sediment and, thus, sounding like a percolating coffee pot ;-)
Posted by plainstext at 09:29 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
February 11, 2006
Structural repairs, part one
Dad arrived Thursday morning from B.C. with a huge truck and trailer load of furniture and building supplies. Pictures later, as I neglected to take my digital camera with me.
We spent yesterday morning plotting our first project, then picked up a bunch of supplies (including a $16 fir door to match the rest in the house, 3 light fixtures, and a set of 3-1/2" brass hinges). Dad, Trent, and I put the first of the shoring in for the floor joists, sistering up the farthest east joist under the original master bedroom. Then this morning (after the obligatory Saturday morning brunch) Dad, Dana, and Trent did the same to the other four that needed attention. This considerably stiffened the floor, and will ensure that the joists will be able to hold the weight of the piano.
While they did that, I began stripping the door we picked up yesterday. I made significantly more progress than I'd anticipated because the door was varnished before it was painted. I should have this completely stripped (working in spurts because of the stench) sometime in the next several days.
The guys built the basement beam in place, using 8' and 12' lengths of 2"x10", which they glued together with PL Premium, then added deck screws on 16" centers. We ran out of 5-1/2" bolts, so they'll add the bolts in the morning. We'll then raise the beam into place (as it's currently suspended on temporary "posts"), then add the jack posts underneath.
After that's done, I anticipate that we'll insulate the basement bathroom's walls (as we picked up one bale of 1-1/2" rigid insulation and 2 bales of R-14 this afternoon). While we're at that, we're going to run the plumbing for the sump pumps, but will dig the holes later this week.
Posted by plainstext at 09:20 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
February 04, 2006
Add water, stir, then pour
We now have new concrete to replace the concrete that we dug up last weekend. That is, there are now solid footings for the posts, as opposed to the 80+ year old, crumbling, likely not structurally sound concrete that was previously there.
We'd dug three holes, two 12" x 12" by 9" deep and one 15" x 12" by 9" deep (because of a large tree root). This afternoon we lined the holes with chicken wire, cross-laid with 4-10" spikes per hole, and added Redi-Mix conrete on top, which we mixed (actually, it was Trent & Dana--I "supervised"), with shovels, in a mid-sized Rubbermaid tub. We ended up using just under seven bags of the Redi-Mix, leaving three to take back tomorrow morning (along with several bags of miscellaneous plumbing bits from the last several weeks). Each footing is slightly higher than the surrounding floor (or, what's attempting (and failing) to do an impersonation of floor), to prevent water from pooling around the base of the posts.
If the level of moisture in the holes (before pouring the concrete) is any indication, we're definitely going to have to put several sump pumps in place. Dana cut the large tree root out of the middle hole, and encountered a great deal of difficulty in doing this, as the root was absolutely saturated. I figure that, if we could've wrung it out, we'd have gotten a significant amount of water. But, so long as we get to the sump pumps before spring, I don't think that it's going to be a problem.
Posted by plainstext at 10:24 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
February 03, 2006
Heating the outdoors
You never really appreciate the meaning of this until you've had to pay the energy bill for a leaky, drafty old house. I meant to post about our energy inspection (30 Jan), but have just been far too busy with school to do so.
The bad news is that we failed, miserably; however, this is also good news. How so? The way the energy efficiency rebate program works, the lower our initial rating and the higher our final rating, the higher our federal and provincial rebates will be. The inspector guesstimated that the house is in the mid 20s for efficiency (67 is supposed to be the ideal for a house this age). With some work, we should be able to get up into the 60s (without having to reinsulate the exterior walls on the main and second floors).
The three main areas of leakage were the basement windows/walls, the point at which the sill plate and joists meet the foundation, and the main & second floor windows. We're planning on insulating the basement walls with rigid styrofoam insulation (no fiberglass because of the chance of moisture) and will replace the basement windows. We'll likely use fiberglass at the foundation line, and will re-seal all points at which the services (i.e., gas) enter the house. The main & second floor windows are newer, but improperly installed. Lots and lots of caulking and expanding foam should solve their leakage issues (especially considering that its the areas around the windows that are leaking, not the windows, themselves).
We won't get the actual report for six to eight weeks, but we've got a pretty good idea, at present, about what needs to be done. Now we just need to find the time to do all of it.
Posted by plainstext at 11:11 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Digging to China
Well, not literally, but I'm sure that Dana thought that that was what I'd asked him to do. Last Sunday, in the midst of an horrible flu, Dana broke three holes in the basement floor and Trent dug them out, all so that we can pour footings for the new beam. We're hoping to pour the concrete tomorrow afternoon, and will likely be putting the new beam in place the following weekend.
We discovered that the trees' infiltration of the space underneath the basement slab is rather more significant than we'd anticipated. On the left hand side of the following photo is a barely visible tree root, which, while it seems a bit bigger than most, doesn't appear to be all that big . . . until you realize that its diameter is larger than that of my wrist. Yikes!
The slab's in pretty rough shape in places, so the holes aren't all that pretty. But, aesthetics are secondary to structural integrity, particularly considering that we'll (eventually) be putting a raised subfloor throughout the basement. On the plus side, when it comes time to dig the holes for the sump pumps, the only place that'll likely be at all difficult will be the hole that we need the least :-)
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