Well the dust has arrived with drywall work.

Well a pretty decent week was had. The only bad part is that now that I am installing drywall we are also having to deal with all the dust you get when working with this material. I will have to carefully keep the dust down and clean up a lot to protect the furnace from all the drywall dust. Once the mudding and taping begins I'll even turn off the furnace when they are sanding and do a thourough clean up prior to restarting the furnace. So onto what we did this week.

On Sunday and Monday I spent the day's moving 7 loads from the storage unit into the garage. By the end of the seventh trip all that was left was my workbench and a few pallets that had been used to keep the furniture off the floor. This workbench would need 3-4 people to move so was being left until Wednesday when I would have the manpower to move it. Needless to say the garage is full.

On Tuesday I worked on finishing all the basement bulkheads. The framing in the basement is now complete. I then worked on installing the shower in the spare bathroom. The shower pan sits perfectly on the floor and required no shimming at all. I then installed the back wall as well as the left and right walls. The right wall will accept the shower taps so is not fixed permanently until we install the taps next week when the plumber comes back. Lastly I installed the exterior door required between the basement and the cold cellar. Once the door was installed I've been monitoring the temp and so far it stays at a stable 6C in there even though it goes down to -15C at night outside. The house is kept at 15C so it is a nice working temp. Here are some pictures. First picture shows the completed shower stall. This is a 60in by 30in shower and the walls are approx 72" high. The remaining wall area will get covered with water resistant drywall and then eventually tiled. The ceiling above is already covered with water resistant drywall. The second picture shows the 30in door into the cold cellar. There is a gap above the door that will get some spray foam insulation to seal it up.

On Wednesday I started by installing the shower base in the master bedroom. Unfortunately the shower area was right on a joint between two sheets of flooring and for some reason there was a small hump there such that the shower pan would not sit properly. I spent some time sanding the area before I came to the conclusion that I would need to sit the shower pan in a base of mortar mix which is what the shower manufacture recommends if the floor is not level. So half a bag of mortar mix later I had a 1" base of mortar to imbed the shower base. Once this hardens my shower base will be rock solid. While this was curing I finished the bulkheading in the kitchen area. When that was done essentially all framing was finished in the house. However I have decided that I will extend one false wall in the kitchen and I realize that I need to install a small wall to delineate the area where the tub will go in the basement bathroom prior to me installing drywall there. Then we also moved that workbench I mentioned so that I was completely moved out of the storage units. Later in the afternoon I had the inspector come around to inspect the insulation prior to me drywalling the house. They were impressed with my choice of materials and were interested in how expensive it will be to heat the house. I said ask me a year from now and I'll tell you. Inspection passed with flying colours so we could begin installing drywall. In the first picture you can see the mortar mix lying down. The second picture is after the shower base was lowered into position and set into the mortar mix. The third picture shows the completed framing in the kitchen area.

Well for the remainder of the week all I've done is install drywall. I've started in the basement doing as much as I can with the exception of areas where the plumber needs to be. I've also used up all the drywall that I brought into the basement with help from the brother in law and his son and will now have a company deliver the remainder required for the basement. On Saturday the brother in law gave me a hand to install the drywall in the stairwell area. We did not complete it as I don't want to impede the movement later of drywall into the basement however we did at least get a few of the awkward pieces done. In the first picture you see some of the drywall that was installed by end of Wednesday. There is more done now but pictures. The second picture shows three sheets installed in the stairwell. I had placed some bracing across the opening and then placed plywood down so we could stand on it to do the two sheets on the right side of the picture. For the sheet at the end of the stairwell I screwed some brackets on below the wall on the ceiling above the landing. We then walked the sheet down the stairwell placed it on these brackets and then using the "Tbar" leaning against the wall pushed the piece up against the wall. This actually went real smooth and we shortly had all three sheets installed. Once the drywall is delivered for the basement I'll then finish the rest of the walls.

So for next week it is essentially Drywall all week long or until I finish it. I also hope to have the plumber in on Monday to install all the water lines and maybe the HVAC guys will come back with the Hot water tank as well so the plumber can hook that up as well. Now I need to find a good mudding and taping crew to finish off all my drywall. Once that is done paint the house with primer and paint the ceiling. Then install all the plugs, lights and switches to get my final electrical. Then install my master bathroom and I can then look forward to getting an occupancy certificate which will allow me to live in the house while I am finishing it. So if nothing goes wrong and I can find a good drywall crew maybe I will be moving in around the end of March.

Well see you next week and hopefully most of the drywalling will be done.

Harold

And now we have heat in the house and it feels good. It is so much nicer working in a house with heat even if you leave it at a lower temp than normal. I should explain that I now have a working furnace with an insulated house so while I am working I keep it at 50F for now. It will need to be turned up when drywall mudding and taping occurs and when painting but for now 50F is like heaven. So lets see how we got there.

On Sunday I went in and finished off pulling the new wire to the garage and hooking it up. The Brother in-law gave me a hand with this as it was easier to pull through the small dia conduit into the house and garage through elbows and fittings with two people than with one person. After it was all pulled into place I hooked it up and tested it and voila it works great. Closed it all up turned off the breakers and on Monday will call for re-inspection which should occur on Tuesday.

On Monday I did some work on the bulkheads in the basement until the spray foam guys showed up. Once they started I essentially cleared out and left them to it. I came in to check every once in a while but I did not do much today. By the end of the day they had about 85% of the basement done. Since they got there late they could not finish it. However since it is a set cost job I don't really care that it took them an extra day to finish it. First picture shows the front basement bedroom where they started. The shovel against the wall is used to remove the overspray on the studs. The second picture is one of the rec rooms and the third picture looks into the cold storage room. I had them spray the ceiling and down two feet. This should keep the cold storage dry and cool. I'll monitor temp in there later on once I install a door into this room.

On Tuesday I did a little more work in the basement waiting for the spray foam truck and the electrical inspector. The Spray foam guys showed up around noon and went straight to work spraying the attic. Three and a half hours later there was a 2"min layer of spray foam all across the attic. There was a little bit that oozed out here and there between drywall sheets and between drywall and wall seams but that was cleaned up quite easily. Early in the afternoon the electrical inspector came and rechecked my work. He gave me the OK and we now have legal electrics in the garage. I now have to work out a method of installing a thermostat to control the ceiling electrical heater I bought at Canadian Tire. This heater is 5000watts and uses a 30 amp breaker. However it did not come with a thermostat to control it. Since I know of no 30 amp contact thermostats, I'll have to install a suitable contactor and thermostat to control this heater. Here are two pictures showing the attic after spray foaming. One picture to the south and one to the north of the attic access. In the first picture you can just see a small box sticking up with insulation around it. This is the box where I'll install potlights. I've 10 of these boxes installed in the living areas.

On Wednesday the spray foam guys were back to finish the basement. After an hour they were done and the second team showed up to blow in cellulose insulation into the attic such that I have an R50 rating for insulation in the attic. Once they were done I did reasonably thorough clean up of the house. Here are two pictures showing the attic south and north again with the cellulose blown in.

On Thursday I started installing the shower bases. I took them out of the package and confirmed location of drain hole before drilling a 4" hole in the floor where the drain pokes through. I then siliconed the drain flanges before installing it in the shower floor and securing it. Once the silicone had a chance to harden I had the brother in law help me move them into place. I now need to secure the base in place with special clips and I may need a few shims under the base in the master bath to ensure it is as solid as the Rock of Gibraltar. Once this is done I'll install the walls and place some padding in the shower base to protect it during the drywalling and painting phase. I also brought three loads of furniture and effects from the storage unit to the garage. I figure I still need at least 6-8 trips to finish it all. Here is a picture showing the shower base installed.

On Friday the HVAC guys came and installed the last of the ductwork that could not be done before the insulation was installed.  As well they installed my HRV(heat recovery ventilator). All they have left to do is install the hot water tank, run some gas lines and then also run the air-conditioning lines before I install all the basement drywall. The air-conditioner will not be installed until maybe April time frame when the frost is out of the ground and I can install a proper pad for the the unit. As well i ran all my cable lines for internet and TV. I also took the time to install the majority of the piping that is needed for my Central Vacuum system I plan to install. In hindsight I should have installed this before all the heating ductwork was installed as two of the outlets upstairs were above the duct work and took a little bit of time to install. Oh well it all worked out in the end. Here is a couple of pictures showing a cable outlet and the vacuum outlet.

This brings us up to Saturday. One of the things I've been trying to do is of course find the best deals I can to keep the costs down. One of these items is drywall. All the drywall that I used on the ceiling was bought at Home Depot and was the cheapest around. However I had to pick this up and bring it into the house. Luckily enough buying 10ft sheets was not an issue and bringing them in the house with the help of the Brother in law was not too difficult either. However this worked for the attic ceiling which was 2ft centres from truss to truss. In the basement the ceiling is on bottom of the joists which are on 16in centres. Therefore you either use 12ft drywall or if you use 10ft sheets you have more waste. To have enough drywall delivered would cost me an extra 5-800$ for delivery and for them to bring the sheets into the house, including into the basement. So today I picked up 12 sheets of 12ft and 12 sheets of 10ft drywall, and with the brother in laws help brought them into the house. Well the truck managed it however not sure that I really want to bring a lot 12ft sheets this way. So need to decide over the next few days whether to get all the drywall delivered at once by contractor who then can deliver the sizes needed or stick with the smaller sheets that I can pick up and accept the extra waste. My guess is that I can probably still be cheaper my way but  our backs will most likely prefer the delivery method. Oh well decisions to be made later. Just for the record here is a picture showing the 12 sheets of 12ft drywall  in the basement. I figure I need another 30 sheets of 12ft, as well as 35 sheets of 8ft plus some 10ft to finish the basement. The main floor will get almost all 10ft due wall height and design.

Well thats it for now. Next week I should have about one more day of building bulkheads in the basement and then clean it up for drywall installation. As well on Monday will go to the town to get an inspection arranged for the insulation so that I can install all this drywall. Then I have a few hours of bulkhead work to do in the kitchen before I continue on drywalling upstairs as well. Hopefully by the end of the week I have a fair amount of drywalling done. Then I need to find a decent mudder and taper as I really don't want to do that work.

Well until next time have a nice week and keep looking for that sunshine.

Harold

And a warm house is soon to be

Well we had a pretty good week this time around. So let's dive right into it.

On Sunday I went into work to finish off the last of the electrical rough in and to go over everything and hope I had it all correct. I also decided when that was finished I could start installing a few sheets of drywall where there were no electrical wires in the ceiling. Here's a picture showing the first three sheets up on the ceiling.

On Monday I had the privilege of installing my front door. The house now looks like a house, with a proper front door as opposed to the sheet of plywood that was there before. The brother in law helped with this and 1 hour after starting we had this.

I then continued working on some pieces of drywall in closets and against walls where again no wiring existed. I also had the Electrician there to look over everything prior to inspection on Tuesday and nothing out of the ordinary was spotted.

On Tuesday I had my electrical inspection and passed with a few minor issues which I needed to correct. First was that the ceiling fan boxes of which I had three needed to be upgraded to a heavier duty box. I had a brace nailed to the trusses and had secured the box to the brace but according to the inspector a year ago they changed the rules and you now also need a heavier duty box. Second was that in seven boxes I had more than the allowed wires so I needed to upgrade the box to a larger box. He stated that once that was done to let him know and that I could continue going forward. So back to drywalling I went and that night I picked up the new boxes I needed for replacement.

Wednesday was drywall all day and on Thursday afternoon the drywall was done. As well the HVAC guys were there on Thursday to finish installing the furnace so that I could use it once the Spray foam guys had insulated the ceiling and the basement. So here is a picture of the finished drywall.

On Friday I finished correcting all the electrical deficiencies and advised the inspector the work was done. As well I worked on some of the closets and bulkheads in the basement. I cannot do them all since I need to wait for the insulation people to finish.

On Saturday I worked on the bulkheads again as well as getting the garage svc ready for the new wire. I pulled out the old wire. Installed the extra ground rod, and then pulled out and replaced the PVC conduit that went into the house and the garage and replaced the 1.25" material with 1.5" material since this should allow me easier pulling of the thicker wire. If all goes well I might pull the wire tomorrow, Sunday, and this would allow me the ability to wire it up and then call for re-inspection on Tuesday. 

So all in all a good week, Electrical passed, Ceiling drywalled, Furnace installed and working. However will not turn it on until the insulation is installed. So by end of Monday I should have heat in the house and then we can look at finishing the plumbing and then onto all the interior drywall.

Until next week think Sun and more Sun.

Harold

Well another week has gone by and we're a little closer to completion. However we also had fairly major setback. There is a quote that goes around quite often from the movie "Cool Hand Luke" where the prison warden states to Paul Newman and the other prisoners the following "What we've got here is a failure to communicate" Turns out my "communication" with the electrical inspector had a major flaw and that was, what exactly is electrical conduit. Turns out when he arrived on Tuesday to inspect the garage the first question was when we got to the garage was, what wire did you use. RW90 I said which I was told was acceptable. He says it is in "certified electrical conduit" so I said so the Big "O" pipe I used which almost everybody uses as conduit is not good enough. No it isn't he said. So I now have to pull out 30metres of RW90 and replace it with RWU90. The gauge is the same however the insulation is twice as thick on the RWU material and it is even certified for direct burial. So of to the Electrical store to order new wire which should be in early next week. Then we want some warmish weather to pull this stiffer wire through the conduit and into the house and garage.

Well we'll see how that story ends in a future article. For the remainder of the week all I essentially did was wire the house for all the circuits required. I have 36 circuits pulled through and roughed in. On Tuesday the Inspector comes out to inspect these circuits so that I can drywall the ceiling which in turn allows the insulation people to come in and spray foam the insulation in the basement and in the ceiling. Once that's done at least we can heat the house. At the moment all I have going is an electrical construction heater in the basement which manages to keep the basement just above freezing so that the footings don't heave. I have a plastic tarp over the stairwell opening and when you go into the basement it is a big difference from the main floor which has no heat. This meant that the Heating guys had decent conditions this past week while they worked away at installing all the heating ducts. They furnace and ductwork is essentially complete now they just need to install the gas fittings so that we can fire that puppy up once the insulation is installed.

I have also started buying drywall from Home Depot as they are the cheapest and storing it in the house. I need enough to do the ceiling and then we can see about doing the rest of the house. Today I even installed 3 sheets in the living/dining room area where there are no wires or light fixtures in the ceiling, Tomorrow I'll probably install a few more in unwired areas and once the inspection is complete I can finish off the entire ceiling.

I've only got a few photos for this week showing the basement utility room with the wires hanging by the main panel as well as the furnace installation, The third picture is from the kitchen and you can see some of the different circuits there in the walls as well.

That's all I have for this article. Next week I hope to be able to say the drywalling is done and the insulation goes in shortly. Wish me luck on the inspection and until next week stay warm and stay dry.

Harold

End of Week 16 and how many more to go, we're not a hundred percent sure.

Well a bit of a seesaw week for me, but in the end it wasn't all that bad. For a while I thought I would lose more shingles on New Years day but I got lucky. I also thought I might have to repull the wire from the house to the garage as I was informed they may not accept that wire buried in conduit. Again got lucky talked to the Electrical inspector and the RW90 I pulled was suitable for the conduit I pulled it in. So hopefully Monday or Tuesday will fill in the paperwork to get a proper inspection on the garage and then that will be fully powered up. So on to the weekly synopsis.

On Sunday I did nothing as we were at my Sisters having a belated Christmas day celebration with the entire family. This was a nice relaxing time and as per normal I probably ate more than I should but what the hay it's Christmas.

On Monday I spent some time wiring up the main wires that we pulled through on Saturday. I also installed plugs on the north, south and east walls. As well I installed a light over the man door outside and installed a plug on the ceiling for a future garage door opener as well as possibly installing my Dust filter system.

On Tuesday I decided it was time to clean up the pile of lumber remains from construction and filled up the truck with all this waste and took it to the dump. 54$ later it was in the dump. Had I been further out in the country I would have just burned it in a barrel or open pile. I also had the roofer here for 2hrs to repair the house roof on the West side and the garage roof. It took 6 shingles to repair the house roof and 15 shingles to repair the garage. When you add this to the 15 I used to repair the porch roof it means that this time I lost 36 shingles. The first time I lost 30 shingles and the winter is not over. I talked to the GAF people and they will be picking up some shingles for testing however I don't believe they will help me with this problem. One of the first questions from the person was did they hand seal the shingles. In all the years I have watched roofers work I have never seen a crew hand seal a roof on initial installation. On repairs yes, but never on initial install. And yes if you read the bundle it says when prolonged cold weather is expected you need to hand seal the roof. Sounds like a "get out of jail free card" to me. Anyway we'll see what comes out of this. I have asked the roofing company what would be the cost of hand sealing the entire roof and it looks like upwards of
1500$ to do this work and less if I can do some and if some of the shingles are sealed. I took a short video of the garage roof on Thursday the 1st and you can see it here. The wind was reported as gusting up to 70 km/hr at the time I took the video, well within the wind limits of the shingle. I also took one load from the storage unit and brought it home to the garage.

On Wednesday I essentially finished wiring the garage for now. Once the equipment is installed I will most likely need to run a few extra circuits however for now it works. I quickly tested it and then shut it down until I can get it inspected. I also brought two loads home from the storage unit. There is one more load left and then one storage unit is empty.

On Thursday I took the final load home from one of the storage units. I then took the video I linked to earlier and decided that if I was going to lose some shingles I did not want to be there so I went home to commiserate. I listened to the wind all day and night and was sure I was going to lose some shingles. Here is a picture once the final load was unloaded. Now all that needs to be moved is the other storage unit that has mostly household goods. This unit had all my tools and garage stuff.

On Friday went to the house and lo and behold no shingles missing. I do know there are some loose ones as the video shows but until the weather is better I cannot get on the roof to fix these. So into the basement I went and worked on installing some of the last walls now that the HVAC people have installed the furnace and the main part of the trunk line. I also needed to get these walls up as I needed to install the last remaining electrical boxes as well prior to the electrician coming on Monday. I also got the happy text this morning from the Electrical inspector that the wire I pulled to the garage was suitable and would not need to be replaced. First picture shows the hallway in front of the utility room, the wall on the left was the one I was working on until I ran out of lumber. The second photo shows one of the bedrooms with the colour coded wire pulled through for the AFCI protected plug circuit

On Saturday first went to my local lumber yard who was now open again after being closed yesterday for inventory and picked up some 2by4's. Went to the house and did some work on the walls around the heating system and then worked on installing some more electrical circuits. I now have almost all of the basememt pulled through with wire. All that's left is the circuit for the lights that needs 3way switch wiring and one circuit needs to be terminated by the main panel. Hopefully this will shorten the amount of time the electrician needs to be there and reduce his bill as well.

Well just looked at the weather and they expect winds with up to 70km/hr gusts on Sunday so keep your fingers crossed that I make it through these winds. Once we have a sunny day with mild temps I will be on the garage roof fixing as much as I can and then waiting for the roofing company to finish the job once I have heard the final results from GAF. So keep all the goods thoughts in your heart for me please.

Thanks and stay warm and safe.

Harold