Drywall is now a four letter word.

Well it has been an interesting week. I think this is the first time I've had to fire/lay off an individual. The mudding and taping company has been let go as of Thursday morning. The owner had some issues and at the end of the day he had no WSIB(Workplace Safety and Insurance Board) coverage because of this. It is law in Ontario that all workers on a construction site must have this coverage. No coverage no work. If I got caught employing people with no coverage it could be upwards of a 100,000$ fine. So after delays getting him to the site and then this I've lost another whole week of work towards occupancy. So we had to go back out and look for another crew. As of now looks like I've got one, he was one of the bidders last time around as well. If i'm lucky they'll start Monday morning. Note to self don't hire anybody going through divorce proceedings.

Anyway onto what happened this week at the job site. We're now at the stage that unless something critical needs to be done, I'm not working in the house on Sundays. So that leaves Monday to Saturday for work. So this week on Monday I had the HVAC guys back for a few hours and they started installing the Hot water tank. They finished this job on Thursday and as well installed the air conditioning lines, as well as insulated the intake lines for the furnace and HWT to hopefully prevent the condensation problem I was having.. So at this stage the HVAC people are finished until they come back later in the Spring to install the actual Air Conditioner outside. Here's a picture of the HWT installed in the house. This is a Rheem High Efficiency condensing HWT meaning that it also has an intake pipe drawing air into the combustion chamber from outside.

As for myself, I spent the week either working on the storage room or the North Basement Bedroom mudding and taping. One new product I'm using here I've never seen before but really seems to work well. Usually when I have done any mudding and taping I use the self adhesive fibreglass mesh tape. I find it easier than the paper tape with the exceptions of the corners where the mesh tape is harder to use. Well at the local Penner's Home hardware they that a fibreglass weave tape with a bendable seam down the middle just like the paper tape. The roll was 50% more than paper but I decided to try one. I am impressed it works really slick and the tape imbeds into the mud extremely well. I will end up buying another three rolls approximately to finish the basement. So in the scheme of things this will cost me an extra 15$ over paper tape but well worth it. 

I will admit there were lots of slow times and I quit early on Friday as well. On Saturday all I did was a quick sanding in the storage room and a little mudding on two seams that needed more mud. I also had the new mudding company in to look over the place and ensure they were willing to take on the job.  Next week I'll finish sanding and then start painting the storage room so that it can be used for it's purpose. Just for info here is a picture of the Basement Bedroom after it's first coat of mud.

                             

On Thursday not only did I fire the drywaller but I went to Home Depot for a second interview with the HR team. I have applied at various companies around here looking for a part time job to 1) occupy my time and 2) help pay for the mortgage I will be taking on to finish this house. So the interview went well and all I need to do to finish the process is give them three references for people I've worked for lately. I've tracked two of the three down I need and hopefully will talk to the third one on Monday. Then we'll have to see if I fit as their model employee. I had hoped that the lumber yard down the street from the new house would have called me for an interview but so far they haven't. I'll admit it would be more convenient there rather than the 20min drive to Home Depot but at this stage of the game money talks. 

Well the weather is slowly improving we've had some nice sunny days however the temp is still low, -15C today when I went to the house. Looks like around another week before temp moves above freezing. I won't have the entire winter but this will definitely give me a peek at what the gas and hydro bills will be like. For instance the first gas bill that was for approx 30 days was 50$ for just the gas portion, total bill was 138$ with all the extra costs they tack on. However based on meter readings I'm still cheaper than the house next door. 

Well until next week enjoy the milder temps and have a great time moving forward enroute to the Spring Solstice.

Harold

PS: Cor, Mark should do this as well but say hello to the people in the O Mess.

Drywall is beginning to lose it's lustre

Well for the past week I've still been working on drywall but now in the basement. I've also installed all the corner bead upstairs in preparation for the mudding and taping. I just hope they have no issues with it or if they do we can fix it quickly. I installed the plastic corner bead as it was I thought easier for me to install. In hindsight I should have used the metal stuff and left it for the mudding crew to install when they put the first coat of mud up.
One thing I realized was that I did not give you a picture of the water system in the house. As mentioned I went with a manifold system in the utility room. This means that every water using appliance has a hose that goes from it to the utility room. There are no joints in between. This was the ideal plan however since I had more points than the manifold would accept without paying lots of money, the basement bathroom is on one line and there are joints in that system but they are in the basement in the utility wall so would not create a huge issue if they leaked down the road. Here is a picture showing this hot and cold manifold, as well you can see the natural gas manifold on the right side of the picture.

I took Sunday off and just wandered around Lowes looking at stuff and picking up some of the cornerbead I would require for the house. Later I realized I had not bought enough so went to the Rona store in St Catharines for more and their plastic cornerbead was of much better quality than the stuff I bought at Lowes. Rona's seemed to be a little thicker and sturdier than the Lowe's product.

Anyway over the week I slowly worked on doing some drywall in the basement. The one rec room is done, one bedroom is done, the bathroom is done and the second rec room was almost done until I had to remove 4 sheets this morning. The intake and exhaust for the furnace go down one of the joist cavities in this rec room. I noticed that the intake pipe was sweating condensate due the cold weather outside and warm air inside. The HVAC guys were going to bring an insulating tube down next time they came however they have not been. So I thought I would just insert some pink fibreglass insulation around the pipe and this should work. Well it didn't there was a little drip coming down between the seams of the drywall so down came four sheets and out came the fibre glass. Some of the fibreglass had even frozen to the pipe right by the exterior wall. So I guess we'll have to wait for the insulating tube to come and hopefully that will prevent the condensation from forming. 

I also installed some copper piping from the sink area to the fridge are for future considerations with the fridge and ice making capabilities. Since I ran this under the floor I needed to do this prior to drywalling the second bedroom. However I also need the HVAC guys to run their Air Conditioning pipes in the joist cavities as well so until they are done I cannot finish drywalling this bedroom. Here is a picture of the one bedroom drywalled. I don't have a picture of the bathroom but lets face it it's just a bathroom nothing special.

Now initially I had hoped to have the mudding and taping start on Thursday. However Thursday came and went and no crew. I'm not sure what happened I do know it took me two days to contact him and his comment was that he had lost his phone and had no method to contact me. So he now advises they will be there Monday morning and he assures me by Saturday they will be done. Because of all this there were a few days where I did not spend the entire day at the house as I am running out of easy work to do there. I have some outside work but that is waiting for warmer weather and melting snow. I did decide to try and fix up my heating system in the garage. I bought a ceiling mounted heater but it did not come with a thermostat. Since it runs off of a 30 Amp cct I needed to insert a relay/contactor in the cct between the heater and the service panel. This contactor would be run by a standard line thermostat. Theory was that the thermostat would pass 120v current to the relay to engage it when called for by the heat setting. Relay engages and heater starts up. My intent was to keep the temp just above freezing maybe 5C in the garage. I also decided to insert an electronic timer in the mix such that the thermostat would only work between 7pm and 7am when we have cheap electric rates as compared to day time rates. I was almost done when I realized the thermostat I bought would only go down to 10C and no lower. So I now need to find a line thermostat that has a range from 0C to 20C at the most. So on to Google and Amazon later to search one out. Since I could not finish this job I decided to at least mud and tape the storage room in the basement. By doing this room I can use it for storage as intended as well the wiring cct in this room also has the sump pump on it and once the room is mudded and taped I can install the electrics and at least let the sump pump work normally instead of on an extension cord. Here is a picture showing my first coat of mud on this room.

It's not perfect but then it's only a storage room. Great spot to practice on.

Well it's snowing again and the cold weather just won't leave. Not only that I can't win on the lottery so no nice trips to the sunny south for me. 

Well until next week, keep warm and enjoy yourselves.

Harold

I'm still Drywalling

Well the word last week was Drywall and the word this past week was Drywall again. However as of this afternoon all the drywall with the exception of one sheet is done on the main floor. The one sheet that is left covers the back of the en suite shower and until I receive my replacement valve stem I don't want to install this piece. This means that I will need to delay the start of the mudding and taping crew. Funny thing was that last week Monday I was delayed due snow and again this week I was delayed a few hours for snow storm in the morning.
I will now finish off the basement drywalling. I hope to get the taping crew in before the end of the week but we'll have to see how their schedule interacts with mine.
A few other jobs we did this week was to install cement board above the shower stalls to accept future tiling. As well I installed the venting system for the stove vent.

Here are a few pictures showing the final result of all the drywalling. The house hasn't looked this clean in weeks.

Here is a picture of the cement board over one of the showers as well as the vent termination outside for the stove. This vent sits proud of the wall by 4" due to future brick work that will occur once the weather gets a little warmer.

Well now we need to finish the basement drywall and hopefully by the next time I talk to you we'll also have a taping crew working in the house. Until then keep warm thoughts in your heart because it's cold outside.

Harold

Word of the week is Drywall

Well another week has gone by and we are a little closer to an occupancy certificate. I guess we'll start with the fact that no work was done on Monday. We had a snow day here with miserable conditions. I was kept at home by the weather until just after noon hour when all I did was go to the house to clear the driveway so the plumber could come to work on Tuesday. Speaking of which I had the plumber at the house from Tuesday to Friday installing all the water lines throughout the house. I went with a manifold Pex system which means that in the utility room are two copper manifolds with 10 side spouts. Each spout gets a plastic line which goes to each individual plumbing station. So each tap has it's on line back to the manifold. This means that there are no joints buried in the walls upstairs. Due to having the third bathroom in the basement we ran out of points so the basement bathroom has everything on one spout but that joint is in the basement and if it leaks will just follow the concrete to the floor drain. I also had a laundry tub installed in the basement so I now have a place to wash up or get drinking water. The only issue that arose was that on Thursday night after they pressurized the system something went haywire with the ensuite shower valve. Luckily I had decided to go back to the house to turn on an electric heater since I had shorted out a fuse on the furnace earlier in the day while disconnecting the thermostat while drywalling. I noticed water on the basement floor dripping from the ensuite area. I turned off the water and drained the system. On Friday the plumber was there checking it out and to the best of our knowledge we believe the valve stem is defective. So on Monday will call Price Pfister and get a new valve stem shipped out.

I also had the HVAC guys out on  Friday and they finished off the HRV(Heat recovery ventilator) installation and then installed the gas lines for my stove, dryer and BBQ.

During all this time I was busy installing Drywall. The house sure looks a lot different when you can't see through the walls anymore. I believe that I have about 75% of the main floor done and around 35% of the basement done. The basement will still take some time since some areas cannot be done until all the services are done. The plumbing is done but we still need to run some piping for the Air Conditioner. Here are some pictures showing the drywall status. First two pictures were after the first real day of installing drywall. I started on the exterior walls with 9ft sheets. These two pictures show the two bedrooms. The third picture shows the completed hallway at the end of day on Saturday. We now have both bedrooms done as well as most of ensuite bathroom and closet. I've also done some drywalling in the back entrance way as well as some of the wall space in the living dining room area. The last picture shows the scaffolding we used to install the drywall sheets on the stairwell area.

So for the next few days I will try and finish all the drywalling on the main floor and in the stairwell to the basement. I am still looking around for a good mudding and taping crew so if anybody reads this in the Niagara on the lake area and knows of a good drywall crew please leave me a message below. Well have a great week and be careful on Friday as it is a Friday the 13th.

Till later see ya.

Harold