Author: Matt

Getting Things Done

November 4, 2021 / Matt / 3 Comments

After the whirlwind post I did almost a month ago, I was planning to be better about posting more frequently to keep up to date on everything, but that didn’t happen. So here we are again with a whole bunch of updates to get you current. The good news is that this time around there are some things that are actually finished.

We’ll start with tile. The tile installers didn’t show up on Monday, but they did show up later that week and got to work. I bought twelve 50lb bags of thinset (8 modified, 4 unmodified) based on some square footage calculations, but that was apparently insufficient. I had to run out and buy another ten bags of modified, then six more bags on unmodified. Ultimately, there were three left over (this is really sounding like a math problem). I also had to run out and buy more grout, and some random extra tiles, and then return some extra tiles. In short, I made a lot of trips to the store through the process, which was a bit over a week.

When they were done, we noticed a couple of issues and we had to ask them to come back. The powder room on the first floor was uneven, and they didn’t make the shower drain opening big enough to fit the drain, but they came back and got everything fixed, so the bathroom tile is now complete. The kitchen backsplash has to wait until cabinets and counters are in.

Meanwhile, work on the back porch continued. We had a bit of a back and forth on color. They originally told us we could paint it whatever color we wanted, so we said white, since that would match the front porch and the trim. Then they forgot about that, and started bringing some items pre-painted black. We asked about the color and they said it was fine, then later said white would look bad “like hospital”. I suggested the stair and railings could be black and the frame could stay white, but then they said they would pain the inside of the frame black regardless, so finally we said just to paint it black. We’re actually fine with black, and if they had said at the start it had to be black we wouldn’t have minded, but it was a bit frustrating to be given the option and then basically not given the option. The famous quote of Henry Ford “any color so long as it is black” was literally our experience here.

On the other end of the house, the front porch is done! I had mentioned in a previous post that they hadn’t finished the roofline, the fascia, soffit, and gutters. They did most of the front porch work back in July but said they needed materials to come in that would take about a month. It had been a few, so I contacted them and they were surprised to learn it wasn’t finished. Unfortunately, that’s fairly typical of our experience with contractors. Fortunately, they did come back out and the front of our house finally looks done.

Finished front porch! Also, Halloween spiderwebs and skeleton.

The back porch was finally completed yesterday, along with some adjusted concrete footings. It was just eight and a half short weeks after they told us it would take about two. On the plus side, it does look really nice, and it includes angled sheeting under the second floor to drain water. We may add a gutter and downspout down the road.

We also started work on the cabinets. My sister Jessica came up from Indiana for the day to help assemble the upper cabinets for the kitchen. We figured we could install those before the floors were done. Because we’re putting in a hardwood floor that will be sanded and finished after it’s installed, we don’t want to put the base cabinets in first, so we didn’t want to assemble them either. I learned some tricks with the cabinet assembly, including the importance of sanding some of the dovetail edges so they go together a bit more easily, using enough glue so they stay together, and also how to staple without it popping into the back of the cabinet, something I wish I’d figured out before I did so in a place it will be visible.

Painting work continues. We realized the “light gray” color we had for the hall and stairwell was more “light blue” and we didn’t like it. At the same time, the taupe we had in the kitchen and living room seemed a bit too dark and a bit cool for the cabinet finish, so we repainted all of it with a light taupe called “Mocha Light”. We haven’t finished repainting the living room, but we may get to that tonight. Sarah started on the den, the only other room we have left.

Upper cabinets mounted… just 2″ too high

With help from our friend Dan, we hung the upper kitchen cabinets (except for one that gets attached to a full-height floor cabinet). We had debated whether to hang them 54″ or 56″ above the floor and finally settled on 56 to give us a bit more height above the counter. Unfortunately, I later realized the aforementioned floor cabinet is 114″ tall, and the upper cabinets are 60″ (uh oh, another math problem), meaning we needed to hang them at 54″ after all. So, we’ll have to take those down and re-hang them. That’s honestly not the worst thing in the world, since a couple of gaps had opened up between cabinet edges, so a second try at getting everything tight will hopefully resolve that.

With word that the hardwood flooring was going to be installed, we had to get everything cleared off the floor, meaning our freshly tiles bathrooms and the attic became dumping grounds for all the cabinet parts, stair parts, light fixtures and plumbing fixtures still in boxes, assorted tools and other construction accoutrements. With Dan’s help to haul the AC condensers up the stairs and out onto the second floor deck (where they’ll be installed), as well as moving the bathroom vanity this morning now that the glue is dry, we were ready, and as I type this, they’re going to town. I’m terrified that they’ll puncture a radiant heat pex line, but they said they’ve installed over this before, so hopefully it will go smoothly. Allegedly they’ll be done Saturday, so we’re planning not to be here for the smelliest parts of that. It’s getting a bit cold outside to air the house out.

Once the floors are done we’ll go full bore on the kitchen cabinets and the stair cladding. Hopefully the AC installers will be out to finish that up, and the trim guy can start work not long after that. We need to get the shower glass lined up, pick out countertops, and get the painting done. Things are starting to feel like we’re closing in on being able to live upstairs. A big thanks go out to Jessica and Dan for helping out!

Smart Switches

October 14, 2021 / Matt / 0 Comments

Among our many recent purchases for the house was light switches . I’ve been a fan of smart homes since before they really existed. As a kid I read an article in the September 1990 issue of Popular Science magazine about the “world’s smartest houses” and have been incorporating automation and remote control ever since, first with “Plug’n Power” controls from Radio Shack (a rebranded X10 implementation) and eventually Z-Wave switches, a SmartThings hub, and Google Home assistants.

We have lots of holes in the walls like this

Smart switches and controls have gotten a lot more common in the past decade, with their technology typically falling into one of several wireless categories: WiFi, Bluetooth, Z-Wave, and Zigbee. WiFi is fairly ubiquitous and you don’t need a hub, but the more devices you add to WiFi, the slower it gets. Bluetooth can create a proper mesh, but a lot of the implementations don’t and it has some range limits. Zigbee and Z-Wave are very similar protocols where they can create a mesh network from one device to another, but they both need a hub and aren’t inter-compatible. I have a SmartThings hub that can do both Z-Wave and Zigbee, but my existing switches and other devices are all Z-Wave.

After reading that Amazon was adding Zigbee hubs to new Alexa devices, I wondered if the writing was on the wall for Z-Wave and I should switch up. Ultimately I decided that I’d invested enough in Z-Wave already, and that having a mix would make a less reliable mesh. I also found that even if SmartThings goes away (a real risk, as a lot of companies stop supporting their devices after a while), there are open source solutions I can build that will work with my Z-Wave devices without needing a company behind it.

The obvious solution was to buy more of the HomeSeer light switches we have in the basement, except for a few things. First, they don’t dim as low as I’d like when they’re used with LED lights, which we have exclusively. Second, they don’t make them any more. They were replaced with a new version that probably solves the first problem, but they’re quite expensive and now have programmable RGB lights on the side, which seems like a feature I really don’t need for money I really don’t want to spend.

I expanded my search and found that there were several different companies selling switches, but it turns out most of them are the exact same Jasco switch just branded differently. The reviews on those had some notable shortcomings, but the only other actually different model I found on Amazon had other shortcomings. Buzzing sounds, reliability problems, slow response, any number of annoyances that I don’t want to deal with when I’m paying ten times the price of a normal light switch.

Then, finally I came across Zooz light switches. I actually have some other Zooz Z-Wave devices and I know that they have both good company support as well as custom handlers for SmartThings to enable all their features. Best of all they were reasonably priced, especially compared to the HomeSeer switches, and in the case of 3-way and 4-way, you can use a regular light switch at the other end, where most similar devices have special companion switches. I walked around and figured out where we want regular switches, where we want smart switches, smart dimmers, fan control, and I even picked up a scene controller so we can have a switch by the door that can control a bunch of different lights and scenes. The order arrived a few days later, but we’ll have to wait until the electrician comes back to get this all wired up since he hasn’t put the circuits into the panel yet and while I could do that myself, I’m already paying the electrician so he may as well finish the work.

I’ll report in once they’re install on how they’re working. Just the pairing process will take a while, and we’ll have to figure out which switch is which. Eventually I’ll get scenes built in SmartThings and integrate triggers from the security system as well.

Not Much Finished, but Lots of Progress

October 10, 2021 / Matt / 2 Comments

I haven’t updated in a while, which isn’t all that uncommon, but in this case there’s been a lot going on with the house, we just haven’t finished much. There’s something about writing a blog post about something that we’ve made progress on but haven’t actually completed that is neither satisfying to write or to read. However, enough time has gone by and enough has happened that I feel we should get up to speed on where things are, so settle in for a whirlwind post.

Back in the beginning of August, when I last wrote, the drywallers had just finished and we had primed all the walls and ceilings. The drywallers came back and touched up a few things they’d messed up, mostly around the stairwell and we sent them on their way to get paid and not break any more of our stuff.

Work was finally scheduled to start on the back porch, so we started prep by cutting back some sections of the concrete patio that would be difficult to remove later. Ultimately, it was too thick to remove without assistance, but Dean came to the rescue with his SDS Max rotary hammer and chiseled it out for us. We got the rest of the back yard cleared out and everything was set for the back porch construction to begin.

Work started on the back porch, and I was told it would take “two weeks” which sounded pretty absurd at the time and proved to be completely so. If you’ve ever seen the movie The Money Pit, it’s also especially comedic. Nevertheless, with that work ongoing, we started focusing on the interior. Sarah and I started tile shopping and picking paint colors. I used the sprayer to paint two coats of white on all the ceilings and closets, and Sarah started painting a first coat on all the walls from top to bottom. This was mostly on weekends and took a while, since it’s a pretty big house. Honestly, it’s still ongoing.

We bought all the tile and brought it home in two car trips (with the shocks of our hatchback straining under the load) and loaded it first into the back yard, then onto the incomplete back porch, and then carted it into the house, and finally carried it up the stairs. It was something like three thousand pounds of tile, so this was a real effort. Some of our wrought iron balusters arrived, we started picking out and ordering light fixtures, looking at cabinet hardware, and painting continued. I cut the hole for the outlet that will be in the floor of the kitchen so we can have power in our table/island, but can’t install the box or outlet until we have flooring.

Dean came back out and helped me finish cladding the front porch columns. The contractors had decided back in July that cladding the portion from ground level to the bottom of the porch was somehow not part of our agreement and rather than pay them more to do it, I elected to do it myself, especially since they had left enough material behind to do it. They still need to come back and finish the fascia, soffits, gutters, and one side of the stair cladding. He also helped by using his drywall zip tool to cut the openings for the solar tubes back so I was able to complete the installation of both of those.

Getting the back porch contractors the fifty percent complete payment through the bank draw process was an unexpected frustration that took nearly a month and slowed progress considerably. The porch was quite a bit more than originally quoted, and the GC put the new amount and the new company on the draw paperwork, which complicated the lien waivers the bank required, and then I had to wire them the difference (well over ten thousand dollars) even though there was enough to cover the first draw, because of course that’s how it works. Eventually they got their money and work continued, and I was told it would only take a week or so to complete the remainder, but that doesn’t look likely at this point.

I asked the GC about the front porch, since as I mentioned it wasn’t done and in July they told me it would be about a month before they came back, and it’s been nearly three. I also asked about hardwood flooring and tile. They sent out a hardwood flooring sub to provide a quote, which was again more than we have allotted, and the GC said he’d try to find someone cheaper. Later that day, our cabinets that we ordered twelve weeks ago arrived on six pallets and we loaded them all into the house, very aware that if the hardwood flooring needs to be installed, we’ll have to find somewhere else to put all of it. To further complicate matters, we decided we don’t like the paint colors in the first floor and stairwell, and are now re-painting them all with a lighter color.

I bought a cheap track saw and started work on the interior stair cladding. I ordered some treads and newel posts, but the risers and the sides are just quarter inch plywood that we’ll paint. I sliced up one of the sheets to make the side skirts, and the cut the risers using the table saw, which is better for repeatable cuts. Before I got any further on this project, we had to shift gears due to some developments.

The contractor called and said that the tile guys may show up as soon as Monday, since they’re also deck guys but they would come and tile on the days that it’s rainy. That doesn’t inspire a ton of confidence, neither does the fact I’ve specified Schluter Ditra for underlayment several times and they keep saying Durock. We decided we really wanted to do all the waterproofing ourselves to make sure it’s done correctly. I bought the Ditra and twelve sixty pound bags of thinset and this weekend Sarah and I finished prepping the tub and shower surrounds, including mesh tape and thinset on all of the backer board seams and screws and then covering all of it with waterproofing compound. We wound up using two different kinds because the master shower floor pan came with some and we bought RedGuard to do the main bath surround. After using both products, we prefer the KBRS ShowerSeal. Then we thoroughly vacuumed all of the floors, which were covered in drywall mud and dust, and all three bathrooms are ready to tile.

That gets you all up to present. It’s been a busy few months. The back porch is coming along but it’s still not done, we may have tile as soon as this week, but hardwood is still up in the air. We have a ton of unassembled cabinets to put together, maybe they’ll show up to finish the front porch but it’s at least looking better with the columns done. We have still more painting plus repainting to do, and we’ll probably wind up having to haul a lot of the cabinet parts up to the attic to store.

Drywall and Priming

August 2, 2021 / Matt / 1 Comment

The drywallers put in some long hours, some evenings not wrapping up until after 7 pm. There was a week where not much progress was made after everything was hung while we waited for the GC to get a trailer to haul away debris, and then for the trailer to get emptied and brought back. However, as of Thursday afternoon, everything was mudded, taped, and sanded.

The GC had advised me that we wanted to prime right away after they finished because often you don’t notice drywall imperfections until after you prime. That was certainly the case in the basement where I did a lot of my own mudding and sanding, thought it looked pretty good, and then was disappointed after we primed. As a result, he didn’t want to pay them until we had primed and inspected, which made sense. However, he also let me know that they start asking for money the moment the job is done. In this case, that started last Wednesday when he asked if the priming was done and I responded that the drywallers were still there and working. He said they were already asking for their money.

With the pressure on to get the priming done, I picked up the paint sprayer I had lent to Dean Wednesday evening. I’d already picked up two five gallons buckets of PVA primer (recommended for fresh drywall) and a hand masker, a really cool tool that lets you put up masking tape and plastic over windows at the same like a tape gun. Thursday and Friday evenings after work I masked off outlets, can lights, vents, and windows in preparation.

Using the hand masker to cover windows (the noise in the background is Dean with the sprayer)

Saturday morning Dean arrived and we set to work using the sprayer. I’ve previously used the sprayer to paint the second floor as well as the ceiling of the basement, but it’s been over five years, so it took us a while to work out the best technique. We started in the attic, since I expected this and figured I’d rather have the mistakes happen up there. I did manage to screw up a couple of spots where it went on too thick, but we got the hang of it and made decent progress. We quickly realized that the ten gallons wasn’t going to be enough and Dean picked up three more five gallon buckets.

Unfortunately, we ran into problems as we got to back of the second floor. The gun started getting jammed, so I’d clean the nozzle and get back to it only to have it jam again on shorter and shorter intervals. We decided maybe we needed to clean the whole sprayer and pick it back up in the morning, so we got it all washed out. Sunday morning before Dean got here I set the sprayer back up and tested it, and it jammed immediately. We considered buying just a new gun for the sprayer, since the nozzles and filters aren’t available locally, but the price difference was such that Dean left to go pick up a whole new sprayer. I figured if we did get it working, we’d have two and be able to get everything done more quickly.

I did some more searching and found the solution was actually incredibly simple: you turn the nozzle around (from “fan” to “cone”) and blow the other way, which clears the obstruction. Then you flip it back and get back to it. It takes ten seconds! I called Dean back and we got back to work, quickly wrapping up the second floor while I finished masking the first floor and moving things out of the way.

With practice on our technique and better knowledge of the tool, we got the entire first floor done in record time, at least until we ran out of paint! I found a gallon can of primer in the basement that we’d been sitting on for five years and we were able to wrap up the back of the first floor. The new primer was much thicker and didn’t spray as easily, and even so there are some thin spots since we used that up. All told, we sprayed 26 gallons of primer to do the whole house!

I will say without a doubt that while the sprayer has a learning curve, it is so much faster than rolling and has such a good result (when you do it right). We’ll use the sprayer to paint the ceilings as well, and then use the roller attachment for the walls. After priming, we did find a few spots where the drywallers could have done a better job and they are supposed to come out and touch up. Actually, they were supposed to come this morning, so who knows? A big thank you to Dean for all his help this weekend!

Damage Control

July 16, 2021 / Matt / 1 Comment

It’s exciting to see progress being made. The drywall is hung, the front porch is shaping up, and debris is being cleared away. Unfortunately, it hasn’t all been good news. During cleanup, one of the drywallers stepped on a loose drywall screw and punctured one of the radiant pex tubes in the floor. While it’s possible this could be patched, it would be better to re-run the whole loop and be confident it won’t spontaneously start leaking down the road and ruin floors, ceilings, structure, etc. Each floor has six pex loops that are roughly 200 feet of tubing. The puncture is on the second floor in the main bedroom closet, but that loop goes clear down the hall into one of the front bedrooms, because of the layout I designed to make each loop as close to the same length as possible. The damaged loop is the yellow one in the plan if you follow the link.

Drywall screw puncture and leak in pex tubing

So, since I don’t have a radiant heat contractor to fix it for me, I ordered another 200′ of tubing, disconnected and removed the ends that connect to the manifold, carefully pulled up the whole loop while draining it into a bucket, vacuumed out the track, re-caulked it with the heat transfer caulk, hammered in the new pex tubing, re-filled and reconnected the line.

While I was making these repairs, it occurred to me I haven’t covered all of the other damage the contractors have done of late. Let’s rewind the clock back to the holidays. We went to visit family as the work on the siding was wrapping up and the electrician was working on the EMT conduit. My front door has a smart deadbolt that I can control remotely, but the door latch was starting to get a bit weak (it’s on a heavy door, after all). I probably should have sprung for mortise locks, but that’s another matter. Anyway, the deadbolt failed to unlock occasionally. The electrician couldn’t get in one morning and we weren’t home, so we unlocked the basement door where he could get a key to the back sliding door.

We got back to discover that the threshold to the fiberglass sliding door had been completely shredded. An image of the wheeled toolbox that the electrician hauled around popped into my head, but he never fessed to it. I told the GC and he sent over one of his guys to figure out how to repair it. I gave him the information on the manufacturer and distributor and waited. And waited. I knew it had taken a while to get the windows and sliding door in when we ordered them originally so I was pretty patient, but after a few months I asked the GC about it, who asked his guys, and no one apparently had any recollection of this problem or doing anything about it.

Despite my frustration, I took his advice and emailed the manufacturer myself, which initiated a new waiting game of weeks and weeks of follow up after follow up. Finally, I managed to get an order submitted and paid for. The delivery was surprisingly quick after that. Rather than endure more delays, I just fixed it myself, first removing the door and the fixed side and pulling out the existing threshold. I discovered the next challenge was fitting the new threshold in. I didn’t want to crack it (fiberglass is strong but a bit brittle), and there wasn’t much flex in the sides. I wound up trimming it slightly short so it would fit in, and then caulking the gap. Finally, after six months of walking around the house to get in because we couldn’t use the back door, it was repaired. I also replaced that door latch, so the front door is good now.

Next up was drywall delivery. The truck driver insisted he couldn’t fit into the alley and craned the drywall in from the street. The drywallers opened up the casement windows on the second floor and attic to crane it in and somehow managed to disconnect the arm that operates the window and then leave it that way. This one was at least relatively easy to repair, but it involved unscrewing the track from the bottom of the windows, and then the screws didn’t screw back in securely without adding some glue. Worse than this, the driver managed to break our neighbor’s car window as he hoisted drywall over it. We didn’t know this right away because he didn’t confess and we had to discover it from photo evidence later.

Most recently, today, I went to remove the piece of drywall in the master bath shower area that I had asked them not to drywall. Imagine my surprise when I removed a screw and water started shooting out of the wall! They had managed to puncture the copper water pipe that goes to the overhead shower head. As luck (forethought?) would have it, I’d splurged on a shower valve body with integrated shut-off valves and was able to turn this off without having to leave the water shut off for the whole house. I texted the GC to hopefully have the plumber come out and fix this. This wouldn’t have been an issue if (a) the plumber had used one of the metal plates designed specifically to prevent this, (b) the drywallers hadn’t put drywall there in the first place, where I had asked them not to and clearly tile backer should be, or (c) I had managed to finish putting the tile backer in before they started.

In summary, contractors are frustrating. They break things a lot and they often don’t even tell you. Over the years, there have been many other incidents. I’ve been operating throughout the contractor process with the idea that making it an adversarial relationship would make things worse, but it’s hard to stay calm and positive in the face of ongoing damage to a house we’ve spent so much time, effort, and money on.

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