Year: 2014

Sliding Door Installation

September 30, 2014 / / 3 Comments
Back wall (before cleanup)

Back wall (before cleanup)

Now that the back porch stairs are out of the way, the next step toward getting spray foam installed is installing the back sliding door. My initial plan was to install the new sliding door first and then remove the existing back door, but the two wound up happening concurrently, since there wasn’t anything left to hold the sheathing on. We started by taking off the siding on the outside (fortunately only one layer here). I started and Sarah finished it up.

Sarah removing siding

Sarah removing siding

Once the siding was down I cut back the sheathing, which is when we realized we needed to take out the back door. Sarah did that while I ran to the store and picked up some supplies. We are fresh out of reclaimed 2x4s that are over 10′ tall, which is what we needed to re-frame the wall. That meant I needed to get 12′ 2x6s and cut them down on the table saw to the right thickness (~ 3⅞”).

Sheathing removed
Sistered studs added
Studs removed for new sliding door

With the back door gone and all of the sheathing removed, I framed in studs where the old door had been, sistering two studs next to each other to support the cripples above the door. Once that was in place I cut out the studs on the other side to make room for the new door.

New sill installed
Doorway framed and sheathing going on
Sheathing installed

The first step in framing the opening was to build a sill, since the balloon-framed house has a sill several inches below the floor. I sandwiched a piece of 1″ thick poly-iso foam between two cut-down 2x6s. That later proved problematic, since the screws that go into the bottom of the door lined up with the foam, so they don’t have any holding power. Ideally I would have put in wood blocks that lined up with the screws, but I don’t think it’s going anywhere. Next I added jack studs, king studs and a header, also sandwiched with foam. Finally I installed sheathing, using reclaimed boards from the house instead of plywood or OSB. It might be cheaper, but after all the screws I used, I’m not so sure.

So far this is all fairly standard. At this point the job gets a bit more complex, as we’re planning 2″ of rigid foam on the outside of the house. To account for this, all the doors and windows sit 2″ further out than normal so they sit flush with the outside, which makes for a simpler flashing detail.

Dean installs furring
House wrap going on
House wrap installed

Dean came over to help with the installation, starting with adding the 2×4 furring that surrounds the door. At the bottom we have the existing porch sill, so we cut back the porch flooring and built up the sill to the level of the door. Hopefully when we replace the porch that won’t cause issues. If not, we’ll deal with that when the time comes. Once the furring was on we carefully wrapped it with house wrap. When we eventually re-side the house, the wrap around all the windows and doors will get taped to drain wrap on the rest of the house. For now we left the rest of the sheathing exposed, since it’s inside the back porch.

Adding exterior foam and flashing tape

Adding exterior foam and flashing tape

The next step was to put ½” foam over the 2×4 furring. The 1½” thick furring plus the ½” foam will sit flush with the 2″ of rigid foam. I then used the same flashing detail I’ve done on the other windows and doors, putting 4″ Weathermate tape down the side corners and a plastic sill pan at the bottom. I added a piece of sill gasket under the drain pan to further seal the bottom of the door before we add caulk.

Sliding door installation

Sliding door installation

The last step was to tip in the door and screw it into place. We wound up cutting custom wood block shims on the top and side to secure it properly, but everything was level and plumb for a change so it went fairly smoothly. I still need to add more Weathermate tape to the outside at the top and sides to complete the waterproofing, as well as Great Stuff and backer rod on the sides and top, but since this is in the porch there’s no particular rush.

Derek tries out the new door

Derek tries out the new door

The door looks great, and even though it only opens onto the enclosed back porch for now, we can tell it will bring in lot of light once the porch is gone. The relocated light switch is now pretty inconvenient, but I’m sure we can deal with that for the time being. Now we can finish up the fire blocking and get to spray foaming!

Porch Stair Removal

September 9, 2014 / / 0 Comments

When I originally started building instead of demoing, I was really looking forward to it. Building gives you a sense of progress that demo does not. After demoing you have a sense of accomplishment, but you can’t really say that things are “better” when you’re done. However, after months of construction, going back to destruction felt really good. While it’s really hard to build right, it’s hard to demo wrong.

Existing porch stairs
First run removed
Landing floor removed
No more stairs

So, what are we doing? The porch stairs are in the way of the new sliding door that we’re putting at the back of the house. I already moved the electrical, and I got the old radiators that had been sitting on the second floor porch down during the week, so taking out the stairs is the next task. They consist of two runs separated by a landing. The landing also needs to come out, and I need to make railings so that everything is safe for our son Derek.

Upper railing

Upper railing

The process went fairly quickly. I started with the upper railing, taking it off the stairs and re-purposing it to the second floor porch. Then with a bit of sledge hammering and prybarring, I took the treads and risers off, top to bottom. Then I pulled out the stringers, using my reciprocating saw to make short work of it. Next was the floor on the landing, followed by the railing, treads and risers on the lower stairs. Then I took down the structure of the landing and the stringer for the lower run. I left the stringer on the outside wall, since the porch isn’t built very well and I didn’t want to loosen anything (such as siding) by prying against the wall. I did cut the stringer back to make room for the lower railing. This one was a bit more involved, since it was an ‘L’ shape, it wasn’t braced on both sides, and the bottom didn’t rest on framing, so I had to add some reinforcement.

Lower railing

Lower railing

With that all done I started cleaning. I wound up filling two toters with the scraps. There wasn’t much that was worth saving, since it was coated in several coats of unknown paints. So far Derek and Emily have tested for low levels of lead and we want to keep it that way. I have a bit more scrap to cut down so that it will fit in the garbage, but otherwise it’s done. I started planning out the sliding door installation, so that’s the next undertaking. Back to construction!

Porch Electrical Re-Route

September 3, 2014 / / 0 Comments
Finished stairs

Finished stairs

I finished up the front stairs by installing a new door at the top (into our apartment) and putting on a temporary railing. With that project complete, we can switch our focus to the back sliding door. Our project flips the back porch layout from stairs on the left to stairs on the right, so the new sliding door is going on the left side, where we currently have stairs going to the second floor. Basically, we needed to finish the front stairs in order to take out the back stairs.

Electrical under back stairs

Electrical under back stairs

In addition to the stairs, there’s some surface mounted electrical that services the porch that is in the way. We still want lights on the porch, so I needed to re-route it to the other side of the back door. There’s an old rotary switch that controls the lights on the first floor and the basement, and a line that goes up to the second floor for a separately switched light and an outlet, as well as a flood light for the back yard.

Existing junction and rotary switch

Existing junction and rotary switch

All of this electrical is temporary, so I just re-used the BX and even the rotary switch. I made the switch inline and put the junction above the door, so that it could connect where there was a break in the existing rigid conduit that goes to the second floor. I left the rest of the second floor stuff alone. I had to move the basement light so that the BX headed up to the first floor would be on the other side of the door, but the wiring itself didn’t change.

Relocated by door

Relocated by door

Once I got everything re-connected and wire-nutted, it all worked except for the basement light. My circuit tester had gone into the garbage several months ago because it had a tendency to beep at everything except live wires, so I was left with a bit of trial and error. I’ve since ordered a new tester, but in the mean time I had to figure out what was going on. It turned out to be a swapped neutral and live, which I’m surprised even worked as well as it did. With that straightened out, both lights worked.

All clear

All clear

The only other thing that needs to be done before we take out the porch stairs is to bring down the old steam radiators. Last fall we got them out of the house, but only onto the back porch of each floor. Rather than take them down our new front stair and potentially scratch up the OSB, I’m bringing them down the porch stairs. This is slightly challenging because one of the radiators is actually wider than the steps.

Second Stair Run

August 26, 2014 / / 1 Comment
First stringer

First stringer

With the first run of stairs done and the landing subfloor in place, the next step in the stair project is to build the second run from the landing up to the second floor. This went more smoothly than the first run, partly because I had done it before, partly because I knew going in that the landing wasn’t square, and mostly because it was a shorter run.

Sarah installing risers and treads

Sarah installing risers and treads

I used the laser level to establish distance from the beam and height to the last step. The joist above the beam forms the last step of the stairs, so the stringers rest against it. The stringers also straddle the edge of the landing so that the first step is far enough forward that when the second floor landing is built there will be enough head room. Since I also put down a 2×4 as a kick plate for the stringers, I wound up cutting a zig-zag pattern at the stringer bottoms. As before, I sistered 2x4s to the stringers for added strength, but because these stringers are only 9½” instead of 14″ thick, I had to cut the edge of the 2x4s back slightly to fit against the kick plate.

Tread and riser connection

Tread and riser connection

I cut the treads and risers slightly differently than the first run. I still cut the tongue and groove at the back of the tread so it locks into the riser, but rather than simply having the riser stick up ¼” high at the front and notch the leading edge of the tread, I used the same type of tongue and groove that I used at the back, so the tread actually locks onto the top of the riser. Not only does this fit more snugly, I didn’t have to swap blades on my dado and cut different sizes. In hindsight I should have done that for the first run, but it’s fine. Sarah glued and screwed the risers and treads into place, so all that’s left is to open up the doorway at the top of the stairs and add a temporary railing and door.

Landing Subfloor

August 21, 2014 / / 1 Comment

Normally I wouldn’t dedicate a whole post to a little section of subfloor, but the landing turned out to be a bit involved. When I started building the and fitting the stringers I realized that the landing was wonky. It was ¼” too tall and it wasn’t square. To compensate for being too tall, I decided to use half-inch plywood subfloor instead of ¾” OSB. However, ½” is pretty thin for subfloor, so I devised a scheme for fitting sections of ¾” OSB in between the framing members, glued to the underside of the plywood (and to the framing) to add strength and thickness.

Test fitting OSB

Test fitting OSB

If the landing had not been out of square, this would have been pretty straightforward: just cut some rectangles to fit and done deal. However, given the out of squareness, everything was parallelograms. I’ve learned not to measure things any more than I have to. Measuring introduces more inaccuracy than it eliminates. Instead I put the OSB on top of the opening (generally lining up one edge) and drew the shape from below. Then I cut it out along the lines with the circular saw and fit it into place.

It worked fairly well, though I discovered after I had glued and screwed down the plywood (though thankfully not before it had dried) that one piece that fit between the stair stringers would not fit in from below because I sistered 2x4s to the stringers. I had to unscrew the corner of the plywood on top and slide it in (actually I had to do this three times because it kept falling through). Finally, once everything was in place and the glue was setting, I put in about 7,000 screws.

Landing subfloor installed

Landing subfloor installed

In one section the OSB was squeaking when I walked on the landing. I considered that it might go away once the glue set, but rather than take the chance I used a long 2×4 to press the underside of the OSB up against the subfloor and tightened all the screws. I left it that way until the glue set and now it’s all feeling solid and squeak-free. With this done I can work on the second run of stairs up to the second floor.