Month: May 2021

Contractor Progress

May 19, 2021 / / 0 Comments

In addition to the stuff we’ve been working on, the contractors have been making progress as well. The HVAC work has been going slowly, but they’re closing in on the interior work being done. They installed three joist cassette air handlers in the first floor, one in the basement, and put an air handler and ducts into the attic to provide for the second floor and attic. I was wanting and expecting this to be run off a single outdoor condenser, but that wound up not being the case. Unfortunately, that means we need to have the electrician come back and run another line, and I need to figure out how we can mount a bracket for a hundred-forty-pound condenser on the outside of the house when there’s two inches of foam under the siding.

Meanwhile, the plumber fixed the leak and connected to the shower base, so the drain is done, but he didn’t finish the refrigerator line. I guess he gets to figure out how to do that after drywall, because I’m sick of nagging him. I asked the GC about the front and back porches. The back porch is all going to be built of steel (the fancy aluminum decking I wanted was too expensive), and we had a quote for that work last fall. I asked him to get that process going, which prompted a revised quote for roughly double the original price.

In case you haven’t been following these things, steel prices have skyrocketed in recent months, along with lumber and limited availability of all sorts of things. Since our previous quote had apparently expired, we need to figure this out. It’s enough money that we can’t just swallow the cost, but our initial efforts to get a new quote haven’t materialized a better one. I really wish I’d pushed the GC to get this done last year, but with the siding not wrapped up until December, it would have been difficult.

I asked a couple more times about the front porch, since that wasn’t being subbed out. Lo and behold, they actually came out and started that work. The first step in that process was to fix the warping (bowing and twisting) of the existing posts that had happened since we built the front porch. They also weren’t happy with how I’d framed certain aspects, so they took the opportunity to redo most of the structure, with the exception of the roof. I needed to go buy some of the aforementioned expensive lumber for this project, including renting a truck to get it home, but that all went to plan.

  • Before
  • Demo
  • Rebuild
  • After

Since the actual decking is on order but not available yet, they put back the temporary stairs for now. The end result looks almost exactly like it did before they started, but at least it’s all square now. Hopefully this time it will get clad before it warps again. I really don’t like re-work, even if I didn’t have to do it myself.

  • Work in progress
  • All re-done

With the indoor HVAC work done, Sarah’s been plugging away at the sound-proofing insulation, I’ve been doing some work on tub and shower surrounds, so long as the electrician can run power to the second outdoor condenser, we’ll be basically clear for drywall, which is really exciting.

Home Security Wiring

May 7, 2021 / / 0 Comments

Several years back I started planning for the home security system. Most home security these days has gone wireless, but I found myself leaning old school. The wireless sensors generally cost around $30 apiece, have batteries to replace, and are typically bulky and can lose their connection, leading to lack of coverage or false positives. Conversely, the wired sensors are cheap. That same $30 gets you a bag of ten window and door sensors. Plus, they’re tiny, able to be concealed within the jamb so they are invisible. There’s no batteries to replace, I can literally put a sensor on every single door and window and a motion sensor in every room, and I can integrate it with smart home functionality. With the house gutted, running the wires is still an undertaking, but it’s not terribly difficult.

One of the window sensors being installed. It practically disappears into the window jamb.

My goal with the system is to tie these sensors into triggers and actions. If it starts raining or the temperature suddenly drops and I’ve left a window open, I get a notification on my phone. If it’s night time and someone walks into a hallway or stairwell, the lights can come up just a bit, but during the day they can turn all the way on or not come on at all, whichever makes more sense for a given space. As an actual security system, we can either have it remotely monitored by an inexpensive service, or have it send us a notification if we’re away and a door or window opens or a motion sensor is triggered.

So as I said, I started planning this years ago. I did some research, picked out a system, wound up buying all the components, and they sat in a box collecting dust (I just checked and it was 2014!). I decided to wait until after spray foam to run the wires, since they’re fairly low profile. In hindsight, that was probably a mistake, but I wanted to be able to access it later if I really needed to even if it meant cutting drywall. It’s just 18 gauge 2-wire thermostat wire, so I picked up a 500 foot spool and started drilling into all my windows and jambs. Fishing the wires through the 3/8″ holes is tricky, and figuring out the best way to get the wiring into the ceiling while avoiding studs as much as possible, since that’s where drywall screws are likely to go is its own process, but it really isn’t too bad.

This is maybe half the wires headed for the panel.

I decided to put the panel in the laundry room closet. It’s relatively central to shorten wire lengths with easy access to the area behind the attic knee wall above where I can run wires from one end of the house to the other. Initially I’d planned to only have motion sensors in the common spaces, but I wound up getting some PIR motion sensors for the bedrooms as well so we could tie smart triggers based on occupancy status. About the time I finished the attic and second floor, I bought a second 500′ spool of wire. The first floor was fairly straightforward, since by this point I’d gotten familiar with the process.

  • Still need a sensor here
  • More wires!
  • The beam has become a raceway

I thought the basement was the last step in the process, with the added challenge of getting the wires through two floors worth. I kept getting pulled away from this to work on other projects, but I got the back window and door wires run before I had to pick up a third 500′ spool. I really underestimated how much wire this would take, plus the spools aren’t particularly cheap. Parts of the beam look positively festooned where I set up raceways for converging sensor wires.

After I was done with the basement and ready to shift gears, I realized I was missing a few things. First, I had picked up a water level sensor for the mechanical room to alert me to leaks. Ok, just a forgotten sensor, run another line, all set. Then I realized I didn’t have power to the panel. The system uses a transformer, which I didn’t want to plug into one of the two outlets in the laundry closet, since they’re obviously for the washer and dryer. So instead I ran another line clear down to the mechanical room for that. Finally, I realized I needed to run the ethernet cable for the smart home integration, since I don’t have easy access to one of my drops, so I ran that through the wall to where I can connect it to a switch.

Next steps on this project can wait. I have all the wiring done and that’s what I need to have finished for drywall. I’ll have to install the PIR sensors after drywall, the sensors in the basement, all of the panel components, connect all the wiring, program the thing (since I didn’t label all my lines this will involve figuring out what everything is), and finally add the smart integration, which will be a whole other bit of programming.