Author: Matt

Holy Hanging Drywall!

July 9, 2021 / / 0 Comments

Tuesday morning the drywallers showed up to do a walk through and make sure everything was ready to go. I told him they could get started and pointed out a couple of things, including the security system wiring and the sections of tile backer and insulation we hadn’t finished yet. They said they would start the next morning at about 8:30 and work floor by floor and the whole thing would take about two weeks. Since the first floor was completely ready, starting there made sense.

That evening, Sarah and I worked to finish up the insulation on the stairs and cleared out the remaining stuff on the first floor (except for some materials the porch guy had put inside the front door and the giant boxes with the AC condensers). Having dealt with contractors frequently for the last few years, I wasn’t surprised that they started at 7:00 am the next day and only slightly surprised that they started with the attic instead of the first floor. They managed to get the whole attic hung and a decent chunk of the second floor.

Attic bedroom with drywall hung

While they did manage to keep most of the security wiring sticking out where it was supposed to, they totally covered up a small section of wall on the second floor where we hadn’t finished getting the insulation put in and put drywall in a section of the master bathroom where I hadn’t finished the tile backer. That evening we scrambled to finish up the last of the insulation, spray foamed the walls where the electrician had left a hole in the wall, and I put the tile backer up in the kids bathroom.

Yesterday, they got the rest of the second floor hung and today they started on the first floor, with the ceilings done and pretty much the whole first course of the wall. At the current rate, it will all be hung in one more day, though I’m not sure if that will be tomorrow or Monday. I also don’t know when the porch guys are coming back; they haven’t been here all week.

Drywall hanging walk through

This is exciting, to be sure. We’re thrilled to start seeing rooms really start to feel like rooms, and moving toward the finishing phase of the house. There are still a ton of steps to go, I’m already planning painting and we’re talking about floors and tile, but the fact that we can talk about those things and it doesn’t feel so far away is strange to contemplate. A couple weeks back we ticked past ten years since we bought this house, and it would be really nice to live in the whole thing.

Front Porch Progress

July 7, 2021 / / 0 Comments

As mentioned, work has started on finishing the front porch, which is pretty exciting, since it’s the last unfinished part of the front of the house (well, aside from the lighting, landscaping, fence, walk, and side gate). Regardless, it’s a big piece of the house curb appeal looking more “done” and less “that house that’s been remodeling for ten years”.

  • Materials
  • Newel posts
  • Decking!

Since this is work being done by contractors, I don’t have a whole lot to report about the process other than the giant pile of material and debris and pallets in the front yard. They took off the “temporary” stairs we’d been using for several years and framed new ones, put in the 4×4 posts that form the newel posts for the railing, installed all of the composite decking, then put in beadboard and started the cladding process.

  • New stairs!
  • Cladding begins
  • Bead board ceiling

Next they didn’t show up for several days and we’re starting to wonder when they’re coming back. It’s been exciting to see movement and we want to see it continue, plus we’ve been looking forward to having railings, particularly on the stairs where it’s dangerous not having them.

One downside is that we’d planned on having wrought iron balusters that would match the front door, but the railing system that goes with the decking doesn’t really allow for swapping out since it’s all pre-fab. Maybe if we get ambitious down the road we’ll figure that out, but for now with it being done by a contractor, we’re inclined to just let them finish.

Yesterday morning the drywallers showed up and we did a walk through before they started work so that I could tell them several things they could ignore, so more progress is afoot!

Mixed Results

June 24, 2021 / / 2 Comments

It took a month before the electrician’s lackeys finally showed up and ran the additional HVAC power line, and then they did it wrong, so now he’s got to come back out to fix it. Supposedly that’ll be tomorrow morning, but he also said that about Tuesday morning, so we’ll see. On a more positive note, we passed our rough HVAC inspection. That also took more weeks than hoped, but other than some displeasure at our boiler vent on the side of the house, there weren’t any issues.

Air handler in attic (they did fix that drain)

Drywall was supposedly to start this week, but so far nothing. That’s probably for the best, because we still need to clean out a bunch of stuff that’s in the way and we don’t want covered in drywall dust. I’m not entirely clear where all that stuff is going go, but we’ll figure something out. We also have a few sections of sound proofing insulation to put in and while I’ve made a lot of progress, I still haven’t finished installing the tile backer in the tub and shower surrounds yet. We’ve had some busy weekends, I haven’t had the energy in the evenings, and poor Sarah just had hernia surgery. This weekend we hope to get this all knocked out. I did manage to cut and thinset the curb in place for the master shower. The curb abuts the sloped shower base that I mentioned in a previous post and we’ll put a glass wall on top of it.

  • Cutting curb pieces
  • Thinset and caulk
  • Preparing installation
  • All done!
Shower curb installation
  • Getting started
  • Progress
  • More progress
  • More yet to do
  • Progress in the other bathroom, still unfinished
Tile backer installation

We’ve finally gotten a second quote on the back porch, but it was just as high as the last one, so now we’re trying to figure out how to swing this. I’m also trying to get the kitchen cabinets ordered, but still have to work out how to get the bank to pay them out of the escrow, since they aren’t an actual installer, just a supplier. Meanwhile, they’ve started work on finishing the front porch, which includes the composite decking, cladding the exposed wood, new stairs, and railings. More to come as that progresses.

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.