Category: Basement Demo

Gutting the horror movie set of a basement apartment

Basement Demo: One Fire Hazard at a Time

December 30, 2011 / / 0 Comments

Several posts ago I shared some videos of the, er, shall we say imaginative electrical “planning” in the basement. Last night I worked to dismantle the festooned conduits. The lines I took down yesterday mostly serviced the first floor outlets, but they were all run along the ceiling of the basement, preventing me from taking down drywall. Surprises were in store from the outset as the first junction box I opened rained roach carcasses down.

Roach-filled Junction Box

Fortunately they weren’t all that way. Most of them were so full of wires they couldn’t really accommodate a roach oasis. I had to cut power to one of the basement lights, which unfortunately was the living room where the debris pile is located. I’ll be using work lights for the time being. One of these lines was a particularly scary bit of electrical-taped wire segments strewn across the laundry room plumbing, so I was glad to get that removed as it seemed more than a little bit of a fire hazard.

Wire Bonanza

Getting this out will make it a lot easier to remove the rest of the ceiling drywall, though the discovery that there are actually five gas lines running from the meter at the front of the house to the utility room in the back will complicate things. I knew there were at least three, but five? Almost all of them are going to be in the way when the center beam is replaced because they run down either side. Most are mounted to the drywall, so I’ll either need to disconnect them or work around them. Let me tell you, shutting off the gas for extended periods in winter while I remove and re-route lines sounds like a lot of fun.

In any case, I’ll at least be able to report progress to my insurance agent the next time they call asking for an update on the three issues they had with the house: the roof, the garage, and the electrical.

Odds and Ends

December 21, 2011 / / 1 Comment

Bathroom Light

Despite the newborn, I’ve been finding time to spend on the house, mostly thanks to Sarah handling the lion’s share of babying. While work continues on the seemingly-unending basement demolition, I also did some odds and ends that needed doing. For starters, I finally fixed the bathroom light fixture that I’ve been meaning to rewire since before we moved in. Yes, we need another light bulb, but more importantly it lights up and works with the switch.

Insulation

Next on the list was getting the house a bit better prepared for the winter. For starters, I added some weather stripping to the front door so the foyer wasn’t so drafty (I’m pretty sure it would have snowed in the foyer otherwise). I can’t say it’s great, but it’s at least an improvement. Then I wrapped the steam pipes from the boiler in foil-faced insulation, so that more of the heat would make it to the radiators upstairs and less would be dispensed into the stifling basement.

Pipe wrap

I wasn’t entirely convinced this would pay for itself in only one winter, since we’re planning on ripping out the boiler and radiators in the spring, but it’s definitely made a difference and once the gas bill comes around we’ll see. It only cost about $40, so the return on investment won’t be too hard to find.

Dwindling Debris

Finally, as I said I’ve been working on the basement demolition. The massive pile of drywall is gradually getting smaller, though there’s still more to rip down. I need to get the old plumbing and electrical removed before I can get to some of it, so that’s my next focus. I haven’t filled up the garbage toters every week, but I’ve lost count of how many times I have.

Garbage Bags

Here’s last weeks allotment. I’ll be filling them up again this week since they collected today. I need to clear out room for some drywall that Sarah’s sister found and get the plumbing out so that we can finally bring back the structural guys to re-quote and then hopefully start work. Oh, I’ve also been continuing to work on the floor plans. I came up with a second floor plan that I like, as well as the attic. It may need some tweaking, but it’s getting close. Once that’s done I need to work out where how the electrical and HVAC will run. Suffice it to say that we’re keeping busy!

More Brilliance

November 20, 2011 / / 0 Comments

Basement electrical fun

Every time we start working on something in the house, we discover a new example of how not to do things. Yesterday I spent a lot of time on the previously discussed basement demolition. One of the things that slowed me down was the maze of the steam pipes, gas lines, plumbing, and electrical that festoon the basement like spaghetti scattered by a baby. The basement apartment was built recently, in the last five or ten years. Because they framed and drywalled without first addressing water issues, whole stretches of wall are rotted and moldy. In the above picture (sorry it’s a bit grainy), you can see the conduit come down to a junction box, then flexible conduit (BX) comes out, goes behind the adjacent studs, back up, back behind the studs, across the conduit, and finally terminates in an electrical box. The outlet covers were screwed in with drywall screws, and the whole thing is rusting from all the moisture that was trapped in the wall. The lower junction box was completely hidden behind drywall. I have no idea why they have a big unnecessary loop, but it’s just one of many ways they messed things up.

This is a minor example. The real fun started with the light fixtures in the bedrooms. I wanted to shut off the circuits and ideally remove all of the conduit so I could get all of the drywall down. The wiring contortions I discovered required videos to truly explain. The first one covers the bedroom light fixture and its branches.

The second video is an electrical line servicing the first floor.

The third video shows off the gas lines that were added in the basement.

So that’s the most recent brilliance of the previous owner. We’ll share more as we come across it.

Ah, Yes, the Basement

November 17, 2011 / / 0 Comments

Our current big project is the basement. We brought in two companies to give us quotes on the repairs to the structural columns. Both of them said they could give us a quote, but it would be more accurate if we removed the drywall so they could see what was hiding underneath. The support beam in particular was mostly obscured, and knowing if we need to replace it or not is rather pivotal. As a result, we started demolition of the basement. Initially we were only going to remove the drywall from the central wall that runs in line with the beam that supports the first floor, but with all of the mold and the desire to know if we have any foundation issues, we opted to just gut the whole thing now instead of waiting.

Basement Hallway

If you haven’t seen the basement, allow me to share the “Hostel” styling and the not-at-all-creepy vibe it gives off. The beam travels down the wall you see on the left of this picture, which looks toward the back of the house. Two of the three bedrooms down here didn’t have windows, and the tiles area on the right was part of the kitchen. Here’s a better shot of it.

Basement kitchen

I’m not sure what the people that lived in this apartment were paying per month, but I’m definitely sure it was too much. Just to round out the house of horrors, here’s one of the bathroom, or as I often called it, “the rape scene”.

Basement bathroom

Unfortunately, I have to take credit for the brown crud in the tub. I dumped out a bucket of water only to find it has a thick layer of sludgy sediment at the bottom. In any case, we started the basement demolition several weeks ago, and have been bagging up the drywall and throwing it out as we go. It’s a slow process since we’re wearing masks that make breathing a chore and have mostly been working on it a couple hours at a time after dinner during the week.

Basement hallway demo

Things are coming along, but there’s a lot left to do. The drywall along the North side has been removed, as well as from the center wall. We’ve made progress on the ceiling and are working around to the walls on the South side. So far we’ve been leaving most of the framing in place, especially from the center wall since it’s helping hold up the house. The columns are largely rotted out, so only the exterior decking 4x4s they incorporated into the wall are keeping things from sagging even worse.

Basement room demo

We found that the sill plate had completely rotted under the window, and that the rats had chewed through every single stud so they could travel through the walls. We’ll be bagging debris up tonight. Sarah’s been getting deals on contractor bags at Menards and with four garbage toters we can put out a fair amount per week. I’ll post again when it’s done so you can see the basement looking like a basement and not like the set from a horror movie.