Category: Wet Wall Re-frame

Wet Wall Expansion

September 20, 2013 / / 0 Comments
Wet wall

Wet wall

I like to think I’m a planner. I spend at least as much time figuring out how I’m going to do something before I attempt to do it, occasionally far more. Sometimes this planning pays off and sometimes I realize that I failed to consider an important factor. The wet wall was one of the latter. It’s comprised of two full 2×4 walls with a narrow space between them, except for the end, where the refrigerator will sit further back than the rest of the kitchen wall, allowing the front to be at counter depth without being an expensive counter depth fridge.

I researched refrigerator dimensions and decided that the kitchen wall should be six inches forward of the wall behind the refrigerator. I spent time researching how to support the wall when it doesn’t sit over a joist, decided to double up the bottom plate so that when we install the radiant floor and hardwood floors we’ll still have a large enough nailing edge for drywall. I measured and installed the wall bracing on the kitchen side exactly where the wall cabinets will hang so we have a continuous nailing surface and don’t have to hunt for studs. I used screws to put the blocking in the ceiling rather than nails because I know that when we redo the second floor we’ll have to replace that floor joist. All of this constituted good planning, but I neglected to consider the other reason the wet wall has a narrow space: it’s a wet wall.

The wet wall contains all of the plumbing that support the second floor. The toilets for the second floor bathrooms will use 4″ PVC drain pipe which will travel through the wet wall at an angle. The gap between the two walls was only 2½”. The only way to install that would be to notch out the studs, top plate, and bottom plate. I decided instead to expand the wet wall I’d just framed.

The good news is this wasn’t terribly difficult. I cut the nails holding the top plate with a reciprocating saw and tipped the whole stud wall until it rested against the chimney. Then I was able to cut all of the nails holding it to the floor, tap it a measly 2½”, and tip it back into place. A lot of time with a measuring tape and a level got the wall aligned properly. I picked up some 6″ screws to go through the double top and bottom plates into the joists and with Sarah’s help, got them all in.

Expanded wall

Expanded wall

Like every project, there are a couple of punchlist items. I have to put some studs into the outside wall for drywall nailing edges, which means I need to put in spray foam since the studs will close up a couple of spots. I’ll also try to remember to think things through a tiny bit more in the future. At least we caught this right away, and not when we’re actually trying to install the drain plumbing.

Wet Wall Re-frame

September 5, 2013 / / 0 Comments
Floor joists

Floor joists

After the wet wall demo and finally resolving the drain cap issues, we were able to get the wet wall re-framed. The first stage was sistering to two of the existing floor joists, which I did with Mike’s help a couple of weeks ago. These joists are in the kitchen, directly below where the cabinets, refrigerator, and oversized range will go, so reinforcing the joists will help support that weight without it flexing overmuch.

The existing joists are not level, due in part to the outside walls not being at the exact same height as the beam and in larger part to the joists themselves bowing, tapering, and generally being wonky. We compensated for some of this by jacking up the old joist before gluing on the new ones, but in the end I wound up using my laser level and a planer to bring down all of the high spots.

After that was done, I installed the new joist that replaced the rotted one, which was thankfully much easier to make level. Lastly, I installed blocking between the new joist and the next joist over in order to support the wet wall itself. Normally walls parallel to joists sit directly above them, but in this case the wall needed to be in line with the PSL column, which is between joists. The blocking is installed every 16″. Because I had planed down the joists to be level, installing the blocking was pretty straightforward.

Level subfloor

Level subfloor

I then installed the subfloor. This was complicated by all of the pipes, and I had to cut notched sections and piece it together. I managed a decent job and I’m pleased to say that the subfloor is as close to level as anything in this house is likely to get. There were some low spots in the joists, so when I glued down the OSB subfloor, I only put screws in the corners. Then I let the bead of glue cure, acting almost as a shim. I’ll follow up with the screws afterward. My fancy collated screwdriver is missing its screw bit, and the screws I bought are square drive anyway, so I’ll wait until the new bit arrives to put those in.

Ceiling blocking

Ceiling blocking

I was all set to install the wall itself when I realized I needed blocking at the top as well. Unlike the nice and level floor, the ceiling was incredibly warped in both directions and partially rotted. I had to custom cut and fit each piece of blocking. This was easily the biggest pain in the whole project. I installed them with screws so I can adjust them from above when we do the second floor. At least one of the ceiling joists will need to be replaced at that point. We’ll be able to do that without disrupting the first floor because the first floor ceiling will be suspended on furring under the joists. When we install the furring, we’ll skip the joists that need to be replaced.

Wet wall

Wet wall

With the blocking in place I was finally able to frame the wet wall. It’s two rows of 2x4s, with the kitchen side not extending the entire length. This will create a nook for the refrigerator, so it sits flush with the counter without being counter depth. I installed bracing between the studs (not pictured) to add rigidity, bring the studs parallel with one another, and create a continuous nailing edge for shelving and cabinets.

The wall will eventually extend another couple of feet past the column, but that can wait until I do the rest of the subfloor. I’ll also frame an access panel for the plumbing, but I’m not in a rush to do that either. The main focus is getting the wall up so that the radiant heating plumbing has something to be attached to. Lester will be coming on Monday to start that work.

Drain Cap Mishap

August 28, 2013 / / 1 Comment
Fernco Cap

Fernco Cap

When I demo’d the wet wall, I cut off the tee of the soil stack for the first floor bathroom drains. It was a 4″ cast iron pipe. I cut it because it was notched into a completely rotted floor joist. I wanted to replace the joist, and since there wasn’t going to be a drain there it didn’t make sense to notch the new joist. I had picked up a 4″ rubber pipe cap from Home Depot, assuming it would fit.

Of course, it didn’t fit because it was meant for 4″ pipe, not the fitting that 4″ pipe fits into, which has a noticeably larger diameter. For the time being I put the test plug back in. I went back to Home Depot for some other things and discovered they didn’t carry the larger size, because it’s not a common diameter. Menards, however, carried it as a special order with free shipping, which made it cheaper than most of the other online sources for it. I placed my order and got back to work.

As I discussed in my post about our latest run-in with unexpected plumbing, we couldn’t finish the joist repairs on Saturday because we were still waiting on the cap. Scheduled delivery was Monday. Monday I worked from home and waited expectantly for UPS to deliver the cap. Hours ticked by, the mail came, the evening came, but no UPS. I checked the tracking and they said they had delivered it, leaving it by the garage. That was strange. Why would they walk all the way into the back yard and leave it there, especially when there were people home? Nonetheless I searched the back yard, all around the garage, re-checked the front porch and anywhere else I thought they might leave a package, and found nothing.

Frustrated, I went back to the tracking page. It had been delivered to Hebron, Illinois. For a moment I was thoroughly confused. How on Earth would it have wound up- and then it hit me: our friends Mike and Steph lived in Hebron. I had ordered Mike a Menards gift card as a thank you when he helped us put in the footings in the basement. Menards had helpfully saved the address and somehow left it as the default. When I ordered the part I didn’t check the shipping address and sent the drain cap to them. To be clear, Mike and Steph’s house is 70 miles from ours, so getting it from them is non-trivial.

The unfortunate part of this is that I need this drain cap before I can put the joist in because there is quite literally no clearance to put it in later. As it is the joist may have to bend slightly around the drain (still better than a giant hole notched in it). I need the joist in place so I can put in the subfloor, and I need the subfloor so I can re-frame the wet wall. I need to re-frame the wet wall so Lester can run the plumbing for the radiators and install the boiler, so we can have heat this winter. I took off Thursday and Friday of this week in anticipation of getting this work done. I need this drain cap!

The good news is that I found out Grainger stocks the part in Franklin Park, which is quite a bit closer than the alternatives. I’ll pick it up tomorrow morning and when I eventually get the other one from Mike and Steph I can just return it to Menards.

Update: Further Mishaps

I drove to Grainger and picked up the drain cap yesterday morning. When I got home I discovered it too, did not fit. Where the other cap was too small, this was too big. More than that, the slope of the tee meant that a cap was really ill-suited to the task because it didn’t have a straight edge to clamp to. I went back to Home Depot and looked around until I found a Fernco 4″ to 2″ reducing plug. Then I got a 1 ½” cap that fit into the 2″ opening. Ugly, but effective, and it fits into the hole rather than over it. It took me multiple attempts and a lot of pounding with a rubber mallet, but I managed to get it installed and the joist in place.

Wet Wall Demo

August 23, 2013 / / 0 Comments

Keeping in mind our current focus of having heat this winter, we need to re-frame the wet wall so that Lester, our radiant heating installer, can run the radiant plumbing up to the second floor, where we’ll be installing two new radiators. That means we have to take the old wall out.

Wet wall before

Wet wall before

The first step in this process was to remove the old toilet flange where the original bathroom was and replace the rotted floor joist. In the process I realized that the 6″ x 8″ rim joist along the outside wall below where the bathtub had been was completely rotted as well. Fortunately I saved the old center beam and columns from the basement, which are the same size, so I can cut a replacement piece to fit.

Toilet flange and rotted joist

Toilet flange and rotted joist

After trying a rented snap cutter, I wound up using carbide blades on a reciprocating saw to cut off the old cast iron drain and cap it. I also used the reciprocating saw to cut off the unused vent pipe. At some point over the years the original (correct) drain venting had been disconnected in favor of just wet-venting through the soil stack. This is less of a problem now that we’ve gotten rid of the first floor connections. We’ll come back and replace all the above-ground cast iron with PVC and put in proper venting at the same time.

Wet wall removed

Wet wall removed

I cut back the floor boards so I could get the rotted joist out and then took out the remaining studs, which by this point were hanging from the ceiling. At this point the only semblance of a wet wall was the two drain pipes, the two supply plumbing pipes, and the gas line. I need to cut back the subfloor a bit more to fit in the new OSB.

I spent some time planning out the wet wall, including where plumbing would go. The challenge is toilet drains, since I don’t want to notch joists. I realized that when we do the second floor I’ll need to replace two of the joists with engineered I-Joists so that we can cut 4″ holes in them. I also need to put in some 16″ O.C. blocking to support the wet wall, since it doesn’t line up with an existing joist. Instead it lines up with the PSL column we put in, which sits between two joists.

The plan is to get this done this weekend. I’ll pick up the lumber tonight and hopefully get the subfloor done tomorrow and the wall framing done on Sunday.