Page 22 of 59

Basement Ceiling Painting

March 17, 2016 / / 0 Comments

We’re planning to live in the basement while we finish the other two main floors of the house at the same time. Eventually we plan to put insulation between the joists and install a drop ceiling in the basement. We also plan to insulate and drywall the exterior walls. However, because we know there will be ongoing work to run electrical, plumbing, and HVAC to the other floors, plus we’re putting in a couple of temporary walls for bedrooms, we can’t really put that in yet. At the same time, we don’t want to have the dark exposed joists and subfloor for a ceiling while we’re living in the basement. The solution is to paint the joists and the underside of the subfloor. There are other reasons to do this as well. We used a sealing primer that is mold and mildew resistant, and we used a flame retardant additive that gives it a Class A fire rating. If the paint is exposed to fire, it will char and create a protective barrier that prevents the wood from catching on fire.

Sarah painting

Sarah painting

Because we’re planning to stain and seal the concrete, we wanted to do the painting before the floor was poured. The paint sprayer has a way of coating everything in a mist of paint that wouldn’t be fun to remove and it’s a large space to put down drop cloths. It was a good thing we did because the flame retardant makes the paint thinner than usual, and when we started spraying the paint dripped off the rough sawn lumber rather than soaking in. We discovered that a roller works a lot better than the sprayer to get the paint worked into the wood, but even so it was going to take more than one coat and the roller was way too slow.

Slow progress
First coat with sprayer
In Progress
Second sprayer coat

We went back to using the paint sprayer, but in light passes. Even so, it went through five gallon buckets of paint fast. It took three coats to get to an acceptable level, and we went through fifteen gallons of paint in the process. After all of that, there are still places where the dark wood peeks through and other spots where the wood stained the paint yellow. Ultimately, it’s a basement. Nearly all of this will be covered up by the drop ceiling when we eventually finish it, and it’s a big improvement over how it looked before.

 

Basement Floor Prep – Stone and Insulation

March 14, 2016 / / 0 Comments
Before stone
During stone
After stone

Mario, our concrete mason, came out on Saturday and put down the stone that makes up the bottom layer of our new basement floor. I had hoped that he would also install the layer of rigid foam insulation that makes up the next layer, but apparently that’s not in his menu of services, so I was on the hook to do it myself. More than that, he wanted to come back on Monday to put down the plastic and the mesh, so I needed to get it all installed on Sunday. My friend Dean and his dad, Hector, once again offered to help.

Insulation delivery

Insulation delivery

The first challenge was getting the insulation. We’re using 4′ x 8′ panels of 2″ thick XPS (extruded polystyrene) foam, which are commonly sold in different densities. The higher density foam is better for under concrete because it doesn’t compress as much. Unfortunately it’s not stocked in as many places and I was buying 30 panels. I placed an order Saturday morning at a Home Depot that had “99+” in stock. By late Saturday afternoon the order still wasn’t ready, so I called them. After being on hold for 15 minutes I was told they “couldn’t find it” and apparently had zero in stock. There was only one other Home Depot near me that had enough in stock, so I switched the order to them. They had it ready by 6:30. Unfortunately they didn’t have a truck available, so I wound up renting a truck from a Menards that was nearby (they didn’t carry the foam). I went to Menards and got the truck, drove to Home Depot, manhandled the five-foot-tall stack of foam onto the truck, drove the truck home and dropped off the foam in the back yard, drove back to Menards to return the truck, and finally drove back home.

Foam insulation
Working around plumbing
Almost done

Sunday morning came earlier than expected (due to the Daylight Savings time change) and Dean and Hector showed up. We started at the front of the basement and worked toward the back, using the hand tamper and a rake to even out the stone base in places. The concrete curb around the footing and the column footings have rough edges that we couldn’t get the foam completely flush with, but we worked around them as well as we could. The bigger challenge was the plumbing. Because the plumbing in the basement drains to an ejector pit, the pipes aren’t particularly deep. That meant in addition to cutting holes for the pipes themselves, we had to allow for horizontal pipes and fittings as well, not to mention the sump basin and ejector pit. Overall the process went smoothly and after several hours we had everything installed. I did some foam sculpting to cover up the bathroom plumbing group and I’m pretty pleased with the end result. We were frugal enough with the foam panels that I have seven left over to return. Since they cost me $32.50 each, I’m happy about that.

Insulation installed

Insulation installed

Mario is back today to put down the plastic and mesh, and then Lester (our radiant contractor) will be out next week to attach the PEX tubing. Mario should be able to pour shortly thereafter. We’re still working on the painting and prep for the front window and back door. I hope to have posts about those projects shortly. A big thanks go out to Dean and Hector for all their help!

Underground Plumbing Inspection

March 10, 2016 / / 2 Comments

It’s done. The final hurdle in the underground plumbing has been completed. Last week the plumbers installed the final bit of cast iron to connect our epoxy-lined sewer to the existing drain stack. All of the other underground basement plumbing was finished way back in October. This past Tuesday was the sewer lining inspection and today we passed the underground plumbing inspection. We’re finally able to start work on the concrete floor slab.

Underground plumbing

Underground plumbing

To that end we’re in contact with our contractors, but there’s a couple of things we want to finish before the floor goes in. Our plan is to stain and seal the concrete floor rather than put down any kind of flooring. We don’t want to lose a half-inch of head room in the basement to tile, since even with the dig out it’s not all that high, plus it will be radiant-heated, so we don’t want to use carpeting. Because of that, we want to finish some of the work that might make a mess of our nice new floor before we put it in. First, the basement ceiling is currently just exposed floor joists and subfloor, so we’re painting the whole thing with a sprayer. By painting it before we have a floor we don’t have to worry about drop cloths or splatters. We would have done this sooner, but the basement isn’t heated and the weather has been too cold. Fortunately for us, it’s been unseasonable warm recently.

Second, I realized I should do some of the prep on the front window and back door. We’re waiting to put them in until the floor is poured, but I don’t want to be grinding and drilling brick and getting dust all over the floor, so I’ll get as much of the prep done for that as I can. In the case of the door I can’t really install the buck until the slab is in, but I can get the opening smooth and flat and pre-drill the anchor holes. I can put the buck in for the front window and just leave the window out. I’m planning to finish both of these projects by this weekend.

Once they’re done, our next step is to have Mario, our concrete mason, prep the floor with crushed stone, rigid foam, plastic sheeting, and steel mesh. Then Lester, our radiant heating contractor, can put in the PEX tubing loops. Finally, Mario comes back and pours the concrete. We’re hoping that with the underground plumbing behind us we can start making progress again.

Sewer Lining

February 24, 2016 / / 1 Comment

It feels like a long road to get to this post. We were hoping to hire a plumber in August, but we ran into delays getting reliable quotes and we didn’t wind up signing paperwork until the latter half of September. At the time, we were told it would be “roughly six weeks” depending on permit, a qualifier that stretched and stretched and stretched the plumbing work into months and months of very little getting done. It’s been nice to have a bit of a break from working on the house all the time, but it’s a strange, frustrating sort of limbo since we don’t know how long it will take and we had hoped to not spend another winter living on the second floor with an unheated first floor.

The below-grade rough plumbing in the basement was done in mid-October, and the new water service went in back in mid-December, but the sewer lining was delayed by the city requiring the sewer “tap” to be repaired. That was finally done a couple weeks ago (mid-February), after which they needed to come back out and re-scope the sewer because the city couldn’t locate the first recording. Permit was finally issued yesterday and they “shot the liner” today. Because this —like the rest of the plumbing— was not DIY, I don’t have a ton of pictures of the process. Also it’s underground and there’s not a ton to see, but we’ve done what we could.

If you’re not clear on what sewer lining is, the short version is they make a new plastic pipe inside our existing clay sewer pipe so that we don’t have to dig everything up and lose the tree in the front yard. At the same time, said tree can’t grow roots into the pipe because it’s seamless all the way out to the sewer under the street. Here’s a video that explains the process:

With this work completed, the plumbers need to come back (possibly tomorrow) and finish the underground work by connecting the newly-lined sewer to a short section of new cast iron pipe (instead of temporary PVC), so we can finally start work on the basement floor.

Sewer Repair

February 10, 2016 / / 0 Comments
Work begins

Work begins

Finally, something got done. Apparently, CDoT (Chicago Department of Transportation) had a moratorium on permits for street work over the New Year, so that was the primary cause of delay (this time). The plumbers also said their sub-contractor’s plumbing license with the City had expired and they were trying to resolve that, but they eventually wound up hiring a different company. Either way, the sewer repair work in the street has been completed as of about an hour ago. Presumably that means now the city will come out and re-inspect the sewer line to confirm that everything looks good so it can be re-lined.

Nearing completion

Nearing completion

The biggest frustration is that from a permit perspective, this work probably could have been done back in December. I’m still not entirely sure why it wasn’t. Instead the street work permit expired and getting a new one took over a month. In the mean time I need to clean up the weeping trench, since it’s a bit of a mess where the new water service comes in.