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Side Basement Windows

November 11, 2015 / / 1 Comment
Old basement window

Old basement window

About a month ago I decided it was time to finally put in the side windows in the basement. The first step was to remove the existing windows and the “bucks” or the wooden frames that are attached to the brick basement wall. Unfortunately on the first window I found that the brick around the window was crumbling or straight up missing, and the stone sill was disintegrating. Realizing that I now needed to get the masonry repaired before I could install the window, I checked the others and discovered they were in similar condition, plus the back doorway needed some work as well.

We had the inside of the basement tuckpointed back in January, so I called up the masons and left a message. When I didn’t hear back I sent them an email. Finally I got a call back and set up a time to meet, but they never showed up for the appointment,or called. I contacted another mason but there were some communication difficulties and I went back to looking. I contacted two other masons, both of which came out to look, said they were interested and could do the work in a few weeks, and said they’d get me quotes in a few days. I never got quotes from either one, and with the declining temperatures (masonry should be done above 40°) I didn’t want to wait any longer. I decided just to do it myself.

Original sill
Sill and brick removed
Building up the wall
New sill installed

I took some time off work, picked up new limestone sills, tools, and a bag of mortar, and we already have a giant pile of bricks from taking down the chimney, and set to work. I knocked out the existing sills and took the brick down to a layer that was in good shape, scraping all the old mortar off. I was able to build the new sills up to a slightly higher level to prevent water from coming in off the sidewalk while still leaving enough room for the windows. The brick work was slow. I’m not very experienced, I had to run out in the middle to get another 80lb bag of mortar with my motorcycle, and there was a lot of time spent chiseling bricks into shape to fit. I also used the plastic bag method to squeeze mortar into some of the crevices in the sides of the walls, which worked surprisingly well. I also had to spend a fair amount of time grinding down existing bricks and mortar to get the openings the rights size, especially the back door, as well as one of the windows that had been previously repaired with concrete. The end result wasn’t beautiful, but it’s solid and it’s all getting covered up by the new bucks anyway.

Back door before
Filling gaps
Grinding down one side
Not pretty, but better

I let the mortar set up for a few days before I started on the windows themselves. I framed new pressure treated bucks and put them in with sill gasket and Tapcon screws. Sarah helped me fit the windows and shim them, then I went around and put in backer rod, caulk, and spray foam in all the crevices. I plan to install PVC trim on the exterior at some later date, but we need to figure out what we’re doing about the parging that covers the outside walls, if anything. The side windows are all fixed picture windows so they don’t open, but they let in a lot of light, especially in the case of the back side window that’s been boarded up since we bought the house.

Grinding the edge flat
Buck framed
Installed
Exterior (before caulking)

I still have to tackle the back window, but it’s a bit more complicated because it has courses of bricks above it, unlike the other windows that go up to the underside of the first floor framing. That means I need to put in a steel lintel (three actually, since it’s a three-wythe wall). I plan to tackle that this coming weekend.

Interior Weeping System

November 3, 2015 / / 0 Comments
Starting the trench

Starting the trench

After we got the basement dug out, we were planning to have the weeping system put in by our plumbers, but the plumbing quotes were all so high that we had decided to do the weeping system ourselves to save money. I started with some Internet research, followed by a perusal of Chicago Building Code. I also watched an episode of Mike Holmes putting in an interior weeper. Finally, I spoke to the plumbers to see how they typically do it.

Slow progress

Slow progress

I recalled my architect telling me that the weeping trench had to be twice as far from the footing as it was deep to prevent undermining the footing (since we’d dug to the bottom of the footing). Since we’re using 4″ drain tile pipe, the minimum trench size is 6″, so it’s set 1′ in from the footings. The plumbers said they typically dig the trench a foot wide, but I was at a shortage of places to dump the dirt and I didn’t want to dig more than I had to. Plus, I didn’t see much of an advantage to making the trench wider. I initially started digging the trench an even 6″ deep, but I realized that the pipe needed to slope toward the sump crock by ⅛” per feet, also known as 1″ per 8′. I started with the depth of the sump crock openings and worked backward. The result put the top of the pipe proud of the trench in places, but still within the stone that goes under the concrete and foam insulation.

Bay trench
Stone and fittings
Pipe and start of sleeve
Sleeve installed

I bought a big 36″ deep by 24″ wide sump crock, rigid PVC drain tile pipe, a bunch of assorted fittings, and a pipe filter sock. The plumber suggested I account for the front bay window with some 45° fittings, but because of how sharp our bay is compared to most, I wound up using street 45s plus 22.5s for “67.5” degree turns. In my previous post on the mechanical room layout, I alluded to the challenges of figuring out where the sump basin would fit without interfering with pipes for the ejector pit, the sewer line, the pex tubing that will eventually come out of the floor by the radiant system, and without the outlet pipes being in the way of the boiler. I settled on an area along the wall that’s in front of the radiant panel, but not where the pex will come out of the floor.

Finished install

Finished install

One of the advantages of rigid PVC drain tile over the corrugated stuff is you can snake it if it ever gets clogged, so I added a clean-out at the far end of the run, as well as a connection for the drain in the back steps landing. The hardest part was digging the trench and sump pit and hauling out the dirt. Once I had started putting the pieces into place, assembly went quickly. The last step in the process is our sump pump, but I still have to plug it in, so I’ll cover that in another post.

Back Steps Demo

October 22, 2015 / / 0 Comments
Back steps

Back steps

This project was a quick one, but it portends bigger progress afoot. When we took down our back porch we left the stairs from the first floor down to the ground and the steps from there down to the basement. In fact, I shored up the structure underneath it, Matt B and Dean built a railing for it, and Sarah and Matt B cut a new piece of plywood for the floor of it, all so we could have usable back steps and a way to get from inside the house to the back yard. After I took out the concrete steps that led into the basement to make the ramp, the wooden porch steps to the side remained as a safer way to get in and out of the basement. Well, this past weekend I demolished the back steps.

Demo in progress

Demo in progress

This is in preparation for the new concrete retaining wall and steps that will lead from ground level down to the basement. We’re replacing the existing retaining wall and steps because we want to put a deck on the back of the house, which means the stairs need to go to the left instead of straight or right as they do now.  It actually makes more sense to go to the left anyway, since that’s the side of the house that has the sidewalk to the front.

Steps removed

Steps removed

Once the new wall and stairs are in place, we’ll build some temporary stairs down from the sliding door, since we won’t have the deck for some time. In the mean time we’re going around to the front or climbing in and out, sometimes with the help of a step-ladder. Hopefully the concrete guy will be starting in the next few days and we can get the temporary stairs built in the next few weeks. The plumbers finally started yesterday and I met with some tuck pointers that should be able to fix up the basement door and window openings in a couple of weeks, and last night we picked up the new exterior door for the basement, so we’re making progress on a few fronts.

Mechanical Room Layout

October 12, 2015 / / 0 Comments
Original plan

Original plan

The location, dimensions, and layout of our basement mechanical room have shifted as we developed our plans and then those plans ran up against reality. The original plan our architect developed put the mechanical room in the back North corner of the basement, but this resulted in a twisting hallway and a lot of wasted space.

Early revision

Early revision

I started playing around with the design, moving the mechanical room over to the South corner, but while this plan worked and gave us a lot of room for storage, and kept the front area of the basement big, it didn’t work when it came time to install the boiler and water heater. Since we didn’t have the interior walls built when we needed to start installing equipment, everything needed to be on an exterior wall. The boiler and all the radiant equipment didn’t fit on one side of the window, which meant we needed to change the plan to make everything fit.

Later revision

Later revision

With everything shifted toward the front, the back room gets a lot bigger. The issue with this plan was that despite the back room being big, there was almost no wall space for storage shelves. The back corner has an electrical panel, and the top (North) wall is effectively the hallway because the door is along the wall. There’d be room for maybe two shelves. So I shifted the bathroom and door back from the top wall so that there would be more room.

Nearly final

Nearly final

This plan took some space from the mechanical room, but everything else seemed to work great. It could fit three shelves along the North wall, moved the utility sink from the laundry so we’d have a temporary kitchen when we moved to the basement, and I was sure this would be the final plan. Once again, reality intervened. When I installed the panel in the mechanical room I aligned the front edge with a floor joist so that the wall between the front room and bathroom/mechanical room could be along a floor joist. As a result it moved toward the front by almost a foot. Bath tubs are sold in convenient five-foot or six-foot sizes. Since the back wall aligned with the steel column, it meant that the nice simple rectangle for the bathroom needed to be adjusted to accommodate a five foot bath tub in an almost six foot wide room.

Final revision

Final revision

With this adjustment made I had to play a mental game of Tetris with the various items in the mechanical room, namely the ejector pit, sump pit, and hot water heater. The challenge is the existing sewer pipe under the ground prevents the sump or ejector from going in certain spots, the trench for the weeping system imposes additional challenges, the water heater already has piping, venting, and gas lines to its current location, and at the same time I need to allow sufficient clearance to get in and out of the room, including not just servicing but replacing equipment in the hopefully very distant future. I think I’ve accounted for everything and worked out the final locations so I can start digging some holes. The plumbers are supposed to start this week, so whatever plan is in place is the last plan we’ll have.

Basement Updates

October 5, 2015 / / 3 Comments

I haven’t posted in a while because I’ve been trying to complete something before making a post about it, but I haven’t finished anything other than leveling the subsoil, which I already made a post about when I was a third of the way done with it. I didn’t want to write another post just to say I’d finished, especially since flattening dirt isn’t particularly interesting, even if it is a lot of work. Instead there are about five different things in progress, all basement related, so I’ll give a run down on where we are and what we’re trying to get done.

First off: the plumbers. We’ve signed our contract, paid the deposit, permits are being pulled and/or updated, and once that’s done they can get started. Rather than dig up the existing clay sewer pipe they are going to re-line it, a process where they run a scope, clean out the pipe with water jets, then shove an inflatable sock down it all the way to the city sewer main. They inflate it and then squeeze an epoxy resin around the sock, which not only creates a whole new pipe within the existing one, it fills any cracks or holes at the same time. The result is a brand new sewer line without any digging, plus it will actually be a larger 6″ diameter pipe than it would be if it had been if we had redone it in cast iron. The sewer line will be an “overhead system” meaning it will go up to collect the drains from the first and second floor, but the basement drains will go to an ejector pit which then pumps up to the level of the first floor before entering the drain. That prevents sewer backups from flooding the basement.

Next, the plumbers will need to dig a hole in the basement and a couple pits out at the street so they can horizontally bore a new copper supply line and disconnect the old lead line. Once that enters the basement at the front there will be a new water meter and an overhead copper line running along the beam back to the mechanical room. Finally, they will be canceling our old catch basin in the back yard and running the rough plumbing for the basement bathroom. The process should take about four or five weeks, depending on permits and inspections.

While that’s going on I’ve been working on the interior weeping system (aka drain tile). I’ve dug a trench around most of the basement that will connect to a sump basin. I picked up a large 24″ x 36″ crock that’s about twice what’s required by code. I’m still researching sump pumps to put into it. For now that will tie into our sewer system, as Chicago code allows combined storm and sewer, but once we’ve redone the back yard I plan to route this into a rain garden along with the downspouts and the drainage for the walkway along the side of the house.

I’ve talked to our concrete guy about getting the back steps redone while it’s still warm enough out. Our plans call for the exterior basement steps to go to the South rather than straight out or to the North as they do now, so we need them to knock out the existing retaining walls and put in a new one. The plumbers will install  an area drain at the bottom landing that connects to the weeping system. Hopefully he’ll be out this week so we can get that process rolling. We unfortunately had to fill in the pit we had dug for the steps with all the excess dirt from leveling the basement and digging the trench.

Lastly, I tried replacing the rest of the basement windows yesterday but discovered the brick around the windows and the sills are in worse shape than I had hoped, so I called our tuckpointers. We’ll have them replace the sills and clean up the window and door openings so we can get the rest of the new windows installed. I also ordered our new back door, since it will take a few weeks to get it in.

So despite not being good about updating the blog, we are keeping busy with the house. As we finish any of these projects I’ll write posts about them individually. The weather is getting much cooler as Fall sets in, so we need to get a lot done in the next several weeks!