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Basement Retaining Wall and Footing Curb

November 23, 2015 / / 0 Comments

We’re still waiting on our plumbers to do the re-lining of the sewer and the new water supply line. They in turn are waiting on approval from the City, which is being difficult. Apparently the connection between our sewer line and the sewer main under the street is damaged, and City is determining whether we need to repair it to do the re-lining.

Interior footing curb forming

Interior footing curb forming

In the mean time Mario, our concrete guy, is going like gangbusters to move things along. We can’t pour the basement floor until the plumbers finish their work, but we can work on the back stairs. After I removed the back steps down from the first floor, he re-dug out the hole we had filled behind the house and knocked out the existing retaining walls. For a rare change, rapid progress was being made without me being directly involved.

Nighttime concrete

Nighttime concrete

Within a couple days, Mario got the forms in for the new retaining wall as well as for a curb around the inside perimeter of the basement, since the existing stone block footings were exposed from the digout. Then, unexpectedly, Tuesday afternoon the concrete truck arrived a day ahead of schedule and Mario and his assistant wound up working until 10pm to get everything poured, smoothed, and cleaned up. Anything ahead of schedule is rare indeed with our project!

Retaining wall, formed, braced, and poured

Retaining wall, formed, braced, and poured

The forms came off the retaining wall yesterday and soon the stairs can be formed. I need to get the drain for the landing outside the back door roughed in and then Mario can get that and the stairs poured.

Completed retaining wall

Completed retaining wall

The forms are still on the footing curb, but you can definitely get a feel for the difference it makes in the basement. It’s really starting to feel like we can get a floor poured and start putting up walls, if the city would just sign off and let the plumbers get to it.

Pouring the footing curb
Bay window curb pour
Footing curb set
Bay window curb set

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.