Tag: basement

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.

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 Dig Out – Part Forever

September 3, 2015 / / 0 Comments

My last basement dig out post was June 3rd. With the dumpsters and excavator gone we stalled out and decided just to hire the rest out. The concrete contractors we talked to gave us some very reasonable quotes and we were just waiting for the plumbers to get back to us. We finally got a couple plumbing quotes, but they’re really, really expensive.

We’re basically looking for three things from the plumbers: (1) replace the old clay sewer line under the basement floor with an overhead system plus rough-in for the basement bathroom and floor drains to an ejector pit, (2) replace the old lead water service with a new copper line, and (3) install an interior weeping system (aka drain tile) with a sump pit. The new water line in particular involves either excavating pits and horizontal boring or a trench across the yard and the street, so it’s the biggest line item, but the sewer work is pretty pricey too.

We’re going to try and get another couple quotes in hopes of a less expensive option, but time is getting short to get this work done before the cold weather sets in. In the mean time, we’re going to tackle the weeping system ourselves. While it’s the least expensive item on the list, it’s the only one we can realistically do. Even though it  won’t bring the plumbing costs down by a lot, we’ve got to do everything we can if we want to move forward.

Before we can put in the weeping system we need to level the subsoil in the basement. When we dug out the basement with the mini-excavator, our limited experience meant the end result wasn’t what you’d call perfectly smooth. Because it’s all clay, making it flat is extremely labor intensive. We’d held off leveling it until we’d talked to the plumbers because we weren’t sure if they were going to have to dig up the existing sewer and water lines. Now we know that’s not the case and we can get started. They’ll only need to dig a hole in the front corner, and over by the soil stack.

Not level

Not level

The first step was to dig out the corners where we couldn’t get the excavator in close, then go around with a pressure washer and clean up the stone footings. Once everything was cleaned up I used the laser level to measure how close to level the subsoil is. I started working from the front bay window toward the back of the house, focusing on one four foot square at a time. I quickly discovered there’s a gradient of clay consistency from one side of the house to the other, requiring different techniques to level out.

Level line

Level line

On the North side of the house the hard-packed clay is the consistency of old, dried fudge. It’s so dense you can’t slice a shovel through it and I have to use the mattock to chip it away. As I move to the other side, it gets gradually softer, which is why a lot of that side is actually dug too deep. So, I take all the clay shavings from the one side and dump them on the other, then use a block of wood and a hand-held sledge hammer to pound it flat. I thought about using a plate compactor or a lawn roller, but everywhere I need to compact the clay it’s sticky and would make a huge mess. As much as I don’t want to do it all by hand, it’s probably the only way. I drew a line on both the shovel and my block of wood to check my progress as I went, as well as a longer board that I could use to check larger areas. Basically, everything needs to be 6″ below the laser line.

Progress is very slow. I often find myself adding up square footage in my head and breaking it down into percentages, since while the digging is physically hard and time consuming, it’s also mind numbing. Each 4×4 section is averaging me nearly half an hour. I’ve only done about 300 square feet so far, to the back of the first column footing, but just that has been a huge pain over several days.

I’m planning to get the leveling finished over the long weekend, but there’s a lot more work to the weeping system. My hope is that by doing this portion ourselves, we can save enough money to still move forward with the basement this year. After getting excited about our reinvigorated timeline, I don’t want to get derailed out of the gate.

Basement Dig Out – Part 3

June 3, 2015 / / 0 Comments
Sarah using the digger

Sarah using the digger

I’ll be honest; I’m not sure how many “parts” to the dig out there are, but this is Part 3. It kind of feels like it’ll go on forever. We filled our fifth heavy debris dumpster in a row and took back the mini-excavator. I’d like to say that means we’re done, but instead I’m saying that “principle excavation” is complete, which is just another way of saying that we’re not done. What remains to do is finish clearing the dirt from the footings, remove a few piles of loose dirt including the dirt ramp we used to get the digger out the back door, and level everything, probably by renting one of those heavy rollers you fill with water. The bottom line is there’s more than a few wheelbarrows of dirt yet to haul out, and a lot more work to do.

Digging for new back steps

Digging for new back steps

The last thing we used the digger for was to excavate a pit behind the house. This is where the new outside basement steps will go. Having the steps go up to the left makes more sense since it’s toward the sidewalk that runs along the side of the house and to the currently nonexistent garage, but it requires some reconfiguration, by which I mean busting out the existing concrete retaining walls and stairs and then putting in a new one. With the steps going to the left, we can eventually put a deck on the right side of the house.

In addition to the final clearing and leveling, we also need to clean up the inside edge of the footings so that it’s even enough to finish the walls down the road. Exactly how we do that “clean up” remains to be seen, but it’s stone, so probably hammer and chisel, concrete saw, and angle grinder. Of course after everything is nice  and clean and level we have to dig trenches for the plumbing and weeping system, so we’ll be busy for a while yet.

Because we have to take out the concrete walls and there’s undoubtedly more dirt to clear for the stairs, there’s a strong likelihood we’ll need yet another dumpster in the not-too-distant future. Also, just a heads up to anyone planning an extended rental from Home Depot: a “month” is four weeks, so if you bring it back in thirty days it costs extra.