Tag: electrical

Mechanical Room Preparation

July 10, 2013 / / 0 Comments

With the hot water heater question sorted, I need to get the area of the basement that the water heater and boiler are going into ready. Eventually this will be the mechanical room… when we frame out the basement, after we lower the basement floor, after we finish the rest of the house. We already ran gas line, but there are still a few things to be done.

Mechanical room wall

Mechanical room wall

The boiler will be hung on the wall, and since the basement isn’t framed out that means it’s going on an outside wall. We don’t want to mount it directly on the brick because we want our house insulated and air sealed. That means we need to frame the outside wall where the boiler and panel will go. However, because we’re going to eventually lower the basement floor, we can’t just put a sill plate of the wall on the floor, we need to attach the studs to the brick wall. To ensure air and moisture management, we’ll use sill gasket behind the studs and fill the holes with caulk. The area between the studs we’ll fill with closed-cell spray foam.

Before any of that can happen, I need to prepare the wall. As is typical of our house, years ago someone saw a problem and went out about fixing it the wrong way. In this case, moisture problems with the brick foundation wall were not corrected by fixing gutters, redirecting storm water, or repointing the brick, they were “fixed” by slathering (parging) mortar or cement all over the brick wall on both sides in an effort to water seal it. This is generally a terrible idea because it traps water in the brick, rotting it from within. The ineffectiveness of this strategy is revealed by the coat of paint they put over the finished product which is now bubbled up and crumbling off.

So I’ve been removing the parging with my rotary hammer in chisel mode and a pry bar. It doesn’t need to be perfect, but the wall does need to be plumb. While the brick itself is pretty straight, the parging is thick enough in places to make for a wonky wall. Removing it is tricky because the parging doesn’t want to come off and it’s easy to damage the brick itself.

I also need to run electrical from the panel to the mechanical room. Chicago code requires EMT conduit, and in this case it’ll be ¾” because I need to run several circuits (lighting, hot water heater, boiler and pump, smoke detector, and eventually the air handler and HRV). I’m hoping to get both the wall prep and the electrical done by this Monday. With that out of the way we can get the hot water heater installed and focus on the remaining tasks for the boiler prep.

Project Review

September 17, 2012 / / 3 Comments

Sometimes it helps to take a moment and look at where we’re going and what we’ve done so far. At the moment I’m thinking about a bunch of different projects either in progress or upcoming, so to keep everything straight I’ll lay it out. It also helps for any random or occasional visitors to this blog to know what’s going on.

So, to recap, we bought this house in June of 2011. In addition to the first and second floor units, there was a basement apartment that was like something out of a horror movie. We spent two months fixing up the second floor unit so that we could move into it. When we moved in we put the laundry on the first floor where the kitchen had been as well as stored a bunch of our stuff in one of the bedrooms. Here’s the second floor living room before and after painting.

 

We knew that the support beam and columns in the basement needed to be replaced, so our first major project after moving in was to gut the basement unit. It was a moldy, disgusting mess. Here’s a picture of what it looked like before and after we gutted it.

 

With that done, we got some quotes on replacing the wooden beam and columns with steel, including new footings. The quotes were a lot of money, so we held off doing it right away. Our son Derek was born at the end of November, which interrupted some of our work on the house. I started using Sketchup and came up with a floor plan we liked. I even made a whole 3D model of the house, inside and out.

 

Then we found an architect and got him working on plans and permits with the city. We also started working on selecting contractors, including electrician, plumber, radiant heat and air conditioning installer, and concrete mason. Getting our plans together with the architect took longer than expected, so we decided not to wait until we had our permits before demoing the first floor. After moving the laundry and storage to the basement, we threw a demo party last month and gutted the whole first floor. Here’s the before and after gutting the first floor.

 

Along the way there have been a lot of smaller projects, like moving gas lines and plumbing, re-routing electrical, getting a new electrical panel installed, exterminating cockroaches and disposing of at least a dozen rat carcasses, checking the depth of our foundation footings, and a lot of planning.

So what’s next? Our immediate steps are to select a concrete mason, since that’s the only thing holding up our permit submission. Once that’s submitted we should have permits in thirty to sixty days. ComEd will be installing our new electrical service in the next few weeks. I have to remove the electrical running along the  beam in the basement, since we can’t replace it until I finish that, and the seemingly interminable cleanup on the first floor will need to be completed, including our room full of lath.

Once we have our permit, the beam and column replacement in the basement can take place. We may wind up doing that ourselves because it would save us a ton of money. Once that’s done we can demo the foyer and replace the bearing wall in the first floor with an LVL beam and columns, and close up and replace windows. We can start replacing the plank subfloor with plywood.

Next spring we’ll put in a new high efficiency hot water heater and boiler that will direct-vent, allowing us to remove the chimney. We’ll take out the front stairs, demo the second floor office (where the new stairs will connect), and frame the opening for the basement stairs. Then we can finish the subfloor and install the new stairs.

Then and only then can first floor construction really start: new front and back doors, framing, plumbing, electrical, and the first floor radiant system (all big projects themselves). Then it’s insulation, drywall, flooring, cabinets, doors, trim. I honestly don’t know how long that will take, but I’d be very surprised if it’s finished by the end of 2013, and that’s just the first floor.

Some of these pieces may move around. We were hoping to have the new radiant system in by this fall and that didn’t happen. We thought we’d have the basement beam in last fall. Things that cost less like replacing the stairs  may happen sooner –maybe even this winter– while replacing the windows doesn’t happen until later. Some things are fixed in order. We can’t frame until the subfloor is replaced, and we can’t do that until the beam and bearing wall are replaced, the chimney and radiators are removed, and the stairs are replaced. The chimney can’t be removed until we have the new radiator and hot water heater. It’s a very big jigsaw puzzle.

With my full time job, Sarah’s graduate school and job, and a 9-month-old baby, it’s going to be a long process. If you’re considering taking on a project like this yourself, make sure that firm timetables are something you can live without or that you have a lot more free time than we do. Make sure that if you’re doing it with someone else that you both have clear expectations. I still think that working on a two flat is the perfect way to do it. One of the things that makes this project so bearable is that when we’re done working we can just go upstairs where there’s no dust or debris, cook dinner in a real kitchen, relax on the couch, and sleep in our bed. A lot of home improvement projects aren’t so lucky.

First Floor Demo Prep

July 9, 2012 / / 1 Comment

We’ve continued making progress on the first floor. The biggest step was moving the washer and dryer down to the basement. After clearing a few remaining odds and ends, the first floor kitchen is finally starting to look a little empty.

First floor kitchen

We ran out and bought a dolly to get the washer and dryer downstairs. We wound up going out the front door, down the steps, out the gate onto the front sidewalk, over to the other gate, back along the length of the house, down the back steps and into the basement. Somehow, that was easier than going down the back steps, mostly because there wasn’t any room to turn on the landings. Let me tell you, that washer is heavy.

Washer and dryer

After installing the vent through the boarded up window we got everything hooked up and working. It’s an extra flight of steps to do laundry, but it works. We’ll need to cut a tarp from our giant roll of plastic to protect them during demo.

Electric removal

With that out of the way I started removing all of the wiring from the first floor. Most of it was already disconnected, but there were still switches, outlets and light fixtures. I thought I’d gotten most of it a week or so ago, but there were several outlets hiding behind our piles of debris. Some of the flexible conduit is still in the walls, but all of it is disconnected. There’s quite the mess to clean up, and we still have trim to remove in the kitchen and back bedroom, but we’re getting closer!

Odds and Ends

December 21, 2011 / / 1 Comment

Bathroom Light

Despite the newborn, I’ve been finding time to spend on the house, mostly thanks to Sarah handling the lion’s share of babying. While work continues on the seemingly-unending basement demolition, I also did some odds and ends that needed doing. For starters, I finally fixed the bathroom light fixture that I’ve been meaning to rewire since before we moved in. Yes, we need another light bulb, but more importantly it lights up and works with the switch.

Insulation

Next on the list was getting the house a bit better prepared for the winter. For starters, I added some weather stripping to the front door so the foyer wasn’t so drafty (I’m pretty sure it would have snowed in the foyer otherwise). I can’t say it’s great, but it’s at least an improvement. Then I wrapped the steam pipes from the boiler in foil-faced insulation, so that more of the heat would make it to the radiators upstairs and less would be dispensed into the stifling basement.

Pipe wrap

I wasn’t entirely convinced this would pay for itself in only one winter, since we’re planning on ripping out the boiler and radiators in the spring, but it’s definitely made a difference and once the gas bill comes around we’ll see. It only cost about $40, so the return on investment won’t be too hard to find.

Dwindling Debris

Finally, as I said I’ve been working on the basement demolition. The massive pile of drywall is gradually getting smaller, though there’s still more to rip down. I need to get the old plumbing and electrical removed before I can get to some of it, so that’s my next focus. I haven’t filled up the garbage toters every week, but I’ve lost count of how many times I have.

Garbage Bags

Here’s last weeks allotment. I’ll be filling them up again this week since they collected today. I need to clear out room for some drywall that Sarah’s sister found and get the plumbing out so that we can finally bring back the structural guys to re-quote and then hopefully start work. Oh, I’ve also been continuing to work on the floor plans. I came up with a second floor plan that I like, as well as the attic. It may need some tweaking, but it’s getting close. Once that’s done I need to work out where how the electrical and HVAC will run. Suffice it to say that we’re keeping busy!

More Brilliance

November 20, 2011 / / 0 Comments

Basement electrical fun

Every time we start working on something in the house, we discover a new example of how not to do things. Yesterday I spent a lot of time on the previously discussed basement demolition. One of the things that slowed me down was the maze of the steam pipes, gas lines, plumbing, and electrical that festoon the basement like spaghetti scattered by a baby. The basement apartment was built recently, in the last five or ten years. Because they framed and drywalled without first addressing water issues, whole stretches of wall are rotted and moldy. In the above picture (sorry it’s a bit grainy), you can see the conduit come down to a junction box, then flexible conduit (BX) comes out, goes behind the adjacent studs, back up, back behind the studs, across the conduit, and finally terminates in an electrical box. The outlet covers were screwed in with drywall screws, and the whole thing is rusting from all the moisture that was trapped in the wall. The lower junction box was completely hidden behind drywall. I have no idea why they have a big unnecessary loop, but it’s just one of many ways they messed things up.

This is a minor example. The real fun started with the light fixtures in the bedrooms. I wanted to shut off the circuits and ideally remove all of the conduit so I could get all of the drywall down. The wiring contortions I discovered required videos to truly explain. The first one covers the bedroom light fixture and its branches.

The second video is an electrical line servicing the first floor.

The third video shows off the gas lines that were added in the basement.

So that’s the most recent brilliance of the previous owner. We’ll share more as we come across it.