# The CELLAR



## What have I done

MORE......I want to see MORE!


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## Ironlight

In truth, it really does not look that bad at least as far as the walls and floor go. Much better than my 1925 craftsman did when I moved in..and in fact, still better!

I've never seen plaster and lathe ceiling in an old house basement like that. Are you sure it was not meant to be lived in? Is there any evidence of a toilet ever having been down there? Many larger houses of this vintage had rooms in the basement for the "help". Mine had a toilet and two small bedrooms under the front porch. Rather horrifying living conditions.

Can't wait to see more. I love restoration/modernization stories


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## gbwillner

OK.. a few more "before" pictures.....



This I-beam runs the length of the basement...


This is a closet area made up by the old doors from an oak pocke-door set. What a waste. You can also see the gravity-fed radiant heat pipes.


This is behind the stairs. The wood along the bottom is completely rotten.


This door goes to a set of stairs outside. The basement sits about 5 feet below ground level. Or it did, now it's obviously lower....


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## gbwillner

*Plans*

OK... well I was GOING to post the house plans that were approved by the city... but I don't know how to attach a PDF file. If anyone can help, I would appreciate it.....


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## gbwillner

Ironlight said:


> I've never seen plaster and lathe ceiling in an old house basement like that. Are you sure it was not meant to be lived in? Is there any evidence of a toilet ever having been down there? Many larger houses of this vintage had rooms in the basement for the "help". Mine had a toilet and two small bedrooms under the front porch. Rather horrifying living conditions.
> 
> Can't wait to see more. I love restoration/modernization stories


There was no evidence of a toilet ever being in this space. There was no plumbing for the basement. The previous owners had a drain put in for the washing machine- so a part of the cast iron 4" main underground drain was replaced with PVC, and a 2" drain was attached. The floor was originally dirt... although it's not impossible to think that "help" lived on straw mats down there with the rats. There is a "servant's staircase" in the main part of the house... but that's another story and has now been removed. Also, as part of the inspection, the previous owners had to replace the remaining underground cast iron pipe, as it was cracked and leaking. I'll get back to that later, because the company screwed the previous owners as well as myself.... but we'll get there soon enough....


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## Red Squirrel

Wow is that concrete ceilings? The builders must have been used to building high rise buildings or something. I guess you don't have to worry about floors creaking when someone is walking upstairs. :laughing: Does make it harder to mount stuff though. You'd almost want to build studded walls and add some 2x6 joists just to make mounting lights and stuff easier.


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## gbwillner

*STEP 1: The Demo*

Forgot to mention a critical part of my project: I would do virtually ALL the work by myself. My wife SAID she would help. Turned out that every time I tried to cash in on this, she would help for 30 Min and then get REALLY cranky. So really it was just me. If I ever got any help from anyone, I will state what they did. So if you see something, you can assume it was done by this crazy person with no help and not even a lot of spare time to do it in (I have a full-time job BTW).

So let's get going...

Part 1 : the Demo.

OK, it's not that there was a lot of demo to do, right? Just rip out the ceiling and floors, and start over. How long could that take, maybe a couple of days, right???

We started with the ceiling, because, well, we just didn't know what was up there. I got a trust crowbar and some safety equiptment, because at the time I didn't know if there was any asbestos up there. Turns out there wasn't, but being my first demo job I couldn;t be too careful. So I got a trusty crowbar.... just in time for Holloween....


Ready to work... or star in a horror film...

I didn't really think through just how long it would take to demo the ceiling. Turns out the plaster wasn't too hard to remove... but the lathe was. Each lathe was 4' long and about 1 1/2" wide. The basement is 1000 sq ft. each lathe is therefore 0.5 sq ft. The basement had apprx. 2000 lathe. Someone can double check my math. Each lathe had 4 nails holding it up. After about 4 hours, the basement floor looked like this...




And after a whole day it looked like this:



What a way to spend the weekend. And here are the fruits of my initial labor...



and then



After a week the pile of rubble was about 3 feet high and I had to clean it out before continuing. And the dust was ridiculous. It permeated the entire house (yes, the basement door was closed). It makes you wonder how long it took someone to put all this up in the first place.

My favorite part of the demo was when I got near the gas meter, I saw some black material in the joist space near where I had demo-ed. I knew there was something dead there, but I didn't know what. So I carefully positioned a trash can under that part of the ceiling, grabbed the lathe with my crowbar, moved to the side awkwardly and pulled down hard. Down came a slowly-moving cloud of back dust- the ancient remains of a crow. Maybe it got stuck in this space when the house was forst constructed? It was impossible to say. The feathers had basically turned to dust. All that really remained of the bird was a perfectly-preserved bird skull and two mummified bird feet sticking out of the pile. I didn't tell my wife. I know her reaction would not be favorable.

My least favorite part of the project: Some times you find something you REALLY didn't want to find....

 
If you look at the joists to the left, you will see some of the joists were charred and blackened from a fire. The previous owners didn't know anything about it, and I suspect the fire was easily more than 50 years before. I say this because where else could you buy horse hair nowadays for a plaster ceiling? Exactly. Sorry I don't have a better picture of it, but it was pretty extensive. At some point, someone supported all the damaged joists, occasioally using table legs. Don't ask.


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## gbwillner

Red Squirrel said:


> Wow is that concrete ceilings? The builders must have been used to building high rise buildings or something. I guess you don't have to worry about floors creaking when someone is walking upstairs. :laughing: Does make it harder to mount stuff though. You'd almost want to build studded walls and add some 2x6 joists just to make mounting lights and stuff easier.


 
The ceilings were mostly made up of a mixture of plaster with horse hair (real horse hair, not the cheap Chinese imitation stuff) applied on the lathe. There actually was some concrete in the ceiling as well underneath the fireplaces of the first floor. It was mixed with chunks of coal.


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## Marqed97

I'm looking forward to following this thread. My folks house looks very similar. Built 1896, house documents call the foundation 'bluestone'. VERY irregular inside and out. No plaster on the ceiling, though. Same setup with 4 and 5" mains for the gravity hot water heating, floor is about 1.5" thick concrete, but is very uneven. Fortunately the sewer manhole is at the low spot because water is a constant issue around here (NW WI, red clay country). Ceiling is 5'8" at the lowest and 6'10" at the highest. 

They updated to copper supply lines, replaced most of the DWV (tho the main stack is original), and the electric is all updated. New boiler (with a circ pump!), a sump pump, lots of stuff over 35 years. 

I just bought (a year ago) a 1914 house across town. Lots of the same kinds of issues...currently saving $ for the first major renovation...the bathroom (I have twin girls). 

Will be watching with great interest....

Andy


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## Jay 78

Subscribed!

This is gonna be a treat.


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## Red Squirrel

gbwillner said:


> The ceilings were mostly made up of a mixture of plaster with horse hair (real horse hair, not the cheap Chinese imitation stuff) applied on the lathe. There actually was some concrete in the ceiling as well underneath the fireplaces of the first floor. It was mixed with chunks of coal.


Ahhh yes now that I saw those pics, makes more sense. I cannot imagine what the cost would have been to use cement ceilings in a house. :laughing: Looks like lot of work. I never realized myself how much work demo can be until I did my own basement a few years ago. Now I need to actually rebuild it once money permits.


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## gbwillner

*Follow up step I and house plans*

So it took me about 3 weeks to rip out the ceiling. Some demo work continued for about 3 months. 

Finished basement plans:

[URL="[/URL]


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## gbwillner

*About the plans and subsequent steps*

If you guys want a bigger plan, let me know.

Basically, you can see that one of the changes was the location of the stairs. The basement stairs, where they were located, were small and cramped. You had to be a dwarf to be able to walk down them comfortably. Interestingly, the house has 2 floors, and there is a perfectly good set of stairs going to the second floor, with nothing underneath except a small coat closet. 

Here are the stairs to the basement (original)


If I'm going to add a kick-ass basement, would you want to go through this entrance? No, of course not. 

There would be 4 rooms, and several closets. There would be an office, a workshop, a gym, and a media room/bedroom. Also a 3/4 bathroom under the stairs.

Part of the design is to make the space pleasant to live in, but still functional. To that goal, one closet would hold the electrical box, another the water heater, another the sump pump, and yet another the gas meter. Also, all the plumbing and electrical lines for the house would run along the I-beam, hidden in a wooden soffit that could be removed if needed for access.

I would leave the above staircase area open as a raceway for future plumbing, electrical, and other components. It would also serve as the location of the water heater closet. I purchased a Bosch direct gas water heater (ES800) for the whole house. It was placed on the wall where the old stairs were. Sorry, I didn't take any pictures of the installation, but you will see it in subsequent images. Also, I cut off the 3/4" galvanized steel line to the existing GWH, and when I added the direct GWH I used PEX for all the connections.


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## no1hustler

Looking forward to this thread!


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## gmhammes

keep it going!!!


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## psilva8

subbed... looking forward to seeing this project complete. I watched a series of "Home to Flip" where the flipper Peter Filico (or something like that) lowered the concrete floor in his basement. Looked like a ton of work, but the results were fantastic. It seems as though you are writing this showcase in the past tense so to speak. How much of the project is actually complete to date?


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## gbwillner

psilva8 said:


> subbed... looking forward to seeing this project complete. I watched a series of "Home to Flip" where the flipper Peter Filico (or something like that) lowered the concrete floor in his basement. Looked like a ton of work, but the results were fantastic. It seems as though you are writing this showcase in the past tense so to speak. How much of the project is actually complete to date?


All but the finishing touches are complete... I need to refinish some of the floors... you'll see why later. More than anything, I just need to clean up!! As one room was complete, another was filled with crap. But basically it's all done. I'm going slow because I'm trying to show you everything in the order it was completed, and I have to find the relevant pictures. Hang in there though, I'll post steps 2-3, maybe 4 tonight.


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## gbwillner

Also, there were several changes to the plan as construction began. If you look at it, you'll see I initially had the office as an open room adjacent to the stairs. The wife ruled this out, stating we may need to use it as a future bedroom for guests or whatnot, so she wanted it walled in. To appease her, i added a wall and door, but left a window connecting the room to the stair landing. Its the only way to get sunlight into the room.
Other key changes: 
1. The electrical box was not moved from it's original location in the media room space- it would have cost a small fourtune to move it into the workshop, for essentially no reason. I built a small closet around it.
2. The 1/2 BA was converted into a 3/4 BA and a door was added to the Media room side. The idea was that if you were watching a movie, you'd have to walk into the gym and then a hallway before you could pee.
3. The office and worshop were made to be about the same size, with a single wall that ran E-W.


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## psilva8

gbwillner said:


> Also, there were several changes to the plan as construction began. If you look at it, you'll see I initially had the office as an open room adjacent to the stairs. The wife ruled this out, stating we may need to use it as a future bedroom for guests or whatnot, so she wanted it walled in. To appease her, i added a wall and door, but left a window connecting the room to the stair landing. Its the only way to get sunlight into the room.
> Other key changes:
> 1. The electrical box was not moved from it's original location in the media room space- it would have cost a small fourtune to move it into the workshop, for essentially no reason. I built a small closet around it.
> 2. The 1/2 BA was converted into a 3/4 BA and a door was added to the Media room side. The idea was that if you were watching a movie, you'd have to walk into the gym and then a hallway before you could pee.
> 3. The office and worshop were made to be about the same size, with a single wall that ran E-W.


Putting a wall to add a bedroom was probably a good idea.

What do you mean by 3/4 bath? Like a stand-up shower included? If so, did you make the bathroom bigger? Where did you find the extra footprint. Looking forward to your pictures.


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## gbwillner

psilva8 said:


> Putting a wall to add a bedroom was probably a good idea.
> 
> What do you mean by 3/4 bath? Like a stand-up shower included? If so, did you make the bathroom bigger? Where did you find the extra footprint. Looking forward to your pictures.


Yup- additionl space was carved out of the media room....


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## gbwillner

*STEPS 2 and 3....*

I will lump these together because they were projects that had some role in the basement, but affected the whole house and needed to be done before I could continue. I will keep this part short.

*Step 2- Electrical Upgrade*

The house had the old fuse panel replaced in 1940 with this thing....



This panel was for only 100A service, and was known to be defective (the breakers would not trip). I found out the hard way, as first my computer motherboard fried one day, and within a week, the motherboard/controller of the garage door opener also fried. This thing had to go, and ASAP. Not wanting to electricute myself, I hired a pro for this one (although I did take out my own electrical permits for all other electrical work). I replaced this with a GE 200 A box. I also got rid of this thing controlling the boiler...


this thing reminded me of the switch from a Frankenstein movie.

*Step 3: A/C.* The house had a system installed in 1980. It still worked, barely. The previous owners had it installed on top of the servants staircase (situated directly above the original basement staircase shown before). What I mean by that, is that they literally nailed a couple of planks of wood to the top step, and rested the 300 lb unit on that. So I had to first remove the old unit, then rip out that staircase, and then add a real subfloor (witsh supporting joists) in the same space before I could add a state-of-the-art, energy efficient A/C, heat pump/Furnace.


This is what the old AC looked like at the top of the servant's staircase:

we were lucky to get rid of this thing when we did. The following summer was BRUTAL.

Once removed, the demo began- fist add a supporting joist, then remove the stairs...



Then

This is a view looking down at the hole that was created, resulting in a raceway from the roof of the house to the bottom of the cellar (~30 ft).
This space would house plumbing, vents, and electrical to the rest of the house.

And finally, the new A/C.... I had a professional install it.

Notice the new and secure subfloor. Also gone was the stairs that sat on top of the cellar stairs, leaving room to install the new direct gas hot water heater...











Notice that i added a new subfloor here too. The new direct GWH would sit directly below here, and vent into that window above (I bricked it in- there would be 3 vents coming out of that window).

If you look at the last picture from Step 1, you will see that you can make out where the stairs used to be. I had to use mortar to seal off the stone wall, and mount the DGWH right there. You can also see the vents coming down from the new AC into the cellar. There are 2 vents and a return, and I would connect them all once the basement was framed...


Site of the direct GWH


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## psilva8

Did the door to the outside already exist when you removed the stairs. Seems like an odd space for a furnace. I bet the installer wasn't happy doing that work.

Keep up the great posts.


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## gbwillner

psilva8 said:


> Did the door to the outside already exist when you removed the stairs. Seems like an odd space for a furnace. I bet the installer wasn't happy doing that work.
> 
> Keep up the great posts.


 
Not sure which door to the outside you are referring to... I agree it was an odd location for a furnace, but it does have several advantages. First, cold air likes to go down, so it's always better to put your evaporator as high as possible. This house has no attic so this was the best they could do. Most houses around here have 2 units- one for each floor. I thought this was unnecessary given the space I have, but could only find one installer willing to put in a single unit. I could have relocated the furnace to the basement, but that would have used up valuable space down there, as well as force me to put in 2 units. I had no need for a servant's staircase, given that I'll fresh out of servants at the moment. So closing off that space and removing the stairs seemed logical.


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## gbwillner

*Step 4: WATERPROOFING (part A)*

*STEP 4: Waterproofing*

OK, I won't lie- this was a LOT of work. The waterproofing was made up of 2 parts- first, as most of you know, the best way to get water out of your basement is to keep it from coming in in the first place. Our lot has a general slope going down in the back of the house, but was not even. Also, the ground came down at the exterior walls (bad), plant roots were growing into the mortar (worse), and much of the mortar was cracked and let water seep in (worst).

*Part A:*

Stop water from coming in. The idea was simple- first, clear out all plants within 2' of the house exterior. Second, dig a 2' wide x 1' deep ditch around the exterior of the house. The bottom of the trench would slope away from the house. Third, add a 1" thick layer of Sodium bentonite to the ditch. This stuff is used to seal ponds- it is a chalk-like material that turns into a water-impermeable goo when wet. Also, it expands when wet, filling any cracks and stopping leaks. Fourth, patch cracks in the mortar. Fifth, place a water-permiable plastic mesh over the trench, so plants cannot grow there again (or at least make it more difficult). Sixth, fill in the ditch higher than before, at a slope away from the house (apprx 15 degrees). In retrospect, this part of the project also seemed like a piece of cake, but took weeks to complete. Unfortunately, I don't have too many pictures. A lot have me and my blindingly-white body in them, so I'll refrain from using them... Also, the clay used to fill in the trench came from the excavation in the basement (will cover in part B)....


You can see here the dense plants growing right up to the house. It's hard to make out, but the ground actually sloped down to the house, meaning when it rained, water would pool along the walls. This is the only picture I have showing the base of the walls BEFORE I did any work- it wasn't the worst by any means.


At this point, I have made the 2'x1' ditch and am filling it with bentonite...


A little further along in the same spot. You can see that old A/C condenser, so this step was actually done before I ripped out the old A/C system. Yes, it's vintage 1980 A/C technology right there. You can also see the erosion of the mortar near the bottom of the walls. This was all patched before the ditch was filled.


The finished product. The plants are gone, and the ground now slopes AWAY from the house.


Thi is the same place you saw me add bentonite. This process was done around the entire house except for below the front porch, where that does a pretty good job of keeping water away from the house. This specific area still needed to be tamped down. The clay used here was take from the basement excavation, so it looks a little different that the surrounding soil.


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## psilva8

gbwillner said:


> Not sure which door to the outside you are referring to... I agree it was an odd location for a furnace, but it does have several advantages. First, cold air likes to go down, so it's always better to put your evaporator as high as possible. This house has no attic so this was the best they could do. Most houses around here have 2 units- one for each floor. I thought this was unnecessary given the space I have, but could only find one installer willing to put in a single unit. I could have relocated the furnace to the basement, but that would have used up valuable space down there, as well as force me to put in 2 units. I had no need for a servant's staircase, given that I'll fresh out of servants at the moment. So closing off that space and removing the stairs seemed logical.


In your sketch of the finished basement plans it showed a door to the outside below grade. Just wondering if it was an existing door, or a proposed one. I didn't say anything was wrong with the placement of the HVAC unit and it does seem logical, was just saying it is a tight space.


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## gbwillner

psilva8 said:


> In your sketch of the finished basement plans it showed a door to the outside below grade. Just wondering if it was an existing door, or a proposed one. I didn't say anything was wrong with the placement of the HVAC unit and it does seem logical, was just saying it is a tight space.


Ahh, that door. It was already there, and can be seen in the second set of images of step 1- there is water seeping in from under the door. Just outside the door is a drain.... you'll see that soon enough...

And re: the A/C- you are right- it was a very close shave fitting the new unit in there. God help whoever needs to take that thing out of there!


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## Ironlight

I'm loving this.

Particularly since all the work is done so we don't have to wait weeks between posts, lol.

It's like buying a whole season of some TV show on DVD and binging on it. :laughing:

I'm curious about the clay "shelf" that you put in around your foundation to address water issues. Did you get some sense of how effective that was at remediating water issues *before* you did any interior waterproofing? I'm asking because it might work exceptionally well for one limited area where I have a trickle in the basement whenever it pours for days on end.


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## gbwillner

*Waterproofing (continued)*

Waterproofing, part B: Getting water out

The basement, being 102 years old, did not have any drainage and it needed to be installed. The plan was simple. First, I would excavate the perimeter of the entire basement until I found the bottom of the footings. This was for a few reasons. First, the floor was totally uneven, and I was betting the footings were actually level. Second, we wanted to drop the basement floor, but you can't drop below the bottom of the footing without some engineering feats without risking catastophe. I would make a ditch about 2' wide around the perimeter until I got the bottom of the footing. I would then dig another 1' deep trench 1' away from the footing (resulting in a 45 degree angle form the bottom of the ditch to the bottom of the footing- the maximum allowed without risking damaging the foundation). I would then install a small bed of gravel, then a plastic corrugated pipe in a sleeve around the entire perimeter. This drainage system would empty into a sump pit 4' deep. A pump would empty the pit into the nearest stack. This might sound weird, but St. Louis city does not have a separate sewer and rain drainage, so this is allowable by code. I would then fill the remainder of the pit with gravel, before the remaining floor was leveled to the bottom of the footings.

Start of the excavation...

You can see just how much dust was getting kicked up that it was affecting the camera...


Here you can see the layers below the concrete. The concrete is about 1"-2" thick. Below that waslayer of large white gravel, then a thin layer of fine black gravel, and below that was a layer of soot. Below all that was a thick, muddy clay (used outside for the slope). I tried to save a lot of the gravel for filling in the french drain ditch (see later images). The soot was the original floor, a result of the coal that was stored here.


This is a rare wife sighting. She helped break up the concrete. I rented an electric breaker for the job, but it was just going right through the thin concrete and getting stuck. This job was done with a sledgehammer. That's right, we broke up the entire slab (1000 sq ft), with a sledgehammer, and it was far easier than using the breaker. You can also see the installed Bosche direct whole-house water heater protected by plastic.

Adding the french drain...
My wife helped here too.... This is the trench dug out around the perimeter...


And then I layed down the rubble and drain...

This was placed around the entire perimeter as well as with a central line that ran the length of the basement. All lines terminated in the sump pit. You can also see how I tried to separate out the white large gravel and small black gravel for recycling (later use).


Here, the drain is buried in the small gravel and later covered with the soot that used to make up the 100 year-old floor. You can also see I added a layer of bentonite to the bottom of the footings, to try to prevent water from coming in below the footings. This was also used in all the large cracks in between the foundation stones. You can also see how quickly the dirt/clay started to pile up...




This is the drainage where the floor was highest (about 6'5"), so there is a steep ledge where the old floor was and where the bottom of the footing was...


After completing this, there was no spot on the floor further than 4' from one of these lines.


We were wearing plastic bags over our shoes for much of this work because the mud was so bad. This was grueling work.
After the perimeter was done, we leveled the entire floor to the level of the footings. Then we added the last trench for the central drain.

I started doing this on my own, and got through about 1/3 of the basement- taking up 2 buckets of dirt at a time (and dumping them in my yard). After 3 weeks, it stopped being fun, so I hired someone to finish that part of the job. The next part was the plumbing under the floor... but I will save that for tomorrow!!!! The plumbing actually overlapped with the french drain in chronology, but I'm trying to keep it simple (That's why you see those pipes laying around).


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## gbwillner

Ironlight said:


> I'm loving this.
> 
> Particularly since all the work is done so we don't have to wait weeks between posts, lol.
> 
> It's like buying a whole season of some TV show on DVD and binging on it. :laughing:
> 
> I'm curious about the clay "shelf" that you put in around your foundation to address water issues. Did you get some sense of how effective that was at remediating water issues *before* you did any interior waterproofing? I'm asking because it might work exceptionally well for one limited area where I have a trickle in the basement whenever it pours for days on end.


I should end each post with "catch us tomorrow night at the same Bat-time, same Bat-channel"

Re: the clay shelf, I read up extensively on waterproofing before starting, and it is well established that the most effective method of getting water out of a basement is to not let it in in the first place. The slope helps guide the water away slowly. Water can traverse underground at about a 60 degree angle, so simply making sure the water does not get any closer the the house than 2 feet at the ground level can go a long way in preventing water issues. The slope prevents the water from accumilating and circumventing your efforts, it also forces the water even further away. The bentonite is a high-tech solution. MAybe it was not necessary, but I didn't want to take any chances. In regards to efficacy- all I can tell you is that we've only got water in the basement once since I did all this work, and it was because the rain came down so fast it overwhelmed the city sewer system, and the water literally came up out of the drains I installed. That was the worst flash flooding here in the last 50 years or so. Luckily, There was nothing yet in the basement except the new slab.


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## Ironlight

Yes I'm a strong proponent of the concept of keeping water out in the first place, particularly since I Have a terra cotta block foundation that needs to "breathe" on the inside in order to prevent deterioration. The bentonite is interesting to me because I have a specific water issue along the side of our house, in an alley that is completely paved with brick, probably done about 50 years ago. The ground has settled a bit and the roots of some large trees have heaved areas of the bricks so that regrading to restore the swale that made drainage in the area effective would require regrading about 1000 sqft of paving...not something I'm anxious to do.

I was staring at your bentonite ledge and thinking that would be a perfect, localized solution for my problem area. I could pull up the brick in the one spot I have a leak, dig down not too far, and install the shelf. It would be the lowest effort and most logical approach to addressing the issue.


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## CoconutPete

Wow... amazing project. Good work!


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## gbwillner

Ironlight said:


> Yes I'm a strong proponent of the concept of keeping water out in the first place, particularly since I Have a terra cotta block foundation that needs to "breathe" on the inside in order to prevent deterioration. The bentonite is interesting to me because I have a specific water issue along the side of our house, in an alley that is completely paved with brick, probably done about 50 years ago. The ground has settled a bit and the roots of some large trees have heaved areas of the bricks so that regrading to restore the swale that made drainage in the area effective would require regrading about 1000 sqft of paving...not something I'm anxious to do.
> 
> I was staring at your bentonite ledge and thinking that would be a perfect, localized solution for my problem area. I could pull up the brick in the one spot I have a leak, dig down not too far, and install the shelf. It would be the lowest effort and most logical approach to addressing the issue.


It's certainly worth a shot. Let me know how it goes.


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## gbwillner

Sorry, no update tonight. I had a long day at work. Maybe I'll do double tomorrow...


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## psilva8

Looking forward to the update...


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## gbwillner

*Step 5. The plumbing*

*Step 5. The PLUMBING*

After adding the drainage system, it was time to do the following to install the plubing...

1. remove the drain in the middle of the media room (the floor was now lower).

2. Add a 3" toilet drain, 2" shower drain (with trap) and 2" sink drain, all with a vent for the future 3/4 bathroom. This would all have to tie into the 4" drain under the floor that was just leveled to the bottom of the footings. Also in this group is an additional 2"drain for the direct gas water heater (for condensation).

3. Add an additional 3" drain in the workshop.

4. remove the existing drain that was added for the washing machine.

5. Add a Radon vent, and hook it up to the outside via the window walled in above the old cellar stairs.

Well that's not a lot of work, right? I started on part 1 first. However, as soon as I started digging around the drain I noticed a smell. And it wasn't pleasant. This is what I saw...


This is an old, cast iron 4" drain. Silly me, I thought all the cast iron pipe had been removed when I bought the house. I gues they forgot this part. The brown discolored clay around the pipe is rusted pipe that is falling off, and well, poop. It was not pleasant.

The all the stacks had been replaced in the basement with PVC, but many of the connections between the stacks were still iron. And all those pipes were broken and leaking. And the connections they made were poor- especially near the cast iron drain I needed to remove... 


I threw down some newspaper to try to avoid stepping in the muddy, and poopy mess. Sorry this picture is sideways. rotate your head 90 degrees to the right. Or download it and let the computer do it for you. The drain is smack in the middle, but can be hard to see in all the mess. 

A lot of these angles were off, and the PVC pipes were not securely fitted. Furthermore, some were glued with CPVC glue, which is a no-no. I ended up having to throw away most of the PVC that was underground. The worst part was that, if you look to the right, the iron pipe extends to the drain on the other side of the door. I would have to dig UNDER the foundation to remove that pipe, and replace the 3" drain outside as well. Too bad I had already returned the electric breaker to Home Depot and I would have to rent it again....


Leaky cast-iorn pipe heading under the door to the outside


drain outside, after initial demo- you can see they hooked up a 3" PVC to the old cast iron. I would have to dig down about 2.5 ft in this small space to fix this, as well as under the foundation of the wall.


After these brutal repairs were made


under the media room after all the pipe had been replaced. Looks much cleaner, right??? The drain on the left is from the kitchen sink. The one on the right heads to the sump pump closet, and serves a stack from a 1/2 bath on the 1st floor. Also, the Sump pump would tie into that stack as well.

I then filled everything back in with the recycled black gravel.

In the back right you can see my hookup for the sump pump into the drainage system. 

Well, that was a lot of work. Time for part 2 (bathroom addition)!!! I didn't take a lot of pictures of digging more trenches for the pipes, so I'll just show you what it looked like when I finished... 


As with the other drainage, I used the fine black gravel salvaged from the demo to fill in the trenches around the new pipes. These are the shower drain, the drain for the toilet, the vent (to my left), and the drain for the sink (on my right, hard to see). Notice how terribly the stack had been previously repaired. That serves the main bathroom on the 2nd floor.

Adding the workshop drain was a pain because the main drain was much deeper on the other side of the basement... Here is the finished drain...


sorry it's hard to see in the middle of the floor... as I said, there were 3 light bulbs in the basement. I had a floodlamp, but it was a piece of crap and stopped buying fluorescent bulbs after the 2nd time they burned out after a single use.... You can also see here that during this process I started removing ALL the radiant heat pipes. I was going to start the heating system from scratch, and those pipes were taking up a LOT of headroom (plus were unsightly). I won't bore with pictures of cutting pipes.

The other vents and drains were not special enough to get their own snapshots. However, you will see them in subsequent steps.

With the plumbing done (and the mud removed from my shoes) we could start prepping for the new slab.

...But you didn't think it would be that easy did you? No, of course not. First I had to set up Step 6: The IN-FLOOR RADIANT HEAT SYSTEM (for the basement)...

Da da da..........


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## What have I done

looking good. I am planning to do the same thing on an old farmhouse we are redoing. Our celler is about 5'8 , with a cracked up uneven floor. we plan to bring it down to 7' so we have more headroom for mechanicals. no plan for living space just make it more useable for storage . keep the pictures coming. 

when you dug out the floor did you just take the dirt out in buckets or did you rig up a conveyer?


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## gbwillner

What have I done said:


> looking good. I am planning to do the same thing on an old farmhouse we are redoing. Our celler is about 5'8 , with a cracked up uneven floor. we plan to bring it down to 7' so we have more headroom for mechanicals. no plan for living space just make it more useable for storage . keep the pictures coming.
> 
> when you dug out the floor did you just take the dirt out in buckets or did you rig up a conveyer?


The first third was buckets and sweat. The remainder (when I hired a pro) was done with a coveyer that was rigged up over the staircase out that door.


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## gbwillner

*Steps 6 & 7*

*Step 6: Preparing for the slab and In-floor radiant hear system*

I'm combining two things here because they certainly went together.
After the plumbing inspector approved my work in the cellar, I had approval to pour an new slab. The contractor I hired to level the floor was also hired to pour the slab in stages, to allow for the many intervening steps. He was a very patient man. They were as follows:

1. Level the ground with a ceiling height of 7'11" and remove all dirt/clay from the property (check)
2. Leave for a few weeks (or month, who's counting?) so I could dig the trenches for the drainage and plumbing (check)
3. Come back, and pour 2" of gravel on one side of the basement; tamp it flat
4. Leave again, let me put 6 mil plastic sheeting down for a vapor barrier on that side of the basement
5. Come back, set up/pour curb over the foundation footings in half the basement, pour 2" gravel on the other 1/2 of the basement and tamp flat
6. Leave again, let me put down the 6 Mil plastic on the other half of the basement
7. Come back, finish curb for the foundation
8. leave again for over a month, let me put in under-floor insulation, pipes for the in-floor radiant heat system
9. Come back and pour slab.

Like I said, a patient man. I'll get to why each step was necessary as I go through the pictures.....




Here, the gravel is poured on 1/2 the basement, and I am installing the vapor barrier. I wanted the vapor barrier to extend up and over the footings, since if water was going to come in, it would be above and below the footings. However, I also decided to put up insulation under the slab, but could not place it behind the new curb (which we tried to keep as small as possible). Also, insulation between the curb and the slab would add another moisture break. This picture is the workshop- you can see the drain sticking up through the plastic. 


You can see that 1/2 the floor is still just dirt at this point. It was difficult to work this way, but I just couldn't see any way around it. Also, working with this thick plastic sheeting was not as easy as it seems. It's actually pretty heavy, and doesn't like to stay where you put it.


After the plastic was in place, my guy came back to install the curb. This would help support the footings, as well as give me a flat surface to build walls on. It would also give the illusion of straight walls. We made them as low and short as possible. These were installed by placing spikes in the ground (yikes- right through the plastic sheeting I just installed!), tying boards for a flat surface, and pouring concrete. A layer of cement was used afterwards to smoothen it out. After the curb was dry and the spikes removed, I patched the holes. I also labeled all pipes under the sheeting with marking paint, just so no spikes went through them. He had to move the plastic out of the way to avoid making holes in it. Once he was done I just moved it back.


Work on the other side of the basement begins. you can see the installed direct gas water heater and it's drain in this picture. The other 2" vent is to allow radon to leave the basement without going through the slab, and goes outside. I basically stuck one end of an open pipe in the french drain trench, surrounded by gravel. I also bored lots of little holes so gas could go in but gravel could not. This was not a code requirement in my area, but I went above core everythere I could.


[URL="http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/39/curb4.jpg/"][/URL]
After the curb was complete, I secured all the plastic sheeting and then placed down insulation. By that, I mean I used sheathing tape to attach all the plastic together, and patched the holes. The under-slab insulation was a big point of contention between myself and others on this site. I initially did not want to put any insulation under the slab, becase the R value of the floor 5' below grade was over 50. People called me nuts and told me I should go with at least 2". One thing that finally convinced me was that it would take less time to start feeling the heat with at least some insulation. So I compromised and installed a single sheet of 1/2 pink insulation (R=3)...


These pieces fit like a jigsaw puzzle. Unlike the remainder of this installation, this part as a breeze.


It's starting to come together nicely...


Here you can see the bathroom location, as well as the one trouble spot for this activity- the bottom of the columns. You can also see the height of the previous floor level- the bottom of the blue paint on the columns.

Well, I ran out of pictures on this post, so I will have to return with the next steps.... Adding the in-floor pipes and insulation!


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## gbwillner

*STEP 7: In-Floor Radiant Heat installation and wall insulation*

Once the under-floor insulation was in place, I could add the pipes that would sit INSIDE the new slab and heat it. 

*Step 7: Insulation for the Walls and Adding the in-floor radiant heat PEX-AL tubing*

First, I needed to add insulation to the walls. I decided that I would add R=10 insulation in pink syrofoam 4x8 panels. It was important to use extruded polystyrene insulation for this, and all basement applications. First, it acts as a vapor retardant, second it's easy to install. Well, not that easy since my walls are not flat. Here is where I made my first mistake in this project.
I decided I would place a single sheet all around the basement walls, and secure them to each other with sheathing tape (not easy to find, BTW- that stuff was indespensible). I would then frame the outside walls, and add a second layer of the same insullation between the studs. My reasoning was that A: I would lose less floor space (1" around the entire basement) since the second layer would be in already-occupied space, and that I would have aready cut pieces that were the right size from sizing the original panels. While both of these things were true, doing this was a huge pain in the ass, because although I saved about $50 total in less material and waste, I took FOREVER to cut every single piece to 16.5". I should have just put the 2" up from the beginning. I don't have any pictures of this for some reason, so I'll get to the fun part anyway.

*The PEX-AL-PEX in-floor system.* 

Here is a word of advise for anyone who wants to do an in-floor radiant system. Plan out all the details before you spend a penny. I read this book cover-to-cover before I began.



I spoke to many people about this project as I planned it, built it, and fine-tuned it. I was shocked by how few people actually know what the hell they are doing. I found a lot of people just sorta build it, without doing any of the necessary calculations to make sure the system will actually work. 

I chose PEX-AL-PEX over PEX for several reasons. First, it transfers heat better than PEX. Second, it is more rigid and easier to unstall. Unfortunately, there were 2 major draw-backs- 1) it was much more expensive, and 2) it was hard to find the necessary couplings and fittings since the size is slightly different than it's PEX counterpart.

That said, I placed a 3-line circuit in the basement floor slab. Each was about 250 ft. I tied them down to the insulation with either tape or metal fences that I put down for that purpose. Here is what it looked like...


You can see the lines terminate in the workshop, where they will tie into the system.

 




It took me about a month to get all this down and have the contractor come back to pour the slab. Once the slab was in place, I could begin to add the in-floor radiant heat system for the first floor of the house, using the PEX-Al and aluminum heat transfer plates under the sub-floor (between the joists) since I how had access to it.


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## shumakerscott

I put radiant in my project. Here is where I got my information, great site.
http://www.radiantdesigninstitute.com/
dorf dude...


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## gbwillner

*Step 8: 1st floor radiant heat*

After the new slab was poured, I had a month of letting it cure before I could do anything fun to it. In the mean time, I got busy on the next thing I could now do:

*Step 8: 1st floor radiant heat system*

With the ceiling removed and having access to the joist space, I planned on adding an in-floor radiant heat system to the first floor of the house. The basement was easy, since all I had to do was lay down some pipe, and then pour concrete over it. Done. The first floor of the house was a 102-year old 3/4" hardwood subfloor, and 60 year-old 3/4" oak flooring. Protruding from the bottom of the subfloor were a bazillion nail heads from both of these installations. Why didn't they plan ahead 102 years ago? Really, I mean think about it.

Anyway, the plan was to lay PEX-AL-PEX along the joist space, and use aluminum heat transfer plates to evenly distribute heat to the bottom of the subfloor. This is exactly why you have to plan these things VERY carefully. Wood is not a good conductor, meaning the water in these pipes has to be pretty hot to adequately heat the floor (142 degrees for me). The number of lines/foot is also important- I was OK using 1 line every 12".

But before I could place any pipe, I had to get the joists ready. This meant planning EXACTLY how each tube would traverse the joists (i.e., where I would bore some holes), and cut off or hammer down all those bazillion nail heads. Some of the nails were 1/8" thick- I cut these with snips. the larger nails had to be hammered down. This process took many weeks to complete- and was something I totally did not figure in to my time schedule. Kinda like half the stuff I did. Another thing I did not anticipate was how much dust accumilates between the floor and subfloor over 100+ years.


That dirt on my face is 1-102 years old.

Also, boring those 2" joist from 102 years ago was no picnic. I ruined several drill bits, and the only thing that had the power to do it was a heavy (and expensive) angle drill. Probably the best purchase I was forced to make.

Finally I was ready to start installing the PEX-AL. This was also no picnic. Also, this is NOT a 1-MAN JOB. I had to recruit my wife to help. If you pull to hard on the tubing, it will kink on the bored holes and be ruined. You then have to cut out the ruined sections and find expensive couplings, and hope they don't leak. All these things happened to me- don't let it happen to you. You need someone to feed the tube and someone to thread it.


Here, I began to place the tubing. You have to be very careful how you put the tubing in place. One kink and it's all over. As I put the lines in place, I stapled the aluminum plates to hold it in.


Keep track of the ends of the tubing. It's almost impossible to keep the tubing from coiling on itself, and if you lose track of the ends and it coils, you may not notice you made a knot until it's too late.


The ceiling is starting to come together.... notice the gaps between the aluminum plates. You need to leave space because these plates will expand when hot.


This is the ceiling over the workshop- all the lines eventually will terminate and start here. This area encompassed 1 of 4 lines of roughly 300 ft.

As I worked on the other lines, I also framed in the outside walls, since I didn't need the slab to cure for that....


Another example of why this is not a 1-man job. You have to get up, pull slack on one side of the joist, then get down, pull more slack from the other side... repeat 1000x.


Over the next month or 2 (or 3?) I added all 4 lines. This was A LOT OF WORK. I thought it would take maybe a few weeks. I also framed in the walls over the footings. Let me explain why I didn't do the interior walls... because I wanted the floor to cure for *STEP 9: Acid staining the concrete*... tomorrow....


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## no1hustler

Very cool. Any idea what your cost was per square foot to do the 1st floor radiant heating? Does it just heat the floor or does it give off more heat?


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## gbwillner

no1hustler said:


> Very cool. Any idea what your cost was per square foot to do the 1st floor radiant heating? Does it just heat the floor or does it give off more heat?


This heating system turns the floor into a giant radiator. There is no other source of heat used for the house. If not done properly, it may only "heat the floor" and not the house. That's why I stress doing all the calcluations in advance. Once done properly, this is the MOST comfortable and energy efficient way to heat your house. My bills with the old system (gravity fed system with an overkill boiler filling those 4" pipes) cost me close to $400/month in gas bills. Gas is more expensive now, and my bills have run $150 this winter (plus, I'm heating an additional 1000 sq ft.). While the system was being built, I used the furnace and heat pump. The heat pump is definitely efficient- but it cannot operate below freezing. The furnace is horribly inefficient, and gave really poor heat distribution to the house. Energy bills were roughly the same ($150) for the winter running these two systems, but it was about 20 degrees warmer upstairs than downstairs in the coldest days (on average a 10 degree difference, I would say). In other words- either you kept it too hot upstairs or too cold downstairs. Now, each floor of the house is whatever temperature I want (including the basement, of course).

The total cost is hard to estimate- do you mean just for materials for just what I've installed in the above post? Or for the entire system? Just the cost of tubing and aluminum plates was probably under $900 (so $.80-.90/sq ft).


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## no1hustler

Thanks, you answered what I was looking for! 

Looking forward to your next post!


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## psilva8

Hey man,

This is fantastic. I find it amusing when I read a post and it says it took x amount of weeks to complete. It just shows the kind of time and effort it takes one to diy. You must feel enormous accomplishment. The radiant floor heating is something that has always intrigued me. Question: how long is the system supposed to last, as in, until the tubes deteriorate. I would guess with materials these days could be 100 years and won't be your problem. In contrast, how to you cool the space?


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## gbwillner

psilva8 said:


> Hey man,
> 
> This is fantastic. I find it amusing when I read a post and it says it took x amount of weeks to complete. It just shows the kind of time and effort it takes one to diy. You must feel enormous accomplishment. The radiant floor heating is something that has always intrigued me. Question: how long is the system supposed to last, as in, until the tubes deteriorate. I would guess with materials these days could be 100 years and won't be your problem. In contrast, how to you cool the space?


 
Thanks. Now it certainly feels like an awesome accomplishment (and that's why I want to share it with you all, so someone besides my wife sees all the hard work I put into it!!!). I gotta tell you though, I don't know if I would do all this work again if I could go back in time. Not because it isn' totally awesome ( loved doing this stuff, obviously), but because of just how much time and effort it took. My wife told me several times that she felt like she was married to a contractor who had dinner with her. I basically worked a 10-14hr day at work, came home, went straight to the basement for 2-4 hrs every day, maybe ate something, went to sleep, dreamt about what I would build next and often woke up in to the middle of the night to plan out the next step, then got up and repeated the process. On the weekends, I usually spent at least 1 of the 2 days in the basement for 12-14 hrs. Sometimes both days (depending on what needed to get done). Halfway through this project, I realized just how much this was costing my personal time, but I couldn't abandon 1/2 way through and leave a mess. Maybe it wasn't all that bad though. I did love planning and doing all this work... there are just not enough hours in the day for me.

Re: the radiant heat system- it should last forever. There is nothing in the tubing to corrode. As long as the pipes are not exposed to UV radiation, they should hold up. The primary circuit (you will see later) has metal components and a boiler that will eventually have to be replaced. I hope the system makes the house livable for another 102 years.

As for cooling, I installed that new energy-efficient Lenox A/C. It does a good job, although in the heat of the summer you still have a difference in temperature between the 1st and 2nd floors of the house. It's not bad (compared to the old system) because I added returns in the basement and have the fan run, even when the A/C is off, equilibrating the temperature in the house.


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## psilva8

gbwillner said:


> Thanks. Now it certainly feels like an awesome accomplishment (and that's why I want to share it with you all, so someone besides my wife sees all the hard work I put into it!!!). I gotta tell you though, I don't know if I would do all this work again if I could go back in time. Not because it isn' totally awesome ( loved doing this stuff, obviously), but because of just how much time and effort it took. My wife told me several times that she felt like she was married to a contractor who had dinner with her. I basically worked a 10-14hr day at work, came home, went straight to the basement for 2-4 hrs every day, maybe ate something, went to sleep, dreamt about what I would build next and often woke up in to the middle of the night to plan out the next step, then got up and repeated the process. On the weekends, I usually spent at least 1 of the 2 days in the basement for 12-14 hrs. Sometimes both days (depending on what needed to get done). Halfway through this project, I realized just how much this was costing my personal time, but I couldn't abandon 1/2 way through and leave a mess. Maybe it wasn't all that bad though. I did love planning and doing all this work... there are just not enough hours in the day for me.
> 
> Re: the radiant heat system- it should last forever. There is nothing in the tubing to corrode. As long as the pipes are not exposed to UV radiation, they should hold up. The primary circuit (you will see later) has metal components and a boiler that will eventually have to be replaced. I hope the system makes the house livable for another 102 years.
> 
> As for cooling, I installed that new energy-efficient Lenox A/C. It does a good job, although in the heat of the summer you still have a difference in temperature between the 1st and 2nd floors of the house. It's not bad (compared to the old system) because I added returns in the basement and have the fan run, even when the A/C is off, equilibrating the temperature in the house.


Regarding the time and effort, I know the feeling, albeit, on a much smaller scale. Definately know the feeling of going to bed thinking of the next step and not being able to sleep just thinking of it.

Sooooo, with the radiant heating have you worked out when the system will pay itself off for you, savings vs. capital upfront costs, comparing to a traditional forced air system, considering that you put one in for the air conditioning anyways? Just curious if you knew. At times I think of going solar on my home but can't justify the expense with an approx. 20 year break even point.


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## gbwillner

psilva8 said:


> Sooooo, with the radiant heating have you worked out when the system will pay itself off for you, savings vs. capital upfront costs, comparing to a traditional forced air system, considering that you put one in for the air conditioning anyways? Just curious if you knew. At times I think of going solar on my home but can't justify the expense with an approx. 20 year break even point.


Good point. I did not do these calculations because the furnace alone was never going to be sufficient to heat the house comfortably. It was survivable on forced air, but never comfortable. The options really would have been to add a second unit of forced air for the downstairs (probably $10K for a complete system, and lose basement space for it, etc.), or keep the existing boiler/radiant heat system, leaving those pipes running all over the place. I guess I was thinking I would be saving roughly $500/winter, so probably 15 years. But that's not why I did it- I WANTED to do it. Some people buy sports cars- I build things. Plus, I hope that it becomes an attractive selling point for this house, should I leave before then.


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## gbwillner

*Step 9: Acid stained concrete*

*STEP 9: Acid stain mania*

Now that the floor had cured, it was time to fancy it up.

Because of the in-floor heat system, it did not make sense to cover the floors with anything, thereby reducing the efficiency of the system. On the other hand, who wants an ugly concrete floor? No one, that's who. The only sensible plan then was to make the concrete look like anything other than what it actually is.

And here, really, is where I made the biggest mistake in this project. I figured that the subsequent work in the basement may make it difficult to acid stain later (stains and such can ruin the concrete for this purpose). I also thought that if I framed out and finished the walls, I may damage them with the acid, and that it would be more work than just acid staining now- everything, all at once, and build the walls over it. I should have waited until the walls were done, and you will see why later.

I decided that I wanted to make the floors look like natural stone. To do this I got acid stains from Direct Colors- an online company that charges roughly half of what Lowe's does, for a better product. I ordered a sample kit from them, and made test squares in an area that would be under the future stair landing. I decided on the color Cola, and I wanted to make it look like the stone had veins of copper or other metals running through it.

To do this, I "painted" acid using greens like Avocado and Seagrass, added blue highlights to it with Azure and some other color I can't remember, in the general pattern of what i imagined such veins would look like. I'm no miner, but I did my best. This layer has to go down first, and would later "pop" against a background coat of Cola.

Here's a few examples of what the veins looked like...


These were done with a syringe. I found that the best way to be percise with this stuff.


This is the workshop space.

I even hid my initials and the date this way in one corner to "sign" my artwork using this method... Maybe 100 years from now someone will say "hey, some jerk wrote his name on your floor!"

Once these had had their time to etch into the concrete (~4 hrs), I added the first of two coats of Cola using a plastic sprayer ($20 from home depot). I had the wife help with this, I would spray and she would then use a large broom to even out the color.

Here is the sart of the first pass...


The process continues...


You can see the veins really stand out after the Cola is applied. 

Although this process was rather simple, you have to be careful with proper handling of this stuff. You also need a respirator, because although you can't tell, it's airsolizing and you are breathing it in... You can tell in the below picture how the flash of my camera catches the fine, acid mist....


When it was all sprayed, the floor looked dark and wet...



Once it dried and finished reacting with the concrete, it looked great. Here are some pictures. I also added some touches of black and other browns here and there to vary the color. After all was completed, I added 5 coats of wax, which was supposed to protect the floor. I even bout the "commercial" wax. I'd hate to know the strength of the residential wax...

Anyway, here are some pics of the finished floor...






Worshop and gym


Media room/BR

This whole process probably took a few weeks. It took a 3-4 days to do the samples and then wait for the ordered product, and then 3 days for the coats of stain and washes and sealer, and another 2-3 days for all the coats of wax.

Once the floors were done, I called the building inspector (who was waiting for me to finish the slab before he'd even come out to the house). I then had the OK to start framing some walls. The most obvious place to start would be on *STEP 10: building the staircase*. Especially because ever since I removed the other staircase and sealed the entrance, the only way in and out was through the exterior door.


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## no1hustler

That looks great!


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## Ironlight

We acid stained the concrete in our basement in our previous house. The house had a sizeable indoor lap pool of 44' (which interestingly made it radioactive to most prospective buyers but not to my wife who is a distance swimmer...I cleverly lowballed the sellers thinking they would reject the offer and solve the problem of my star-struck wife but much to my horror they accepted). 

My wife had the incredibly annoying habit of occasionally overfilling the pool which would then overflow into the basement which had wall to wall carpeting. Well, at least it did until after the second or third time. We tore it out and needed some other floor treatment that was impervious to moisture and was easy to take care of. Acid staining was the obvious choice after a little research. We didn't even put wax down as I wanted a bulletproof, no maintenance floor...just stained it and polished it(as much as one can polish concrete, which is not a whole lot). Best thing we ever did in that house. It turned out to be everything we hoped it would be and it wore like iron.


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## psilva8

That floor looks absolutely insane man... can't wait to see the finish basement.


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## gbwillner

*Step 10: The staircase*

The Framing experience could now begin. Obviously, the best place to start was going to be the new entrance to the basement- *Part 10: The Staircase. *The staircase was to mirror the set going from the first to the second floor. As it was, there was nothing but dead space under that staircase, and you know me- I'm all about efficiency and maximizing space. Plus, if I was going to have a kick-ass basement, I wasn't going to enter it through a midget closet. I was going to enter though a grown-up, adult-sized closet.

Well, here is that closet (from the 1st floor)...


Wife wasn't thrilled about losing the only closet in the 1st floor of the house...

So the plan was the following:

1. Build the walls that would serve as the bathroom walls and also the walls of the staircase. This had to be done first, because once I cut the hole for the staircase, the joists remaining would need to be supported by something.

2. Build the platform for the landing. This had to be done second, allowing me to essentially build 2 sets of stairs- one from the first floor to the landing, and the second from the landing to the basement floor. I calculated the stair dimensions as if it were one giant staircase, with a middle step that was just really big. 

3. Demo the space under the existing staircase on the first floor and the closet that would serve as the entryway. Nothing to it, right? I didn't think this would take more than a few hours- just cut a joist or 2 and remove the subfloor there. What's the big deal? Right.....

4. Add the stringers. Brace them to the walls I placed in part 1, as well as the platform and the 1st floor.

5. Stain and finish the treads and risers, and install. I decided on using metal brackets for the treads instead of notching the stringers. I thought it would be easier, plus. if I messed up I could just move the bracket. Turned out to be an expensive lack of confidence in my abilities as a carpenter.

Nothing to it! Let's go!


Here the walls that flank the staircase are already up. You can see the joists I would have to remove or modify above the staircase. You can also see the fire damage I mentioned during the initial demo. You will se a lot more of it here in the followng pictures- it was likely the fire started in this space. Those squares on the bottom floor are my samples of acid stain I mentioned in part 10.


The landing is installed. The house has oak floors throughout, so I wanted the treads and landing to be oak. Do you know how expensive oak is? BTW if you are going to buy oak treads, get them at Lowe's. They were like 1/2 the price of Home Depot for some reason. But the landing- that's another issue. A sheet of 3/4" (or really, 1" oak) is prohibitively expensive. I decided to buy 3/4" pine plywood and add a 1/4" oak plywood sheet as a veneer. It turned out OK- only in the sense that you can't tell by looking at it. I am worried about it's durability though. You will see it in a bit.


Here, I've added the lower stringers to the walls and the platform. The pipe sticking out of the ground is the site of the future toilet.

Ok, that's enough work in the basement- now it was time to demo that closet....



This is a view looking into the entrance from the first floor after a lot of work- first ripping out the plaster walls, lathe and wood moulding. Then, I ripped out the oak floor, and then oak subfloor. This was not easy and required a lot of sawzall action. You can see here how most of these joists were ruined in the fire and were braced with another joist. You can also see that piece of black paper sticking out if the oak floor- they installed tar paper between the flooring parts to retard water. I heard from several people not to use in-floor heating systems because it would make the tar paper stink up your house. This was pure fantasy. I found lots of little goodies that fell under this space over the last 100 years. I found 2 dozen or so little puzzle pieces made of cardboard-like material. I didn't try to put them together because my wife thought it was disgusting and made me throw them away. She's no fun sometimes....(honey, I kid).


The demo continues. Actually, I put in the flooring to the landing before completing the demo, which was a mistake. I did not damage it, but it could have been a disaster. You can see all the black debris- all burnt wood from the fire. 


With the demo complete, it was time to clean up. Then I installed the stingers to the 1st floor and brackets (you can see them on the right). The silver conduit fed the only working electrical outlet in the basement, so I could not move it yet.... That's an adventure for another day.


All the treads are added. I stained the oak with honey pecan and used an oil-based poly. I thought it would help "age" the wood to match the flooring throughout the house. It turned out pretty good. With the flash, you can really see the charred studs here. I had to brace these later before adding drywall. The bottom of the treads above were also charred. i left these, and I (or the next owner) will have to replace them someday.

So I don't have the best pictures of the finished staircase for you, but here's a few from a couple angles...



and


This view also shows the doorways to the bathroom that were added next, as well as a few other walls that are not yet worth mentioning.


With the stairs completed, I could now go up and down into the basement without risking life and limb by going outside. More importantly, the walls to the staircase and bathroom were complete- which not only began the process of framing out all the planned walls (which continued for some time) but also allowed me to address a more pressing concern: *Step 11: updating the plumbing* (part 2/supply-side).


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## CoconutPete

Insane dude! Nice work!

Makes me feel like a slouch, all I did was gut my kitchen last weekend :laughing:


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## gbwillner

*Step 12: parallel plumbing*

Once the bathroom was framed, the wall behind the future shower would be the location of the new plumbing sytem for the entire house.

*Step 12: PEX parallel plumbing system*

The old style plumbing systems- those that are in series- suffer from a number of problems. First, being in series, water must get to every fixture that is in the circuit before the one you turn on. This can especially problematic with hot water- the fixture furthest from the heat source can take longest to heat up, and if other fixtures call for heat, the last one is the red-headed stepchild of all the fixtures in the house. What I mean by that, obviously, is that it may not get as much hot water. Additionally, servicing the plumbing beyond the immediate fixture (can shut down a local valve) necessitates turning off water to the entire house. If you want to add any additional plumbing later on, this could be a major problem. Besides, my pipes were all rusted. As you saw, some idiot fixed a bunch of corroded galvanized steel pipe with copper- but hooked up the two directly together. Guess what- The pipes were completely corroded again. The 1st floor half bath hot and cold supply pipes were so corroded they began leaking- the water got under the tile (that was not properly installed) and caused the sub-floor to grow mold. When I discovered it it was everywhere- I spent another week just cleaning that (and demoing the entire bathroom, then doing it the _right_ way- maybe I'll show you that in another thread!). 

So what's the solution? Why. a parallel supply system, of course. And no more of this silly "gavanized steel" and "expensive copper" stuff either- This is the 21st century. I switched the entire house to PEX. It's much easier to install, is cheaper, is flexible, and can be easily repaired. Until I find out it causes cancer, I will stick with it for sure.

A parallel system with PEX uses a mainfold to direct all the water. Cold water goes to the maifold- and several 1/2" lines come off the manifold- and each can serve a unique fixture or group of fixtures. Same for hot water. Now each fixture gets basically the same pressure and temperature as every other one in the house. Also, each line has it's own valve, so you can shut off a single fixture or group from the mainfold. Genius!

The radiant heat system (you will see installed later) also uses lots of manifolds. I realized I had extra copper manifolds, so I was able to construct one for the hot water system. For the cold water, I purchased a 3/4" PEX inlet- 8 1/2" PEX outlet manifold, and added PEX valves. It cost about $60 to make it, but it was much easier to make than the copper one.

Here is my copper creation:


Working with copper is a lot of fun. It has all the necessary requirements for fun- heavy tools, metal, and fire. Testing that this was done correctly was not easy. I filled it with water- no problem. I hooked it up to the pressurized water supply- intant mess. I had to redo one of the couplings. In all, it took 4-6 hours to build this thing, probably because this was the first time I ever played with copper. I would do a LOT more later.


On the wall behind the shower I mounted a 1/2" sheet of plywood, and to this I added a manifold bracket. I then added the hot and cold manifolds...



I hooked up the 3/4" PEX from the street to a T-coupling- one end goes to the "cold" manifold, the other end to the direct hot water heater. The hot water heater would then go to the "hot" manifold. If you do this, remember NEVER to take PEX directly to the hot water heater! You need a flexible copper adapter.

I then replaced each galvanized steel/copper line, one by one, with PEX. This was easy to do, and I did it over a few days without disrupting water use in the house. 

Finally, it looked like this...



You can see here, I have 4 hot water lines connected and 5 cold water lines. I The lines not in use are turned off at the valve, so when they were finally added, all that was needed was to turn the valves on. As I said, genius.

All the water lines ran to their destinations by going to that I beam, and running on the west side of it. All the electrical would run on the east side. Below is a preview of that...


you can see the Romex running with the PEX here, but that was just a temporary line. Eventually, there would be a lot of PEX tubing installed on this side (and a lot of electrical on the opposite side).

Well, that was a short entry. Next I will get to *Step 13: finishing the framing. *


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## charlie902

Great job. Keep it up


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## no1hustler

More!


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## gbwillner

no1hustler said:


> More!


 
I will do the next installment tonight. Unfortunately, I put a bunch of the pictures of subsequent steps in my laptop- and it decided to die on me a few weeks ago before I could back them up. It may take me a few days to get the pictures of the hard drive.

Or I can just post the framing pictures and then the final pictures, skipping the electrical, drywall, mudding, and painting steps.

If you guys want it that way, I can do it, but the archive won't be "complete".


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## no1hustler

I can wait.  I just wanted you to know that you aren't talking to yourself.


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## gbwillner

no1hustler said:


> I can wait.  I just wanted you to know that you aren't talking to yourself.


 
:thumbsup:thanks


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## gbwillner

*Step 13: Finish the framing already!*

With the plumbing closet built and the plumbing out of the way, I built all the remaining walls. I don't have much to say, so I'll get right to the pictures. Some of this was done along with adding the electrical and building the radiant heat system. I'll try to break it up though and just focus on one thing at a time.


Outside walls went in first, as previously shown. I added a circuit to have additional recepticles in the basement to these walls. The plan was to have a 20A circuit for the recepticles in the media room and office, another for the gym and workshop, and yet another for the bathroom (with GFCI) and water heater closet. In this particular wall, I added that vertical studd that covered up the window- but later cut it down and framed around the window.


The finished(ish) frame from the media room. I planned to add built-in bookcases in the media room and in the office.



This is a view from the gym. I am working on the door to the workshop. It took me a while to figure out what I was going to do with that entrance, so I framed it last. I wanted a french door, but those are really expensive and usually made to be exterior doors. I ended up making my own doors by buying a 30" door and an 18" door, and having them close into each other. You can also see here how all the plumbing lines and heating lines travel along the I-beam running the length of the basement. As the walls were being drywalled, I added soffits in this space.


A view from the basement stairs going down. If it looks brighter in this picture, it's because I have just installed the recessed lighting. You can see it in all subsequent pictures.


The mostly-finished frame of the gym. You can see I am adding soffits for the plumbing. I would add 1/2" pine ply before painting.


Here I finally get rid of those awful glass-block windows and replace them with something that actually lets light in. I am told these old glass blocks are worth a lot of money. I tried to save them if possible during this demo. I had a guy from Home Depot measure and price out the cost of having 4 windows replaced. It was almost $3K. I ordered the windows myself. It cost $450. What a scam.


This is a view of the stairs and bathroom through the gym. You can see the red and blue PEX plumbing for the future bathroom. I just realized this picture happened before the last one, obviously, since that is the window you just saw get replaced.



The outside wall in the media room. I am installing all the wiring for the 7.1 ch surround sound system that would go in the ceiling. That silver cap is covering the vent for the old water heater. This was sealed behind the wall.


Well, I need to find all my other pictures, so it may be a few days before my next post. I hope you've enjoyed what I've done so far.....


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## jasin

This will be a nice cellar when finished.


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## jasin

That foam board you used is good stuff. That stuff adds lots of rigidity to the walls, its water & mold resistant, and it fits nicely into the cavities between the studs. If you got extra I would definitely double up. Probably do not need to in terms of R value but you still got a lot of free space in the cavities to fit more on top of what you already got. You can never have enough insulation; the more the better.


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## jasin

Oh, I forgot to ask. In picture #6 Post #62. What is that beam above the window sitting on? I hope not the window itself!! It should be extending over on both sides and resting on something. Also, why are there no staples on any of your romex near the bottom where it goes into box? And why are there no metal plates on your studs?


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## jasin

Staple on wiring right before box:











Protective metal plate:


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## gbwillner

jasin said:


> Oh, I forgot to ask. In picture #6 Post #62. What is that beam above the window sitting on? I hope not the window itself!! It should be extending over on both sides and resting on something. Also, why are there no staples on any of your romex near the bottom where it goes into box? And why are there no metal plates on your studs?


 
The wood beam is NOT sitting on the window- don't worry. It sits on the foundation walls. It's also not structural and sits in front of the wall- it's just hard to tell from the angle of the picture. It helped support one of the joists I had removed (you can see where it was cut off on the right side).

Regarding the stapling and metal plates- these were added prior to the drywall, but just are not captured in these pictures. I added metal plates in front of all the cored studs where the hole was 1.5" or less from the edge (basically, all of them).


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## gbwillner

jasin said:


> That foam board you used is good stuff. That stuff adds lots of rigidity to the walls, its water & mold resistant, and it fits nicely into the cavities between the studs. If you got extra I would definitely double up. Probably do not need to in terms of R value but you still got a lot of free space in the cavities to fit more on top of what you already got. You can never have enough insulation; the more the better.


Yup- I did exactly that. I added a second layer of insulation inside the studded space, and then sealed them in with the spray foam insulation (the yellow stuff- you can see it well on the last picture). This gave me 2 layers of moisture resistance and R=10.


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## jasin

gbwillner said:


> Regarding the stapling and metal plates- these were added prior to the drywall, but just are not captured in these pictures. I added metal plates in front of all the cored studs where the hole was 1.5" or less from the edge (basically, all of them).


That sounds good. :thumbsup: Wish it were in the pictures though.


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## jasin

gbwillner said:


> The wood beam is NOT sitting on the window- don't worry. It sits on the foundation walls. It's also not structural and sits in front of the wall- it's just hard to tell from the angle of the picture. It helped support one of the joists I had removed (you can see where it was cut off on the right side).


Its actually a very common mistake, So I had to ask.


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## M Engineer

I hope you post the rest of the project.


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## Marqed97

M Engineer said:


> I hope you post the rest of the project.


Likewise... I have enjoyed this a lot. The old house, all the planning and effort, the attention to detail, and what looks to be an incredible result. Hope to see the rest!


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## What have I done

I'm ready for more!


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## gbwillner

*Working on it....*

Thanks to everyone for being patient.... I'm working on getting some of those pictures out. As I stated before, I had them on a laptop that died. I just purchased a HD drive enclosure kit and will try to salvage the pictures from the HD. I took a lot of photos with my cell phone, and that's where I backed them up before resetting my phone.

As of now, I only have 1-2 drywall pictures available. I don't have any of the painting. Of course, I have all the final work pictures, so you'll definitely get to see that.


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## gbwillner

*Webisode IV: The Empire Strikes Back*

The Files. I have found them. We can now continue. Now, where were we? Ah, yes...... The darkest chaper in our saga.

*Step 14: The Drywall (AKA the big MESS)*

Times were tough in our household around this time. It was now late August/September 2011, a full 2 years after the project began. I was getting tired. More interestingly, my wife was 8 months pregnant, and our baby was due in mid October. She really, really did not want the house to be a mess when the baby came. I'm pretty sure she threatened to stay at a hotel until the house was done. 
Drywalling is at least a 2-man job, and in her condition, my wife was useless to help me on the project (I keed!). I promised I'd hire a pro to do the drywall. I figured we could do the paint ourselves. My wife said we would hire a pro to paint as well. So we decided to hire a pro to do both drywall and paint. 

I though I would use word-of-mouth to find contractors on this project. I also used ServiceMagic.com, since that site was pretty useful when I lived in another city. I would ask for help with a project, and I'd have 5-10 contractors calling me within 5 minutes with a bid. In St. Louis, not so much (although I did find a good A/C guy that way). I got only 1 offer, so I had to rely on dumb stuff like neighbor recommendations. I decided I would get 3 bids. I told the contractors I had SPECIFIC NEEDS:

They were:
1. Contractors are to do all the drywall and mudding
2. Contractors are to do all the priming and paint (2 coats each)
3. Contracts had to do light carpentry (fix some hanging corners- I got lazy in a few spots)
4. Contractors had to Complete the project by the first week in October (the baby was due the 17th, we figured we wanted a 1 week buffer from the end of the project to the baby's due date)

Not so bad right?
First, I scheduled the servicemagic guys. They were 2 guys who had started their own business. They came within a few days of contact. They showed up on time. They made a few measurements. We went over the options. They did some math. They gave me a quote and left. All in the same day. They said they could do the whole job in 2 weeks. They were a new business, but these guys had 40 years experience between them. The contractor all the neighbors recommended could not start the project for another 6 months. He was out. However, he did refer me to his buddy. This guy had apparently done lots of work in the neighborhood as well. After contact, we scheduled a meeting for that Saturday morning. Saturday came and went, the guy never showed. I called him on Monday. He said, "Didn't you get my text- I couldn't make it." I told him I did not get his text. We rescheduled for that Wednesday. He showed up, took some measurements and such. He told me he would call me on Friday with an estimate. Friday came and went. No estimate. Then the following Friday, I called him and left a message that was probably not very nice. The following week he texted me a quote. Ver1y professional. Both numbers were within a few hundred bucks of each other. Interestingly, the first guys charged 2x for paint and the second guy charged 2x for the drywall. I'm pretty sure they were just making things up. I didn't bother with a third contractor because it took me so long to hear back from the second guy that I had no more time- the project had to get started right away. I went with the servicemagic guys. It was a mistake.

We scheduled a start date the third week in September. The morning of, one of the contractors shows up with a crew of 4 guys. I headed off to work, hoping to see tremendous progress when I got home.
I got home and was thoroughly disappointed. Nothing was done. I mean absolutely nothing. I called (let's give him a name- we'll use "Bob") Bob (the owner) and asked him why nothing had been done. He told me he was waiting for a truck to deliver the materials, but the truck broke down on another job. He said not to worry- it would arrive the following morning. It did not. 3 of his lackeys sat at my house with nothing to do until a load of materials was delivered the evening of the second day. I asked them why they had so many truck issues. They told me it wasn't their truck but the supplier's. I wondered what they did with my deposit. I also started to get a queasy feeling about this. But for the moment I was still patient.
The third day 4 guys came to start working. Before I left for work I saw them bringing in sheets of drywall. They were going to start on the ceiling in the media room. Iasked them if they were going to use a lift to put in the drywall. They said "A what?". I got scared. I hoped they knew what they were doing. I left. When I got home that day, a single sheet of drywall was up. I am not exaggerating. I think I have a separate post where I mentioned this in general construction in this forum. A whole day- one sheet. 
The 4th day the same 4 guys showed up. I asked them why there was only a single sheet of drywall put up. They said they got called to do another job or something. I don't really remember- it hurts me to think about it. When I got home from work the 4th day, there were exactly 3 pieces of drywall put up, and they were done badly. There was, however, a nice stack of broken drywall outside against my garage, so at least these guys were doing something. I called the owner. I think my message to him was exactly "WTF IS GOING ON!!??" He immediately fired the entire crew and hired a new crew. Friday (the 5th day) they did about 1/2 of the media room. The ceiling was done TERRIBLY. The joists were not level and the celing needed to be floated. I don't understand how these guys thought it was OK to just put up drywall on an uneven surface. ARrrgh.

Finally, an the following Monday, the company brought in a guy who actually knew how to hang drywall. The first thing they did was TEAR DOWN ALL THE DRYWALL put up by the previous crew, who were clueless. It took 2+ weeks after that to do all the drywall. But it was all done by 2 guys who could actually do it. While they worked, I also helped and framed, and finished some carpentry. OK, I'll shut up now and post pictures. I won't post the bad drywall, only the good stuff.


Notice what's on the floor? If you said "a bunch of drywall dust, screws, scrap, and mud; but no tarp or cover for the awesome stained floors" you are correct! This is the media room after all the f*ups.


Before the celing drywall went up, I installed R-30 insullation to keep the 1st floor radiant heat from boiling your brains in the basement.


The bathroom. Greenboard was used anywhere water might be.


The media room. here, I'm casing in the footings with 1/2" pine ply. I couldn't think of another way to cover that up. It would later be painted like the wall. It turned out pretty good, don't worry.


This view shows the soffit I added beside the I-beam that supports the 1st floor. This side houses the electrical and air. You can also see the built-in shelf space. I ahd to do something with these 12" thick walls.


The drywalled gym after mudding.


View from the workshop of the gym. You can see the other soffit here that houses all the plumbing. All the hot water lines (radiant and potable) were insulated with that stuff you use for water heaters. I'm not sure how much it helps.


This is in the office- I added a built-in bookcase here. 


The last thing that got done was the stairway. By this point, the baby was home and the wife was furious.


A view of the staircase from they gym.


And then, the drywall was done. And the paint would begin. I asked that guy who actually knew how to drywall, "how long have you been with this company?" He answered, "I just started on this project. They hired me off Craigslist, like all these other guys." So there it was- I hired guys for their 40 years experience, and they just hired random people off Craigslist. At least one knew how to drywall.

See you next time for

*Part 15: The painting and the Aftermath*


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## cdnNick

That's what scares me the most about hiring someone to do the job, half the time the person you hire doesn't even show up to do the job. Did they charge you extra or did they stick to their quote?


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## What have I done

good post. I always feel better being a DIY-er after I see posts from someone who paid for what they were expecting Professionals. Sorry for your dilemma. Congrats on the new baby! I hate drywall and mudding and always contemplate just having it done, But I am sure I will continue cussing and doing it myself


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## psilva8

First things first, thanks for posting the update. This post had quite a different tone from the others. The thing is, contractors do this type of bullsheet everywhere. I am not stereotyping contractors but it just seems alot of people either don't care about their trade anymore, or they don't have enough experience and know how.

I hope your wife has cooled off since October and congratulations on the addition.


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## jasin

You do know that the green board you have in the bathroom only gives you some minimal water resistance? To be water proof you really need something over the top of that. Something like the Schluter Kerdi Waterproof Membrane.


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## M Engineer

jasin said:


> You do know that the green board you have in the bathroom only gives you some minimal water resistance nothing close to water proofing? To be water proof you really need something over the top of that. Something like the Schluter Kerdi Waterproof Membrane.


What purpose does this post have?


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## gbwillner

cdnNick said:


> That's what scares me the most about hiring someone to do the job, half the time the person you hire doesn't even show up to do the job. Did they charge you extra or did they stick to their quote?


That's the nice thing about having a contract. After the deposit, you don't pay until the job is complete. There is no room for bargaining unless you want something that's not in the contract.

What SHOULD have happened was that Bob should have used my (sizable)deposit to purchase all the materials for the job, and just brought the materials when the job started. He should have only taken the job if he knew he could have done it.

I'm certain "Bob" just didn't know how to run a business. He was a painter for a long time. He probably didn't do much drywall. I talked to a lot of his guys- by the end of the project, a lot of the guys didn't show because he couldn't pay them. Apparently, he started a lot of jobs at the same time, but couldn't finish them. Then he ran out of cash. The last few days, a few guys were working without pay just to get my project done. The one guy who did know how to drywall was very good- I hired him directly after all this nonsense with help on the remaining work. It would have been a lot cheaper for me had I just found him on Craigslist myself!

I heard, in the end, "Bob" took all the company's cash and vanished. No kidding.


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## gbwillner

What have I done said:


> good post. I always feel better being a DIY-er after I see posts from someone who paid for what they were expecting Professionals. Sorry for your dilemma. Congrats on the new baby! I hate drywall and mudding and always contemplate just having it done, But I am sure I will continue cussing and doing it myself


 
Thanks. That's the thing about being a true DIYer- you know what you did, and how you did it. You know if you did it wrong it has to be fixed. It is also a learning process, and you expect to make some mistakes (hopefully nothing crucial). 
Some pros are just that. They are experts and professionals. Some are just bums. You have no way of knowing unless you get them from a reliable source. That's why referrals are so important, IMHO. The previous owners hired a LOT of bums who really took advantage of them. You could see I had to clean up the mess, and I already had a lot of things on my plate.

I was glad I hired someone to do the drywall and paint- I didn't really realize just how much work it could be. I'm sure I would have done a crappy job at first and maybe have had to replace bad drywall myself. I just wish a pro wouldn't make the same type of rookie mistakes.


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## jasin

M Engineer said:


> What purpose does this post have?


What purpose does green board serve in a bathroom if you are not going to use it with a vapor barrier?


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## M Engineer

jasin said:


> What purpose does green board serve in a bathroom if you are not going to use it with a vapor barrier?


What was the purpose of your post?


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## gbwillner

jasin said:


> What purpose does green board serve in a bathroom if you are not going to use it with a vapor barrier?


I was unaware that there was a requirement to surface all bathroom walls with a vapor barrier beyond green board and high-gloss paint. I certainly have not heard of anyone doing this. The shower in the bathroom was lined with 6mil plastic sheeting on the base of the shower stall, and Hardibacker was placed along its walls before tiling.


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## M Engineer

gbwillner said:


> I was unaware that there was a requirement to surface all bathroom walls with a vapor barrier beyond green board and high-gloss paint. I certainly have not heard of anyone doing this. The shower in the bathroom was lined with 6mil plastic sheeting on the base of the shower stall, and Hardibacker was placed along its walls before tiling.


There isn't.


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## jasin

gbwillner said:


> I was unaware that there was a requirement to surface all bathroom walls with a vapor barrier beyond green board and high-gloss paint. I certainly have not heard of anyone doing this. The shower in the bathroom was lined with 6mil plastic sheeting on the base of the shower stall, and Hardibacker was placed along its walls before tiling.


Its not a requirement its common sense. Green board is only moisture resistant not water proof.


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## gbwillner

jasin said:


> Its not a requirement its common sense. Green board is only moisture resistant not water proof.


I don't know about that.... It's not like I'm going to be filling up the bathroom with water. It just has to "resist" the vapor that accumilates when someone showers. Plus, I installed a vent that goes outside.


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## jasin

gbwillner said:


> I don't know about that.... It's not like I'm going to be filling up the bathroom with water. It just has to "resist" the vapor that accumilates when someone showers. Plus, I installed a vent that goes outside.


Hot water can evaporate because heat rises. This is why bathrooms should have ventilation. Ventilation though, never draws out moisture instantaneously or even all of it just most of it.

And toilets can sweat. Even the so called expensive ones that are designed to not sweat can still sweat. I have personally seen it myself.

I do not know what kind of lines he has either, but metal plumbing lines, like copper, do sweat too. This is why they make anti-sweat valves for such plumbing lines. 

There is the fact also that water lines can leak without there being a flood. Even when everything is plumbed right it can still happen. Its not a perfect world. Stuff happens!

Additionally, Unless the house is sealed up really, really tight there can be water vapor in the air inside the house And that can weep or wik.

No house should be sealed up that tight though. Its a very bad idea to have a house sealed up that tight. Houses need to breath!

There is just plain old common sense too. Anywhere there is moisture there should be protection. 

As I previously stated as well. Green board is not water proof its only resistant. Its a combination of things like a vapor barrier, mold and mildew resistant paint, proper ventilation, and yes .. the green board, etc. and so on, that gives you the proofing or close to.

You can disagree with this stuff I have said too, that's your right, but I have personally pulled enough green board over the years to know that it does not hold up in the long run without other protection in place. I actually have some outside right now over by the trash from a job I just did. It is wet and has surface mold on it. There was no flooding in that bathroom either.


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## What have I done

sO JASIN, I am curious since you have done a lot of tearing out of green board..what do you suggest for bathroom walls---starting with open stud cavities?


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## gbwillner

*Part 16: the Voyage Home*

*Part 16: The Painting*


Once the drywall was hung, the contractor got some guys over to finish the paint in a hurry. First, however, we decided to spray some texture on the walls and ceiling to cover up any blemishes.



You can also see here that I added 1/2" ply to the soffits. The gaps over the columns would be fitted with a moulding.

Of course, I complained about them destroying my floors with drywall and screws. So before they started to paint, the guys put down some paper around the walls and plastic sheeting. I did not realize till later but they _taped down the paper with masking tape_. This would be important later.

So they started priming....


This is the gym. A closet was added for storage. Access to the sump pump would only be through the media room.


shot from the gym to the stairs.


The office. The soffits would be painted like the walls (and the casings on the footings).


The workshop.

The walls would be an eggshell color. We decided to do 2 accent walls- one in the gym (fireworks red) and a darker sky blue in the media room. The bathroom would be a high-gloss light green.


After 2 coats the red accent wall needed about 2 coats more....


This is the finished wall (the window casing yet to be installed) and the finished eggshell neighboring wall.


When everything was done, The guys wanted to get paid. I said they could not leave until the floors were cleaned. I told them they could have prevented the mess by just putting down some tarps before they started. The cleanup of the floors took almost a week.


Here you can see they've started cleaning the media room on the right side...


At this point these guys had been at my house for a month. There was no way I would pay until the finished and I was sure the mess was cleaned up. But what I saw once the floors were cleaned up was not anticipated....... I washed the floors 3 times.... and here is what I saw....





See this, and more shocking pictures on the next episode....

*Part 17: a floor too far....*


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## Marqed97

***Eeek***

I have a bad, bad feeling about that floor. I can only hope (and wait in anticipation to find out) that it wasn't that bad. But my gut says otherwise...

But looking very good!


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## Ironlight

Yeah the general rule of thumb is, sad to say, do the floor last. 

Aside from your experience, it's amazing how much damage just a little bit of construction debris can do to a floor, any floor, when it is ground under some workboots. I've learned that the hard way.


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## jasin

What have I done said:


> sO JASIN, I am curious since you have done a lot of tearing out of green board..what do you suggest for bathroom walls---starting with open stud cavities?


There are many, many ways to do this. Here is one option:

Pressure treated studs with high grade stainless steel screws and a very low density closed cell foam sprayed into the cavities and surrounding areas. If the other side of the wall is on the outside then exterior grade sheeting should be used with typar over the top of that on the outside.

For walls. If tiling then use AQUAPANEL Cement Board. Use stainless steel cement board screws to hang it. If painting, then the green board can still be used but you will need apply something like the Schlüter-KERDI product over the top of it. The paint though, should be a alkyd resin or dispersion paint. To attach the green board I would use stainless steel drywall screws.


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## gbwillner

*Part 17: a Floor too far....*

*Part 17: a floor too far*


Gasp. That's what I did when I saw the floor. The contractor wanted to charge me extra for some of the additional framing they had to do, and for the texture on the walls. He told me it would be a couple of thousand dollars. I told him he could have it after he fixed the floors he just destroyed.

All he had to do to prevent the damage was
1. Put down tarps and plastic before starting work, and
2. NOT use masking tape on acid-stained concrete floors!

Apparently, someone with 20+ years of painting experience never saw acid-stained concrete before. His partner sure knew, and appologized, stating they should have known better. If you guys learn ANYTHING from my experience, remember this- DON'T PUT DOWN ANY MASKING TAPE OR OTHER STICKY MATERIAL ON ACID-STAINED FLOORS.

I told him I would pay him the balance on the original contract and not a penny more. He was lucky to get that much out of me- but I knew the "good" workers still hadn't been paid, and wouldn't be if I didn't pay.

After the episode was over, I washed my floors a few more times. Turns out 5 layers of wax was not sufficient to protect these floors. In retrospect, I should have known better....


The cleanup continues...




Upclose view of damage...



There were lots of linear scratches where the workers had scaped drywall screws across the floor, particularly in the media room. Eventually, all the mud did come off. And of course, those linear markings where the tape had been were unacceptable. 


Once wet, it didn't quite look so bad...




But once it dried it looked terrible. I didn't know quite what to do. Those marks did not come off, no matter how much scrubbing I did. I used degreaser/sealer remover to no effect. Upon closer inspection, it looked like little bits of the floor had come up were the tape was. I contacted the manufacturer and sent them pictures, asking for suggestions. They actually got back to me, telling me that it looked like the sealer was marred but the concrete looked OK. They said to carefully apply acetone to the marked areas, and then re-stain. I did what they suggested, first in the office. I then re-stained the entire floor, and sealed, and waxed. After a week of additional work in that one room, the lines looked just as bad as before. Damn.

I went to the worst spot-in front of the french doors in the gym (the picture from the end of part 17), and tried something else. I hoped I could sand down the damaged areas- maybe the damaged sealer had penetrated down and I could remove it- and then restain. I only ended up making the problem worse- re-staining simply didn't work. Unfortuantely, I re-stained the entire gym and media room and office before I figured that out. I at least hoped that the scratches would re-stain and not be so obvious. No dice. These appproaches got me no where.

Then I gave up, in a way. I realized there was no way I could actually "fix" the floor. What's the best thing to do if you can't fix something? 

I realized (and you can see why above) that if the floor was wet, it was harder to see the scratches and the marks. I decided to cover up the marks the best way I knew how- I bought different colored markers meant to fix wood scratches and crayons. I would then blend the colors in as best as possible, and cover the floor with 2-3 coats of high-gloss polyurathane. I thought about using poly before i added the wax in the first place. I don't know why I didn't.

After washing the floors, and BEFORE poly...

You can see my main ingredient- a marker. There are 3 marks here. I will apply the marker to each....



Where did that mark go? You could still see it when it dried, but the point was that you wouldn't see it unless you were looking for it.




The final step was to add another thick layer of poly, since the floor was marred here and you couldn't see the light reflection the same over the marks. I also used the marker on the worst scratches to cover them up as well.

Final product in that area (after poly)...


Not too shabby, right??? Like I said, you could still see some of the marks, but you had to look for them. The sheen of the high-gloss poly really obscured most of the scratches.

Well, that's it for now. We are near the end. Next time I will show you a pressing need as winter began- 

*Part 18: completing the radiant heat system*


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## cdnNick

Wow that's sounds like a lot of work to try to fix the floors. I would have totally given up with my lack of patience and just put down carpet over the floor.


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## Marqed97

I'm glad you found an eventual solution, but man oh man I would've gone completely bananas. It came out looking good though. Creative thinking gives way to creative solutions! Can't wait to read about finishing the radiant.


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## no1hustler

Wow, quite the ordeal! I would have used tape too. I'll have to remember that tip.


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## jasin

gbwillner said:


> *Part 17: a floor too far*
> 
> 
> Gasp. That's what I did when I saw the floor. The contractor wanted to charge me extra for some of the additional framing they had to do, and for the texture on the walls. He told me it would be a couple of thousand dollars. I told him he could have it after he fixed the floors he just destroyed.
> 
> All he had to do to prevent the damage was
> 1. Put down tarps and plastic before starting work, and
> 2. NOT use masking tape on acid-stained concrete floors!
> 
> Apparently, someone with 20+ years of painting experience never saw acid-stained concrete before. His partner sure knew, and appologized, stating they should have known better. If you guys learn ANYTHING from my experience, remember this- DON'T PUT DOWN ANY MASKING TAPE OR OTHER STICKY MATERIAL ON ACID-STAINED FLOORS.
> 
> I told him I would pay him the balance on the original contract and not a penny more. He was lucky to get that much out of me- but I knew the "good" workers still hadn't been paid, and wouldn't be if I didn't pay.
> 
> After the episode was over, I washed my floors a few more times. Turns out 5 layers of wax was not sufficient to protect these floors. In retrospect, I should have known better....
> 
> 
> The cleanup continues...
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Upclose view of damage...
> 
> 
> 
> There were lots of linear scratches where the workers had scaped drywall screws across the floor, particularly in the media room. Eventually, all the mud did come off. And of course, those linear markings where the tape had been were unacceptable.
> 
> 
> Once wet, it didn't quite look so bad...
> 
> 
> 
> 
> But once it dried it looked terrible. I didn't know quite what to do. Those marks did not come off, no matter how much scrubbing I did. I used degreaser/sealer remover to no effect. Upon closer inspection, it looked like little bits of the floor had come up were the tape was. I contacted the manufacturer and sent them pictures, asking for suggestions. They actually got back to me, telling me that it looked like the sealer was marred but the concrete looked OK. They said to carefully apply acetone to the marked areas, and then re-stain. I did what they suggested, first in the office. I then re-stained the entire floor, and sealed, and waxed. After a week of additional work in that one room, the lines looked just as bad as before. Damn.
> 
> I went to the worst spot-in front of the french doors in the gym (the picture from the end of part 17), and tried something else. I hoped I could sand down the damaged areas- maybe the damaged sealer had penetrated down and I could remove it- and then restain. I only ended up making the problem worse- re-staining simply didn't work. Unfortuantely, I re-stained the entire gym and media room and office before I figured that out. I at least hoped that the scratches would re-stain and not be so obvious. No dice. These appproaches got me no where.
> 
> Then I gave up, in a way. I realized there was no way I could actually "fix" the floor. What's the best thing to do if you can't fix something?
> 
> I realized (and you can see why above) that if the floor was wet, it was harder to see the scratches and the marks. I decided to cover up the marks the best way I knew how- I bought different colored markers meant to fix wood scratches and crayons. I would then blend the colors in as best as possible, and cover the floor with 2-3 coats of high-gloss polyurathane. I thought about using poly before i added the wax in the first place. I don't know why I didn't.
> 
> After washing the floors, and BEFORE poly...
> 
> You can see my main ingredient- a marker. There are 3 marks here. I will apply the marker to each....
> 
> 
> 
> Where did that mark go? You could still see it when it dried, but the point was that you wouldn't see it unless you were looking for it.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> The final step was to add another thick layer of poly, since the floor was marred here and you couldn't see the light reflection the same over the marks. I also used the marker on the worst scratches to cover them up as well.
> 
> Final product in that area (after poly)...
> 
> 
> Not too shabby, right??? Like I said, you could still see some of the marks, but you had to look for them. The sheen of the high-gloss poly really obscured most of the scratches.
> 
> Well, that's it for now. We are near the end. Next time I will show you a pressing need as winter began-
> 
> *Part 18: completing the radiant heat system*


:furious: No way in hell you should have to pay for any damage he did!!


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## jasin

Ironlight said:


> Yeah the general rule of thumb is, sad to say, do the floor last.
> 
> Aside from your experience, it's amazing how much damage just a little bit of construction debris can do to a floor, any floor, when it is ground under some workboots. I've learned that the hard way.


That does not matter if you protect the work. The contractor though, obviously did not; he clearly does not think.


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## gbwillner

jasin said:


> :furious: No way in hell you should have to pay for any damage he did!!


 
I know. But I just wanted these guys out of my hair. I knew they could be a problem. I was OK paying the balance originally owed. I also knew they would NOT be able to fix the floors (they had no idea what to do).


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## gbwillner

*Part 19: Radiant heat*

The radiant heat system was in constant production as the basement was being finished. I am going to try to put it all together here, since most of the final work was done after the painting was complete.

*Part 19: The Radiant system*

I will stress again the importance of knowing what the heck you are doing before starting on this road. I read Siegenthaler cover-to-cover, and I knew all the circulators and components I would need in advace. I did ALL the necessary calculations (there is a LOT of math). I knew exactly how hot I would need to run the water on each floor.

the setup was a "homerun" system that comprised of one primary and 3 secondary circuits. Each circuit was controlled by its own thermostat/circulator. The boiler I got was the Weil-McLain Ultra 80. I estimated I would use 45 BTUs/hr for the whole house- this boiler is "smart" and could modulate the necessary heat output. The control of each circulater was done with a Taco SR503 switching relay. If I only had 2 secondary circuits I would not have needed the switching relay because the U-80 boiler can control up to 3 pumps. Unfortunately I needed 4 pumps, so this was a necessity. The only part I was able to salvage from the old gravity-fed set-up was the pump- a Taco 7 series without and IFC. Everything else would be new.

For the first-floor heat, I thought I would make a manifold out of copper without the need of valves since all the lines were the same length. For the basement and 2nd floors I purchased brass manifolds. I thought they would make life easier- turned out to be a bit more complicated than that. For the basement, I would need to run the water at a lower temperature since concrete is a good heat sink and has a low R value (unlike oak). So I would need to find a way to lower the temperature for this circuit. The answer was a motorized 4-way mixing valve. This would allow only enough hot water from the boiler to enter the system to acheive the desired temperature (90-100 degrees) and then close the valve, recirculating the water inside this circuit and allowing the remaining hot water to return to the boiler. Genius.

I first hooked up the boiler and lines BEFORE the drywall. this was IMPORTANT- I needed to make sure none of the tubing in the ceiling leaked. What a disaster it would have been if there was a leak and i did not know it until after the drywall was up. Glad I did it too- I head leaks at every PEX-AL-PEX coupling connection in the ceiling. Luckily, there were only 3 of these- one where I kinked the tubing and had to replace it- and one where I had to splice some left-over tubing for one line. I didn't realize you needed to ream and trim the ends of the tubing before adding the compression couplings. If you don't do that, the tubing will pinch the rubber O-rings and it WILL leak. Anyway, I had to replace a lot of o-rings after the initial test. Then, I dissasembled everyting and got ready for the drywall.


First I hooked up the gas line. Then I only added enough pipe to test these lines.


This picture was taken after the drywall was hung, but you can see I just disconnected the boiler for this so they could get behind it. Just enough pipe was added to test the lines in the walls and ceiling. I chose to use galvanized steel for the primary circuit because:

A: copper is expensive, especially at 1"
B: if I screwed up I could just take it apart
C: for some strange reason, threaded circulators are cheaper than ones with a soldered connection. Maybe it's because of liability. If you mess up soldering on your circulator/manifold, and need to do it again, you may have permanently damaged that connection and may want to "return" it. It's a guess.
D: if in the future I want to add an indirect hot water heater to this system, it would be easy.

Because I would have copper, galvanized steel, PEX, and brass in this set-up, I would need to make sure to use dielectric unions to prevent catastrophic oxidation of the galvanized steel lines. I only used this between copper and steel, not between steel and brass, after consulting many chatrooms. It would have simply been impractical to do it any other way. The only copper ended up being between the 1st floor secondary circuit and the primary, although I initially planned on making all the secondary circuits copper downstream of the circulator. If I had to do it again, I would have made them all PEX. Unfortunately, it's not easy to find 1" PEX with an O2 barrier (although I did make my own- see below).

After the drywall and paint was done, I put together the system. And not a moment to soon either- it was starting to get cold and the heat pump was about to become useless.

Here is what the complete set-up looked like....



And then I filled the system and turned it on.... and I had leaks everywhere. Not at any galvanized steel connections, but at all the brass connections in the manifolds. It was more than just a slow leak, too. Unfortunately, it was COLD, so I let it run this way for a few weeks until it got warm enough that I could drain the system. In the meantime, I looked for all sorts of ways to "plug" the leaks- putty, plumbers tape... nothing worked. At least the heat was nice.

The problem was that, although I used plumber's tape and a 20" plumber's wrench for all the connections, the brass fittings really needed pipe dope. So I took all the leaky joints apart (this was A LOT of work) and re-did all the connections with pipe dope. After a few trials (and cleaning up my putty mess), I had the system leak proof.

So, finally everything was working. Just in time. Here is the final product- with some insulation over the pipes (the workshop got pretty hot without it)....

It's hard to make out all the independent 2ndary circuits here, you'll just have to trust me (the 2nd one comes towards you a bit and obscures the return of the 1st 2ndary). One problem I had was venting. I only had 1 vent, and this boiler needed air from the outside to be brought in. For this purpose, I used the only window I didn't replace in the whole basement. I made a contraption out of air vent parts to bring outside air to the boiler.

It's not pretty, but its in the workshop, so I can live with it....


Somehow, a lot og light still comes through that window.

OK, that's it for today. This project is really winding down.

All that was left was to do minor touch-ups, add the doors and trim, and finish the bathroom. The wife wanted tile floors there. Let's call that Step 19. Unfortunately, I didn't take pictures of most of that stuff, so let's skip right to 

*STEP 20: The Voyage Home, er... the MAN CAVE COMPLETE*


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## Double

What a great project...now I just feel lazy. It's great when you get near the end of a long project...but boy does the wife grow impatient!


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## What have I done

As always Nice Post! Little more info?? WHat did you use for the boiler? Who did you use to source the materials? Thanks again


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## gbwillner

What have I done said:


> As always Nice Post! Little more info?? WHat did you use for the boiler? Who did you use to source the materials? Thanks again


Thanks.

Not sure I understand the questions.... The boiler's maker and model was in the post (Weil-McClain U-80). Who did I use? Mr. Lowe's and Mr. Internets.


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## What have I done

gbwillner said:


> Thanks.
> 
> Not sure I understand the questions.... The boiler's maker and model was in the post (Weil-McClain U-80). Who did I use? Mr. Lowe's and Mr. Internets.


Our local lowes doesnt carry boilers. What internet site did you find helpful and best costs?


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## gbwillner

What have I done said:


> Our local lowes doesnt carry boilers. What internet site did you find helpful and best costs?


 
No, Lowe's does not carry boilers. I bought mine at eComfortUSA. But I did a price check from like 5-6 different carriers.


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## gbwillner

*FINAL PRODUCT (part 1)*

*Part 20: THE MAN CAVE*

After many, many trials and tribulations, the basement was complete. Well, mostly complete. Complete enough that when I get home, I don't get my tools had head down there- NO! I get a cold one and turn on my 100" projection system, or hop on the treadmill followed by a warm shower- all without having to leave my cave!!!!!


*the GYM:*

*BEFORE:*

remember what it as like (AKA the dungeon by my father)?




*AFTER:*


That's our puppy, Cara. Behind the french doors is the workshop.



A view from the bottom of the stairs. In that hallway, the bathroom lies to the right and the office to the left.



The door to the left leads into the media room. The door to the right is a closet. This view is very similar to the one from the "before" picture.


*THE MEDIA ROOM*

*BEFORE:*


The only thing that stayed the same in this entire project is that door behind me.

*AFTER:*


Sorry, I didn't take any pictures before adding furniture- I couldn't wait to get this room set up.

Notice the built-in bookcases on the left above the couches. The door on the right holds all the plumbing manifolds and water heater. The door on the left is to the bathroom.



The media room, in all it's glory.
The Door on the far right goes outside (same as before) the door just left of it is the electrical closet.

Will continue....


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## gbwillner

*THE FINAL PRODUCT (part 2)*

Continued.....

*THE OFFICE:*

*BEFORE:*




*AFTER:*


You can see the little window I made in the office to let some natural light in. That's the desk I am currently typing on, and uploaded all these pictures from.


My bookcase holds my most prized collection- my childhood comic books that survived my parent's possession for 15 years.


*THE BATHROOM:*

BEFORE:



AFTER:


This cool-looking sink was the only thing that would fit in this tight space. It's almost like I planned it that way on purpose.


The toilet is recessed under the staircase. If I could do it over again, I would have placed the drain a little further from the wall.


BTW- do you know much it cost to get a bent shower curtain rod? It's like $100!!! Or you can get pissed about it like me, and make your own- 1 3/4" electrical conduit ($3) bent at Lowe's with the conduit bender thing, 2 threaded compression 3/4" adatpers ($2) and 2 galvanized steel 3/4" butt plates ($16).


_Epilogue_

I hope you enjoyed seeing this project from beginning to end as much as I did (seeing it end anyway). Perhaps I will post additional projects in the future.

Till Next time!


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## Ravenworks

Looks great!
I have felt the struggle many times,the whole while thinking I can't wait till I'm done with this.
Not soon after my first cold one I am wondering what I can do next. It never stops,trust me.
BTW I know how I would have handled the floor,I would have paid his guys their wages and told Bob- bye bye.
The only time I pay someone to do something for me is if I don't have the time to do it myself and I understand why you did it.


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## no1hustler

Looks great!


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## Marqed97

Your basement turned out just great! Wow, just beautiful. Congrats, man. Someday, my basement.... Oh, someday. Your project sure is inspiring though. And while I like reading about an ongoing project, having it condensed down like this is pretty cool too. 

Your choice of radiant heating system and the setup is really interesting to me. My house (been here a year) has original cast iron radiators. The system is all original (1914 or so) except the newer boiler was installed in '95 (a Weil-McLain VHE NG). I do love the radiant heat!

I'm curious...with your heat reflectors and tubing, how warm do the wood floors get? I've never experienced a system set up that way but I assume your floors are like mine, plank subfloor then hardwood on top. Just wondering. 

Again, great job, looks incredible, hope you and the family are enjoying it!

Andy


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## gbwillner

Marqed97 said:


> Your basement turned out just great! Wow, just beautiful. Congrats, man. Someday, my basement.... Oh, someday. Your project sure is inspiring though. And while I like reading about an ongoing project, having it condensed down like this is pretty cool too.
> 
> Your choice of radiant heating system and the setup is really interesting to me. My house (been here a year) has original cast iron radiators. The system is all original (1914 or so) except the newer boiler was installed in '95 (a Weil-McLain VHE NG). I do love the radiant heat!
> 
> I'm curious...with your heat reflectors and tubing, how warm do the wood floors get? I've never experienced a system set up that way but I assume your floors are like mine, plank subfloor then hardwood on top. Just wondering.
> 
> Again, great job, looks incredible, hope you and the family are enjoying it!
> 
> Andy


 
Thanks! The system is set so that the floor temperature is 75 degrees. You can go as high as 90 in areas where you won't be standing long (like a hallway).


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