Rebuilding the basement walk up

Before we moved in, the back of our house looked like this:

the white structure poking out the side of the kitchen is the basement walk up. The home inspector noted that it was a DIY job and that it might need repair at some point. We found out the extent of its problems about 8 months after we moved in and a torrential rainstorm unleashed streams of water through cracks in the side of the walk up. It leaked *really* bad given the right type of rain storm. We went from bone dry basement to 2 inches in some spots, being from Alberta where basements are usually dry it was a bit of a shock.

Our master plan for fixing the walk up had 2 phases. In the first, we ran a 4" drain line to the door leading to the walk up (originally it was a drain hooked to a garden hose type thing that tied into an existing drain in the main part of the house).

We are now embarking on the second phase of this project, tearing off the old walk up enclosure and building a new concrete base (with a drain *outside* of the house). First we tore off the structure. This took all of 10 minutes.


We then dug a 5'x8'x5.5' hole with the help of our contractor neighbor's laborers.

Around the edge of the hole was a trench that our contractor neighbor poured footings into for us last week. Last weekend and this week we've been working on building the walls for the new walk up out of concrete blocks.


Today we were chatting with our contractor neighbor and I guess he showed another contractor in the neighborhood our block work and he had a hard time believing we were doing it ourselves. After slaving away on a project it's always nice to get feedback like that :o).

This project is a part of a larger vision to make the back of the house less ghetto. The next steps are to side the kitchen, build the deck, tear down the shack/garage and build a fence; but all things in time.

We wish we were as good as this guy...

So it's been nearly a month since our last post. Between our current project and sorting out some logistical issues in our real life there hasn't been much time for blogging. We're currently working on the restructuring of our back walk up stairs (the ones that resembled Niagara Falls whenever it rained). This has so farinvolved digging a 5'x8'x6' hole and pouring footings. We're now building the block wall, then it'll be on to the drain/floor and new stairs. While we knew mostly what to do for this project we grossly under estimated how physically hard it would be. Luckily we were able to call in some manual labor on short notice to help with some of the heftier parts. There will be a blog post with pictures/etc when we get some more time.

Insulation update

The basement is now insulated. We're just trying to tag up with the energy auditor for our final audit and rebates. It definitely feels warmer, but until we replace the door in the back walk up it won't be as warm as it could be.

With the basement done and various deadlines satisfied at work we've turned out attention to tidying up the house for a "Mad Men" themed cocktail party this weekend. One of the reasons we liked this house was that it had a good amount of space for entertaining... Now the space is finally usable for entertaining. It's exciting :) .

Here is a picture of a vase I got for our pass through. It's nice to be able to make things pretty instead of just functional.

Not much photo-worthy... but here goes anyways...

Here are a smattering of photos of our progress on the basement. In photos it doesn't look like much but it's a pretty good change from what it was before.


This is the dryer vent in its new location. We drilled through some brick to make this happen.

Here you can see some of our header insulation and the new 3/4 pex waterline running towards the water heater.

This is the beginning of our framing efforts. We're doing R10 rigid foam insulation with steel studs and R14 roxul on top of that for a total R24. It's kind of an insane R value but the eco-rebates make it worth while to do.

Here are the new stairs to the basement that we built yesterday. The old ones were attached poorly and just generally crappy so we built new ones before insulating under them.


So that's where we are now. We're having a party on the 13th so we're planning to get the insulating at least done by then.

What we've been up to lately...

Hole is gone

We mixed the last 3 bags of cement to finish filling in the top part of the hole today. It took 19 bags and tons of work (this included the area where the washer used to sit that we jackhammered and reskimmed because it was so rough). Next time we figure no matter how little concrete we anticipate needing, we *will* rent the mini-mixer, inevitably we end up making way more than we anticipate.

In completely unrelated news we made our valentine's day reservation at Colborne Lane :). We're not really the romantic type but I'm always looking for an excuse to splash out on a good meal. Super excited, hoping it will be good.

The drains are in

We ran the bulk of the drains tonight. Nothing beats the looks you get at Home Depot on a Wednesday buying enough drains for a whole house.

Starting the basement

too tired to write much... we started digging for the drains this weekend. Here are pictures...







we found these in the dirt under our house, any idea what they might be?

Thinking about digging?

While you're at it, why not add a couple of levels under your house as a catacombs?

Our ventures into the basement of our house reminded me of a home renovation article we stumbled upon a few months back. We will not be trying to build a catacombs, but this article's easy to follow instructions of how to build your own catacombs is fairly amusing and got us thinking about fun things you could do with a catacombs.

In our case, our neighbors are all pretty friendly, so adding an underground tunnel would cut down on those walks to visit people when it's cold out (like it is now!). It could also increase living space instead of adding levels above ground. A quick Google search for "catacombs inspiration pictures" turns up many macabre options for catacombs decor (human remains etc), but really with the right decorating aesthetic (and probably copious amounts of benjamin moore cloud white) a catacombs could become a great modern living space.

Tips from the how-to article include the following, #3 is our fav.

• Be wary of underground utility wires and pipelines. Be smart and check with the city or county before you dig.
• Rain delays projects like these and a sump pump needs to be available just in case it rains to prevent flooding.
• Set a date for an opening of your catacomb party for close friends and family members. It's time to celebrate for all your hard work and dedication.
• Building a catacomb underneath your basement takes a lot of brawn, yet you must remember how sacred a project like this is.

Basement Plan

As we mentioned in our previous post, the basement is our #1 priority as we try to wrap up the "greening" of our home so we can get the type of green we really care about... rebates.
This is our plan for the coming weeks.

• run new 3/4 water line from the supply to where we branch off for hot water
  
• run new drains: 1 to the back door for later restructuring, 1 for the furnace, 1 for the washer in it's new location.
  
• do required concrete repairs to patch the drain holes and level the floor for a subfloor at some point in the future.
  
• run new pex water lines for the washer and a sink rough in
  
• wire the basement for future finishing
  
• frame the basement
  
• insulate the basement to >R23 for a massive rebate
  

This is pretty much the plan for now. We're taking the basement to the point where we can get our next energy audit. We can't totally finish it until we restructure the back stairs which will probably happen in spring.

Green Machines

After getting a couple of quotes we replaced our old furnace and hot water tank. We got an incredible deal on this Goodman furnace:

We were originally going to compromise and get a cheaper 92% efficiency Trane furnace (with no DC motor so it would get the smallest rebate) but at the last second our installer got a sweet deal on the Goodman 95% efficiency with a DC 2 stage electric motor. This model qualifies for the maximum rebate available so in the end it will come out to being less than we had originally budgeted for the lower end Trane. This should help bring our gas bill down in December! One thing we didn't realize is that these high efficiency furnaces produce a good amount of condensation when they are running so it is recommended that a drain be located nearby. Since we intend to relocate the washer and dryer nearby, when we run the drain for that we will put in a floor drain for the furnace.

For our water heater we got this Rinnai tankless hot water heater:

It is great to have the massive hot water tank out of the basement; and now we will never run out of hot water again. I had to open it up and change one of the jumper settings to let us set it above 120 degrees fahrenheit but after I changed that it gets the water nice and hot. It delivers a more consistent temperature than our old hot water heater that would gradually get less hot as the shower went on.

Finishing up...

This weekend we really got back into the swing of things and got quite a few little tasks done. We're working towards being able to start our next project.

Living Room/Dining Room
Since last weekend we finished up most of the trim in these room. Before Christmas we had just installed the baseboards and door casings. We've finally finished the window trim, and quarter round as well as patching and painting them. Below is a before and after of the window trim on our larger window.


We also unpacked our stained glass and hang it in the window.

Basement:

Most of today was spent getting the basement in order. We've been using it as a workshop for the past 4 months so everything was covered in dust. Also, since we started renovating right after we moved in there were half unpacked boxes all over the place. Now it is a bit cleaner and more functional.

Stack replacement

It has been a successful week for the house. This week I installed 2 new deadbolts installed and the stack replacement happened.

The stack replacement was a pretty intense thing. When we saw that the stack needed replacing in the home inspection we figured that they could cut it and install a stretch of PVC or at worst replace more of the stack above ground.. This was not really the case. As you can see in the picture below, the corrosion was pretty close to the ground. This meant that they needed to dig up some of the floor and replace the part of the stack that was below ground.

So we called a plumber and he came by and told us the stack above was in good shape and us a very reasonable quote for replacing the section of stack, however he said the pipe downstream of the stack was also probably very old and might need replacing as well. We crossed our fingers and hoped that this was not the case because this would be a very expensive item. After replacing the bottom of the stack it looked good and we were hoping that would be all we needed but when the head plumber showed up with his fancy video scope and brought us down to look at the pipe it got a little scary... turns out at some point a section of the clay pipe had shifted and now did not completely align with the following section, this shift in turn caused sewage to be leaking into the ground and water and sediment to build up inside the pipe. So we bit the big bullet and got the whole remainder of the clay pipe replaced.

It was hard to take pictures while they were working but here are a few that I managed to take:

After the first section of the stack was replaced with PVC.


The beginnings of the massive trench that stretched across our basement.


The stack and the section of pipe that they originally removed


Pieces of pipe from phase 2 of the replacement, mmm what is that thing on the end of the pipe...


Yep that's some kind of plastic bottle embedded in concrete on the end of one of the pipes... I don't even want to know what the purpose of this was.


Above are our shiny new cleanouts. They barely poke out of the ground. I wish we had a picture of the rusty old breather for comparison... Knowing the expense/inconvenience of doing this type of repair I think we will consciously avoid houses with old stacks/breathers next time we house hunt, or ask for a credit off the price (not that we are house hunting any time soon). It's definitely a hidden cost that we didn't know about.


Above is our new stack and trench all cemented back in. The cement has dried quite a bit since this was taken.

Great Refrigerator Roundup

When we arrived here our electrical meter was spinning like a top. It turns out there was an ancient refrigerator and a slightly less ancient deep freeze in the basement sucking up those precious watts.

I followed the advise of 247reno and called the Great Refrigerator Round Up to come take them away. They showed up and hauled them away and there were only two small hitches...

1) there was some type of drip tray on the bottom of the fridge, so when they tipped it up it got nasty water all over the place
2) after they were gone I couldn't find my jigsaw that I had left in the basement in its carrying case...

So I guess I have learned my lesson, don't trust people who work for free...
Anyways now our meter has slowed to a lazy crawl and the basement smells slightly better so I suppose it was worth it.