That's sweet Marc. Good luck with the "addition" lol.
My dad and I have been working on our other home and have almost completely redone it all. I'ma see if I can pull up some pics of it. Looks like a brand new house now and its about 50 years old lol.
thanks, My house is 100 years old this year. Heres some Hardwood i just installed do the stairs being cut in. I had a patch that i never got to till this week. About 21sq is all. Also thats Poco brining me my slippers, Wether i want them or not...
And theres about 800sq feet of new space being added. Thats about 25 sheets of Advantex flooring blk.
So, the framing is done. Doing the wiring now. Had to add some smokes and Co2's to the existing house as well as new ones upstairs. Total of 10 interconnected. My buddy came over and I helped him run all the new Cat5 ( 600') and RG6 cables (1000'). He does that stuff for a living, mostly in high end homes. I though just a few connecters and I was good, but wound up running a D-mark, All new feeds for DSL, High speed, cable, phones. Basically every location is now wired with structual cable. Still need to wire the panel now, then move onto the heatin system.
My main goal was to get pc vid to any location in the house. I will be able to use my tvs as moniters, so I can stream pc movies/music stuff into any bedroom.
So, Framing is done, Electrical is done, Getting the electrical rough inspection done tomorrow, then onto the heating and plumbing systems. Gotta build a chase from the third floor to the basement to run, 4" main stack, 2- 1/2" hot and cold feeds, and 2- 3/4" heat supply and returns. Also a 3/4" iron pipe for the fire place gas line. Then insulate, rock and mud, paint....And I need it done by mid Aug.
I actually love mud work. Taping and spackling is like therapy for me. No torpedo gun, no stilts. Just old fashioned mud, tape and knife. No sissy corner tool either lol.
I put it on so smooth there is no sanding between coats. Only a final sponging after the third.
Well, The wiring passed np. But I now need to redo my chimney pipe and do fire stop on all the walls and floor openings. Another pita job. New class A dbl wall pipe and stuff was $500 alone. That stuff is pricey. But I guess you cant put a price tag on safety.
But I could have slept at nite with $100 dollars worth of class B pipe.
Well, Finally got the wiring completed. What a dirty job it was running those main feeds. Thats the feeds, cable and phone. Man the heat coming out of there was bad, and the wires were all sooty and stuff, But now thats its done I can relax.
lol, na its been over 90's for the last week, and high humidity. Been to the beach, lake, or hanging out in the pool for the last few days between day trips. Went to lake compounce , great day there. Some dinosour place in CT, NE aquarium , Cap cod beaches, The Zoo, (Rode an Elephant) Been on vaca for 2 weeks now, and have 9 more days off to go. Having a birthday party tommorow here, rented one of those bouncy castles for the kids, got the pool up to 86 degrees, should be another fun day. Then going on a whale watch, and the cape beaches again this week.
Dude it's a blessing and a curse in disguise. Nice to have the freedom of knocking a wall down and making a new room but when maintenance comes, you're the one to do it. Home ownership is America's dream, until something goes wrong.
I spent 1000s of $$ and many hours building my gameroom and bar. The first flood I experienced sucked. I had water pooling in my basement traveling towards my finished side. It made it into my bar causing stain damage along the wall. I didn't see it until I came home from work.
When you rent and something goes wrong you call the super. When you own it''s a different story.
^I know man, I know. But I still can't wait to have my own house; and the ups and downs that go with it. Sad part is that is several years away at best for me.
Paul, I'd hate to see some of your taping jobs due to your lack of sanding haha. I did drywall hanging and taping for 3 years myself. There's a good reason you sand between coats =/
And the Shower Valve. Notice the funky piping. I had to add another volume control to feed a hand held shower thingy. The valve thing was deeper then a 2x4 wall, so I had to sink it into the wall cavity at the corner. What a pita.
Its things like this that slow the whole thing down.
I want to put a cast iron Rad in the bathroom, and the one i got was rusty and too long. So I spent the last few days shorting it up, stripping the old paint and rust off. Priming it, and 2 coats of enamal paint.
The sections on the left, (white) were taken out of the middle of it.
This is how bad the rust was.
Went thru 3 wire wheel brushes stripping it down. Dammm i need a sandblaster for things like that.
Rusty metal primer.
And the finished radiator. Still needs to cure for 48 hours.
got my Rough plumbing passed today.. All finish work from now on out.
also about 1/2 way done running pex and connecting the heating baseboard. Had to wait for the inspection so I could put the floor down to finish heating and set the Rad.
some pics of the start of it. btw, thanks for the comments. I am posting this build log as a time frame for myself mainly. That way I can see when mile stones were done.
This is when we ripped the roof off. Brother, friend and myself did the demo. as you can see, it was a walk up attic, but the roof line ended at the wall, making it useless.
Another side view.
You can see tho original gable wall. I went to the max allowed height by code. 35ft, (acual is 38ft.)
Just made this testing gage to test the heating lines. It will hok up to a compressor, pump 100 psi into the 3/4 lines for 24 hours. If it holds, then the final connections to the furnace will be made. Then I can button up the floors, lay carpet and move up to the master bedroom soon.
Thanks Marc for the glass. Without a return address I had a few guesses in mind. At first I thought it was Andrew. Then I realized he was too engrossed in AC lol.
Well, another set back today.. My rad has a hair line crack that was not visible before. So now i am looking for a replacement, or just using baseboard ..which i hate in a bathroom.
Lesson..Always pressure test rads before investing time and effort on refinnishing it., Not after it it installed.
The good news is, the rest of the system held 100psi , and is still holding.
Picked up another rad, same as pictured. Tested ok. Installing tomorrow.
So, I had an oil delivery the other day. I get home and smell oil in the house... The next morning it is even worse.. So I check the tank and it is dripping from the bottom. I call my oil company, they sent a guy over, and for $200 he sticks a magnet on the leak to stop it. Now I need a new oil tank and was quoted like $1800. Its like every month I have been getting hit with large unexpected expenses. June, Fuel pump July, water pump Aug, Chimney lined Aug, tree removal Aug, Pcm Sept, Plumber Sept, a bunch of tweeters. Nov, Oil tank Plus I am planning a FLA trip for Dec. and Ireland for April.
Very good question. I choose to run copper for the water for several reasons. First i dont trust pex in potable water supply. Regarless of what they say, i feel chemicals may leeche out of it into the water. Secondly, Pex connections are i feel are not as solid as soldered joints. And lastly, The life expectance of pex is 30 years. Copper-100 years plus.
I did however use 3/4 pex to install the new heating zone. This was based on the fact that I had to snake it through floor joists and cost factors. I used About 200' of pex for the heating which was about $100 for 2 rolls. The equvalent in copper would have been about $800.
Another mile stone yesterday. Spent about 8 hours doing the boiler connection. Also did some preventitive maintenance while I was add it. Changed out the Air vent, Installed new circ. pump flange gaskets, Reworked the returns to make them look snazzy with a cool sweep. The worse part was installing a new T to feed the new zone. Every pipe had to be removed to add it at the bottom of the return lines. Also rewired all the zone valves and added a new one . But Now I have heat up there. yea.
The new T and zone piping ang gaskets.
Doesnt it look like one of those jewish candle holders?
My new cool sweeps.
New air vent, Zone valve and connection to the feed pex.
Tape and Spackle is my specialty. I love dong it! Too bad I wasn't close by or I'd do it for next to nothing for ya lol. I would rather mud a room twice over painting it. Painting sucks IMO.
Love to see all the pipework though. Looks rewarding. As with any job worth doing.....
