Almost a New Year - new laundry

It's been 16 months since we did our eco-audit back in Sept of 2008. I've just about completed the last major reno project for our audit. You get 18 months to complete all your renos to qualify for the FED & PROV government eco-rebates.

It's winter now and I can't do anymore work. Luckily for me the snow storms have held off. Last year by this time we'd had more than 3 ft of snow. It's like Mother Nature was cutting me some slack.

This last project is taking me the longest to do. I really underestimated how much time it would take me to redo the basement laundry. Our laundry room was ok before. It was neat and clean. But uninsulated. So in the winter it was always freezing. And the snow was always melted 2 to 3 inches next to the house from heat escaping through the brick walls.

The old owner had taken out part of a cinder block to install a clear glass block when the gas meter was still in the

house and meter readers didn't have to enter the house to read the gas meter. That's now outside and at that back of the house and now that glass block has been painted and is like a conduit of cold air in the winter months.

The audit indicated that if I insulate this part of the house, I would get back $1000.00. That's what the eco-auditor told me. So back on Oct 20th I started this project. It was a big project that involved everything. From framing, to plumbing, to electrical and drywall installation. I basically learned how to do simple plumbing and electrical. I'd never done framing before so this was a first too. Good thing there's Google and YouTube. That's how I learned how to do it. Came in handy.

I originally estimated that it would take me a full week to get this project complete (man, was I ever off). But right off the bat I had a dilemma. In order to frame I had to remove the pipes. But then we'd have no water for at least a few days to a week. I can't put the pipes in until I have the framing done. What do I do? I call Billy. There's no way I can put the pipes back, in a day. So he suggests a product called Shark Bite. These are fittings that will connect on to the same size copper and flexible plastic tubing. It's awesome. I could use this to temporarily mo

ve the water supply out of my way so I could frame. I framed everywhere I could until I had to redo all the plumbing. The framing and plumbing probably took me about 3 weeks complete (Nov 13). Not including the 10 days of H1N1. Boxing in all the pipes took longer than I thought. There was a lot of measuring and cutting.

I was more uneasy with doing plumbing more than anything else. But I took my time and made my share of mistakes and redo's. My brother came by to get me started on the plumbing layout when I was ready to install the new piping, and give me a hand from time to time, like when I put in the ceiling and the first potlight. Before I settled on going copper, I was debating on using the plastic piping vs the copper, but with the research on chemicals leeching from the plastic swayed me and I went with the tried and true copper. Also the costs are slightly in favour of the copper. Copper fittings are 30 cents and 12ft lengths of 1/2 inch pipe are about $15.00 or so. But plastic would have been much faster to do. But I'm not building 200 homes. Just one laundry room. Faster isn't always better you know. Just compare the new homes of today with the ones built in the 50's and earlier. The shark bite fittings are almost $10.00 each (there are others but this is a cool system, no $200.00 PEX crimping tool required, they push-on to copper or plastic of the same size) but the piping is cheap 17.00 for a 50ft length. With the plastic you don't have to solder which scares most people, but with practice it's not that hard and will last a lifetime. Plastic can degrade and become brittle over time. The pipes I removed were original to the house circa 1956.

Besides the copper pipes are nice and straight and smaller in diameter than the plastic. The plastic system sags and IMHO isn't as nice to look at. With copper you can paint it, or leave it bare and it's not as bulky as the plastic system. The fittings for the plastic piping is 4x larger. Also with copper once it's in. That's usually it. Billy is a professional plumber, I was concerned about how do I know if my soldering jobs were any good. He mentioned a couple of things 1) pressure test - once the main is on you'll know right away and 2) tap the joint with a wrench, if it doesn't leak it's good. And so far, no leaks. The last of the drywall didn't go up until last weekend. And we've had water almost every day except for 1 weekend when I turned off the water on the Saturday morning and didn't finish the piping until Sunday at midnight. And I had to make a run to HD before they closed cause I ran out of solder. But I got it done.

I had completed all the bulkheads by Nov 30. Insulating took me a few hours. It was by far the easiest part but the itchiest. Then in the middle of all the construction, Tresa said she wanted pot lights. So down came the ceiling. I had initially bought the potlights from HomeDepot, but returned them after we spoke to Carmen's boyfriend who is an electrical contractor and he prefers to install another brand that you can't get at the big box stores. One thing I discovered was that a lot of products from Home Depot come from China. I asked the fellow at Wolf Electric why the pot lights at HD looked copper-ish even though it says brushed nickel. And he told me it's their plating process which is cheap. It's like paint. So it was originally like brushed nickel but tarnishes quickly. You can really tell the difference between the China-made stuff and the Canadian made stuff. It's way more money, but if it's your house, it's worth it. Unless you're some cheap asian. By Dec 8th I had installed all the ceiling drywall and the potlights. And it's 100% Canadian. Made in Quebec. If you're going to get potlights, get them from Rona. Most of their products come from Quebec. Don't go cheap.

The laundry room was like opening a can of worms. Pipes were like a tree. Electrical was like spaghetti. It was really a challenge. Although I used way more colourful words to describe what I went through on this project in dealing with the way things were done.

The other thing I did was install an exhaust fan to vent the moisture from the shower. When we did the audit I asked the guy why the basement was smelling a little musty. It was not like that when we took ownership of the house 7 years ago. He told me it was because of the moisture from the shower. The water droplets fall down on everything causing that musty smell. So one Sunday afternoon was spent drilling holes to install a new 4 inch pipe for the new dryer vent. I reused the old one for the exhaust fan.

I used to notice that if I left clothes in the dryer overnight, in the morning I'd take them out and they'd feel super cold. Indicating that there was a big draft coming from the vent. So the new dryer vent that I installed on Nov 14th, is a Broan Eco-vent. It has a round styrofoam ball that moves out of the way when the dryer is on, but plugs the hole when it's off. It took me a few hours with a hammer drill to make the new hole. My hands and body were numb from the vibration.

The shower exhaust duct has this door that only opens out, so when the fan is on it opens, and seals shut if outside air tries to enter in. Both do the same thing by preventing any drafts and I've noticed that the clothes aren't cold anymore when they are in the dryer overnight.

I installed the same draft blocker damper on the kitchen hood vent. Now our kitchen isn't so chilly any more. Even today (Dec 29) it was -15 deg C outside and usually the kitchen is freezing due to the draft. It's no where near what it was before.

By Dec 20th (with some help) I had put up the last of the drywall. Now our laundry room isn't so cold any more. It's a little dusty, but I still need to sand and prime and paint the walls. But the bulk of the work is done.

I've been pretty much working every evening and weekend to get this done because winter was on it's way. It's crappy working out in the cold. It was a race against the seasons. In the middle of it all I replaced the lights in the garage because one of the lights stopped working. I found out during the replacement that a wire was broken, but these lights have a newer ballast that works better in lower temps. I had fun (sic) doing that in the dark too. By 5:30pm it was already night. But I needed to do this just in case I had to do some work in the garage, I needed a reliable light to work by. Good thing too. I've got still got trim work to do.

This is my last project for the eco-audit and for the year. And was the biggest. And I'm almost there. Almost donno. Glad I had a little helper around.

[x] main floor and 2nd floor windows (Sept 2008)

[x] attic insulation (Sept 2008)

[x] new furnace (Sept 2008)

[x] awning - repainted (May 2009)

[x] garage - new paint and floor coating (June 2009)

[x] back bedroom Kieran's playroom reno - wall insulation (July 2009)

[x] basement laundry reno (Oct-Dec 2009)

[ ] front basement reno

[ ] upstairs bath reno

[ ] stairwell wall insulation

[ ] master bedroom wall insulation

[ ] kieran's room wall insulation

[ ] new front door

[ ] new side door

I'm like halfway through our project list. It's not in any order, but I'm taking a break for a while.

For the first month of this project my hands were raw from cutting and soldering pipe. After a while I was sick of plumbing. Tired of mopping up water. Tired of re-soldering joints. In the end I got pretty good. But I wanted to move forward and get this done.

Then it was debris falling on my head from taking down the ceiling. Now I'm tired of getting drywall compound dust in my eyes, mouth and nose. And I'm just tired of doing my day job and this reno job. Looking forward to getting this done and having our house clean again. Tresa and Kieran have put up with the inconvenience of the reno, the dust and sometimes not having water from time to time. If I had known how big of a job this was going to be, I may not have done it.

But I do it because I like realizing Tresa's vision of transforming our home. I'm just the grunt. She's the one who picks the colours and all the nice looking things and has the concept that pulls it all together. I just use the tools to execute. And it's looking like it was worth the effort.

Click me for WAY more photos of the basement laundry reno
I put lots of comments in the photos.

Trying to get this done before 2010 gets here.