Electric Brick House

New hole for switch boxes

I've been working on the house again lately, though still not as much as I should. Over the holidays, I removed all the loose plaster in my East room. Now I'm getting ready to put in new electrical boxes and finish the electrical for the room. Once that's done, I'll probably hire someone to plaster and do the skim coating. Then, the floor and ceiling should follow shortly after. 

Basically, the room had just one electrical outlet. While a renovation doesn't require updating the number of electrical outlets, I want my house to be convenient. I also want to move the exterior light and add a separate switch for a ceiling fan. 

4-Gang electrical box made for masonry

Today, I cut out a layer of bricks to mount the new electrical boxes. Basically, I used a circular saw with a masonry blade to cut the edges, then chiseled out the rest. In the next few days, I'll hopefully get the BX cabling mounted and mortar in the electrical boxes. These boxes are specifically made for mounting in masonry, so as long as I can get the cabling routed, mortar shouldn't be a problem. 

Just an update

So...I got a little busy, then a little lazy, then a little busy again. You've missed a lot that I may end up posting anyway, just a little (read: a lot) belated. To sum up:

•  I finished re-plumbing the fresh water supply in June with a little time to spare before my first tenant moved in upstairs. I didn't take the time to completely re-plumb the upstairs kitchen, since it was much more difficult than other areas and probably won't be there in a few years if everything goes to plan. The house now has good water pressure everywhere  that doesn't drop out if someone else is using the water. The Viega Manabloc was easy to work with and I haven't had any problems yet.



Plastic sheeting and single-bulb hanging lights made it almost easy to work in the area.

• I went on a short camping trip when it was so dry that we couldn't have a fire. We got rained out. I learned that a Honda Element is pretty good for car sleeping when your tent is soaked.
• I learned that air circulation isn't very good on the first floor of my house. I'm guessing that this is a result of some of the original windows having been replaced by boards and a couple others becoming half-size windows. Also, the lack of transom windows and the insertion of walls make it even worse. Some day air will flow freely again. 
• I got lazy with house work for a couple months.
• I finished brick repair (I think) in the East room that I'm currently working on. I also removed a section of joist that had rotted and been repaired using a method that I wasn't comfortable with. Basically, I was able to just lift the repair out without removing any nails or screws. 



Not quite finished in this picture. Water-damaged bricks had previously left a gap in the first brick layer about 2.5 feet wide and 1.5 feet high.

• I went on my first fall color hike in Colorado and found a great trail past Geneva Mountain (not to be confused with nearby Geneva Peak). I basically just used Google Maps' satellite view to find an area with a lot of Aspens, then found a trail past it and hoped I had the right weekend for best color. I did.

• The next day, I went to Modesto for work. I wasn't home much for the next six weeks. 
• Next on my agenda:
• Finish planting daffodil bulbs. I ordered and received 400 bulbs of a few types to plant along the alley, fence and entry sidewalk. I've planted about half so far. The instructions were to plant after the first frost, which I did. I'm worried now because, like usual, Denver's weather can't stick with a temperature. I'm hoping the warmth we've had since then won't damage them by getting them to grow too soon. 
• Re-wire the East room. It needed to get pulled since I took out the original wainscoting and a false wall that covered the back door and window. Also, there weren't many outlets, so I'll change that. The outlet and switch boxes will be embedded into new holes in the brick and channels will be cut for BX cabling which will be covered with plaster. I'm sure the planning of this will expand to a full post later.
• Install new ceiling in the East room. I'm thinking it will just be insulation and a tongue & groove white ceiling. I'm wondering how many holes I'll want for ceiling lights, but hopefully I'll have that figured out by the time I install.
• Re-install salvaged wood floor. Two layers of wood flooring, plus a subfloor and carpet on top of that, were removed from this room in early June with the help of my parents. One appeared to be the original. The other appeared to have been installed sometime later, but still quite old. I believe the majority of the planks can be re-planed and used again. Hopefully I can find matching planks somewhere if needed.

Oh, and I almost forgot one thing. I had squirrels in the attic again. I got some live traps and relocated them to about five miles away. I have a somewhat temporary patch, using hardware cloth, to keep other squirrels out until I go back up and put in something more permanent.

Totally Tubular I

Viega Manabloc

This weekend I'm focusing on putting in the new Viega Manabloc water distribution manifold. Over the next week, I should be removing old galvanized trunk plumbing and installing home run PEX plumbing. The first part is getting the manifold mounted. 

Allow me to vent a little...

This started as a test picture, but I like it.

I added some roof vents, among other projects, over the weekend. On my two roofs, which previously had no real ventilation, I installed three inlet Pop Vents and three exhausting Aura Vents. Supposedly the louvers on the Aura Vents create an "accelerated exhaust" which sucks out more air through the Venturi effect with no moving parts. I first looked at them when investigating flat roofs for a previous house I was thinking of purchasing. My roof isn't quite flat, but fairly close. I would guess that it is 2-12 or 3-12. 


My goal was to provide adequate, long lasting ventilation without needing power. I looked at solar powered vent fans, but decided they were far too expensive for my budget. Using the FHA 1/300 rule, I calculated that I needed around 1.5 Aura Vents and 1.5 Pop Vents for the upper roof and 0.5 Aura Vents and 0.5 Pop Vents for the lower roof. I doubted they would have much functionality if I cut them in half, so I ordered 3 of each (2/2 up and 1/1 down) from Home Depot's website. 


The installation was fairly straightforward, though the packages from Home Depot weren't very helpful. I knew they were manufactured by Active Ventilation Products, so I used the instructions on their website. In summary:


1: Cut the holes. I started with a 3/8" drilled hole, marked a circle with a template I made and followed that with a reciprocating saw. The upper roof was a little bit of a gamble. The roof joists ran in such a way, since I can't get in the attic, that I couldn't measure their location. I knocked around and listened for hollow spots to guesstimate their location and cut. I shaved about 1/16" off of two of them. 

My roof has a pretty good view of the downtown skyline.

2: Lay a base layer of roofing cement 

Note: If you work like me, the trowel will probably be so caked that you'll want to toss it afterwards. I found  my pointing trowel good for scraping the sides of the can, but not so great for this job otherwise (and also ruined).

3: Position vent and fasten with nails or screws

4: Seal with roofing cement: After placing an initial layer of cement over the vent flashing, I added asphalt glass fabric mesh to make a better long-term seal over the screws and edges before putting on the rest of the cement. For 6 14" vents, I scraped the bottom of two gallon cans of roofing cement

It's a little ugly, but I think it will stay sealed. I'll check on it regularly to make sure, unless you can see  that I obviously have bad craftsmanship.

Everything took about 6-8 hours over two days. The first day had a record-breaking high temperature in the 90s, so I didn't get much done until later in the day. The second day topped out around 80, which was about perfect for what I was doing. Now I don't have to worry about my attic getting too moist or too hot just because it's unvented. I hope that the squirrels don't come back next year.

Repost: Young House Love's Cheap Blue Stools

These stools are awesome...especially for $39 each. Check them out and how they did it at Young House Love. I think I would have liked the seats to remain cork-looking, but they're still a great idea.

Joisting Match

That's what the last section of boards under my joists looked like. These are two of the chunks I cut out. They look heavily rotted and/or eaten. I think this was all past damage. I didn't see any evidence of bugs in the wood, so if they were there, they've probably been gassed. I also didn't find any water water. Even though it hasn't actually rained recently, I feel that the concrete cap that was at some point placed around the first couple of feet of the exterior walls should keep water out. I've also worked on the grading to make sure water isn't pooling around there.

Now I just need to put this exhaust flue back together and lay brick to fill in this hole. The floating joists are temporarily held up with a couple of jack posts, though I may make them more permanent once I have the new bricks in place. I almost feel like cutting out more of the boards that were rotted away, but it looks like the boards are healthy starting where I stopped cutting. Also, I don't need to spend all my time doing this brick by brick in one room.

Joist For Fun

It seems this can result with unnoticed water penetration. The leaks are long gone, but nobody fixed the results.

Today I worked on getting prepared for some brick work that needs to be done. This is in the East room that is currently torn apart. Obviously it has no floor. Right now the ceiling has been removed as well. While removing the wainscoting, this corner lost some bricks. This morning I removed the fallen bricks, then scraped mortar and vacuumed. 


After that, I could get a good look at the joists in that corner. The last three joists were considerably lower in that corner. I thought I would just sister them and build up the subfloor to flat above. However, after seeing what's in the picture below, I decided to jack them up and make sure they're sitting on a solid foundation. 

Results of former half-hearted repairs.

It might be hard to see in the picture above, but the joist on the left is sitting on two semi-rotten 2x4 boards stacked on top of each other. The middle joist is partially rotted on the very end so that it only has less than an inch on the foundation. The joist on the right was rotted back further so that it almost seemed like it was barely on the joist. 

Now that the joists are raised and sistered, these water pipes will make removing the rotten 2x4 boards quite fun. The pipes are likely to be removed soon for a re-plumbing project. 

Unfortunately, this last joist also has the house entry for the two gas lines drilled through the middle and, therefore, cannot be raised. Considering this, I decided to use raise the left two joists to rebuild the foundation underneath. Another trip to Home Depot and I came home with two new jack posts and three four-foot joist pieces to sister to the ends to make sure they don't slip off. After some post wrestling and cursing in the cellar, during which I had a scare when the right-most joist actually slipped off the foundation, I had two of three joists jacked to level. Next, I sistered the three of them and replaced the subfloor (still temporary). 

Jacked and sistered