Home & Living Blog Posts

Blog posts the fall under the Home & Living category. Read all I have written about this topic.

Installing Two Lithonia Lighting LED Recessed Ceiling Lights

February 7, 2019

I happen to be in the middle of a bathroom remodel project. I guess I shouldn’t really call it a “remodel.” While the bathroom certainly is getting remodeled, this project isn’t something I actually wanted to get into and to be honest, it’s taken me just about five years to get around to finishing it. But now that I’m an at it, I’m rocking and rolling.

Please allow me to start at the beginning. Approximately five years ago, we experienced a particularly cold winter. Many pipes in our house froze and burst open. Since then, everything has been repaired and made so that will never happen again. One of the primary culprits for all the freezing was the lack of adequate insulation in the downstairs bathroom. Because of this, I went into that bathroom with a hammer one day and tore it apart. And when I mean “tear it apart,” I mean tear it apart. I tore all the walls down and tore the bathtub out. I was on a tear. If you’d like to read about this experience in full, please take a look at this post. Now, since I’ve already told this story about 50 times on this blog, I’ll move onto more exciting adventures.

While in high school, I took two years of Construction Electricity at a local trade school as a way of getting out of Social Studies and English classes. Now that I think about it, I can’t decide weather or not the route I took was the better one. Anyway, during those two yeas, I learned a lot. I learned all about how to wire houses and how to install and replace light switches and outlets (called receptacles). I also learned about much of the parts and equipment that was used in the construction of a home. One of those parts was called a “high hat light.” These are the types of lights many of you have in your kitchens, living rooms, basements and hallways. They’re all over Center Hall Colonials and new houses. I should know, I used to live in a Center Hall Colonial and we had dozens of these types of lights.

If you aren’t familiar with this type of lighting setup, it basically looks like a canister that’s pushed into a ceiling. There’s a light bulb at the center of the canister. The problem with high hats is that they take up a lot of room and the bulbs that go inside of them usually are of the higher wattage type, so there’s some serious electricity use going on when they’re in use.

I’m at the point of my bathroom remodel where I’ve just finished hanging the drywall and now I’m applying joint compound to all the seams. I love this part. I love the application more than the sanding though. I think you all can agree with that sentiment if you’ve ever gotten yourself into this sort of project. Anyway, I’m also at the point of installing the light fixtures I want to see in this bathroom, which brings me to the point of this post. I just had to stop working, take some picture and show off the coolest recessed lighting fixtures I’ve ever seen. These babies are pretty bad. Take a look.

This is what you call a low profile recessed LED light. I couldn’t believe it when I found it and I’m so glad I did. They’re even dimmable, although, I’m not going to install a dimmer switch.

The brand name is Lithonia Lighting and each of these lights costs about $15. I found them on Amazon. I was just looking around at different recessed lighting options when I bumped into these things. I love the idea of these because you need virtually no room to install them. If you have drywall with a wire behind it, you can install these lights in about two minutes. No more high hats that you have to see naked beams to install. These lights don’t require any joists for installation at all. Do you see those two spring clips at the sides of the light in the photo above? Those two clips simply hold onto the backside of the drywall. And that’s it!

Let me show you two more views of this light. This is the back and the front, or the top and the bottom. Whatever.

The company, Lithonia Lighting, offers these lights in four or five different color temperatures and best of all, each light only consumes 13 watts of electricity. This is when I want to sing the “Technology” song from Napoleon Dynamite.

Please allow me to show you how I installed these two lights in the downstairs bathroom.

First, I used my handy dandy six-inch hole saw that I purchased when I ordered the lighting fixtures. I couldn’t have made this install as cleanly and as easily as I did without this saw. I think this was around $15 as well. Check it out.

After making sure there was nothing behind the area where I wanted the lights to go and after measuring and marking the ceiling, I drilled two holes in the drywall. Here’s one of them.

By the way, drilling this hole took all of ten seconds. Also, the hole saw attachment fit right into my Dewalt cordless drill.

I pulled the wire that I had previously run from behind that drywall and connected it to the electrical box that came with the light. The light uses easy push connections.

When I was finished with making the connections, I plugged the light in to the box I just showed you. It’s sort of like hooking up a stereo. Sort of strange. Then, I slid the LED light into the ceiling hole. I didn’t seat it completely, because I still have to paint. Actually, I did with one of them to make sure the fit was good, but I reversed that after I was sure things were okay.

Check out how low profile this light is. It doesn’t even matter if I did have a joist behind the drywall. It wouldn’t affect the fit at all.

This is just about the worst picture ever, but at least it shows you the light as it’s illuminated. These are nice and bright and having two of them, plus a four bulb light strip is pretty much everyone’s dream as far as bathrooms go.

To finish the install, I simply have to push the light in the hole and the clips will hold it in place. I love these things.

Well, there you have it. My lighting installation experience. Have you ever seen these things before? Do you have any experience with them? Please share if you have or do! Thanks for reading!

Installing a Symmons One Handle Shower Faucet

January 12, 2019

This was a very exciting project for me. I’ve had a bathroom that I gutted about five years ago, sitting here doing a whole lot of nothing. It’s been waiting for me to get up off my bum to put things back together. If you don’t remember, years ago, we had an extremely cold winter that forced freezing air through the many gaps in the walls outside the room I speak of. I think the lows that night hit -18 degrees. It was crazy. The copper pipes in our house experienced a lot of damage via bursting and the next few days consisted of me running around town trying to pick up supplies to make repairs. As stressful as it was, it was a lot of fun. I know, weird. By the way, if you’re interested in seeing some photos of this ordeal, you can do so here. Things have changed slightly since then in that I decided to abandon the idea of using any fiberglass insulation at all in the exterior walls. Instead, I used four inches of rigid foam for a watertight seal. Our house has pine board and batten as it’s siding and to say air infiltration is an issue would be an understatement. So a word of advice for all you out there considering this type of siding, be sure to have air sealed the entire home before even thinking about adding something like this to the exterior. As for us, there’s the inside wall, some insulation and then the boards and batten. No air sealing or anything like that. I solved the bathroom issue by using rigid foam and expanding foam spray, but that doesn’t say much about the rest of the house. Perhaps one day I’ll fix that too.

Anyway, over the past few weeks, I’ve been working on finishing up the insulation. As I just mentioned, I switched tracks a bit. I still have a few areas to complete, but that part of things is looking good. And since the wall that the bathtub was up against was finished, I decided that installing the tub again would be wonderful. The bathroom is small and that tub is right in the way of everything (being pulled away from the wall and all). Also, because the shower/tub valve was old and leaky in this bathroom, I decided to replace it, which brings me to the point of this fabulous post.

Okay, since I have experience with Symmons shower valves, I decided to go with that brand. In the past, I have rebuilt valves like this, so I was interested in taking things to the next level. I wanted to do a complete installation. So that’s what I did.

This is the bad boy I purchased. I got the entire kit from Amazon for $99, which included the valve and all the chrome accessories that one would need to perform an install from nothing. It even came with the tub spout and the shower head. All I needed was a tub, which I already had. Here’s the exact title of the kit I purchased, in case you’re interested: Symmons S-9602P-RP Origins 1-Handle Shower Faucet, Chrome.

When it comes to projects like this, one of the most intimidating tasks is the soldering. Many folks shy away from it, when they really shouldn’t. Soldering copper pipes is a no-brainer, once you get used to it. It’s sort of like learning how to drive with a clutch. Once you get that one piece of information that you need, it makes all the difference. I’ll tell you the golden piece of information that has to do with this type of soldering below.

Let’s get going with the installation.

Before soldering any type of valve that has plastic or rubber parts in it, it’s a good idea to take the entire valve apart. Since I already purchased and still had on hand the special tool I would need to gut this thing, I used it and had no issues. Here’s a photo of the disassembled valve.

In the above photo, I included the tool that’s necessary to disassemble this type of valve. You can purchase this tool on Amazon as well.

Now, since I wanted to use Pex piping for this project as opposed to copper, I needed to solder some fittings onto this valve. The tube that leads to the tub uses a threaded fitting, so that would require some soldering and the hot and cold inputs and the shower output needed fitting soldered directly to the valve housing.

Since the valve housing for the hot, cold and shower lines were all female and my adapters were females as well, I needed to cut short pieces of copper pipe to act as males. I did that for the hot and cold lines.

I then cleaned, fluxed and assembled the Pex adapters to the copper pipes to the Symmons shower valve housing. Check this out. I love how clean everything is.

Once everything was assembled, I went ahead and did my soldering.

Okay, the trick to soldering in any direction is to heat the “joint” on the opposite side of where you’ll be touching the solder to the pipe. So let’s say you have a copper pipe with an adapter attached to it and that pipe is running horizontally. To heat the joint (the spot where the very end of the pipe touches the inside of the adapter), you’d point the torch flame directly at that point of the outside of the adapter. In this case, let’s say at the bottom. Then, you’d touch the tip of your solder to the opposite position on the top of the pipe. Take a look at this example soldering job. I had to attach the threaded fitting to the copper pipe.

Since the end of the pipe is touching deep inside of the fitting, that’s considered the joint. That’s where you point the flame. Then, you’d touch the solder to the opposite side of the pipe. When the flame heats the joint enough and that heat makes its way to the area you’re touching the solder, the solder will quickly get sucked right into the joint.

One common mistake many folks make is to use too much solder, causing drips and a very ugly work product. All you need is a bit of solder. When you touch it to the pipe and it melts, trust me, it’ll get pulled right into everyplace it’s needed. Maybe a quarter inch of solder is all you need. Just make sure you clean your pipes and adapters thoroughly with fine grit sandpaper and a brush. And use flux. Oh yeah, and use MAPP gas in the yellow bottle as opposed to the regular propane in the blue bottle. MAPP gas is hotter and it will heat up the housing a lot faster when tackling a project like this.

Here’s a photo to show you that the solder does, in fact, get pulled into the joint. Can you see the solder in the inside of this threaded adapter? Notice how it’s not pooling up because I added too much. It’s good to be cheap when it comes to plumbing. You won’t over use your supplies.

By the way, all of these adapters and piping were half inch.

This is the bottom of the soldering job.

And this is a close-up of the copper threaded adapter screwed into the valve housing, with white tape and all. Be sure to use white plumbing tape with all screwed in attachments.

Let’s now move into the bathroom, where the tub is waiting.

In this next photo, I attached the shower valve to the back of the tub. As you can see, I’ve got some room to work, since the tub is out in the open. This Symmons Temptrol shower valve gets placed right up against the back of the tub with that white plate, which is included. Then, the chrome plate gets placed up against the valve on the inside of the tub and screwed in place. The front plate and the back plate squeeze the valve in place, which is very handy because it allows for this install to be completed when the tub isn’t fitted against the wall, such as in my case.

When it comes to installing the bathtub spout plumbing, there’s a trick you can use. Go ahead and solder an elbow and a longer pipe than necessary to stick through the tub spout hole that sits beneath the valve itself. Then, dry fit a threaded adapter on the end of the pipe. After that, lightly screw the tub spout onto the adapter.

Since the pipe is too long (on purpose), you’ll need to measure the distance of the extra pipe. Record that distance and then remove the spout and the threaded adapter. Then, measure the same distance from the end of the pipe.

Mark the distance and cut the pipe at the mark. Finally, clean the pipe and threaded adapter, flux them up and solder your joint.

You should be left with the exact length you need for the tub spout. If you screw the spout back on, the back of it should perfectly touch the wall of the tub. This little trick certainly makes life a lot easier.

Okay, now let’s move onto the existing plumbing that’s contained inside the wall. As you can see in the photo below, there is some Pex tubing that’s attached to copper tubing that runs through the walls. Luckily, there are valves attached to that Pex tubing. Those valves made things much easier when it came to turning off the water. I didn’t need to shut the entire house down. All I did was turn those two valves to their off positions. Here’s another word of advice; use tons of valves in your plumbing. You’ll thank yourself one day.

Here’s an up-close look at the old valve. I don’t even know where the rest of the parts are for this thing.

And here I am using my handy dandy (and very sharp) Pex tube cutting tool to cut the Pex tube away from the valve.

Here’s the valve that’s been cut away from the rest of the plumbing.

And finally, here we are with the wall plumbing that’s ready for installation.

Since Pex adapters and attachments are so expensive, many manufacturers sell what they call “Pex tube removal tools.” These are tools that cut away the old crimps and tubing from existing plumbing. Since I purchased an IWISS Pex crimping tool as well as an IWISS Pex tubing crimp removal tool, I was able to make short work of the remainder of this project. I easily cut away the old crimps and tubes and attached my own.

I also purchased a 100 foot role of half inch tubing, of which I obviously have lots left over. I only used about four inches of it.

After I had all my plumbing the way I wanted it, I moved the tub back into place against the wall. Then, I removed the wall on the other side (in the adjacent room) and hooked everything up. I made the necessary crimps and nothing leaked at all. Check this out.

Using Pex tubing added a lot of flexibility. I was able to shift the tub around until it sat correctly in its final position. Here’s another view.

And look, the next day, I even hooked up the drain pipes, which was an adventure unto itself. I’ll tell you about that another time.

What’s best of all is that we now have a fully functional tub and shower, not that we can use it or anything. The rest of the bathroom still needs to be built out, but this is a step in the right direction.

Projects like this are quite simple to complete as long as they’re thought out, you have the necessary tools and you have access to the inside of your walls. When your ducks are in a row, everything else falls into place.

Do you have a similar bathroom project you’d like to complete? Do you have any questions? I love this kind of thing, so if so, please ask in the comment section below. I’ll do my best to answer. Thanks for reading!

Filling the Trench with Stone Dust

October 3, 2018

Do you remember the time I told you that I had to do some concrete cutting at the back of our house? If not, you can read the post where I describe the process I undertook here. Basically, the person who built this house poured the concrete pool deck right up against the pine board and batten siding. I’m guessing things have been this way since the house was builtin the 90s. When we first moved here, I took one look at the situation and knew it shouldn’t be like that and I knew I had to fix it. Finding the motivation to do such a thing was the challenge. I finally found that motivation this summer and cut the concrete about a foot and a half away from the house. I’ve got some photos of that in that post I linked to above.

To make a long story short, since I cut the concrete away from the house, I was able to use the opening in the foundation to shovel sand into the basement, which filled it up. Since that basement encapsulation project was recently completed, I thought it would be wise to fill the trench I dug out back so one of us didn’t fall into it over the winter. These things happen. Besides one of us breaking a leg, my primary concern was rot. The concrete pool deck and fill sand underneath it was right up against the house before I dug it away. In back of the siding was the band joist, which, as you can imagine, would be a real pain to replace if it was too far gone. So needless to say, I was nervous about what I’d find after I cut away the rotted pine siding.

I used my circular saw set to a specific height to cut a straight line across the siding. Take a look. I’m impressed that this part of the project came out so nicely.

Looks pretty good, right? When I cut that siding away, I couldn’t believe the the joist was still in such good shape. I will tell you that the material that was up against the siding rarely saw water from rain. We have a rather large overhang from the roof above, so that may have saved the wood. Still, with all the moisture that comes from the ground, burying wood siding with a band joist behind it is never a good idea.

The challenge I was faced with was how to keep any further moisture that emanated from the sand I was about to use to fill the area with away from the lumber under the house. I decided to go with a 30 foot long, 16 inch high piece of aluminum flashing. I figured that if I nail that right up against the house, moisture won’t be able to penetrate it an the wood would stay dry. So, I picked up a nice 50 foot roll of flashing and did my best to make things straight.

As you can see, I’ve got some good overlap with the flashing. It covers the entire band joist and part of the foundation.

To make things look nice, I screwed up a few 2×4 pieces of pressure treated lumber and then stained it dark brown to match the house.

And yesterday, I ordered and had delivered ten yards of stone dust. If you don’t know what stone dust is, it’s a coarse sand that packs really well. It’s actually the byproduct of crushed stone and it’s perfect for driveways and is oftentimes used as a base under concrete and blacktop. Since we have a gravel driveway that needs topping and since that gravel is terrible in the winter when in conjunction with a snowblower, I decided to top the driveway with this stone dust. First though, I needed to fill in the trench. I woke up at about 6am today and did a bunch of shoveling. The trench has been filled. Check it out.

You should have seen me out there packing the sand down, layer by layer, by walking on top of it in really small steps. Too funny. Anyway, I got the job done. Now all I need to do is a bit of caulking and then nail up a piece of batten to run along the top of the 2x4s. There’s a gap left behind from my cutting. I’ll do that when I get around to it. It’s not critical, such as filling in a dangerous trench was.

I’ve got about seven yards of stone dust leftover for the driveway. I’ll take my time to spread that out. I think I’ll order 18 more yards next summer for the rest of the driveway. I enjoy having sand on hand. I think I’ve become addicted to shoveling. It’s actually quite peaceful and it gives me something to chew on if I get bored.

Thanks for reading!

Encapsulating a Crawl Space is the Only Way to Go

September 30, 2018

I just went downstairs to visit my freshly encapsulated crawl space and was shocked. I was shocked by the absence of smell. Have you ever smelled a crawl space that hasn’t been encapsulated? If you have or if you’re living above one, you surely know what I’m talking about. It’s like smelling dirt. Ugly, wet and rotting dirt. That’s the only way I know how to put it.

It took about two hours to lay down the final pieces of plastic sheeting and to tape them up to the rigid foam insulation, but I did it. This entire project has been much tougher and longer lasting than I anticipated. First, I had to muster up the energy to even start the project. That took about four years.

Filling In a Basement Crawl Space

Covering Basement Crawl Space Floor With Plastic Vapor Barrier

Then, I had to figure out what I was going to do and how I was going to get any fill I ordered into the area. That took about a day.

Cutting Some Concrete

After that, I had to order 20 yards of sand and actually shovel that sand down into the crawl space and smooth it out. That took about three weeks.

I Finally Filled the Basement Crawlspace with Sand

And finally, I had to encapsulated the entire crawl space with insulation and plastic. That took about a week.

The job is almost entirely complete. I’m expecting delivery of a dehumidifier next week. That will remove any remaining humidity from the area and then we can enjoy some easy breathing. No more waves of musty odors coming from who knows where. It’s going to be so nice.

Here’s what I did to encapsulate the area down there. I had to think of a way to stop any moisture from condensing on the concrete block walls. The air is humid and warm, the walls are cool, you know what happens under those conditions. Wetness. Moisture. Dampness. Whatever. I decided that one inch rigid foam insulation would work best to hide the cool walls during the summer and would even help out keeping things warmer in the winter. I bought a case of construction adhesive and put blobs on the back of the boards and then placed the boards up against the walls. I had to creatively use tape and small strips of rigid foam to keep the boards in place, but I managed it and those things are now permanently there. That adhesive is solid.

I taped all the rigid foam seams and used Great Stuff spray foam for any corners.

Mind you, the ceiling of this crawl space was previously insulated with closed cell spray foam that acted as a vapor barrier.

Anyway, once the walls were finished, I just had to roll out my 6 mil plastic sheeting and cover the floor. My plan was to tape the plastic about a foot up the walls to make things extra good. I did that, but for some strange reason, the plastic pulled and sort of sloped. It’s not a big deal and it won’t harm the performance or goal of the vapor barrier, but I wish it didn’t look like this. If this cheaper plastic begins to degrade in a few years, I’ll purchase the good stuff and cover the walls straight down first and then lay the floor down flat. I’ll worry about that later though.

I can’t even begin to tell you how much cleaner it is down there. I just went down there with my camera to take these photos and miraculously, I don’t need to take a shower. Incredible. Here are a few more photos.

I still have to figure out what I’m going to do with the dryer vent. I may run it through a wall upstairs. We’ll see.

Since I didn’t want any moisture from the walls to leak out from above the rigid foam, I used the canned foam to seal those areas.

Okay, okay, I may have had some extra foam and had to use it up. I decided to cap off the tops of the cement block walls with it. The more foam, the better.

Here are two more shots of the seams. I’d say the area is completely sealed. I made it my mission to seal any cracks anywhere. Now, any moisture from the walls will simply slide down behind the insulation into the sand. From there, it’ll just absorb into the earth. There’s no floor under there. Only sand and dirt.

It’s kind of hard to wrap my head around the idea that there’s no way for moisture to get up through that vapor barrier. I guess that’s why they call it “encapsulation.” I can tell you that last night, the humidity level was 84%, right after I was done with the project. Today, I’m sure it’s much lower. I can feel that it’s dried up down there. I’ll measure it tomorrow. As I said, I have a dehumidifier coming next week and that’ll suck any excess moisture right up. The humidity level needs to stay below 50% to be sure no mold and mildew grows.

Actually, I’ll write another post after I get that machine. I’ll take some photos of my little hygrometer. That should be fun.

Check this out. I took a video when I was sitting down there a minute ago. It’s basically a 360 degree view of where I’ve been hanging out for the past month. A guy can get attached to an area like that. It’s weird. I sort of miss it down there. Luckily, we have another section to do in the spring.

Encapsulated Basement Crawl Space

Thanks for reading!

I Finally Filled the Basement Crawlspace with Sand

September 13, 2018

Did you know that basement crawlspaces were a “thing”? They are. There are people around this world who deal exclusively with them and there are websites dedicated completely to them. I should know. I just ordered some specialized tape from one of these websites. Crawlspaces are a hot topic on Youtube as well because they go hand in hand with the ever-popular subject of home insulation and to a lesser degree, the semi-popular structure of the home.

Okay, here’s the deal – crawlspaces are disgusting areas of a house that no one ever wants to spend any significant length of time in. Because of this, they’re often neglected and aren’t set up properly. This is especially true for older houses that aren’t up to modern coding standards. Many basement crawlspaces are damp or downright wet places that are breeding grounds for mold and rot. If you don’t attend to an area in this type of condition, your house can collapse. It’s true. Forget about the mold for a minute – your house can actually collapse. It can rot away right under your feet.

So, what’s the primary cause of mold and rot in a crawlspace? Many people think it’s water that accumulates under a home in the winter and spring. Since water tables are usually elevated during these times of the year, houses that were built in locations that are prone to either flooding or lack of drainage can have more than a foot of water sitting down in the basement for months. The truth of the matter is, most of the damage is actually caused by condensation during the humid summer months. Crawlspaces are notoriously cool and when the humid air from outside flows into these cooler spaces, the humidity condenses on anything it can and simply soaks what it touches. Think about taking a cold can of soda from your refrigerator and leaving it on your countertop at noon in July. Within an hour, you’ll have a puddle of water surrounding that soda. Now think about humid air flowing into your cool crawlspace 24 hours a day all summer long, via a vent of some other sort of air gap. All that wood down there is getting soaked to the core. And the insidious thing is, you can’t even tell it’s happening because the wood looks and feels dry. You have to use a special tool to measure the moisture content of the wood.

Our house had two issues. First, because it sits low in a high water table location, the basement would fill with about a foot of water during the months of April and May. This was just a given and I let it happen. When we first moved here, I freaked out when I saw this and I tried to pump the water out with a sump pump. That stupid thing ran all day and all night for weeks until I realized that the effort was futile. The basement kept filling up to that level, so I unplugged the pump and let it sit. It’s been that way for years. When the ground thawed, the water disappeared until the next year.

The second issue we had down there was general condensation and moisture. Apparently, there were quite a few gaps in areas that there shouldn’t have been and those gaps were letting air in. I mentioned in a previous post that we have two areas of the cement block foundation that had missing cement blocks. One of these openings was under ground and the other had the dryer vent sticking through it. Neither were sealed and when I went into the crawlspace to inspect the area, I found sitting water directly surrounding both of these spots. Also, any copper pipes above those areas had water dripping from them. Condensation is real and it works fast. It can create a four inch deep puddle overnight.

Another area of condensation was the concrete walls of the foundation. Those are generally cooler than the outside temperature, so they’re always wet. The condensation combined with groundwater leaking through the porous concrete can do a lot of damage. And finally, the dirt floor of the crawlspace itself is just plain terrible. It’s wet when it seems dry. Water incessantly evaporates from it. The problem is, covering it with plastic to stop the evaporation does little if the other issues I discussed are still allowing groundwater and condensation to infiltrate the area under a house. It’s a real mess that needs to be tackled aggressively.

I knew a sump pump didn’t work. I actually had two of them down under and they both didn’t work. The only alternative I had was to fill the crawlspace in with some sort of medium to raise the floor above the top of the outside water table. Essentially, to fill in the pond. The problem with that was, I didn’t have the greatest entry points. I considered filling five gallon buckets with sand or gravel and walking them down into the basement for about a year. Then I thought better of it. If I had tried that, none of you would have ever heard from me again. I would have jumped off a cliff half way through.

After cutting that concrete from the back pool deck (read about that here), I decided the best way to go would be to fill the basement with sand by shoveling that sand through both of those missing cement block holes I mentioned above. It was a thought, but I had no idea what type of effort would be needed until I started doing it. So I ordered some sand.

I first ordered ten yards and when the guy delivered it to me, he said that he gave me 12. It was a lot of sand and it took me about a week and a half to shovel it into a wheelbarrow, walk it around to the back of the house, dump it next to that small opening and then shovel it into the hole. Then, when I couldn’t fit anymore in, which usually took about five wheelbarrow loads, I’d have to go down into the basement to spread it around. I have no idea how many loads I had to walk around to the back of the house, but it was a horrible experience. I felt weak, it was hot outside and it was backbreaking labor.

After I finished moving the first pile, I called the sand people back and had them deliver another one. In all, I had 24 yards of sand delivered and I shoveled it all into the wheelbarrow and then shoveled it through those holes in the foundation. It was hundreds of wheelbarrow loads and I got it all done in less than three weeks. There were times when I was out there in the dark, leaning against my shovel, wondering when I would fall over. I didn’t though and as I sit here today and write, the crawlspace is chock full of all that sand. I still can’t believe it. By the way, the reason I ordered sand was because it was cheap at $11 per yard and because it shoveled easily. It also packs well.

I think I raised the floor above the water table. Take a look.

I used to be able to squat down there. Now I have to crawl and my back scrapes up against the ceiling. That’s what I wanted. For a before-view of the area, check out these photos.

Filling In a Basement Crawl Space

I still can’t believe I fit 24 yards of material down in that basement. My initial estimate was for about eight yards. It’s always more than I think.

Now that the basement has been filled and the water table issue has been dealt with, I’m tackling the condensation problem. To do this, I’m going to, what they call, “encapsulate” the area. That means that I’m going to fill in any air gaps that exist in the entire basement and then line the walls with rigid foam insulation and the floor with plastic. I already sealed the two fill holes with four inches of insulation and some very messy looking spray foam. It may be messy looking, but it’s good and solid and no air is leaking through. I’ll trim that later.

Again, that’s four inches of foam, which will give me an r-value of 20.

As I was sealing these two openings, I noticed that I could see daylight coming through from under the sill plate all around the house. All of these small leaks combined would probably equal a decent amount of humid air leaking into the basement. Since I had some of that foam sealer left over and since I have an itchy trigger finger, I decided to use up the rest of the can, sealing some of these leaks. If you ever have to use that foam for any reason, I suggest that you wear some arm and hand protection. I got a little on my arm yesterday and the foam dried. I had to shave part of my arm last night to get it off. Don’t tell anyone. It’s embarrassing.

Here’s what an unsealed sill plate looks like.

And this is what a sill plate looks like after it’s been sealed with the foam sealer.

Since I ran out of foam, I went back down today with four tubes of siliconized caulk and finished the job. I went through everything with a fine toothed comb, so I know it’s solid and there are no air infiltrations. The next step is to purchase about ten sheets of 2-inch thick rigid foam to attach to the walls using construction adhesive. This will make for a warmer basement in the winter and will create a vapor barrier to block all that moisture that comes through the walls from outside. It will also hide that cool cement surface so if any humid air does manage to get in, it won’t condense on it. I’ll tape any seams so the insulated surface is solid. After that, I’ll cover the floor with 6-mil plastic sheeting (on top of the existing plastic) and then tape that plastic to the insulation on the walls. Doing this will seal the area and no moisture from the floor or walls will be able to permeate the airspace. As a matter of fact, just by sealing the sill plate and the missing cement block areas, I can feel it drying out a bit down there. It’s incredible.

I’ll have to go to the store to get the insulation. That will cost about $30 per sheet. I ordered 12 10-ounce tubes of construction adhesive for about $56 two days ago. I also ordered a 10’x100′ sheet of 6-mil plastic for about $52, as well as a 4″x180′ foot roll of special “crawlspace” tape for about $80. Actually, it’s a 3-roll pack and it allegedly sticks to anything.

As for moving the sand around the crawlspace, most of it was straightforward. I threw each shovel full and eventually most of the basement was even. For the areas I couldn’t reach with my throwing, I built a sled to help out. I purchased a hard plastic tub from Tractor Supply as well as a pulley and some rope. I tied the rope to the tub and then snaked it through the pulley. I attached the pulley to the wall where I wanted to dump the sand. Then, I’d fill the tub, pull the rope and watch as the tub slide across the floor. Again, this was an awful experience that went on for far too long, but I got it done. I also feel a bit like a genius for coming up with the whole pulley idea.

After I encapsulate the basement, I’ll take some photos and post them here. If you have a crawlspace that’s wet, this is what you have to do to fix the situation. There’s no other alternative out there. Sump pumps can only do so much. Eventually, you’ll have to engage in some hard labor to get dry again.

Thanks for reading!

Installing a Rinnai EX38CTP Direct Vent Propane Wall Furnace

August 23, 2018

I am so excited today. I’ve been talking about having some sort of new heater installed in the house for the longest time and I finally bit the bullet and tackled the project. I almost didn’t do it, but about a month ago, I was at a friend’s house and he showed me his beautiful heat pump. I got all jazzed after seeing that. If you’re not familiar, these heat pump contraptions perform both heating and cooling and they’re allegedly very efficient. And there’s some sort of new technology that allows them to work up here in Maine all the way down to temperatures of -15 degrees. After looking at that setup for a little while though, I decided against it. I didn’t want to have to go through the trouble of having some higher amperage wiring installed and I really didn’t like the high-ish price of the unit (plus install) of about $3300. It wasn’t terrible, but the thing is, heat pumps use electricity and I’m not a fan of using electricity, even if the overall cost is less than some other heat source. I grew up having a healthy respect for what electricity costs and I just can’t seem to get over that. I’ll admit, my entire avoidance is completely irrational. I know that.

So, what did we get? A Rinnai EX38CTP Direct Vent Propane Wall Furnace. It’s so cool. I’ve been wanting one of these things for the longest time. I’ve read about them online and I’ve watched what videos are available, which really isn’t a lot. I’ve also heard tremendous things about this company and the technology they use.

I was going to initially purchase a unit online and install it myself, but then I thought better of it. First of all, what the heck do I know about propane? Nothing. I could surely have installed the unit myself, but I’m not sure we would have slept well at night at all. The idea of propane leaking out of either the tank or one of the lines doesn’t appeal to me. And since the installation cost was only a few hundred dollars and since the propane company I used is an authorized dealer, which got a pretty good price on the unit, I was happy to have them take care of everything. I did feel a bit guilty watching the guy do all the work, but I guess that’s what you have to do in situations like this.

Okay, so here are the reasons I decided on this wall unit. First of all, it’s vented outside. I bought gas logs for our fireplace when we lived back in Connecticut and they were terrible. The propane vented inside the house and I felt sick every time I fired them up. I’ll never do that again. This Rinnai unit vents outside and the combustion is sealed inside the unit. It also doesn’t use a pilot light. To ignite the flame, the unit uses electronics. It’s pretty slim and doesn’t take up a lot of room either. While it’s larger than we thought it would be, I did get the largest model available and it’s still smaller than some other alternatives.

As I mentioned above, this brand uses a lot of electronics and their claim to fame is that their thermostat detects temperature changes of a half a degree. That’s not too important to me, but I’ll take it if it’s included. We had a 100 gallon propane installed at the side of the house and the propane company ran the line from the tank, through the wall and to the wall unit. Everything was done perfectly, all the way up to the little bead of caulk the installer applied around the exhaust ring and the propane feed line on the outside of the house. It’s those details I love. But what I really love is that this is an independent heater unit that’s not connected to anything else in the house. If we wanted to, we could have more units installed in other rooms, but between our pellet stove, wood stove and now this propane furnace, I don’t think that will be necessary.

The real reason I’m psyched about this thing is that we won’t be freezing when we wake up in the morning anymore during those really cold nights over the winter. Our pellet stove is, well, let’s just say, less than stellar, so we turn it off at night. Also, the wood stove has issues with transferring its heat from one room to another overnight, so this propane furnace should fill the gaps quite nicely. As I was telling the installer, I haven’t owned something with a thermostat since moving to Maine and I’m going to be completely spoiled. I’m not going to know what to do with myself.

The entire job, with the until included came up to $2280. I also had to fill the propane tank for about $260. I have no idea how long a tank of propane will last, but it should be pretty good if we rely mostly on the pellet stove and the wood stove for the majority of our heating. I’m planning on using the propane unit just to keep things warm at night and to warm them up in the morning, if need be.

Let’s get to some very nice photos I took during the process.

I took this photo of the wall before any of the action occurred. It’s a central location in the downstairs living room.

This is the back of the Rinnai furnace. I took this right after we unboxed it. I think the installer was outside working on the tank and propane lines. That tube looking thing is the intake tube and the exhaust tube connected together. They came apart later on.

This is the entire interior propane feed line.

And this is a more up close view of the shut-off valve for the propane.

The only things this furnace requires for installation is a three inch hole for the intake/exhaust and a one inch hole for the propane feed. Here’s a picture of the exhaust hole after it was drilled.

This is a more up close view of the intake/exhaust hole that leads outside.

I’m not sure if this is a sleeve or a collar or what, but this is what goes in the hole for the intake/exhaust.

Next, we have the coupling connector thing that gets connected to the intake and exhaust tube that runs through the wall.

Here’s the unit, getting ready to be connected to the piping and propane.

Finally, we have the installed furnace. I think it looks pretty good. I got the beige instead of the white because I thought the beige would blend somewhat better with the rest of the house. Also, notice how it plugs right into a regular wall outlet. It doesn’t use that much electricity at all. Basically, it just needs power for the electronics and for the fan to blow the heat around.

Okay, enough of that. Let’s take a look at what’s outside. I’ll start off with the propane tank. We placed it at the corner of the house so it’s easy for me to snowblow a path to it in the winter.

This is the interior of the propane tank, where the gauge and the regulator are housed.

This is the back of the house. You can see the yellow propane line running across the bottom of the siding. It’s not too pretty, but maybe I’ll fix that one day somehow.

Finally, we have a few propane connections (elbows) and the direct vent exhaust port.

We fired the furnace up and it worked great. Heat poured out of it and it didn’t make much noise at all. I’m excited to see how it performs over the winter. I’ll give you an update then. Thanks for reading!

Cutting Some Concrete

August 21, 2018

I believe the job of filling the basement crawlspace in with dirt has officially begun. The hot and humid air has left the building and in its place is much cooler air that’s conducive to hard labor. My body reacts well to cool air. I can think better, fight better and actually get things done. I trust my body because when it’s time, it has a tendency to pick itself up and just do things. The guilt of sitting around dissipates and chores get checked off my to-do list.

A few days ago, I was down in the basement doing who knows what. I was crawling around on my knees, because the basement is only about 3-4 feet tall. I think I was making sure everything was okay when I noticed that we didn’t have just one cement block opening in the foundation of the house, but two. When we first moved into this house, all I saw was the one opening that the dryer vent pipe used to let the warm air escape to the outside world. To my surprise, the far side wall had an opening as well. This discovery was actually very heartening and I’ll tell you why.

The house we live in has a little water problem down in the basement. When the house was built, the builders dug out an area to place the foundation. That area is only a few feet deep. The thing is, when they dug the trench and set up all the concrete, they never back-filled the area they dug, so the basement’s center area has dirt that’s higher than that around the edges. Please see this post for a better idea of what I’m talking about.

The problem is, in the spring time, the outer area of the crawl space fills with about a foot of water. This is because of the high water table in our area. When we first moved in, I covered the dirt floor of the basement with a huge piece of plastic to stop some of the moisture from getting into the air, but as I’m sure you can imagine, that did very little while floating in all that water. I decided a long time ago, the only cure to this little problem would be to fill the basement in with something like gravel or dirt. I figured that if I could raise the basement floor up a foot or two, the top of the water table would stay underground and after that, I could line the walls and floor with plastic and create what’s called an encapsulation. I would encapsulate the entire crawl space area and any water issue we once had would be a thing of the past.

The only problem is, or was, that I had just one small opening to shovel sand into the basement. The reason for my joy regarding that second opening was that I now had two openings. That would somehow make things slightly easier. Moving 20 yards of sand from the driveway into the basement would still be an excruciating experience, but it would be marginally more simple when it came time for me to crawl downstairs to move all that dirt around, while hunched over like a troll. Instead of moving the dirt from one area, I’d have the luxury of moving it from two. Either way I look at this project, I know it’s going to be awful, but I enjoy putting a positive spin on it. After all, I did dig out an entire basement back in my heyday.

I was facing an issue though. That second opening into the basement was covered up by the concrete patio that surrounds our pool. This, in and of itself, is a huge problem because that concrete butted right up against the wood siding on the house, which was rotting out because of the moisture being transferred to it. It was a bad situation that I waited almost five years to address. But, as I said, the cooler air has inspired me to get back to work and just a few days ago, I fixed the problem. To see how the cement touched the siding, take a look at this post.

I knew I had to cut the concrete to keep things looking professional. I didn’t want to go busting through it with a sledge hammer because then I’d be buying a new patio when I was finished. If I could cut it, I could get rid of the waste and then simply dig out any soil that was touching the wood siding of the house.

I called a tool rental company down in town and asked if they had a concrete cutting saw. They did, so I drove down to pick it up ($50 rental for half-day). I knew I should have taken photos of all this, but I forgot because I was so excited about getting things done. The saw looks like a chainsaw with a huge round blade attached to it. It’s really a marvel because it cuts through concrete like butter. The entire job only took me about 20 minutes to complete and after that, I was ready to do some digging.

Here’s a photo of the concrete that I cut.

And here’s the trench I had to dig to get the sand that was under the concrete away from the house. Yes, it was all pure sand under there. No dirt, which was nice.

That digging look longer than I anticipated. It was exhausting in itself. Much more difficult than I anticipated.

Here’s a photo of the wood siding that was rotting away under the concrete. Let this be a lesson to you. Never let dirt or concrete touch your house siding. It’s not a good situation. Now I have to inspect the band joist to see if that’s rotted too. If it is, I’ll replace it. I’m good like that. There’s nothing I enjoy more than jacking a house up. Luckily, I’ve done that before too.

The real reason I did all this work was to get to that opening I mentioned above. Check it out. It’s one cement block’s worth.

The great thing about this house is that the cement blocks that were used for the foundation are 12 inches wide and they’re filled with concrete, so the entire foundation is really solid. The bad part about that is that I have to shove sand past 12 inches, instead of something much less substantial. Oh well. It’s a trade-off, I suppose.

After I was finished bashing apart the concrete that I cut, I pushed those pieces into the basement. Then, after digging up all that sand, I pushed that into the basement too. I consider that the beginning of my filling the area inside. I also called a local sand and gravel place and ordered ten yards of what they call “bank run sand.” That’s sand that’s been dug up, but not screened, so there may be some rocks in it. As long as I can shovel it into a wheelbarrow, that’s fine. It was cheap at $11 per yard and with free delivery, the entire ten yards cost just $116.05. I estimate that I’ll need 20 yards, which might just do me in. We’ll have to see about that.

In my next post on this topic, I’ll head down into the basement to show you my progress. I have a feeling that you’re just as excited about all of this as I am, so I’ll try to help out any way I can. Thanks for reading!

One Long Day with No Power

May 7, 2018

Yesterday was one very annoying day. We lost power and for approximately 20 hours, we sat here twiddling our thumbs.

So here’s how it went. It poured outside during Friday evening. It rained so hard that I could here the sheets of water hitting the roof. I took at look at the weather forecast to see what was going on and what was going to happen overnight and I saw that a line of thunderstorms was rolling through. As far as I could tell, the primary disturbance was directly on top of us. I’m guessing it was around 9pm.

We went to bed thinking it was all over. Around 1am, I woke up to a whole lot of wind. When I say wind, I mean “wind that takes the roof off the house” wind. The whole place was shaking and I swear I thought something terrible was going to happen. The wind continued for a while and I eventually fell back asleep. About an hour later, I heard the power go off…and then on…and then off again. I was like, “Uggg. Not this again.” For some reason though, I had confidence that it would come back on in a short while. It didn’t.

We woke up in the morning and I was highly agitated because we originally had a big day of hiking with friends planned. It was beautiful and clear outside. With the power off, it meant that I couldn’t contact these friends to tell them what was up. Laura and I drove down to Farmington and I emailed one of them, so that was good. At least I told him what was going on. What really stunk was that we had to go back to the house so I could hook up the generator. Just the day before, we went food shopping and we had a refrigerator and freezer full of food. I didn’t want to lose any of it. So that’s what we did. We sat at the house waiting for the power to come back on, the entire day.

Around 10pm, it did finally come back on. We were eating dinner at the table, by candlelight (which was very nice, by the way), when it clicked back on. What a relief. But what was especially frustrating was that we had just wasted a perfectly good day. We had planned on going back up to Poplar Falls for some photography and video. I was looking forward to it very much.

During some of our driving around looking for downed trees and power lines, of which there were none, we passed by our lake. I’m pretty sure I told you this before, but I’ll say it again. We have the most beautiful lake in the world here. Every single time I drive by this lake, I tell myself how lucky I am to have it so close by. It’s truly a Maine lake that you can imagine in your dreams.

We decided to stop and take some more pictures. This type of thing really never gets old. There was a light fog above the lake that I’m assuming was created by some sort of temperature difference between the air and the water. It was beautiful. Here’s the first shot I took.

Here’s another where I zoomed in on the white pine trees across the water. The area is really far away, so it’s a bit grainy.

And finally, I have one last shot of a couple who were standing around a fire pit in their back yard. I wonder if they had any idea I was taking photos of them. It certainly was a beautiful evening.

Stopping off and taking some pictures was a nice distraction from my frustrated mood. The good news is that it’s supposed to be just as sunny on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday of this week coming up as it was on Saturday. But, or course, it could snow those days. After all, Maine is part of New England. These things tend to happen up here.

Burning in the Back Yard

April 26, 2018

Up until a few days ago, I had a little problem. I had a bunch of wood in the garage that was getting in my way. The wood consisted of a very long pallet (about 10 feet) that was given to me by a neighbor to stack my firewood on as well as a wooden shipping frame that my ride-on lawnmower was delivered in. Both of these wooden items were fairly huge and right in the way of other more important things, namely the entire right bay of our very special garage/wood shed.

The plan I had stuck in my head over the winter was to wait for a nice spring day to head out to the garage with my hammer and pry bar. I’d pry the wood apart and then hammer the nails out. I figured that I would just chuck the nails and then have a bit of extra wood for projects, shelves and kindling for the wood stove.

Last week, the nice day I was waiting for arrived. Once I felt the temperature outside and realized it was high enough and when I saw the sun shining, I grabbed my tools and got to work. I worked for about ten minutes before I realized that I was going nowhere fast. Apparently, both of these items were constructed in a much more secure way than I had originally suspected. I thought I would just give each piece of wood a few whacks with the hammer and then use my pry bar to pull things away from each another. Well, I quickly discovered that the nails used to hold everything together were sort of twisted. They weren’t straight nails that usually come out quickly and easily. These were spiraled and if I had continued on with trying to pull the wood apart, I think I’d still be out there today. After ten minutes and only two pieces of about 200 deconstructed, I said, “Screw this.” There was no way I was going to get this project done. It simply wasn’t worth it. Check out the photo of the spiral type nails below. The ones I had to deal with were something like this.

Photo courtesy of Atlas Steel.

There were also dozens and dozens of brass staples that were used in the lawnmower crate. It still pains me to think that I gave up on this project, but let’s be real here. A guy has better things to do.

I remember back last year when I was telling a friend about this stuff I wanted to get rid of. His quick response was, “Burn it!” I laughed because I knew that if I burned it in a pile somewhere, I’d be left with all those nails and staples on the ground, which I’d surely regret and probably end up running over with something. Because of this, I didn’t really have a great plan in mind for what to do. Then, as I was wandering around in the driveway, trying to come up with an idea, a light bulb went off in my head. I said, “Burning barrel!” That’s right. I had a burning barrel in the shed from a few months after we arrived on this property. If I burned everything in the barrel, no nails or staples would escape into the grass area. If I was ever so inclined, I could just let the nails stay in the barrel for the rest of my life for all I care. I mean, it’s a burning barrel after all.

A few minutes after I came up with that idea, I ran inside to grab my reciprocating saw. It only took a mere moment to cut everything up into small enough pieces to (almost) fit in the barrel. I did a pretty good job, but some pieces didn’t fit and I had to get creative with them. For those pieces, I just rested them on top of the barrel and when they burned enough, they fell inside.

Anyway, to make a long story short, I had a burn-fest this past weekend. I got rid of the entire pile of wood and it only took about two hours to do so. I had flames about ten feet in the air at times and at one point, Laura even came outside to join in on the action. Luckily, she had her camera in hand and she snapped some photos. These photos were the impetus for this post. In all honesty, I just wanted to show off the really cool pictures, but I knew I had to write something to go along with it.

Here’s one without the wind blowing. Check out those ripples in the air around the heat.

Here’s another one with the wind tossing the flames around. The ripples are even better in this one. Check them out directly above the barrel at the top of the photo.

And finally, this is a photo of inside of the barrel somewhat.

It’s crazy how hot the entire area gets around a barrel like this when it’s going full force. It was about 50 degrees outside that day and I sweat the entire time. But now, at least I have that room in my garage back so I can get to stacking all my firewood once the snow melts. Yes folks, we still have snow covering about half the front yard. And to think, it was 70 degrees yesterday.

Throwing Some Heavy Wet Snow With My Cub Cadet 2X 528 Snow Blower

March 14, 2018

It’s been snowing since yesterday morning at about 9am. It’s supposed to stop some time tonight. Originally, it was forecast to stop this afternoon, but someone changed their mind. It’s all good. It’s not like it’s coming down hard or anything anymore. Last night, well, that’s a different story. It was coming down hard then.

We got 16 inches of snow about five days ago. Yesterday and today, we got about a foot more. This really has been some March. I actually thought winter was over a few weeks ago. We had that warm weather tease and I was telling people that I didn’t think it was going to snow anymore. Boy was I wrong. It did snow and now the ski mountains are back at full throttle and the snowmobilers are having the times of their lives. That’s got to be fun, especially since this snow is so deep.

We were practicing some video editing this afternoon and I came up with the idea of having some video taken of me clearing the driveway with the snowblower. I wrote a post about this blower a while back, but in case you haven’t read that one, what we have is a Cub Cadet 2X 528 SWE. It’s a decent snowblower, but if I had to do it again, I’d get something larger. The only problem with that is every step you go up, the cost goes up as well. By hundreds of dollars. When you purchase these things in the fall, you don’t think it’s ever really going to snow. The first big snowfall you get though, you wish you bought the bigger model.

Clearing the driveway with this machine is usually not much of an issue. It seems to move through even the deep snow pretty well. The problem I had today though was that with this particular type of snow, I found that the blower pushed it more than threw it. It was sort of like a plow because the snow was so sticky. I had to keep stopping to let it get through the chute. After a few passes though, I got used to it and we both finished up with no major problems.

I don’t know what it is about the snow. Every single time it’s ever snowed, during my entire life, it’s been exciting to me. They haven’t even plowed the roads yet, so we might go for a ride in the truck when I’m done with this post. Or, that might wait until tomorrow because it’ll be brighter outside. Either way, it’s a good time driving around to see what everything looks like.

Anyway, here’s the video I just put together. I feel like such a herb during these things, but at this point in my life, I don’t care. It’s all in good fun and now you get to see what I look like when I clear the driveway off. Such excitement! By the way, if you’re reading this post via email, you’ll need to click the link below to visit the video on Youtube to see it. Videos don’t come through the email. It’s also bigger over there, so you might just want to click through anyway.

Throwing Snow with my Cub Cadet 2X 528 SWE Snowblower

Thanks for reading!

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