Electrical progress

Lots of electrical progress happening. Going to start installing recessed light housings tomorrow.  Most of the switch wiring and feeds for the overhead circuits is now in place.

Note the red cable Staples.  They are a cool way to get a bunch of cables corraled within a 2x4 wall.  I will send lots more photos when it is finished.

Shingles

Shingles were installed today. Looks great!

Built out the closet in the 2nd floor front bedroom.  Very tricky with the wide opening and the sloped ceiling!

Also finished the wiring for the 2nd floor dryer outlet.  On the left side is the water supply and drain box for the washer that will be recessed into the wall.

Windows!

Today we finally got some of the windows installed.  The install is by no means complete but at least they are in place and tacked in.  They still need to be caulked and flashing needs to be installed over top of the side and top flanges.  The window opening itself gets flashing installed prior to setting the window in place but the bottom flange of the window assembly itself does not get flashed as that allows any rain that gets into the window to drain away from the wood on the side of the house.

Also today the flat sections of the roof got shingles installed.  Not much to see with that as it's not really visible from the street or the back yard.  The roofers got rained on and decided to finish early today as the steep sections were a bit too slippery.  They will return tomorrow to finish everything up.

Exterior view of the hall bath and laundry windows:

Master bath (left side) and master bedroom (right side)

Master closet fixed pane window:

Panorama of the upstairs.  TONS of natural light throughout although the absence of drywall does create a bit of an artificial effect.  Still, glad we chose windows on the larger end of the spectrum.

Also the second kitchen window opening was finally cut out today:

Moving along...

Special thanks to my dad for taking care of the landscaping around the transplanted tree to help combat some erosion that was happening.  Hopefully it can survive and thrive!

Reno day #?

Feels like the project has been going on forever.  Lots of late nights doing plumbing and electrical and that will continue for at least the next several weeks, but things are gradually coming together.

The house wrap should be finished by tomorrow, after which we do window flashing and then FINALLY the actual windows.  Roofers come on Thursday.

Matt Risinger would be proud of my drainable house wrap:-). I almost don't even want to cover it up.  Almost.

Basement apartment bath framing

Dad and I framed out the basement bathroom walls today.  Took a bit of time to get going but eventually we got our rhythm and got what we thought was a lot done.

The main driver for this was that the plumbers need the walls to be in place so they can run the plumbing vents.

Tomorrow we will finish up on the basement laundry walls and then probably switch back to electrical/wiring.

Electrical work begins

Over the weekend Dad and I ran the 1/0 SER cable to provide power to each of the three subpanels.  It was a bear to run but now each panel has power and all of the circuits for the corresponding floor can just be run over to panel on the same floor.

Next up is to actually terminate the wire inside all of the boxes and install the (3) 100-amp double pole breakers (1 for each subpanel).  Also, the basement subpanel needs to have its separate meter (not a power company thing) installed by me.

Finally, we had some help with Kim's dad starting the wiring for the outlets in one of the bedrooms.

Lots of progress all around.

2nd floor subpanel - located at the end of the hallway.

1st floor subpanel location (located centrally on the 1st floor)

basement subpanel location:

Right now it looks super ugly, but once terminated it will all look much better.

1st floor bedroom wiring...

Random progress

The housewrap install began today.  I am using a special drainable housewrap that provides for an air space between the cladding (i.e. siding) and the wrap product for any moisture to channel down to the outside.  Without this air gap it is possible that any leaks further up along the exterior walls will lead to moisture that will simply get trapped behind the siding and cause mold. It's a pretty cool product.  Dupont makes a Tyvek-based product that is dimpled but the protrusions are not rigid like with Tamlynwrap and so it can lead to waviness in the appearance of the siding.

Also, continued HVAC work today.  The new 75-gallon water heater was delivered and installed and some additional ductwork was done for the 1st floor system.

The county came today to repair the section of curb that was dug out during the water line work.  Expect/hope they will return within the next week or so to pave the road.

I made some continued progress with the master bathroom DWV plumbing.  Hope to have that wrapped up in the next few days,  Definitely starting to get the hang of things on that front.

Another view of the housewrap showing the rigid bumps.

there is just barely enough room.  At one point we thought we'd need to jackhammer out a section of the basement floor but it looks like everything should fit in place OK and have the required clearance above the flue elbow for code compliance.

Master bath plumbing: 2" shower drain at the far end, draining into 3" drain from the toilet.  Inline vents for both fixtures.

Plumbing progess

It is not pretty but it should work just fine.

1st floor bathroom plumbing is complete!  Also, I was able to run the 3" drain for the master bathroom up to the first floor.  Hopefully it will be much smoother sailing from now on...

Thanks to Dad for all of the work adding in reinforcement to the joists wherever I made holes in them.

Joist reinforcement:

I also finished the sewage ejector tie-ins and got its vent up to the first floor.  Its vent has to go all the way up to the roof.  Sewage ejectors can't share a vent with other fixtures unfortunately.

Continued HVAC progress

Not much to report today, just some photos of some additional HVAC progress.  The 2nd floor unit will not be fully installed until we have our windows installed as the company does not want the unit installed in what they consider an unprotected space.


2nd floor return (intake) air vent.  Unfortunately located right at the top of the new attic stairs!

Start of the new basement ductwork to extend ductwork for our 1st floor system and integrate forced air heat with our boilers/radiator

ductwork in the basement space

main duct running next to the steel beam in the basement.  This duct feeds one of the vents in the 1st floor family room

This is a make-up air damper.  If you have a kitchen range vent hood that is more than 400 CFM (it's either 300 or 400CFM) the new codes require that you have a way to bring fresh air in to the house when the fan is turned on.  Otherwise, there is a chance that the fan is powerful enough to suck the exhaust out of a chimney or gas hot water heater.  The make-up air damper system automatically opens a damper to allow fresh air into the return air system whenever the kitchen range hood is turned on.  It's not a super efficient design as it introduces unconditioned air into the return air system, but unfortunately is a requirement with as large of a kitchen vent hood as we will have (900 CFM).  Most HVAC contractors know about these requirements but vent hood manufacturers are still reluctant to tell people about it as they are worried it will steer consumers away from the larger (and more profitable) vent hoods.

Lots of progress! + video link

Sorry it's been a while in posting.  Up until yesterday not much had changed.  I have sort of put all plumbing work on hold until HVAC work completes, at the earliest.  I may end up hiring someone to complete the remaining DWV (drain, waste, venting) portion of the plumbing as I am getting tired of doing that.

HVAC work is in full swing right now and should be completed most likely by Friday.  It is a bit odd having one company working upstairs and another company downstairs but they're pretty much staying out of each other's way.

Also yesterday the framers were back to work on various miscellaneous framing tasks including building out the interior basement stairs wall.

We are hoping to get the fascia and rake board installed by Tuesday so that the roofers can come on Wednesday to install the shingles.

Last night I got the 2nd floor HVAC attic platform built and then Kim helped me install the attic ladder.

Finally, I did an attic video describing a few things up there.

Not sure which room this is, but the vents on the left are HVAC vents and the one on the right is a housing for a bathroom exhaust fan.

Dryer vent box

One of the 2nd floor ductwork trunks

HVAC platform in the attic.

Attic stairs opening framed up

Another view of the HVAC platform

Basement interior stairs/hallway framing

Attic ladder after installation.  The model we purchased also includes a door/lid with R-12 insulation but I decided not to install it yet so it won't get damaged during construction.

Attic video:

https://youtu.be/nLCE4jPXhC8