Home Construction Discussion

[CFP!]

Nice.

So what's the R-value of spray foam for 2x4 walls?

R24 IIRC. I am having more blow in added to my attic as I'm going to electric boiler heat and due to panel size (even with 200 amp) I need to be sure I won't get cold.

You dont have room for a heat pump/air handler on your panel? 60A/20A breaker (in most cases)

I was looking at your mech room and with the pics its tough to see the size, but will you be able to shove that boiler in the back so you wont have to dismantle the ducting/furnace to change your HW tank? I recently did a change-out for a couple who had their dream mechanical room shoved into a closet and bcs they had they boiler at the back of the room they needed to gut the room just to remove the boiler. Mega bucks, and unnecessary with planning.

If your going with an electric furnace they should be about 20X20"-ish. Just depends on it you care about a drop in that room and where the SA/RA are going.

[CFP!]

This is the guys doing the directional boring right before they brought the machine in.

Are you going geothermal? Or is this for plumbing/well?

[Vpete]

Nice.

So what's the R-value of spray foam for 2x4 walls?

R24 IIRC. I am having more blow in added to my attic as I'm going to electric boiler heat and due to panel size (even with 200 amp) I need to be sure I won't get cold.

You dont have room for a heat pump/air handler on your panel? 60A/20A breaker (in most cases)

I was looking at your mech room and with the pics its tough to see the size, but will you be able to shove that boiler in the back so you wont have to dismantle the ducting/furnace to change your HW tank? I recently did a change-out for a couple who had their dream mechanical room shoved into a closet and bcs they had they boiler at the back of the room they needed to gut the room just to remove the boiler. Mega bucks, and unnecessary with planning.

If your going with an electric furnace they should be about 20X20"-ish. Just depends on it you care about a drop in that room and where the SA/RA are going.

I don't have any ducting as it's all radiator heat. To do so would be to rip out walls and run ducting up two floors. It's not in the cards. The expansion tank is small and the actual 'furnace' is like you say about 2' x2' and mounts on the wall. The mechanical room is about 10' deep and 6' wide and the who furnace and plumbing will mount right along by the HW tank.

No Geothermal for me. I might add a AC heat pump unit with separate condenser unit which is a wall mount unit which would be like this:



The challenge with the whole project is having a centre hall plan house- your stairs simply split the floors and determine layout based on how they fit with the joists and supports. It will be a massive improvement over what was there but still odd in some ways.

[BladesofSteel]

Good stuff Vpete, keep up the good work.

[Vpete]

Good stuff Vpete, keep up the good work.

Dry wall going up now in some rooms and then we'll get into the finishing stuff. Light at the end of the tunnel.

[ODB]

It's moving long pretty quick. Sure it doesn't seem like it too you though.

[Vpete]

It's moving long pretty quick. Sure it doesn't seem like it too you though.

You know it's not too bad. Only been a month and it's summer. We're out at lake of the woods this weekend and then the acids is moving up to our cottage for 3 weeks with kids. I'll commute only 35 mins to one of my offices. I can't imagine doing this in the winter!!!

There is also something to be said for a newer home too!!! The nickname for me neighborhood is 'renovation heights'.

[BladesofSteel]

^^^It looks like South Kits/Dunbar area.

[CFP!]

The challenge with the whole project is having a centre hall plan house- your stairs simply split the floors and determine layout based on how they fit with the joists and supports. It will be a massive improvement over what was there but still odd in some ways.

If you need any info on ductless splits let me know. I installed three of the (Daiken units) last fall and love them. Go Fujitsu or Daiken, preferably the later. There are pics in this thread of what the wall mounted units look like installed. Good luck, looks like a good start.

[Vpete]

^^^It looks like South Kits/Dunbar area.

Yeah, it's the neighborhood equivalent of Dunbar/Pount Grey or Kerrisdale. No views or hills though. Lots of character houses and close to the big monster mansions.

I grew up in Dunbar so it feels a lot like home.

[Meds]

Fuck. Almost done. We've had to gut the basement, replace ALL the plumbing in the whole damn house, redo all the electrical in the basement, new carpet on the top floor and stairs, new tile in the entry, new floor in the master bedroom, new carpet on the stairs to the basement and new laminate in the basement. New drywall in the entry and a new front door. The only thing remaining is about an hour or so worth of work putting trim up in the basement (gotta wait until my brother-in-law moves out in 2 weeks), and then firing back on a few switch and plug covers. Next spring we have to replace some windows.

On the outside we have tilled the entire lawn and are just levelling it a bit before replanting. Had a major moss problem, de-thatched, the wife had a "deal" from some co-worker's brother on top soil last year. $500 for a load and then spread it. I didn't pay attention, heard the word deal, co-worker, landscape company, and not have to manually labor myself beyond spreading the grass seed. Well the dirt they brought was FULL of rocks and roots, not screened, absolute shit. Then I heard the price and found out that we got hosed. Worse still is that the loser spread it with a bobcat and thrashed the remaining lawn that we had. Since then nothing would grow. Tomorrow I have a load of screened top soil coming from a local nursery. That will be $250. I should go cut the hydraulic lines on that last morons' dump truck and bobcat. On the side we're also redoing the deck. Not a big one, more of a patio, but still, all the boards are coming off redoing the decking, the rails are gone and doing a single stair all the way around down to the ground. Hoping to have all of this done before the end of the first week of August.

House has been a DISASTER since the end of 2009. I'm glad the market is climbing nicely here in Terrace, house just got appraised again and has gone up by almost $70K since the wife purchased it in 2007. So now it will hopefully climb a bit more and be more sellable for next year so we can move to Saskatchewan where I'm hoping to go back to school.....and not buy a lemon of a house in Regina.....because fuck tossing $1600-1800 a month down the drain to rent a house (apartments are out thanks to our dogs).

[Vpete]

Mëds that some serious work. Since you seem to be planning to move are you going all out on renos or simply, fixing to sell?

We made the decision we want the basement to look like it's a new home and we'll go forward with that approach. In the end we decided that renovating and fixing the 'devil you know' is a lot better than moving. I have an ideal location with a school at one of the the block, park at the other and a school at the top of that block. Two small quaint shopping and restaurant strips equidistant apart and I'm close to downtown and only an hour door-to-door to the lake!

It's all about location as far as I can tell and I just can't find any compelling reason to change until we decide to move back to BC. Anyhow....

Taping is underway and pretty soon we'll be into the finishing stuff with millwork and more. Gotta get a new TV for upstairs. The media guys have run cable and cat 5 to three rooms and and prewired the basement main room for the sound system. Hopefully there's enough $$ left for the Anthem receiver!

[Meds]

Mëds that some serious work. Since you seem to be planning to move are you going all out on renos or simply, fixing to sell?

About 2/3 is because of nightmarish plumbing that broke in several places at mostly different times. So we figured better to get it done now and done right rather than hand the problem to someone else. We also were going to have a helluva time finding insurance after two 5 figure insurance claims in under 18 months.

The sell and move idea only entered the equation about 4 months ago when we decided that the next step for me was to go back to school for 17 months.

[Chef Boi RD]

The single biggest problem in the residential detached home construction industry. There is a general feeling out there that "you get what you paid for" when it comes to the lowest bids, joe blow six pack construction worker sure like to talk about this, but my biggest beef in the industry now is 'ya sure ain't getting what you paid for'. Here is the problem that I am seeing a lot lately in the industry, so-called reputable expensive trade companies, no matter the trade, who charge an arm and a leg for their services are not delivering the quality product the homeowner is paying through the roof far and here is why. With these so-called companies their is One Guy, the boss, the one with the talent, the one guy you want putting shit together on the job but the problem is, he is leaving the work in the hands of his employees who do not give a shit and aren't as talented and passionate about the job, cause the guy that built the company you hired is too busy running around dealing with all his ther jobs across the city and not actually doing the work himself but he is charging you like he is doing the work himself cause it's his fucking company so it must be good right? But all he is doing is leaving the actual install work in the hands of his hired 'who the fuck cares' employees whom he charges out at an arm and a leg cause it's 'his fucking company' and he is good. The funny part is, it's usually these guys who complain about the so-called certain races that are taking over the trades industry in Vancouver cause they come at a cheaper price but I tell you what, the quality work in these so-called low ball bidders from other countries are actually just as good in quality if not better cause so-called whitey tradesman with the fancy trucks and logo's has his riff raff, I don't give a shit crew doing the install instead of himself whom you think you are actually paying for to do the work.

I can't tell you enough how often ya get shitty work from companies cause they are just too busy to do the work themselves so they get their lacky employees to do the job in which the final product does not meet the price that is charged. So in short, be real careful who you hire out there folks. Don't be sucked in by the fancy logos and nice trucks and clean cut salesman, estimator with the iPAD, 9 times out of 10, your best work will be from that old, grumpy, raggedy tradesman who is not so people friendly who does the work by himself in his dumpy ol' truck and real old tools that are falling apart. Trust me, it's the fact. Or better yet, hire that cheap middle easterner that everyone loves to whine about you will get just as good as a quality product if not better than the guy with the fancy truck, website and logo's.

[BCExpat]

So RD, are you the middle eastern guy in the beat up old truck? I don't see you as the white guy with the I-pad