Soldato
That basement looks huge! Where are you in the world?
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My House Renovation Thread
- Thread starter Amp34
- Start date
Soldato
- Joined
- 25 Aug 2010
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I've done a couple of basement fit outs in Calgary (all remotely) you'll find the building permit guys at the local council are very helpful in comparison to what we have here...
Good luck with it, are you doing the work yourself? If not Calgary is a pain to find good (reasonably priced) contractors!
Good luck with it, are you doing the work yourself? If not Calgary is a pain to find good (reasonably priced) contractors!
Man of Honour
Surprised to see wooden buildings even up in Canada given how cold it gets. Is the insulation good enough to retain the heat through wooden walls?
He's in Calgary, Canada.
He's in Calgary, Canada.
Brick has virtually zero thermal property Gilly. Wooden or masonry construction alike it is (virtually) the insulation alone which makes up the U value of a wall. 
We just built a sizable extension so ive just been through the whole U-Value calcuation thing. A timber frame building is actually much easier as you can pack between the studs to a greater depth than a masonry cavity wall.
We just built a sizable extension so ive just been through the whole U-Value calcuation thing. A timber frame building is actually much easier as you can pack between the studs to a greater depth than a masonry cavity wall.
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Soldato
- Joined
- 25 Aug 2010
- Posts
- 3,029
Most small development over there is timber - it's pretty abundant.
the way they heat their houses (furnaces/blown air from basements) works a bit differently too - but generally timber frame is much more responsive to heating so it makes sense rather than having lots of mass to heat up first... the biggest issue is the overheating in the summer really as it's difficult to regulate and ventilate without using some form of mechanical ventilation... but then you just go and sit in the basement!
Man of Honour
Brick has virtually zero thermal property Gilly. Wooden or masonry construction alike it is (virtually) the insulation alone which makes up the U value of a wall.
Fair enough, I just assumed the thermal properties of brick would be greater given their mass in comparison to wood. You know what they say about assumptions!
Yeah I was aware of it's abundance across the whole continent. I didn't know if it was due to weather patterns and them getting flattened every 5-10 years and being easier to rebuild wood
Haha i know, i was surprised at just how close to absolutely zilch a masonry wall calculates to be.
Go and find a U value calculator and plug in a literally a metre or more thick stone wall for example...its U value would fail building reg requirement by miles.
No wonder my old stone house is absolutely freezing in the old part despite the very thick walls.
Man of Honour
Interesting
As one of the less hare-brained ideas I've had I was going to build a wooden out-house at the end of the garden. I put myself off given how cold our sunroom can be in winter, but perhaps a properly built modern one is worth looking at again.
As one of the less hare-brained ideas I've had I was going to build a wooden out-house at the end of the garden. I put myself off given how cold our sunroom can be in winter, but perhaps a properly built modern one is worth looking at again.
Yep its all about the insulation, pack it full of that and itll have better values than your house if it is not a brand new house. Had we been allowed to use timber frame for our extension it would have been one hell of a lot easier to meet the requirements. As it stood due to being forced into stone construction due to planning law we had to go for a very wide cavity making the walls really thick which ate into the interior space 
Soldato
- Joined
- 25 Aug 2010
- Posts
- 3,029
Interesting
As one of the less hare-brained ideas I've had I was going to build a wooden out-house at the end of the garden. I put myself off given how cold our sunroom can be in winter, but perhaps a properly built modern one is worth looking at again.
it all depends how you detail and construct it - most timber garden buildings/summerhouses are just built as cheaply as possible with minimal insulation.
A proper timber framed outhouse would be fine (timber frames are also a good bit lighter than traditional construction so you can potentially get away with lighter foundations...)
To put this in perspective this house/bungalow has a 2x4" construction (they swap the measurements around...) with 4" of insulation added between studs in the wall, plasterboard on the inside and then a vapour barrier (plastic sheeting or similar) and then the exterior finish (siding in this case). More modern houses built in the last 30 years have 2x6 construction, which means 6" of insulation and code/laws are apparently moving towards 2x8 construction, which is far more insulation than most British houses. I know our old house had no insulation between brick walls and the extension built about 14 years ago only needed 2" of insulation, although I understand it's got a lot thicker recently.
Sorry for the lack of updates. I moved in about 3 weeks ago but we only just got internet a few days ago. Hopefully things will be more regular from now on.
Things have been moving along nicely here so far. As mentioned in the OP the house is in need of a lot of TLC, even the finished level (the main level), to get it to the standard we want. Some things are little, such as upstairs painting the skirting and moulding white, which my other half has been doing. They sprayed the same paint on the walls, skirting and ceiling, a grey/yellow magnolia. It gave a great finish on the walls but it's a little odd with everything the same. The woodwork is looking much nicer now it is white. I think we're going to leave the ceiling as that's a major job and would probably involve re painting the walls.
A couple of days after we got off the plane we started on the roof, by far the most important aspect of the renovation. We needed to get it done in good weather, which it turns out is in abundance in Calgary this time of year. In the three weeks I've been here we had 2 cold days (one with wet snow) and the rest have been 20 degrees with hardly a cloud in the sky.
Blue sky and T-Shirt weather and then this happens...
First job was to move the shingles and other multiple layers of underlay onto the roof, mainly because we were too cheap to pay the extra money for a rooftop delivery...
Next job was to strip the roof of the old shingles, which are basically fibreglass sheets impregnated with asphalt and coated in gravel. We used a roofing shovel, which is basically a normal shovel but with a serrated front edge to catch and remove the nails holding the shingles on. Once removed we checked the plywood roof for any rot and replaced a couple of small bits with new 3/8" ply.
Next step is to add adhesive "Weathersheild", essentially felt with an adhesive underside, to all areas prone to leaks -eaves, ridges, valleys and edges before coating the rest of the breathable membrane (the blue stuff). At this stage the roof is basically waterproof on its own but, like Inception, we need more layers!
We installed dedicated starter strips along the edges, these are essentially half width shingles in their own right. After that it's the actual shingles, which with a nail gun went on relatively quickly, except for the fiddly bits around ventilation and valleys. We added extra ventilation at the ridges while we were at it, capping it all off with ridge caps to finish the roof.
Part finished, just the back side to do.
While I've helped on a couple of roofs and my dad (who is providing significant help) has done a lot, neither of us had done any shingle roofs. It was a major learning experience, but on the other hand it was a lot easier in many ways than UK roofs, largely because of the shallow pitch of the roof and the solid roof, making moving around a lot easier.
Things have been moving along nicely here so far. As mentioned in the OP the house is in need of a lot of TLC, even the finished level (the main level), to get it to the standard we want. Some things are little, such as upstairs painting the skirting and moulding white, which my other half has been doing. They sprayed the same paint on the walls, skirting and ceiling, a grey/yellow magnolia. It gave a great finish on the walls but it's a little odd with everything the same. The woodwork is looking much nicer now it is white. I think we're going to leave the ceiling as that's a major job and would probably involve re painting the walls.
A couple of days after we got off the plane we started on the roof, by far the most important aspect of the renovation. We needed to get it done in good weather, which it turns out is in abundance in Calgary this time of year. In the three weeks I've been here we had 2 cold days (one with wet snow) and the rest have been 20 degrees with hardly a cloud in the sky.
Blue sky and T-Shirt weather and then this happens...
First job was to move the shingles and other multiple layers of underlay onto the roof, mainly because we were too cheap to pay the extra money for a rooftop delivery...
Next job was to strip the roof of the old shingles, which are basically fibreglass sheets impregnated with asphalt and coated in gravel. We used a roofing shovel, which is basically a normal shovel but with a serrated front edge to catch and remove the nails holding the shingles on. Once removed we checked the plywood roof for any rot and replaced a couple of small bits with new 3/8" ply.
Next step is to add adhesive "Weathersheild", essentially felt with an adhesive underside, to all areas prone to leaks -eaves, ridges, valleys and edges before coating the rest of the breathable membrane (the blue stuff). At this stage the roof is basically waterproof on its own but, like Inception, we need more layers!
We installed dedicated starter strips along the edges, these are essentially half width shingles in their own right. After that it's the actual shingles, which with a nail gun went on relatively quickly, except for the fiddly bits around ventilation and valleys. We added extra ventilation at the ridges while we were at it, capping it all off with ridge caps to finish the roof.
Part finished, just the back side to do.
While I've helped on a couple of roofs and my dad (who is providing significant help) has done a lot, neither of us had done any shingle roofs. It was a major learning experience, but on the other hand it was a lot easier in many ways than UK roofs, largely because of the shallow pitch of the roof and the solid roof, making moving around a lot easier.
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Next job was getting the permits for the next stage, the basement redevelopment and increasing the size of several of the windows, which are pokey 2'6" high things. That involved a few basic drawings of the basement layout and side exposures of the house with the changes. Nicely you can also get homeowner permits here to do electrics and plumbing (but not gas). You do the wiring and they come and check before you put the plasterboard on and then when the place is finished.
We had a few days to sort out the final room layout, which is reasonably different to the preliminary plan I showed in the OP. That's mainly because of all the ducts for the forced air heating system they have over here. Moving the bathroom to the other side also made some of the plumbing easier for the shower and toilet, although we still needed to move the cast iron downpipe draining the kitchen sink and washing machine as it was slap bang in the middle of the corridor to the laundry room.
Changing the plumbing means we have had to bash through the concrete floor in a couple of places to reach the sewer pipes underground. A couple of hours with a sledgehammer and pick axe and we had two nice holes showing the pipes. We then cut through the pipes with a reciprocating saw and installed ABS plastic pipe using rubber couplings so we could attach the wastes from the fixtures.
Digging out the bathroom sewer pipe
Moving the kitchen down pipe and connecting the ABS pipe to the cast iron pipe.
All in all that part has taken about 2-3 days part time but we are almost finished there, we just need to trace the above ground wastes around the walls to each fixture location. The next bit of the plumbing is going to be removing a lot of the extraneous copper piping that seems to have accumulated over the years, as well as moving other bits that is impeding framing and installing the ceiling. All the new stuff is going to be PEX as it'll be a lot easier to trace it through gaps.
As you can see from some of the images we've also been busy putting the framing in and wiring the place. The blue material under the walls is called DMX One Step, which is an insulation and vapour barrier in one.
One of the major worries about basements is damp, flooding and ultra high humidity is a major issue. Luckily (cross fingers) our basement is relatively dry due to the location but we aren't taking any risks. The concrete was poured straight on the dirt and there is no insulation beneath so the DMX also acts as a small bit of insulation as well as keeping any water coming through the concrete away from the flooring and framing. The dimpling allows air circulation and the moisture to escape and used in conjunction with poly on the walls should provide a good seal when the seams are taped. The benefit of this stuff over other vapour barriers/insulating sub floors is the ease of install. It comes in 30 foot rolls - you just roll, cut with a Stanley knife and tape the seams. We can then install 3/4" engineered hardwood straight on top, helping with our headroom issue (we only have 7'5").
We have pretty much finished the framing, we just have a few small bits to finish around cupboards and the head trimmers for the doors, which will come when we have decided exactly what we want to put on the floors. The electrical wiring is also mainly done, just a few fiddly bits to go and the wiring up of the lights in the theatre area. I'm still trying to work out the best configuration for the lights that take into account joist location and the low ceiling around the bar area (due to the ducts). I had hoped to have had a lot of the network cabling in as well, unfortunately i managed to order the wrong cable and need to get some more... I also need to install some conduit and speaker cables for the surround sound.
We probably have another week to finish the framing, all the plumbing and the electrical stuff, then we need to organise the inspections (hopefully end of next week) and then we can start on the really fun stuff, cutting out the egress windows (window in the bedroom and rec room). The walls are 6" concrete so we are going to use either a 12" diamond blade saw or a concrete chainsaw. After that its putting up the 100 sheets of 8x4' plasterboard/drywall.
I've also ordered a new back door and will shortly be ordering the windows, those will hopefully arrive in about 3-4 weeks. I'm hoping to get the basement mostly finished and the windows in before the end of November. We shall see!
Hopefully I'll be able to update this thread on a more regular basis from now on.
Apologies for the tiny and tilted photos, I need to email myself bigger photos from my phone in future. I'll also grab a few more photos of the finished pipework and other bits shortly.
We had a few days to sort out the final room layout, which is reasonably different to the preliminary plan I showed in the OP. That's mainly because of all the ducts for the forced air heating system they have over here. Moving the bathroom to the other side also made some of the plumbing easier for the shower and toilet, although we still needed to move the cast iron downpipe draining the kitchen sink and washing machine as it was slap bang in the middle of the corridor to the laundry room.
Changing the plumbing means we have had to bash through the concrete floor in a couple of places to reach the sewer pipes underground. A couple of hours with a sledgehammer and pick axe and we had two nice holes showing the pipes. We then cut through the pipes with a reciprocating saw and installed ABS plastic pipe using rubber couplings so we could attach the wastes from the fixtures.
Digging out the bathroom sewer pipe
Moving the kitchen down pipe and connecting the ABS pipe to the cast iron pipe.
All in all that part has taken about 2-3 days part time but we are almost finished there, we just need to trace the above ground wastes around the walls to each fixture location. The next bit of the plumbing is going to be removing a lot of the extraneous copper piping that seems to have accumulated over the years, as well as moving other bits that is impeding framing and installing the ceiling. All the new stuff is going to be PEX as it'll be a lot easier to trace it through gaps.
As you can see from some of the images we've also been busy putting the framing in and wiring the place. The blue material under the walls is called DMX One Step, which is an insulation and vapour barrier in one.
One of the major worries about basements is damp, flooding and ultra high humidity is a major issue. Luckily (cross fingers) our basement is relatively dry due to the location but we aren't taking any risks. The concrete was poured straight on the dirt and there is no insulation beneath so the DMX also acts as a small bit of insulation as well as keeping any water coming through the concrete away from the flooring and framing. The dimpling allows air circulation and the moisture to escape and used in conjunction with poly on the walls should provide a good seal when the seams are taped. The benefit of this stuff over other vapour barriers/insulating sub floors is the ease of install. It comes in 30 foot rolls - you just roll, cut with a Stanley knife and tape the seams. We can then install 3/4" engineered hardwood straight on top, helping with our headroom issue (we only have 7'5").
We have pretty much finished the framing, we just have a few small bits to finish around cupboards and the head trimmers for the doors, which will come when we have decided exactly what we want to put on the floors. The electrical wiring is also mainly done, just a few fiddly bits to go and the wiring up of the lights in the theatre area. I'm still trying to work out the best configuration for the lights that take into account joist location and the low ceiling around the bar area (due to the ducts). I had hoped to have had a lot of the network cabling in as well, unfortunately i managed to order the wrong cable and need to get some more... I also need to install some conduit and speaker cables for the surround sound.
We probably have another week to finish the framing, all the plumbing and the electrical stuff, then we need to organise the inspections (hopefully end of next week) and then we can start on the really fun stuff, cutting out the egress windows (window in the bedroom and rec room). The walls are 6" concrete so we are going to use either a 12" diamond blade saw or a concrete chainsaw. After that its putting up the 100 sheets of 8x4' plasterboard/drywall.
I've also ordered a new back door and will shortly be ordering the windows, those will hopefully arrive in about 3-4 weeks. I'm hoping to get the basement mostly finished and the windows in before the end of November. We shall see!
Hopefully I'll be able to update this thread on a more regular basis from now on.
Apologies for the tiny and tilted photos, I need to email myself bigger photos from my phone in future. I'll also grab a few more photos of the finished pipework and other bits shortly.
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Things are going along here at a steady pace. We have finished the framing and all but completed the plumbing (1 laundry sink, 1 bar sink, 1 bathroom sink, toilet, shower, washing machine... as well as removed some redundant older pipe and changed over some other plumbing). We went with PEX throughout on the newer supply pipes so stuck a little manifold into the mechanical room so it's easy to turn off individual parts.
Canada doesn't do ring mains, you can only have up to 12 outlets (plugs/ights etc) on a circuit, with many circuit only allowed one... That means lots of circuits and a bigger panel needed.
It's going to be a sub panel, connected by a breaker to the smaller panel to the right for the time being. Eventually the small panel will go and everything terminate into the new one. Wiring the panel is basically the only electrical stuff we need to finish.
This is essentially what my circuits (for the basement) look like.
We need to organise a rough inspection for the electrics in the next few days, as well as sort out the plumbing inspection. After that it's just a framing inspection and we can stick on the drywall...
The last couple of days have had another major milestone ticked off. We cut out the two basement windows. There are 5 windows, all short narrow ones, we wanted two larger ones so hired a 16" concrete cutter to extend the windows downwards. Now there is one opening on each side that will fit a 38x38" window and let in a lot more light.
My dad giving it some welly...
Finished window on the other side of the house. We cut the drive concrete with a 7" grinder a couple of days ago and then dug the holes in preparation. Currently they are sealed up with OSB until the windows arrive (should be in the next week or so) and then we will attach the frame properly and install the windows.
It's been a very satisfying few days as most of the stuff over the last couple of weeks has been fiddly and the kind of jobs that don't appear to actually progress, even with solid 8-10 hour days. Two big holes and two big windows is a big change!
Next few days will be finishing off the electrics and finishing the window wells ready for inspection when the windows arrive.
EDIT: For some reason the image hosts rotate the first image, no idea how to solve that one...
Canada doesn't do ring mains, you can only have up to 12 outlets (plugs/ights etc) on a circuit, with many circuit only allowed one... That means lots of circuits and a bigger panel needed.
It's going to be a sub panel, connected by a breaker to the smaller panel to the right for the time being. Eventually the small panel will go and everything terminate into the new one. Wiring the panel is basically the only electrical stuff we need to finish.
This is essentially what my circuits (for the basement) look like.
We need to organise a rough inspection for the electrics in the next few days, as well as sort out the plumbing inspection. After that it's just a framing inspection and we can stick on the drywall...
The last couple of days have had another major milestone ticked off. We cut out the two basement windows. There are 5 windows, all short narrow ones, we wanted two larger ones so hired a 16" concrete cutter to extend the windows downwards. Now there is one opening on each side that will fit a 38x38" window and let in a lot more light.
My dad giving it some welly...
Finished window on the other side of the house. We cut the drive concrete with a 7" grinder a couple of days ago and then dug the holes in preparation. Currently they are sealed up with OSB until the windows arrive (should be in the next week or so) and then we will attach the frame properly and install the windows.
It's been a very satisfying few days as most of the stuff over the last couple of weeks has been fiddly and the kind of jobs that don't appear to actually progress, even with solid 8-10 hour days. Two big holes and two big windows is a big change!
Next few days will be finishing off the electrics and finishing the window wells ready for inspection when the windows arrive.
EDIT: For some reason the image hosts rotate the first image, no idea how to solve that one...
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Yea, I need a piece of that action too.
floorplanner.com - Great website.
MikeB, just look at websites like Houzz.com/co.uk and copy others.
Got past a few significant milestones over the last few days. We passed two inspections - Electrical and Building, so now we can finally start putting up the plasterboard.
I ordered a new back door and two larger windows a few weeks ago. They finally arrived yesterday so we now have windows in the holes we cut out and a new fibreglass back door.
We also switched on one of the new light circuits and ripped out the last of the old wiring in the basement which is another large milestone. Things are coming along nicely!
I'll try and get some photos up tomorrow.
MikeB, just look at websites like Houzz.com/co.uk and copy others.
Got past a few significant milestones over the last few days. We passed two inspections - Electrical and Building, so now we can finally start putting up the plasterboard.
I ordered a new back door and two larger windows a few weeks ago. They finally arrived yesterday so we now have windows in the holes we cut out and a new fibreglass back door.
We also switched on one of the new light circuits and ripped out the last of the old wiring in the basement which is another large milestone. Things are coming along nicely!
I'll try and get some photos up tomorrow.
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Bedroom window (top right window on plan above)
Rec Room window (top left)
They aren't quite finished. I need to install the flashing and create a curb around the first one but that shouldn't take too long hopefully.
Got the windows and door in just in time, it snowed the other day...
Things are progressing quickly now. We have almost all the plasterboard (80-90 sheets) up and have taped and filled most of the holes. Hopefully after a quick final sand down of most of the walls and ceilings tomorrow we can start putting the undercoat/primer on! I want to start the bathroom tiling either tomorrow or Saturday too.
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