At Home In The Woods

[harpoonalt]

Keep em coming. I wish I had this stuff when I was building. I forgot about sound insulation. We used the sound insulation on all bathrooms and the waste pipes that went through walls. Keeps the noise down for privacy puposes and lessens the noise of flushing toilets in the night. Also on the bathroom subject. I am not affiliated with TOTO but their toilets are the best I have ever used. They are the best flushing toilet I've ever come across. We've never ever had to use a plunger on one. We originally had another toilet in our half bath because it matched our sink, but replaced it after countless problems with it. The TOTO now in their has performed flawlessly. Our friends gave us the tip and we have converted a lot of people to TOTO's.
Also, forgot about air sealing. Basically you caulk everywhere that air can infiltrate. One of those things that can slip your mind but can't be done later.
Hope all these help. You'll still wish you had done somethings diffrent and you'll forget stuff but these ideas can make your job that much easier.

 

[6sunset6]

I have a second floor bathroom right over my front entry. I used cast iron sewer pipe with rubber butt joints for the drains. Sink, tub and toilet. Cannot hear a thing. There are adapters to convert back to PVC in both directions.

 

[CurlyDave]

I still remember that in the first house I built, we hooked up the water, plywood and sheetrock in the bathrooms and then the guy helping me got in there and grunted and groaned for a while. I kept adding fiberglass until the sound was muffled sufficiently for my liking. Then we started flushing and wrapping the drain pipes with fiberglass until we achieved silence.

One of the issues was noise transmission through the heating air ducts. We rerouted then a couple of times until we got the bathroom sounds down.

Don't forget to put heat lamps on timers in the bathrooms. Getting out of the shower in a warm room is a lot nicer.

 

[sld]

This thread is priceless! These are some great ideas. You will always miss something, but keeping those forgotten things to a minimum is the goal.

We built our hose in '98 and I wish I could've read this thread while we were doing it. I may have one more move left in me (it's hard to leave when the house is paid for) and this thread will be a great resource when the time comes.

Great job Obed, and keep the pictures coming. This is definitely an educational experience.

 

[dave1949]

I am not affiliated with TOTO but their toilets are the best I have ever used. They are the best flushing toilet I've ever come across. We've never ever had to use a plunger on one. We originally had another toilet in our half bath because it matched our sink, but replaced it after countless problems with it. The TOTO now in their has performed flawlessly. Our friends gave us the tip and we have converted a lot of people to TOTO's.

The plumber who did our house used to work big commercial sites in CT. The job plumbers also had to service the construction site temp toilets. He told me once they put TOTO's in, they had next to no problems. He says they are the best too.
Dave.

 

[eepete]

On the heat lamps: get the fixture that has _two_ heat lamp bulbs, not one. One is enough to tell you that you might feel heat if your going bald. Two bulbs is what you'd expect from a heat lamp.
One of my winter projects is to change ours out. That's easier than growing more hair.

Don't forget to put the master bath fan on a two way switch, one by the door and one by the toilet. Get the remote squirrel cage fan (Broan makes it, can order from box store). All the air movement, none of the noise. Up to 4 inlets so you can strategically place them.
Also, block in the bathroom for hand towels by sink, grab bars by the shower and toilet and towels for the shower. Another "trick" I did was put two towel racks right by the shower (vertically), and put a air duct/register such that it blows down around the towels. They dry faster, and in the summer don't get that moist towel funk smell.

There's no delicate way to discuss bathroom features...

Pete

 

[charlz]

Do not put hot air outlets under desks.

I put a return air vent in each room. Otherwise a room will be cold if you close the door.

Speaking of which... what is the plan for heating and AC? Our house in Vegas had a separate heating/AC unit for each floor. Since all our bedrooms were upstairs this was really nice as the downstairs could go hot/cold with the season and the programmable thermostat would turn on a bit before we got up in the morning to make it comfortable. This was a nice feature that I miss in our current house.

That house also had all the ducting overhead so you didn't have to worry about blocking vents with furniture etc. Another nice feature we don't have in our current house.

 

[Obed]

Speaking of which... what is the plan for heating and AC?

We will have a combination furnace/heat-pump to service the main floor. The basement will get its own heat pump when we finish the basement. If we ever finish the 2nd floor (unlikely), it will have it's own heat pump that will sit on the 2nd floor.

Obed

 

[Obed]

Clogged Kitchen Drain
Tuesday night around 9 PM the camper's kitchen sink drain completely clogged. It had been gradually getting worse for a few weeks but finally became unusable. The kitchen sink has a removable trap. What a great idea. You just unscrew by-hand the nuts that connect each of the threaded ends of the trap. So, I removed the trap thinking that I could clean the gunk out of it and be done. No such luck. The trap did have lots of gunk in it by that didn't unclog the drain. So I then ran a thin coat-hanger through the drain to no avail. Next I pushed a 3/8 inch clear plastic hose into the drain. This attempt also failed. So I took a sewer snake, climbed up on the roof of the camper and ran the snake through the roof vent. No luck here either. The snake was too large to negotiate the 90 degree drain pipe turns. So my wife washed our dishes in the bathroom bathtub. Not fun.

The next day, I bought the 25' long wire coil snake shown in the picture at a True Value hardware store just 5 minutes away. I love True Value stores. I can get in and out in 5 minutes. Help is always easy to find. I could never get in and out of a Lowes or Home Depot in 5 minutes.

That evening, I was able to unclog the drain. Unclogging the drain gave me some momentary happiness.

 

[Obed]

I had a talk with the construction manager today. I offered him a bonus if he meets some objectives of mine that I had listed on a sheet of paper. The more objectives he meets, the better will be his bonus.

We also talked about the basement framing. We are going to add additional jack studs around the basement windows and doors to meet the IRC 2003 (Internation Residential Code) specs for walls that support two center-bearing floors. IRC 2003 is the code book used by our county. For our house, the table in the code book specifies that we must have 2 jack studs on each side of our basement doors and windows (each opening is approx. 3 feet wide).