At Home In The Woods

[Obed]

I put some hydraulic cement around this gas line today. Where the gas lines enters the house will be below grade.

Our helper fixed some drywall nailers that the first framer didn't do well. We also fine-tuned the duct work for the master toilet vent. The H&A guy installed the duct so that water condensation in the duct would drain into the house instead of to the outside. I had even given the installed explicit instructions the morning he installed the duct that I wanted the duct to be installed so that water would drain to the outside. Sometimes you just have to shake your head.

In addition, I nailed some sheathing and house wrap on the end of the garage. We had the framer fix some stuff that the first framer didn't do right. After the repairs, some of the house wrap needed re-nailing. While nailing the house wrap today, I noticed some sheathing that had not be adequately refastened after the repairs had been done. So I spent some time re-nailing some pieces of sheathing on the end of the garage.

Today I also graded the driveway where the electric trench had crossed the driveway and put down some gravel. Most of the trench settling has occurred by now.

 

[Obed]

The brick work is almost done on this end of the house.

I can't really explain how good it feels to see brick finally going up. We pay the brick sub on Fridays based on how many bricks have been installed. Yesterday the wife and brick sub counted 5700 bricks to that point; the sub got his first payment. More brick got laid today. This picture shows what was done by the end of today.

 

[TBDonnelly]

When I got stung by the wasp beside my eye........
Obed

A pharmacist friend of our's recommended a product called 'Prid' for bee stings and mosquito bites. A few weeks ago I had the distinct pleasure of trying the 'Prid' out first hand. It calmed the area around the bee sting quickly. I was pleased with the results.

Buy Smile's PRID Homeopathic Drawing Salve Online at drugstore.com Reviews - Page 2

Don

 

[Obed]

Question. How can I preserve this chair so that it won't rot?

 

[CurlyDave]

You might not particularly like my answer, but the only way I know to preserve most wood in an outdoor environment is frequent liberal application of Coppergreen or equivalent.

This will turn the wood green with each application although the green color fades with time.

I have recently seen zinc-based wood preservatives, but I don't know how effective they are.

 

[Obed]

Basement Insulation Question

We are trying to figure out how to insulate the basement. The basement has 2 walls that are poured concrete and are completely below grade. The other 2 walls are framed walls completely above grade (i.e. walk-out basement). There is (will be) a single car garage in the basement. We have 24" floor trusses below the 1st floor and basement.

We hope to eventually finish the basement. When we finish the basement, we intend to put in a drop ceiling so that we will be able to access the plumbing, wiring, ductwork, etc. above the basement ceiling. We need to protect the plumbing from freezing while the basement is unfinished.

Some insulation subs have told us to put insulation batting below the 1st floor. Others have said to put insulation batting on the basement walls and leave the 1st floor uninsulated.

Do you guys have some suggestions regarding how we should insulate the basement?

Thanks,
Obed

 

[dstig1]

Nice looking brick!

As for the basement, this sums it up nicely:
Info-511: Basement Insulation — Building Science Information

Basically: 2" of XPS on the inside of the masonry, seams sealed, spray foam to seal the rim joist (impossible to seal otherwise) plus spray over the top of the XPS sheets to seal it all up. Hard to beat this.

The framed walls should be insulated like the rest of the house's framed walls.

-Dave

 

[Obed]

Nice looking brick!

As for the basement, this sums it up nicely:
Info-511: Basement Insulation — Building Science Information

Basically: 2" of XPS on the inside of the masonry, seams sealed, spray foam to seal the rim joist (impossible to seal otherwise) plus spray over the top of the XPS sheets to seal it all up. Hard to beat this.

The framed walls should be insulated like the rest of the house's framed walls.

-Dave

Dave,
That's a great site. Good article. Thanks. Unfortunately, the article stated that a basement needs to be conditioned, to insulate the exterior walls and not to insulate the floor between the basement and 1st floor. While heating and cooling the basement may be ideal, I can't say we want to heat and cool a 2100 SF unoccupied basement.

Obed

 

[dstig1]

Not going to condition it AT ALL, or just to a lesser degree? It's kinda tough to not condition interior space and have it remain happy in the long term. Plus your foundation is counting on at least a bit of heat from the inside. I also think you'll find if you condition the basement that it won't add as much as you may expect to the heat bill (heat rises...), though AC could be more of an issue in your area. You can set the Tstat back a few steps from the upstairs setting until you want to start using the lower level.

 

[eepete]

Our basement walls are the Superior brand walls- precast concrete with R12.5 blue-board foam insulation on the inside. Like your house, ours in sort of built into a hill, so only about half the wall surface area is exposed to the outside. We have 5 windows and a double door exposed to the outside. When the slab was poured, we had to put insulation under the slab along the areas where the perimeter was exposed to outside air (about 1/4 of the perimeter).

So all this makes our basement "conditioned space". One of our heat pumps has a 10" duct that runs to a the opposite corner of the basement from a return duct. So whenever that heat pump runs, the is a little air circulating in the basement. This is more than enough to keep the basement at an OK temperature and keep humidity down in the summer. Typically there is no people traffic or door traffic. Heating is not a problem because you have a huge concrete slab on the 55 degree ground pumping heat into the basement.

We did do a single pass (about 1 to 2 inches) of spray foam insulation under the master bedroom on the 1st floor for both sound and temperature. Someday, we will be zoning the HVAC system and this was preparation for that day. This was the commercially applied open cell foam. This is also what we used at the bands (rim joist, joist cavity, where the floor joist come into the outside walls) since that is a very hard area to insulate with fiberglass.

Your basement is interior space, and you have to put insulation somewhere (either the ceiling or walls). I'd go for the walls and move a little air when your HVAC system is running. No need for a fully conditioned space with it's own thermostat until there is people activity there. Cheapest route is put up the blue-board sheets yourself and do the bands with fiberglass for now. You could use some spray foam from some cans if there are impossible areas. Middle route (cost wise) is put up blue-board and then have spray foam over that to seal it and get the bands done right. You should get a quote, i'm guessing it would be 2-3K. Also price all spray foam (no blue board) as the delta cost may be the cost of the board, but you've saved a lot of time.

Anyway, that's what we did. Key concept here is you already have interior space, you can't just bottle it up, and it doesn't take much air movement to keep it under control.

Pete