I Passed the Framing Inspection

This morning I wasn't feeling well and decided to stay home. I got up, took care of a couple minutes of work and left an early morning message for the building inspector that I was ready for my inspection. Then I went back to bed.

The building inspector called me back while I was sleeping and said he could drop by today at noon. I loved the fact that he called me back right away and the timing worked out pretty good because I was home sick.

He came in at noon with a trainee. She was the one filling out the paperwork (that I will scan and post later) and it only took a couple of minutes. She checked my work versus the design and the special notes from the permit. Most notably the size of my door (32") and the height of the soffit (I'm well above the 6' 5" required). She was also concerned about the R value of the insulation in between the joists (needs to be R20). I stated that it was existing insulation and hadn't changed it ... so that was fine. I asked a few of questions concerning insulation / vapour barrier:

Q: Can I go to the floor with the insulation or should I leave space?
A: They recommend I leave a space of at least 1' in case I have a flood. In that situation the insulation will wick the water upwards. And instead of replacing more drywall I would only have to replace the bottom bit.

Q: Do I need felt paper behind the insulation?
A: Yes. It keeps the insulation away from the exterior wall and helps keep it from falling.

Q: Staple vs Sealant to attach the vapour barrier.
A: Both are fine as long as I remember to make sure the vapour barrier goes in between the joists. I will try the acoustic sealant first and if that is too difficult to work with I will move to staples.

Q: How do I work to old insulation with the new stuff?
A: Overlap them at least 4" and tuck tape the seams.

Q: I would like to insulate the wall separating the laundry room and the rec room. What should I use to enclose to insulation.
A: Vapour barrier is fine.

Q: I'm planning on reusing the existing heating vent and how far down should I bring it.
A: You don't have to bring it to the floor but the fresh air intake should come to the floor.

He answered most of my questions while she filled out the paperwork. She showed me the notes and told me I passed. I said I should see them in a couple of weeks. I showed them out and went back to sleep... still not feeling well. The whole thing only took about 15 minutes.

Next step is electrical and venting. I'm slightly ahead of schedule because the inspection got done so quickly. I had 7 days allocated for inspection to give me a buffer for scheduling. Electrical (including coax and cat5) needs to be completed by December 5th for me to stay on schedule.

Framing done ready for inspection

I haven't been working on the basement much lately. Thursday night I had hockey. Friday night I had lacrosse. Saturday I worked on the last bit of soffit work.



Monday night I finished it off...



Installed the pocket door temporarily with the sheets stapled to the framing to keep my nosey cat out.

I also moved the insulation downstair and moved the scrap wood into the garage.

I forgot to mention that I didn't do any work on Sunday because I wasn't feeling well. All I did was lay around and watched football.

I'm all done framing and I'm ready for my inspection.

Mistake number two

I know I haven't been updating lately but don't you worry I have been working hard.

On Monday night I installed the pocket door. It seemed to go in pretty well unfortunately I didn't realize until it was in that I didn't have enough clearance for the soffit. This means all the work I did on Monday night had to be redone on Tuesday night. Even worse I had to take apart the pocket door frame and cut it down to fit.

Pocket door on Monday night:

Looks good right?

Pocket Door after being redone on Tuesday night:

Please note at the top that it's down about an inch.

Wednesday night I started on the soffit. It's not easy but I got most of it done. I built it on the ground then attached it to the joists.

This is the little bit left over.

I might even cover some of it with the plywood I bought to help secure it a little more.Having to redo the door but me behind schedule by one day. I'm still looking good though.

All the walls are up

Well not quite. Even though I bought another 8 studs Sunday morning I'm still short 3 studs. I had also planned on using this lumber to build the soffit. Either way I'm saying the walls are up.





On Monday I hope to install the frame for the pocket door. I printed off some instructions from the manufacturers Web site and I should be good to go. Once I have that framed in I'll be able to figure out the soffit situation to see it I have enough clearance.

FYI the Bills are playing the Browns for the Monday nighter. Hopefully I'll get it done before kickoff.

Old framing meet new framing

Friday night and Saturday I worked on the remaining two walls. One of the walls connects to an existing wall so I needed to spend a little time trimming out old and inserting new lumber. It's not perfect but I'm sure my work is much more solid than what the builder had done. If fact the one wall with the door on it is so crooked that it's out at least one inch on the bottom.

I also realized that because of my previous mistake I had to buy one more PT stud. Below you can see the opening for my pocket door. You need to frame an opening 2 times the size of the door. I think it's going to be a nice feature but I'm concerned about clearance under the soffit that I'm going to build around the duct.

Two Walls Down and Two To Go

After another 2 1/2 hours of work I managed to get up the most difficult wall.

You can see some of the intricate blocking around the ducts and beam.

And my pile of lumber is quickly dwindling.

I think I'm about halfway done the framing. I have the two easier walls left and the box around the ducts. I've worked on the framing for one week and I still have another week left according to my schedule. Which means I'm on schedule. I would love to get the framing done this weekend and put myself ahead of schedule.

Intricate Corner Work

I worked on the basement for another 4 hours tonight. I wasn't cutting and nailing the whole time. This time around I spent most of energy thinking about how I would frame this difficult corner. Before I explain further... BEHOLD my first full wall.



Enjoy it in all its wonderful splendor. I know it's just one wall but out the four walls I'm doing it's the second most intricate. Here's a pic of the difficult corner that I was talking about.



It doesn't look like much but when I get closer so you can see between the joists...



You can see the work. It's solid and fairly well framed. I probably used too many nails but I'm no expert at toe nailing.



I also did some of the tedious work of measuring and blocking the most difficult wall. This wall will need blocks all the way across, will need to go around pipes, will need to go around the ducts AND will need to be framed for a door.

Not bad for a Monday night. I managed to finish by 10:30pm so I could catch the 3rd and 4th quarter of the Monday nighter between the 49ners and the Cardinals.

Even though I have the day off tomorrow I'm not sure if I will have time to work on the basement. I have to clean my gutters, put up Xmas lights and head downtown to see the best live act around Priestess at Maverick's. I've seen them 7 times and I would consider myself a bit of a fan.

My first mistake

Ok. I had my first problem the other night and tonight I discovered my first mistake. I didn't start working on the basement until much later tonight because I was busy watching football and I spent 2 1/2 hours bagging the fallen leafs.

When I started putting up the little wall in front of the drain I quickly realized that I should have put it on the outside of the two small side walls. There isn't anything to secure the ends of the top plates to and I can't put blocks in between the floor joist because of the drain. So I had to unscrew the bottom plate and cut a new piece. So my mistake may cost me $4.47 and about 1 1/2" of space. The wall will sit out 1 1/2" further that I had planned.

I think that was the only place I could make that mistake but it's not the end of the world. Let's hope I can learn from this and get more walls up efficiently.





It's really starting to look like walls.

Saturday's progress

I think I started on the most intricate wall first. A worked on this for another few hours and I was feeling pretty good about how things are going. I'm even using a toolbelt now.

One note... I had to remove the wire that runs to the range in the kitchen. It's a really thick wire and I could fit the studs in when it was stapled down. I will probably have to re-route this through either the studs or joists later.

Friday night is wall night

Success... almost. Here's my first wall up. Not bad for a couple of hours. A skilled carpenter probably would have done it in one quarter the time. But at least it's a start. While I was taking pictures I noticed that I forgot to put in the stud underneath the window.

My first problem

So Thursday night I started actual construction but didn't get too far. With Tracy's help I chalked out the wall locations on the floor. I then started to fasten the bottom plates to the concrete floor using 3 1/4" long Tapcons. That's when my frustration began.

So I place the pressure treated bottom plate on floor and line it up with the chalk. I then grabbed my brand new Black and Decker Hammer Drill equiped with the appropriate masonary bit (included in my box of 100 Tapcons). The hole wasn't that hard to drill but it was kind of loud and shook my hands pretty good. I even set the depth gauge to 3 1/2" (leaving 1/4" extra as noted in my materials). I then vacuumed out the dust from the hole and drove in my very first Tapcon using my Skil Cordless Drill. The first one went in no problem.

I then went to the other end of the plate to secure it so it would move. I drilled the hole, vacuumed it out, started screwing in the Tapcon... then suddenly at the bottom I heard a snap. Uh Oh. The Tapcon snapped off in the hole. I tried to imagine why this happened and quickly decided that I had a defective screw. So I tried again.

And again snap. So now I was baffled... there is no way I had defective screws in a row. I was also getting concerned that I would have all these broken screws in my floor. So I went online to find out the solution and I tried some of the solutions.

Solution #1... using the hammer drill to drive in the Tapcon. WRONG. When I did this it just stripped the screw.

Solution #2... changing the torque setting on my cordless drill. WRONG. When I did this the screw just wouldn't go in far enough.

Through trial and error and after wasting about five Tapcons, I figured out how I could make it work. I had to drill the hole 1/2" deeper than the Tapcon and I also had to drill out the dust many times before screwing in the Tapcon (the vacuum wasn't getting enough dust out). One other thing to note is that I did have to reduce the torque setting on my cordless drill. I had the torque set to the highest setting This would prevent the Tapcon from breaking when I drove it in.

Eventually I managed to get the bottom plates for the back wall secured.

Demo pics

Here are some pictures of what my basement looks like right now. I tore out the old insulation and vapour barrier where the new walls are going in. I also removed the wall and door coming into the basement. I stapled some old sheets to the wall to keep the cat out.

I finished cleaning up the mess and started to chalk out the walls. I'm also trying to put together the electrical layout and start to work on the electrical permit.







Tonight I hope to get my first wall up.

Building Codes

Last night I was reading through the building code looking for minimum lengths for the tapcons. Here are some of the pertinent codes to consider when finishing a basement in Ontario. See my personal notes in italics. I probably should have read through the code during the design phase but better late than never. I just wanted to review so I don't have to rip anything up afterwards.

Basement ceiling height

• 2 100 mm (6'11") over at least 75 per cent of the basement area except that under beams and ducts the clearance is permitted to be reduced to 1 950 mm (6'5")

My ceiling height will be 7'1" and the ducts will be around 6'7".

Door minimums for basement

• width 810 mm (32")height 1 980 (6'6")

Originally I had priced out a 30" door but after seeing the note on my building permit I quickly changed it to 32". It's important that I caught this early because the frame for a pocket door is twice the size as a regular door.

Windows

• By code aren't required in a basement with electric lighting

Smoke Alarms

• there is at least one smoke alarm on each floor level, including basements, that is 900 mm or more above or below an adjacent floor level

I already have two smoke alarms on the basement level.

Bottom plates

• wood framing members that are not pressure-treated with a wood preservative and that are supported on concrete in contact with the ground or fill shall be separated from the concrete by not less than 0.05 mm polyethylene film or Type S roll roofing.

It's was nice to actually read this in the code and it confirms that I have this covered... I will have both pressure-treated wood and 6mil polyethylene.

Nail lengths

• Floor joist to plate – toe nail Minimum Length of Nails, 82 mm (3 1/4") 2 nails
• Stud to wall plate (each end) toe nail Minimum Length of Nails, 62 mm (2 1/2") 4 nails or end nail Minimum Length of Nails, 82 mm (3 1/4") 2 nails
• Interior walls to framing or subflooring Minimum Length of Nails, 82 mm (3 1/4") Maximum Spacing of Nails, 600 mm (o.c.) (2')

I was originally looking for 3 1/2" nails for the framing and 4 1/4" tapcons for the bottom plates. I considered using 2 3/8" nails for the framing gun but in the end my choice of 3 1/4" was perfect. I had trouble finding 4 1/4" tapcons and decided on 3 1/4". Bottom line get at least 3 1/4" nails and screws. Not sure about drywall screws.

Bracing and Lateral Support

• Bracing is not required where the walls are clad with panel-type siding, diagonally sheathed with lumber, or sheathed with plywood, OSB, waferboard, gypsum or fibreboard sheathing.

I have seen a few Web sites that used bracing in the basement. I wasn't planning on bracing and now I glad I won't have to. That would have increased my lumber costs slightly.

Lighting for Recreation rooms

• Minimum Illumination, lx 100
• Minimum Lighting Power Density, W/M2 of floor area (incandescent lighting) 10

I will be calculating my light using W/M2 (watts per square meter).

1 meter = 3.280 feet

10 watts / 3.280 feet

I have roughly 280 square feet and that means that I will need about 860 total watts in the room. My light are 50W so that means I'll need 18 lights total. I have originally priced out or 12 light and I will need to add another pack of 6 thus increasing my costs by $87.50 plus tax.

I'm not sure this will impact how many new switches I need on my electrical board but I'll figure that out later.

Demolition

Last night I continued day two of the demolition. I tore down the one existing wall and door. It will probably take one more evening (tonight maybe) to finish cleaning up the mess. That means that my estimate for demo time of 3 days was very accurate.

As soon as the wall was down it changed the whole feeling in the basement. It opened it up but more important the flow was improved. I think Tracy and I are both looking forward to the end result now more than ever because we can feel the difference.

Ripping stuff down also revealed how poorly the house was built in the first place. Here's a short list:

• bottom plates aren't well fastened
• some top plates are split or weren't nailed properly
• drywall had nails in some spots and screws in other spots

I might have to redo some of the existing work particularly around the wall I removed. I might even have to redo some of the electrical work so it runs through the new walls. I guess the BI will let me know during the framing inspection.

I think that by the end of this week I will some some framed walls up. Although it supposed to be really nice weather for the next few days and I do have some other work I need to do outside (like raking up the leafs).

Time to get to work

Saturday morning at around 8am I got a call from The Home Depot delivery guy stating he would be by between 8:30 - 8:45am to deliver all my stuff minus the pressure treated bottom plates (8 @ 2 X 4 X 8). Apparently they are out of stock. It's not a big deal because I can pick up 8 myself.

He showed up exactly when he said he would and in a few minutes he had a skid of insulation placed in my garage and another skid of lumber and drywall in my driveway. I thought for a second he was going to try and put the lumber/drywall skid in my garage too but no so. He informed me that a standard garage opening is 7'10" and obviously my 8' long material wouldn't make it through. It didn't matter to me anyway because I was going to bring the lumber inside that day.

At 9am Tracy and I got started moving the building materials. By 10:30 we had moved 83 studs into the basement through the window, 9 bundles of insulation to the back of the garage and 19 sheets of drywall to the side of our garage. I also moved the pocked door frame and vapour barrier to the basement. I eyeballed every stud and made two piles... straight ones and wonky ones. I had to move all this stuff around because I want to park my car in the garage. It's getting closer to winter and I don't want to have to scrape my windows in the morning. Here's the pics:

Lumber, Pocket door, vapour barrier


Insulation


Drywall


My car just barely fits.

Later in the afternoon I picked up the remaining 8 pieces of pressure treated lumber and a box of Tapcons. FYI Tapcons are the special concrete screws that will be used to fasten the plates to the concrete slab. I bought a box of 100 screws and it comes with the drill bit to predrill the holes.

Side note on PT lumber
Apparently I don't necessarily need to use pressure treated (PT) lumber for the floor plates as long as I put some vapour barrier between regular lumber and concrete to protect the wood from moisture. The Home Depot guy also suggested these pink foam strips as an alternative. I thought about it but then realized that the cost of the pink stuff was a little higher than PT lumber. So my plan is to use vapour barrier underneath and PT lumber. It's a little more expensive but at least I know the bottom of our walls won't rot.


Sunday night after enjoying a relaxing day of watching football I started removing the old insulation. It was pretty easy and the bundles of remnant folded up nicely. I threw them in garbage bags in preparation for a curbside disposal. My plan is to put out an extra garbage can of home reno crap every week that way I wouldn't need to drive all the way out to the dump in Barrhaven.

I'm ready to demo the remaining wall and start layout out the plates. Now the real work begins, wish me luck.


FYI, I'm already late according to my own workplan... can you tell I work for the government. It's only one week and I should be able to make it up during the framing phase.