Cedar House

4 way went well, only comments were to add a flue collar around the double lined exhaust vent for the utlity room and to tie all the grounds together.

Redid water setup for the house. Ran new 3/4 supply to new copper manifolds that I put together. The manifolds are 1in with 4 – 1/2in lines and 1 – 3/4 line.

After relocating sewer and water lines refridgerator can slide back additional 6 inches making it less conspicuous.

Installed two new Marvin windows for the master. I was trying to decide between Marvin and Pella, but found Marvin to have a better crank design.

HVAC to do list…

One- Figure out a good place for the future AC compressor unit.
Two- Run the lineset out to that location.
Three-Craft a new return air that would draw from the hallway
Four-Place return air vents in each bedroom
Five- clean out the existing plenum.
Six- create a new register outlet for the new mudroom area.

Here’s the finished return air duct that draws from the hallway – Pictures are taken a little post facto

Electrical was much more time consuming than I would have imagined. I had a lot more fishing through masonry than I initially imagined. It worked out pretty well though, most voids in the CMU were possible to maneuver through.

The data cables for the house were also a larger burden than anticipated because of the 4 coax lines I ran to each location and also all the cat 5, cat 6, speaker, control wiring, and security wiring.

Here a picture of the wires for my media cabinet in the living room.

A few considerations I had during framing were

Whether to use steel or wood studs (probably should have used steel for the areas furred out)

Ceiling heights -I could have taken the ceiling higher in both the hallway and bath, but felt that choosing a height that was a little lower than the high points in the bedrooms was the best.

How to get a look where no baseboard would be used – I considered drywall options and went with a something I came up with where I notched studs and then ran backer in the notch to facilitate a stronger base.

Put in floor drains for the clothes washer and the water heater. Hearth and home ran gas to the fireplace and also ran gas to the stove area.

View of where gas that goes to the stove dives into the ground behind the dishwasher.

The home was featured in Better Homes and Gardens, which was a bit of a shock to us. The fellow who originally built the home dropped by and was delighted that somebody was trying to rehabilitate the home.

He told us a story about the original planning process and how it had been difficult to obtain permits because of the “radical” design. It really was quite interesting to see all the articles and such that he had kept over the years.

The original builder had said that a man had shown up from Better Homes and Gardens to look at a potential home in the area, but was also keeping an eye out for anything else. The original builder suggested he look at his, and he said the moment the the man from BH&G pulled up, he said, this is it!

So they flew in a photographer and staged the home for the magazine.

Apparently, because of the magazine publication, he sold the same plan to people around the world, so if you’ve seen this before, there you go.

He gave us copies of everything. So now, for your delight, the home before years of renters and do-it-yourselfers got to it.

Fun Stuff. A couple things to note, the master bedroom had windows just like the rest of the house. and the appliance arrangement is different, but the cabinetry the same.

Demo has revealed quite a bit and in any case, my project has increased in scope quite a bit. The general plan is the same but what is included is what has changed. I was unsure about the ceiling(gone), unsure about all the electrical (gone), unsure about the insulation (gone) unsure about plumbing (gone, everything except the stack and underground). The following are explanations.

A good reason why a lot of the switches don’t work is the wires either don’t go anywhere or go to J-boxes that are hidden and the connections inside are broken. What do I expect, the connections inside were taped together, not twisted, crimped or anything else. Found two more places where there had been a smoldering fire at some point around these hidden J boxes… holy cow.

Insulation: apart from the insulation in the accessible areas, which looked fine, everything else is done with 4 inch batt- Insulation value maybe R-5 or 6 since it’s old compacted and deteriorated.

The plumbing was a known issue, but how much was something else, I started to remove a branch waste line and everything attached to it fell apart. Also, I found out why the previous owner ran the water lines inside below the ceiling line. He had run the waterlines outside in the eaves and had covered them up with aluminum siding. The neighbor…other side neighbor told us that over the winter, the pipes had burst and sprayed water everywhere.

I’m on my 5th dumpster, this has been the regular site for the last while, I just wonder when I can say enough and end demo.

Cut the concrete for the new drain lines for the utility room and laundry room, Cut the concrete for the gas line to the range, cut the new window openings, the new door to the garage, the new door from the garage, the fireplace details, and for good measure the driveway.

Everything went pretty smoothly. The saw cut through the concrete well enough. The windows and doors were a pain because the saw was about 30 lbs, then add a hose attached with water spraying everywhere and the gyroscopic action from the blade spinning. I wet cut one side, then dry cut the other.

Removed the Asphalt, overexcavated the drive to accomodate the new thicker slab and laid down heat shield, HE-Pex, and welded wire mesh.

I added snow melt because of the north facing driveway and I just think it’s a plus for this climate.

After it cured a few problems came to light. One huge one, they didn’t follow what I had laid out with them. The slope was all wrong and we ended up with water running into the garage instead of out. We talked about alternatives, but most suggestions they had were rediculous.

What I ended up doing was Saw cutting out a shallow trench drain and drilled a drain tube to one of the planters. Thankfully I was able to not knick any of the tubes.