New Workshop - Floor

After much googling and forum reading I decided on the following for my floor.

Directly on top of the concrete floor I laid out a 6mil polyethylene vapour barrier. My theory was that this would prevent moisture from the concrete floor from moving up into the insulation that would come next. I found much conflicting advice on where to place the vb or whether to have on at all and went with my gut and put one down first.

Next I laid out 2x4x16 pressure treated sleepers, 4" side down, on 16" centers. I nailed this down with my somewhat-trusty Hilti DX-350. The last time I'd used the 460, it had broken and I hadn't gotten around to fixing it yet. I had a Remington power hammer that I used for the few small jobs that required powder actuated fasteners (PAFs). Since I needed to put in almost 200 fasteners the power hammer was going to cut it for this job. I first tried to get Hilti parts locally, with no success so I went on to hilti.ca to order the needed parts. Naturally, I ordered the wrong part. For some reason I thought it was the piston I needed which is expensive enough at $45, but what I really needed was the fastener guide for $88 (double ouch). Oops. Shipped back the piston and got the fastener guide the next day no problem. Free shipping which is very nice.

Hilti later sent me a nice multi-tool in the hopes of getting more of my business (they probably will).

I used the DX350, 3" galvanized nails with a pre-mounted steel washer and red charges to knock in a little less than 200 fasteners. After the first hundred I found my padded bike gloves and that made the next 100 go a lot smoother for me.

In between the 2x4s I laid out 1.5" white styrofoam insulation sheets. A wee bit less R value than the blue or pink DOW sheets, but about half the price. I scored the sheets with a utility knife then snapped them while sandwiching them between 2-2x4s to keep the line straight.

On top of this I laid out 5/8" tongue and groove plywood subflooring. I realized after the second row that I should have staggered the joints but by then I was too late. I secured the plywood with PL400 subfloor adhesive and 1 3/4" PT decking screws.

Hardwood Install - Long Lost Vent Uncovered

Shortly after finishing the hardwood install in Joshua's room I figured out that I had accidently covered over one of the vents in the floor. I had a guess where it was but wasn't exactly sure. Since I didn't have access to underneath the floor I couldn't find the vent that way so I tried various other ways to find the hole. A studfinder, magnet and 'knocking' were all unsuccessful. So was turning on the A/C and waiting for condensation or feeling a cold spot.

This week Rosemary brought home toy stethoscope from her school. It also got cold enough that we needed to turn on the furnace. With the stethoscope I was able to very faintly detect where I though the vent was.

I then drilled a 3/32 hole into the floor at that point, 3/4" deep. Then a paperclip to ensure that I had drilled through where there was no subfloor. Success. I used a 1/2 spade bit to open up the hole, then the paper clip again to determine how close I was to the edge of the vent (very close). A jig saw finished up the job.

New Workshop

Our new house came with two garages, a one car attached and two car detached out back. Since there is no basement I knew from the start that I would be getting the garage out back of the house for a workshop.

The garage has a loft that is 50% usable, 50% low ceiling good for storage. I may convert the one half with a high enough ceiling into finished space for a play area for Joshua. The other half already has Christmas decorations, old baby stuff and other miscellaneous items.

Though the garage was very well built, it has a few problems. It has a 60 amp sub-panel but only three outlets, a couple sets of old 2 bulb fluorescent fixtures downstairs and one fluorescent on a long extension cord upstairs. No power upstairs and all the outlets downstairs are on one wall. For some reason the previous owner had one outlet on #12 wire with a coil of about 40 ft of wire. I assume he pulled it off the wall and brought it to whatever part of the garage he needed his compressor at. It probably would have better for him to get a longer house.

A nice looking cement floor, 2x6 construction for the walls with no insulation on the inside. One window covered with a grill on the inside, one with a sheet of plywood and one apparent hole where a window used to be that is now a sheet of plywood.

On the outside there is OSB, than 1.5" foam, then house wrap and finally vertical wood siding.

My first plan is to put down a wood floor as my old workshop had concrete and I know how uncomfortable that is after a few hours.

A Tale of Two Water Heaters

Did you know that there are three types of venting for hot water heaters? I didn't which lead to the following fun activity over the weekend.

First, we have been renting a water heater since 4 the past 8 years. At a little over $220/yr, that's $1760 I've thrown away. I always intended to replace the rented with one we bought but never got around to it at the old house.

For the new house I was planning on starting out with a new purchased unit right away. Unfortunately I got some misleading information from the rental company and didn't read the purchase agreement correctly so we ended up renting the one that was already installed. When I asked the rental company how much to buy it out they told me $1100 so I told them to take a hike. They are also going to charge me $60 to close the account, and would have charged me another $100 to remove the old water heater.

I decided to remove and replace it on my own.

I'm not a plumber or pipe-fitter but I've done some plumbing in the past, mostly successful. I figured it would be a unplug the old and plug-in the new situation and I could handle it.

So Friday I drained the old 60 gallon take. Naturally there is no drain in the house below the level of the tank so I drained it into buckets then dumped the bucket outside. 1.5hrs. Turned off the water supply in the house and cut the pipes.

Soldered some threaded connectors onto the 3/4" water pipes, dropped the new one in place and hooked it up with some SS hoses. I couldn't get the sediment collection black gas pipe off the old heater and home hardware had closed for the night, so I filled it with water and called it a night.

Saturday morning I went out to home hardware, picked up the yellow teflon tape for working with gas connections, the black pipe bits I needed to hook up the gas and some ABS pipe to complete the duct work (uh oh).

At home I hooked up the gas, checked it with a soap and water spray, hooked the ABS up for the vent and fired it up. I was really happy that I'd got the whole thing done without swearing or leaking. The vent at the top seemed warm but not too bad.

Put my tools away and waited for the hot water to flow.

First sign of trouble, Rosemary says "I see smoke in the backyard". Hmm. Take a look at the water heater. The ABS that I'd bought that morning is melting. Did I buy the wrong ABS? Nope, the old stuff is melting as well. Hmm. Turn off water heater. Check manual. Check Internet. Oops.

Turns out there are three kinds of venting. Conventional, Direct & Power Venting. This site has pictures of all three. You definitely need to ensure that you have the correct type of venting for your application.

It turns out my old one was a power vent, but I'd bought a conventional vent. My fault for buying it at HD and not finding someone there to help my pick the right one.

Drained it (no fun). Returned to HD and picked up a power vent unit. First one was $599, power vent was $779 (6 yr warranty). No problems hooking it up. I laughed. I still think it's funny. Good lesson.