Electrical!!!

Holy crap! Without Mr. X that would have been a difficult task. Running cable and stringing the series for outlets and switches is a breeze, but that 3 way switch and bringing power to the back of the house would have cause a complete meltdown without his help.

The entire electrical project took about 12 hours of work. That last four hours was due to the fact that we ran out wire and it was too late to head back into town. I'm thinking if we would have had another 100' of wire it would have been done in one day.

This job used about 450' feet of 14/2 wire and 50' of 14/3, twenty-seven 1-gang boxes, one 2-gang box, one 3-gang box, 6 recessed light fixtures, 12 ceiling boxes (for lights and smoke detectors), one bathroom exhaust fan, a whole lot of caps, and about 75 nail plates to protect the cable when sheet rocking.

For some reason I am most excited about the lights that we finally have under the stairwell. Don't ask my why because I can't explain it but for some odd reason I feel like that is a huge accomplishment.

There was one casualty during the weekend...actually three. Two phenomenal bacon cheeseburgers from Hoppers in Waconia and a dimmer switch that met its maker. A replay of my life ran through my head when I saw a flash and heard a pop a foot in front of my face while I was putting it into place. Can you say hand me the electrical tape?

All in all it was a fun and productive weekend. The basement is a mess right now but hopefully in a few months we will be sittings in front of a fire enjoying a movie in out new finished basement.

Basement Bathroom

Now that I have finished all of the plumbing and installed the venting for the bathroom fan I can relax a little and take the rest of the weekend off.  Date night tonight with Sara and hanging out with the kids tomorrow.  I do however have a little bit of prep work for the electrical wiring that we will be doing next weekend.  

We?  Did you hire somebody?  Nope!  A friend of mine is willing to hold my hand along the way.  Let's be honest I will be helping him when and where I can.  I'll just call him Mr. X.  I am very grateful that he is willing to do this for food and drink.  I'm lucky to have such a good friend.

Now that I am back at the computer, I have decided to add more photos.  I am doing this more for myself and one of my friends asks if I would include more.

Shower P-Trap

So, the plumbing started last weekend (3/10/12).  I decided only to do the running of the water lines and the drains because I wanted a full weekend to deal with the water hook up just in case I needed to call in for backup.  I started by installing a p-trap for the shower.  Not too bad.  I just had to make one more unexpected trip to town for 45 degree PVC coupler.  I didn't realize how easy this was going to be.  Always read the instruction manuals for installation.  Don't be a hero. It will save you from a headache half way through the project.  Do it right the first time right?    Man does this adhesive work quickly.  I had a couple of panic attacks while doing this because I didn't want to have to keep cutting back the stub out that the builder roughed in for me.  That would have meant cutting concrete and that would have given me a heart attach.  Putting the PVC together, marking it with a sharpie, and than setting it was the only way to do this properly.  The final step for that will be cutting the PVC to size so I can install the shower.  I suppose I could do that this weekend but there is no hurry on this.  Like I said.  Time to relax.

Now to the water lines.  I guess I'll start with the shower.  It makes sense after talking about the drain.  This PEX stuff is awesome.  Way to make a do-it-yourselfer feel like a champ.  This stuff is fairly cheap and it is very easy to work with.  I got a 100' roll of it for $25 bucks.  The most costly item was the crimping tool used to crimp the copper rings that hold the couplings in place. 

I was very pleased to find out that the shower valve comes with the shower head and faucet.  I was able to buy some adapters that coupled the PEX tubing and the valve.  This allows a rookie to keep away from copper if they want to.  This is the easiest way to do it and it is also to code so all of you plumbers who are angry about this PEX stuff, I completely understand.  I once got an estimate of $500 for just installing a sink.  WTF?

I also ran PEX to supply the sink and stubbed out a drain for that sink.  Also not too bad.  Do you see the valves on the stub outs?  This are valves made bye a company called Shark Bite.  The PEX is cut squarely and you just press the things onto the tubing.  They lock in place and do not leak unless you royally mess up.  They are do code as long as you do not secure them behind the wall.  So as an exposed termination they are fine.  I got three of them for about $30.  The other one is used for the toilet.  These stub outs do not look the best but they will be inside the vanity cabinet so they will not be seen.

Not pictured is the toilet closet flange.  I have decided to keep it out of this blog because I don't remember doing it.  My black out rage that came about fighting with the 4" drain pipe and trying to get that flange in was the cause of my temporary memory loss.  Sorry, I have to say it turned into a real shit task.

I cut into the lines and added cold and water supplies.

 

Saturday (3/17/12) is the big day for tying in the PEX tubing to the main water lines.  Holy crap if you never had a puckered a-hole before, making that first cut will help you out with that.  These are my first two attempts and I have to say it was cake.  If you ever do this be sure to have a bucket and a large towel because you will get wet.  Doing all of the bathroom faucets and the toilet supply took me about 45 minutes.  I than turned on the water and...BAM!!!...no leaks.  

I did have one mishap.  Remember the shark bite valve for the toilet supply stub out?  That wasn't turned off.  I turned on the main water and the doorbell rang so I ran upstairs thinking it was my cables for the home stereo that I ordered from monoprice.com.  Nope, just Lily having fun.  She's so cute.  Needless to say I wasn't having fun when I walked back downstairs to see a stream of water coming from the corner.  Good think it was only about 30 seconds worth of water. 

I did install a fart fan.  Nothing exciting but here are some pictures.

Hallway, bathroom, and laudry room wall.

The Holiday Season is over which means Construction Season begins.  This weekend I worked my butt off in the basement.  I logged a total of 17 hours on Saturday and Sunday. Working alone is slow but it is also therapeutic as long as I do my research and get all of my ducks in a row before I start working.

If you recall, I put up a soffit a little too soon so I had to rip it down.  If you also recall, my last blog talked about how I installed the ducts, so I was able to spend the morning on Saturday putting that soffit back together.  It's surprising how easy it was after having done it once before. :)

Most of what I did on Saturday afternoon,  Saturday
Evening, and Sunday morning was framing the rest of
the basement and I pretty much covered that in previous
entries.  What I didn't anticipate was having to go back
through the basement and place nailer boards on almost
every wall and the soffits for future drywall.  Thanks to my Brother-in-law Dan for the advice over the phone.  So for 4 hours, I did that.  There is a little more framing to do like the bathroom closet, the rough in for the shower, and a couple of more soffits in the bedrooms.

If there is one negative about this weekend was that I have discovered that the laundry isn't quite as big as I thought is was but after talking to my awesome wife, she  is fine with the size.  Another negative was that I didn't get to spend much time with my family.  

It is now time to relax and watch the Super Bowl.  The next time I write I hope to be covering either plumbing or electrical.