Truly a Labor Day(s) Weekend

This was a long weekend with the holiday and Mike took an extra day off to give us more work time, plus to avoid the holiday traffic going back to town.  Labor day weekend is the last big camping weekend of the year and the roads back to the valley can get extremely congested on Monday night.

When Mike came up on Friday we finally had running water, so he decided to fix a couple of the plumbing issues in the tubs.  The master bathtub faucet did not have a stop point when you tried to turn it off and the hall bathtub had a loose shower head and leaking tub spout.  Mike went to the local plumbing supply store and was able to get parts for the hall bathroom faucet to fix the leak, but not for the master bath.  He was told it was a generic Home Depot product and they were really bad at carrying replacement parts.  After taking it apart, he found that the plastic molded stop inside the mechanism had broken off.  Since we could not get a new part (as expected, Home Depot did not carry it) and it would have been a lot of trouble to replace the whole faucet assembly, he decided to use super glue on the broken piece.  We will see how long that lasts.  Even with the part broken off, the faucet still worked, it just makes it harder to find the "water off" point which means a lot of potential for dripping water.  Mike then made some wood braces to reinforce the hall bathtub shower head that was connected to the stud.  It was easy to get to and fix since there is no drywall between the bathroom and pantry right now.

New setup to support back of showerhead

I had told Mike about the inspection results earlier in the week, but this was the first time he could go around the house and look at the problems.  He had a question about whether the inspector wanted us to use lag bolts or screws for the new header support for the kitchen ceiling.  The comment stipulated lag bolt, but Mike felt screws would work better so I tried calling the inspector to get clarification.  He had already left for the holiday weekend and the receptionist patched me through to Ray, the head inspector (lesson learned: when you work with an inspector you like, don't ever talk to someone else in his office).  As I started asking questions, Ray became concerned that the work we were doing was outside the scope of our "electrical" permit.  He decided he needed to come and do another inspection the following Tuesday.  Before I ended the call, I asked him whether it would be ok to use the "tempered glass" film on the dining room window because I was planning on having the glass company take care of it over the weekend.  He told me we needed to be careful putting in new windows because they need a certain u-factor and we should pick up the Town of Payson building code changes before continuing.  After the call I kind of started to freak out that this new inspector was going to make us get a whole new bunch of permits or have us rip out a lot of work, but Mike (who is usually the one freaking out - while I am usually the calm one) said that it would be better to know now than later and we would just trust in God to work it out for the best.

We decided to go to the Town of Payson office before it closed and get the building code requirements.  They gave us a list of codes the Town of Payson modified from the 2006 International Residential Building (IRB) Code, which is their officially accepted code.  The people in the office said we should be able to look at the complete 2006 IRB code at the library, so off we went.  The library only had the 2003 IRB Code, so we used it as a reference.  In reviewing the code and the changes made by the Town of Payson, we were confused about the u-factor on windows.  Our research showed that the u-factor in a window was similar to the r-factor in insulation, only in reverse.  The better u-factor was a lower number, where insulation gets better with higher numbers.  The 2003 IRB code said the windows had to have a u-factor of 50 or less, but the Town of Payson addendum stipulated a MINIMUM of 50.  The windows we had bought had a u-factor of 65 so we weren't sure if we were OK or not.  We decided to talk to someone at Home Depot to see if they understood the code and could help us as the Town of Payson office was now closed.

We had found out through a Home Depot associate a few weeks ago that Home Depot has a special program for people who place a big ($2500 or more) order.  You give them the list of items and they will put it in to their "bid" desk and some of your items may be discounted.  Once your order is placed, you have one week to add to it.  We had placed our order last weekend and this Saturday was the last day we could add items.  When we stopped by on Friday night, we met a wonderful associate in millworks (windows and doors) by the name of Cindy.  She explained about the u-factors and told us that the aluminum dual-paned windows we had purchased would not meet the Payson code.  Those windows were meant for people who lived outside the Payson city limits or for garages/workshop buildings (who knew?).  She then said that if we could wait a few weeks, she could get us vinyl dual-paned windows from a manufacturer in Tucson, something they did not carry on the shelf.  She priced out these new windows (including a tempered one for the kitchen) and added them to our bid.  The bid pricing on these eight windows was less than the seven aluminum windows we had already purchased which was really a nice surprise because the dining window could not be returned as we'd already installed it.  Even though this was a stressful situation, God was watching over us and turned this "disastrous" situation into a blessing in that we got better windows for less cost.

Next on the agenda: Installing the new back door.  The first thing we needed to do was fix the leak and lack of flashing in the threshold area.  Mike went online and found a way to use asphalt/aluminum tape for this purpose.  There was a complete video on a carpenter installing a door using this stuff, so we decided to try it on our door.  It worked very well.  We were concerned that the extra tape would make the door opening too small for the new door.  We later found that this was the least of our problems.  Even though the new door size was the same as the old door, the overall dimension of the frame was slightly bigger and therefore it did not fit.  We also found that the header board above the door was not complete.  A header board can be made from either a solid 3.5" thick board or from two 1.5" boards with a .5" piece of pressboard sandwiched in the middle  (this is the least expensive way - taught to us by our wonderful carpenter).  The original back door header had two 1.5" boards with no filler board.  After trying, several times, to plane the header to a smaller size to allow for the larger door, Mike decided to take down the framing and rebuild it to the right size with a proper header.  It was quite a chore, but turned our beautifully!  As difficult as framing the new door was, it paled in comparison to actually putting in the door.  This was Mike's first door hanging and he found it very difficult.  He was never quite able to get everything exactly square no matter how many changes he made to the frame connections, but eventually was able to get to a configuration that allowed the door to close properly and lock.  Our house is secure again.

Starting to enlarge the door frame by cutting away the siding

Mike's expression as he is trying to work while I take more pictures

Maybe if Mike trims it, it will work

Surprise! There is nothing inside

A proper header assembly

New flashing from asphalt aluminum tape

A new back door for the house

Our next project was to remove the existing window on the west side of the kitchen as the new kitchen window will be installed on the north wall of the kitchen, over the planned sink.  We removed the window, then added new stud supports in the opening.  We also replaced two pieces of siding to cover the hole.  While installing one of the siding panels, we put a hole in the aluminum flashing underneath and had to put a patch on it to keep water from getting between the concrete patio and the house.  Used the same tape we used to make the back door threshold - love that stuff!

The old kitchen window and siding

The wall re-framed after the window is removed

New siding in place (the two spots are outside outlets)

My good friend Lynne came up on Saturday with her friend Anita to see the house.  I was interested to see her reaction since she used to be a contractor (before the housing market crashed and she moved to Colorado).  She was amazed at the primitive living conditions.  Luckily she wasn't there when we did not have running water and had to use buckets to flush the toilets!

The rest of the long weekend was spent doing framing work in different rooms.  Mike had to add short stud supports at the top of some of the walls and above some of the internal doors.  Mike also added studs on several wall corners for hanging drywall.  Then he replaced the old boards, that framed the swamp cooler in the great room and the window a/c unit in the master bedroom, with new regular floor to ceiling studs.  The last bit of framing was to build the frame and header for double doors for the den.  This room originally had a single door entrance off the hall near the master bedroom, but it was wasted space so we decided to close that entry (we plan to add a built in desk in the new alcove) and install a double door off the great room.  Mike couldn't remember how tall to make the opening so he measured the pantry doorway and found that the header he put in there was about an inch too high.  I told him he should just add another board to the bottom of the header, but he (Mr. Perfectionist) did not agree and redid the header.  He also took the time to remove the studs at the pantry threshold which had been left from the original wall framing.  Then he finished the double door frame.  This and the pantry are my most favorite changes we've made.  The house is starting to take on some character now!

One of the added studs for drywall support

Old swamp cooler frame replaced with studs

Old A/C unit frame replaced with studs

The original den entry from hallway. This will be a wall and computer alcove.

Finishing the double door header installation

Removing the old wall 2x4 to clear the threshold

The completed frame for the future double doors to the den

The work was all done and on Tuesday morning we were more than ready to go home, but had one last item to take care of - the meeting with the Town of Payson head inspector Ray.  While we were waiting, Mike decided to get on the roof and remove some old coax cables and the antenna and satellite dish that were up there.  Just as he was finishing, Bernie, the guy who did our first inspection, showed up.  He told us that Ray was going to meet him at our house, but then called that morning and had something else come up.  Bernie said he talked to Ray about our plans and was able to better explain what was going on and that everything was fine.  We were able to ask him more questions and make sure we were all on the same page before he left. We concluded that the whole conversation with Ray on Friday was just so that we could get our window issue resolved while we could still add to our Home Depot order.  God is amazing!

Stats:  5 Home Depot trips; 2 Walmart trips
Remodeling expense 9/3-9/7: $3,097
Remodeling expense to date: $22,414