We're Plugged In

Mike had two work events scheduled for the end of September.  One was a class in Phoenix and the other was a trip to Virginia to another of his employer's offices.  I planned to join him on his Virginia trip for a few days, then we were going to visit some friends in Maryland for the weekend before Mike flew back home.  I was continuing on to North Carolina to visit some other friends and attend their son's wedding, then go back to Maryland to visit our friends there again.  So this was going to be our last weekend at the house for a few weeks.

After our first inspection a few weeks ago, we got the go-ahead to trim out the electrical, which is construction speak for attaching all the switches and outlets.  Our electrician (Craig) was on vacation and would not be back until Friday so we scheduled to have him come to the house on Saturday and start this work.  We decided to have Craig do the work as Mike was not familiar with how they routed the wiring and in what order things should be connected.  When he showed up, we went through the house and wrote down what outlets, switches and circuit breakers we needed to complete the job.  Craig got started with the outlets and switches we already had (saved from what was in the house prior to demolition) and Mike and I went shopping at Home Depot.  After about 4 hours, we returned with the parts Craig needed in order to finish the job.

After Craig left for the day, Mike tried his hand at adding some outlets where the wiring looked straight forward.  He had also read that when attaching switches and outlets, the preferred method was to screw down the wires, rather than use the faster push-in connections, as they can release over time.  Mike noticed that many of the connections Craig made had been pushed in and decided to rewire them to use the screw down connectors.  I had always thought he could do all the wiring on his own, but he didn't feel comfortable which is why we hired outside help (and actually it worked out well so I'm not complaining).  After watching Craig, I think Mike will be ready to take on some electrical projects in the future.

Just some of our kitchen outlets already in use

Since we had some of the outlets and switches installed and could turn on more of the electricity, we took a trip to Restore (a Habitat for Humanity store that sells used home improvement supplies).  We were able to purchase new outside light fixtures for the front and back porch as well as a few inside light fixtures, a water heater timer, a folding chair and ceiling fan shades - all for $25 - score! Mike installed the porch lights at the front door and the back kitchen door.  It was so wonderful to return to the house at night and have a welcome light on the front porch and not have to use a flashlight to see to put the key in the door.

One of our outside lights

We put up new house trim on the back concrete patio where we had recently replaced some siding panels.  Some of the old trim was not in good enough shape to keep plus we added extra trim to create some uniformity.  I painted the trim after we got it up.

New trim with both siding and trim painted

I had been up in Payson since the 10th and it had been pretty quiet during the week as far as the remodeling went which was nice because I was able to visit all the thrift stores in Payson plus spend some time with my step mom in Christopher Creek.  I had originally planned to return to the valley with Mike on Sunday, but Craig was not able to get all the electrical trim completed on Saturday so I decided to stay until Wednesday to give him 2 extra days to complete the job, plus a few other projects, with one day left for me to wrap up things at the house.

In addition to finishing the trim, Craig's to do list included: running the plumbing vents through the attic and roof for the kitchen, master bathroom and laundry; adding flashing to the electrical pole that goes through the roof; installing 3 lights and the lightswitch in the crawlspace; installing the doorbell; and installing the smoke alarms.  He was able to get all of this done except for the plumbing vents in the laundry and bathroom and the flashing on the electrical pole.  Mike thinks he can handle these at a later time as it is not critical that they are completed right away.

Stats:  7 Home Depot trips; 2 Walmart trips
Remodeling expense 9/13-9/21: $1,425
Remodeling expense to date: $24,063

New Siding and Insulation Lesson

With all the electrical and plumbing complete for the time being, we did not need to have the contractors at the house working during the week so I was able to come back to the valley after the holiday.  I was home for a couple of days to catch up with my laundry and pay bills.  It was good to be home in such "luxury" after living in the rough conditions of the Payson house for a few weeks.  Come Friday, we were back on the road to Payson to continue our project.

Craig's crew had removed a siding panel on the north wall behind our master bath tub to get access to some of the plumbing.  This was a panel we were going to replace anyway because it had numerous large holes in it.  While the siding was off, Mike noticed some water along the outside edge of the tub and near the drain pipe.  He found two different problems in the tub which could have been the cause of the leaking.  One was that the down spout was not flush with the tub and was not caulked.  The other was that the seams of the fiberglass enclosure, which should have been caulked when installed, were not sealed and some water was getting through.  Mike tightened the tub spout and added caulk to it and all the tub seams.

Once that was fixed, we were ready to replace the siding.  Since this was on a wall we could not access from the inside (as the bathtub was on the other side of the wall), we had to put the insulation up from the outside.  Since the kraft paper on the insulation is supposed to be on the inside of the house, we had to install these batts backwards and reach INTO the insulation to staple it to the inside wall.  I wanted to try my hand at working with the insulation since I plan to install it during the week when Mike is gone. I took a visit to one of the local thrift stores (there are many in Payson and I know where they all are) to buy some jeans and a long sleeved shirt to make sure I was completely covered.  Insulation is made up of fiberGLASS and it is extremely rough on the skin.  I measured and cut the batts then secured them inside the wall with an electric stapler.  It worked very well.  I hope the rest of the house insulation goes as well.  Mike put up the new siding and we did not damage the flashing this time.

Oh my goodness - a picture of ME working

Covering up all of my good work

While working in the back, we replaced one more piece of siding on the north master bedroom wall.  This is where the A/C wall unit used to be and, even though someone had done a decent job of patching the hole, we thought it was still an eyesore.  The toughest part about replacing this siding piece was that, in order to get it off, we had to remove the trim around the door and house.  Once it was in place, we put all the trim back up and I primed and painted all the new panels, including the ones we replaced on the kitchen last weekend, and touched up the trim.

New siding outside master bedroom

The master bath tub faucet handle broke again (we replaced it once last weekend with one from ReStore) so Mike did a lot of running around trying to find the right one for our faucet (note the high number of home depot trips this weekend).  The super-glued part we were concerned about is still working fine.

Stats:  8 Home Depot trips; 0 Walmart trips
Remodeling expense 9/9-9/12: $224
Remodeling expense to date: $22,638

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

One Inspection Down, Three To Go

I left Christopher Creek early Monday morning to meet the workers back at the house, though Craig still has a key to our place and can let himself in.  I did not smell any ill effects from the bug bombs, but did find quite a few dead spiders and insects throughout the house.  Also found some live ones.  One night I was lying in bed reading and this HUGE spider went running across the ceiling right over my head.  Then he ran down the wall right behind the bed.  I am a real wuss at killing anything (used to catch scorpions in jars and let them loose outside), but I got out the bug spray and hosed that sucker until he was a shriveled up shell.  Guess I'm toughening up a little.

The "Shark Bite" mainfold parts finally arrived at Home Depot and Craig was able to finish up all the plumbing connections this week.  We finally had running water throughout the house by the end of the week.

Blue COLD lines, red HOT lines and manifold

This week the central A/C and heating system was installed.  Craig took a break from the plumbing work to finish the electrical connections for the units.  It took a couple of days to run all the ductwork under the house and install the components.  They put the intake vent in the new pantry as it was the most central location.  It took up a little more space than I thought it would, but it is not very tall and we can put a shelf over it to hide the ductwork.  We did not want them to come up through the floor tiles in the bathroom, so they put vents high up on the wall.  When we took down the drywall, we discovered that the closet that opens into each bathroom originally opened into the hall.  It must have been closed off when the master bathroom was added.  We were planning on making it into a linen closet that opened into the hall again, but the ductwork for the bath vents had to go into this closet and it takes up the majority of it so we're going to leave the openings in the bathrooms and build shelving around the ductwork.  They installed one floor vent in each room and two in the great room area and we had to cover these in plastic to keep dust and debris from getting into the vents.  The new system was completed by the end of the week and tested out just fine.

The hall closet we never had . . .

. . . and still don't due to ductwork for bathrooms

Intake vent in hallway and pantry

Since the main electrical and plumbing work had been completed, we decided to order our first inspection on the work that had been done to date.  The inspector from the Town of Payson came and reviewed our changes.  The electrical passed with the exception of needing to add two more outlets and move one and there were no issues with the plumbing.  He requested that we put roll bars between the new ceiling joists to keep them from twisting and add lag bolts to the header for those supports that were nailed into the original beam between the great room and the kitchen.  We also were told that the new dining room window we put in about a month ago needed to be tempered glass because it is within two feet of the back door.  The inspector told us about a company in town that can add a film to the window to make it tempered.  Once those few items are taken care of, we can start putting in the insulation.  The next inspection will be after the insulation, then another after the drywall goes up, followed by another after the taping and texturing and then the final inspection covers flooring (in the kitchen and laundry room only) and paint.

Inspector says 2x4 pieces between new studs will prevent "rolling" effect

Stats:  1 Home Depot trip; 0 Walmart trips
Remodeling expense 8/30-9/2: $693
Remodeling expense to date: $19,317