Our Biggest Splurge

Our biggest renovation splurge to date, has definitely been the purchase of two gas fireplaces. The original fireplaces, although beautiful, were not practical or in decent enough shape to use. The last three years we have lived here we have never had a fire as we worried about the condition of the fireboxes and the chimney, not to mention the fact that we hadn't had it cleaned yet.

When the demolition started and we were discussing the possible upgrades we could make, one of them was to get two gas fireplaces, one for the living room and one for our bedroom. Although at first I thought I would want to keep the fireplaces as they were, as there is something to be said about a wood fire on a cold day, the practicality of it just was not there. Wood fires require you to be there and maintain them, whereas a gas fireplace can be turned on and off with the simple click of a button. In addition the heat is instant and they are easy to manage. After a few discussion we decided to get Wheatland Fireplaces http://www.wheatlandfireplace.com in and provide us with a quote. Before receiving the quote Markus had a sit down chat with me and let me know gently that if the quote was near or over $10,000 we would have to really reconsider this decision as we have a limited budget....In the end we got the fireplaces!!!

A few things had to happen before the fireplaces could get installed. First we had to take out the old fireplaces, close up the hole and build a frame for the new fireplaces to sit on. We built each fireplace on a little hearth and built the wall out from the original wall just a bit. Then we had to have two holes cored out of the brick so that the fireplaces could be vented - This was really cool to see as they use a huge drill and you could watch the brick get hotter and hotter from the outside as they got closer and closer to drilling through. Finally, the fireplaces were installed and they look awesome! the final touches of course will come with tiling around each of the fireplace's, but even right now they look pretty cool!

Information about Spray Foam

I just wanted to do a separate post about the spray foam itself. Here is the link to the company we used:

http://www.spraywest.com/

The Spray Foam that was installed in our house is what they call "Urethane Closed Cell Spray Foam Insulation".

To be specific here is some information on the foam that is in our house:

POLARFOAM PF-7300-O SOYA an environmentally friendly high performance, closed cell rigid polyurethane foam used for insulation, is spray-applied exclusively by certified applicators in accordance with the standards CAN/ULC S705.2

POLARFOAM PF-7300-O SOYA is fully self-adhered to the substrate which makes your building much stronger and much stiffer. There is no air space between the insulation material and the substrate, no joints, no glue, no mechanical fasteners and no convection air movement.

Green BENEFITS Include:

• Made from Recycled Plastics
• Made from Vegetable oil
• Zero Ozone Depletion Substance
• Ecological Insulation

The All-in-One Wall System Concept puts insulation, air and vapour barrier into one product.

Insulation : Independent laboratory tests confirm the on site long term thermal performance of POLARFOAM PF-7300-0 SOYA spray foam insulation in the building envelope system increases thermal performance of the building envelope. The long term minimum insulating value is R-6/1 " RSI 1.05/25mm.

Air Barrier: Research shows that 40% of building heat loss can be attributed to air leakage conducted through the building envelope. Tests for air leakage conducted by an independent laboratory recognized by the CCMC show that POLARFOAM PF-7300-0 SOYA exceeds 500 times the requirements of the NBC as an air barrier material.

These results confirm that POLARFOAM PF-7300-0 SOYA is one of the highest performance air barrier materials on the market and this feature is the key element in an air barrier system that meets the objectives of the NBC

By creating a sealed air barrier and eliminating air filtration POLARFOAM PF-7300-0 SOYA does not allow wall condensation, that can often result in mold, mildew and wall degradation.

Vapour Barrier: Water vapour permeance is the speed to which water goes through a homogeneous material. The National Building Code, stipulates that a vapour barrier must have a water vapour permeance less than 1.05 PERM (60 ng/Pa*s*m2)

* 75 mm of POLARFOAM PF-7300-0 SOYA spray applied on an exterior gypsum board = 44 ng / Pa*s*m2 (0.77 PERM)

* 75 mm of POLARFOAM PF-7300-0 SOYA spray applied on concrete blocks = 22 ng / Pa*s*m2 (0.38 PERM)

The Joys of Insulation

No one can deny that the biggest and probably the most exciting thing we are doing to the house is adding insulation. Because of the time period our house was built in, insulation I do believe was not even invented yet....In fact I know this because there was nothing behind the plaster when we took it off. Although I would like to say that previous owner were very resourceful and used newspapers, old rags and horse hair (this last one will be honored in its own post).

So, as you can imagine no insulation caused a few minor problems considering we experience 3o below winters. The last year especially was getting ridiculous as many areas of the plaster in the living room had cracked and were letting in huge drafts. Markus used caulking in many of these areas in an attempt to fend off the cold air. In addition to a drafty house our bills were also ridiculous. We were paying $260 equalized...$260 in the summer? And we were the type of people to only put on the heat late into the fall and turn it off as soon as it got bearable again outside.

The biggest decision we had to make was whether to use bat insulation or use spray foam. Using bat insulation is a cheaper option, however, after doing some research we decided to use spray foam insulation instead. There are a few reason why we choose spray foam:

1) Spray foam insulation guaranteed us that all the little cracks and holes in the outside brick would be covered and and possibly filled, thus not allowing air movement and also adding to the stability of our home

2) The installation of spray foam was a maximum of 4 days. Installing bats/vapour barrier on our own would have taken a HUGE amount of time and work

We originally had made contact and a tentative agreement with the most popular sprayfoam company SprayJones. In our original agreement with one of the contractors, we had agreed to let them know 3 weeks in advance to when we would be ready. So as we progressed through the building of the outside walls, Markus kept in contact with the company letting them know we were 3 weeks away...2 weeks away etc. Then our contact for the company went on holidays and we were left with the manager. When Markus went to talk to him again, he told Markus that the earliest we could get insulation was 5 weeks away - this was ridiculous as we had already been in contact with the company and because we are on a time frame before going back to work. Later that day when I arrived at the house Markus told me the news and I immediately phoned 3 other companies in Regina. The stars aligned and Pierre from Spray West in Regina called back and was at our house that night to look it over and give us a quote. It was one of those situations that although we were freaked out initially, it was meant to happen as Pierre was extremely friendly and gave us a great quote.

So that is what we have been up to the last week. Spray West came into the house July 27th and worked until the 30th. They did an amazing job with the prep,spraying and clean up, and Markus and I are really pumped about the foam insulation. It looks sooooo cool in the walls right now, and has completely sealed everything between the frames we made. The foam itself is solid and has really added to the structure of the house. Everything we made is so tight and hard right now, nothing is going to budge! Even though things aren't done, you can feel a difference already in the heat factor of the house ,as well as, the sound. It is going to be amazing to feel the difference in the house when everything is done, and to watch our bills drop!