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!

New Electricity!

Another highlight of completely ripping the house apart was replacing the old "knob & tube" electricity that still existed in the house. When we redid the third floor we changed the wiring, and when the kitchen was done it too had new wiring installed. That left the basement (to a certain extent) and the main and second floor. Living with "old" wiring is not cool at all - for example the amount of "3 pronged plugs" in the house was at best minimal. For the last 3 1/2 years Markus ran a nice orange extension plug from the computer room to the hallway, in order to plug in his computer and other devices. The amount of power bars in the house was ridiculous, and the constant fear in the back of your head about the knob and tube suddenly deciding to short was not cool. So, new wiring in the remainder of the house was basically a must in this renovation and was the absolute best time to do it since the walls were completely exposed.

The best thing about new wiring is that we were able to add lights to places like the closets, and rearrange the lighting in rooms to fit our needs better. We have added many two-way and three-way switches which will be great!

Dad found a great electrician by the name of Tim Palmer, and he basically wired the whole house in 2 1/2 days. It was amazing how he and his co-worker threaded the wiring all around the house and had everything ready to go in no time. Although Tim's sarcasm was a bit much to handle the last day he was there as Markus asked him when he would return to hook everything to the box and he replied "6 months...you should probably be done drywalling by then"...

A Building We Will Go

After the demolition was done the next step to this project was to build new frames for all of the outside walls. This was due to the fact that the lath was attached to the outside brick wall by tiny little nails in a tiny strip of wood placed between the brick. Once everything had come down, there was nothing there for us to hang drywall on.

The first decision we had to make was how we were actually going to build these walls. We debated two options:
1. build 2x4 walls and in the end have deeper window wells and adjust accordingly after
2. rip the 2x4's and build the walls to fit the existing windows

we went with option number one as it seemed the most logical to us. We figured that it would be less work in the end to adjust the depth of the windows, than it would be to try and make walls fit to the windows.

And so it began....and now July 20th...we are almost done. We have been working on building walls for about 4 weeks straight now and have finally just about finished all the framing we need to do. For the most part we have not encountered too many problems as we have been framing. The majority of the walls are built with 2x4's, and in some sections because of space we have had to make 2-3 separate frames to do a wall. The most difficult area we anticipated was the west outside wall that runs from the front of the house to the basement, and under the stairs. Once we had ripped everything down, the space under the stairs varied but for the most part we only had 2 inches to work with. This posed a problem as we had been building all other walls using a 3 1/2 spacing. The other issue with this wall was that it was so big. Because it runs the length of the house and all the way up the stairs, we needed to build at least 2 large and separate frames to cover the wall at its largest point. After much deliberation we decided to try and build the wall on the flat and tie into the stairs where we could to stabilize the frame. To our surprise this worked very well and went incredibly fast compared to many other walls we built. The following is a selection of pictures that shows the various frames we have built around the house. The last few pictures I will post will be of the wall built on the flat!

How Can Something so Small be so Crappy?

One of the worst rooms to take apart ended up being our small bathroom. This is one of the rooms we had left to last, and one weekend Markus and I tackled it. This room was mostly covered with the industrial diamond shaped wire I described before, and plaster. The upper part of the wall all away around the room and the ceiling were done in this manner, which meant that we had to rip and struggled with the crap for quite awhile. After we had removed the majority of this wire, we realized the bottom portion of the walls had been covered with plaster and cement directly. We attempted to chip this off entirely until we realized that the plaster/cement would not come off easily and in most cases would take the brick behind with it. This is when Markus decided that we could only chip off the first layer (approximately 2 inches) and would have to leave the rest on the wall. Markus being the good guy he is, sat for a few hours and chipped away at this crap with a chisel and hammer.

The next surprise we found in this little bathroom was when we went to remove the tile on the floor. Again we realized that chipping away the tile by itself was a ridiculous idea as it came out piece by piece. After we put a sledge hammer to a part of the floor and investigated further, we found that somebody had poured at least 4 inches on concrete to make the bathroom floor before putting tile on. Our only assumption was that someone was attempting to make a bomb shelter, or assumed that there would be a lot of water spilling on the floor, because otherwise there really is no rational explanation. Again, Markus took on the job of chipping out the 4 inches of concrete over a series of days, and finally the bathroom was clear.

Eliminating the Boiler

One of the decisions we made early on was that we would eliminate our boiler and the radiators and change over to a furnace. The decision to do this was due to the cost of purchasing a new boiler system and the possible work that would have to be done to ensure the old pipes could withhold the pressure from a new boiler system. We were afraid that if we put in a new boiler, the pressure from the system would put stress on the old pipes and somewhere down the line we would have a very large leak. In terms of cost efficiency, a new boiler would be upwards of $20,000 and to recoup the costs would mean we would have to be in this house a very, very long time. So instead we decided that our best option was to put in a furnace and duct work as we would have all the necessary walls open to do this.

After making a few phone calls we decided to go with Douglas Plumbing and Heating. We met with the owner Neil Douglas, and liked him right away. He was honest, helpful and knew his stuff. Thus the move to forced air began.

Before Neil and his crew could come in and begin work, Markus and I had to remove the majority of the pipe that was running through the walls to the radiators, and remove the pipe in the basement that was connected to the boiler. We removed pipe from the house by cutting through it with a reciprocating saw. We fortunately found a deal at Canadian Tire for a Mastercraft reciprocating saw for $39.99. In addition to this great price, we were also fortunate enough to have teenagers working the return desk when we returned our "broken" saws multiple times, as the may have bent once or twice as we cut through the pipes.

The biggest job came when we had to remove the actual radiators from the house. We debated for quite some time as to what would work best, as the radiators on average (minus water) weighed in at over 200 pounds. I advertised them on Used Regina and Kijiji, but nobody wanted to take them off of our hands, so we were left with the task of removing them ourselves. Markus did some research on the net and found that really the best solution was to smash them to pieces. On our second "work weekend" with friends, Markus my dad and our friend Blair smashed the radiators into pieces with a sledge hammer and hauled them to the bin. The smashing of the radiators actually went faster than we thought, but dad had a few minor cuts and abrasions afterwards from the pieces of radiator that flew up at him as he smashed away.

Death By Plaster

Unfortunately the next step in this renovation was to take off ALL of the existing plaster and wooden lath from the first and second floor. By the time we started swinging our crowbars, the plaster had seen better days and did not put up much of a fight coming off.

The first room we tested was our small knick-knack room upstairs - as we wanted to see what was behind the walls and how easy it would be to take off. The second room came down almost by accident as Markus, my dad Peter, our friend Don and I were finishing taking down the trim in the house one weekend. Being a bit bored, as we worked in the living room, I started to bang at the wall and the plaster started falling. We all looked at each other and shrug our shoulders and pretty soon there was a gigantic pile of plaster in the middle of the room. The reaming rooms we cleared of plaster on two different "work weekends". The wooden lath cam down over a series of weeks, with Markus and I working after school and on the weekends.

Taking down the plaster and wooden lath has to be one of the dirtiest and crappiest jobs around. The dust is so fine and chokes you if you don't have a respirator on. The dust also goes EVERYWHERE and we are still sweeping it up around the house. We are in debt to the following friends who dared to come out and do some destruction with us:
-Peter Sawchyn
-Dominic Rubrecht
-Blair Litzenberger
-Don Balas
-Dan Innes
-Dan Fleishaker
-Chris Beingessner
-Steve Torgerson
-Kendra Walker

The worst sections of pulling off plaster we hit were in the corners of the bay windows and the bathroom walls. In these specially selected spots, somebody had decided to use an industrial diamond shape wire to ensure that the plaster stayed on. HOWEVER, trying to remove said wire piece from wall after it has been on for a 100 years was a bit ridiculous and resulted in many cuts and sore muscles.

The following is a selection of photo's from our destruction of the plaster!

Step #1: Remove Wood Trim

One of the best selling features of this house was that the majority of the wooden trim was NOT painted over! In the Cathedral area, it seems it is harder and harder to find an older house that someone hasn't decided to be lazy and just paint the trim.

So our first job to do,before we could start the demolition, was to remove all of the wooden trim from the two floors. This included door trim, baseboards, and window trim. Markus and I pulled all the nails from the boards as soon as we removed them, labeled them, and then for the doors and windows, we wrapped all the corresponding parts together, so we would know 6 months later which piece went where. I hope this time spent in the beginning will pay off in a few months when we will have to start digging through the ridiculous pile of wooden trim in our basement, find the right parts and begin refinishing them.