Call for inspection...

The call has been made to schedule a rough-in inspection. Finally, all the electrical hardware is in. Mom & Dad were down a few weekends ago and dad helped me snake the leads through the wall for the switch on the stairway. The 4" recessed light is in place at the bottom of the stairs and is switched at the top and bottom of the stairway. The finished space lighting is split in 2 zones, with 3 way switches. I have dimmers at the bottom of the stairs and standard switches at the door into the unfinished space.

I pretty much gutted all the basement wiring that existed and ran new wiring for the existing basement circuit. I installed 4 lights in the unfinished space where there was only 1. This made a huge difference and will help a lot when it's closed off. These lights are also on a 3 way switch at the bilco door and at the door into the finished space.

Wiring for the play side was fairly straight forward. The 2 recessed lights in the soffit are included in a switched circuit with 2 outlets. I plan to install drop ceiling on the side with the outlets so I figured it would be easiest to terminate the recessed fixtures with a plug so I could remove them easily if I had to.

I finished around the pole with 2x3's. I used the concrete nails to fix the treated base in place. I wanted to have space for an outlet and leave the front of the finish feature flush with the soffit side above to eliminate any steps in the drywall. I made it 7-1/4 square. I put this outlet in after the fact, so I had to pull back some wiring to include this in the circuit, but that was easy. I think I'll go back and put some support blocks in to keep the 2x3's stiff enough. I don't want to have the drywall cracking every time someone bumps it.

The only thing I have left to do is hang the smoke detector in the planned unfinished space, terminate the phone line and run the speaker wires.

Electrical update

I removed the entire circuit that included the burned looking wires. I dissected the wire at the location of the marks and found no internal evidence that the conductors got hot. The paper on the ground wire wasn't discolored, there was no flow on the insulation of the common or hot lead, so I'm at a loss. It was some extra work to remove and replace, but at least I feel better about it.

Existing issues

I'm putting a single recessed light at the bottom of the stairs and I plan to re-use the 3-way switch at the top of the stairs so I don't have to pull new wire. I pulled out the insulation below the wire drop to see where the wires went, and was quite disturbed to find burned insulation paper.
There is only one original circuit in the basement, and I haven't touched it yet as my new fixtures are on new circuits from the panel.


Looking up into the space, there is matching residue on the wire insulation, but it's strange that it doesn't appear melted at all. We've been in the house for 2 years and never smelled anything, or had issues with this circuit.

My only assumption is that during the original wiring, they mis-connected one of the three-way leads and tried to operate the circuit. This theoretically should result in a dead short, so I'm suprised that the breaker stayed on long enough to result in this kind of artifact.

For now, I think I'm going to look at other parts of this circuit and see if there are any additional examples of this kind of problem. If not, I may pull this section of wire out and replace it, just to err on the side of caution. I wonder what the individual conductor insulation looks like inside??

Ceiling Work

I finished wiring the 6 recessed lights on the primary side. I used a traditional 3-way wiring scheme running power to the first switch, 3 conductor to the 2nd switch, then on to the fixture group. Everything worked the first time with no issues.

I used Lutron dimmers and I'm pretty impressed with their product. There is no noise when the dimming function is used, although it does put out some heat. I ended up choosing the traditional flip style with the small dimmer slide. I thought about the paddle switches, but we don't have any of those anywhere else in the house, so I stayed with the common theme.

I finished the soffit under the ducting by connecting both drops with a 2x3 laying on it's side. I predrilled holes in the 2x2's on the bottom of the drops, then drove 2, 3-1/2" screws into the ends of the 2x3's. This worked well to keep them from rotating.

It's almost a 7 foot run for the 2x3's, so to provide support when the drywall is in place, I put a 2x2 tie down the middle, and connected periodically up to the floor joists.

Electrical Update

Well.... it's been a while since I updated this. We went on vacation the third week of April, and when we got back, weekends were killed for most the month of May. Anyhow, I'm back on task and working again.

I was able to un-mount the panel from the backing board and square it up, so at least is straight on the wall now. After doing that, I framed the rest of the way around it to eventually support the drywall.

I finished the drop on the other side of the duct run down the room. It's identical to the front side in construction.

I've run all the outlet wiring. I had originally submitted plans for using 12ga wire and running a single 20A circuit. I ended up splitting the room into two home runs and using a double 15A breaker. This allowed me to use standard 14ga circuit wiring. It also made the wiring runs easier. After wiring the panel, everything stayed on after I flipped the breaker. Yeah!

I started installing the lights this past week. The recessed fixtures are fairly simple. I'm going to use 3way switches and have a gang of switches at the bottom of the stairs and also at the door to the unfinished space. I'll put dimmers at the bottom of the stairs to let us control the lighting levels. I'll rip out the existing fixtures and wiring as soon as I get the new ones in.

Almost done with framing

I more or less completed the framing effort this past weekend. The only thing that's left is to tie in the soffit under the ducting, and frame around the post.

The back wall was pretty straight forward. Because I'm going to have a drop ceiling in this area, I planned to run the stud walls less than full height. This made building a lot easier (and quicker) because I could just cut to length, build on the floor and tip up into place. Once positioned, I glued and nailed into the concrete and then created ties into the joists to locate the top plate plumb.

The partition wall was a little more complex because I had a shorter section to run under the duct, then back to standard height for the remainder of the wall.

I centered the door in this section, leaving about 25" between the door frame and the back foundation wall. This will be perfect for 24" shelving in the unfinished space.

The long side wall went quickly as well. The only hiccup here was framing around the panel, which turns out is hung crooked on the wall. I'll remove the service outlet later on and put a stud on the right side to tie in the drywall.

Here's a shot of the playroom side of the basement. You can also see the finished soffit drop on the beam side here.

More Framing

I made some more progress this past weekend with the framing efforts. I tore down the existing railing and faux post at the bottom of the stairs and framed it in. With the new wall, I left 1/2" between the back of the studs and the stairway stringer for drywall on the back side. I also framed in the offset wall.

On the back wall, I started framing over to the beam. Here, I was able to frame in place on the floor and tip the wall into place. The first time I tried, I ended up being off by about 1/8", so I couldn't tip the wall into place. So back to the floor, rip off the top plate, trim the studs, and nail everything back together. I'll be a little more conservitive with my measurement next time.

To box around the beam and provide a nailer for the drywall, I placed a 2x2 nailer on the top plate, and then sheathed around it using some 5/8" OSB.

I have another 2x2 nailer on the bottom of the OSB panel that the soffit structure will tie into.

Above is the front side and to the right is a picture from the back. You can see the 2x4 blocks I put in to keep the panel square with the beam.

Here, you can see the area that I will have to soffit around. The plan is to hang a panel on the right side of the duct run similar to the one I ran down the side of the beam. I'll run 2x4 stringers between the panels, tipped on their side to keep the ceiling height maximized. I'll also run supports up to the joists between the duct and the beam periodically to keep the 2x4's from sagging over time with the weight of the drywall. I'll probably run the stringers every 24" and space them to align with the light locations.