Insulation

Final step before drywall was installing insulation. Lowes had a sale on R13 rolls of Owens Corning faced insulation at $10 a roll. The pre-cut bat insulation was almost $40 for 13 pieces. Each roll would cover 4 joist spaces with a little scrap. So this worked out to $30 for 12 pieces. I was happy cutting to length, so for what I needed, it was about $60 cheaper to get the rolls.


I didn't have a stapler, so it was time for a new tool. Home Depot had the Ryobi One plus stapler on clearance for $45. What a great little stapler. It accepts a variety of staple lengths and has a simple dial to adjust the hammer force. I installed all the insulation on one charge with plenty reserve, and I had no staple jams. I dropped it off the ladder several times with no cracks and no functional issues.



Here's a picture coming in from the unfinished space in the basement.



And from the bottom of the stairs.

I stitched two pictures together with some issues around the treadmill, but you get the picture.

It's noticibly quieter with the insulation in, and looking a lot more like a functional room.

Fire Blocking

So summer is gone and so is most of the busy yard work and weekend activities that somehow absorbed all free time available. The basement is getting some renewed priority in life, and I'm making good progress again.

I passed rough-in inspection with no problems back in September. A framing inspection wasn't required because of the scope of the job. The electrical inspector only had one comment about considering fire-blocking the airgaps between the stud walls and the ceiling space. He noted that this is required for new contruction, but that it was up to me whether I wanted to do it or not here. It seemed like a good suggestion, so I did it.

There are two instances to resolve with fireblocking. The first is that the stud walls are offset from the foundation wall. As a result, there is a continuous air-gap behind the wall. In the event of a fire, the fire can travel continuously around the room with no inhibitors. To stop this, it is recommended to block in behind a stud every 10 feet. The second issue is at the top of the stud wall, where again, there is a air gap. Here, there is an uninhibited path for fire to run up into the joist space and travel from there. The solution here is that you fill this space to eliminate the gap.

Picture on the left shows the airpath for the 2nd issue, and the picture on the right shows the fire blocking element in place (purple).

A quick online search revealed several approved methods for accomplishing this. Rock wool was the most popular for hard to fill spaces that didn't have a lot of flat surfaces. It's basically fireproof insulation that you can jam just about anywhere. The two other methods were to install fire-resistant drywall and/or use fire-resistant expanding foam.

I chose a combination of the latter two because I had simple, straight sections to fill.

I found this great stuff fireblock expanding foam at home depot. It was just under $10 a can.

In this picture, you can see the expanding foam along the top and behind one of the vertical studs.

Here, you can see the fire-resistant drywall installed between the stud spaces. I then used the foam to fill the gap behind the studs, and around any wire-drops.

The vertical gap was too big for the foam in all but two locations. So I just used the drywall.

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.