New bathroom plugs
While I’m doing the wiring in the basement, I decided to also fix something that really annoys me: my upstairs bathroom plug. As you can see, there are two sockets, and they’re connected to the light switch. This means we usually have a wire all the way across the wall/counter, and my girlfriend is always changing plugs for her hair appliances.
I cut a hole for a 2-gang box in the wall, and ran a wire down there, beside the central vac pipe, and down through the floor into the basement.
I just wanted to make a small rant against UPS. Generally, UPS and most of the big shipping companies are known for their innovation and ever-lasting pursuit of efficiency. They have large computer networks to track shipments and deliveries and optimize routes.. fleets of hundreds of planes and thousands of trucks.. and can manage to get a box from one side of the continent to your front door on the other side in a day for less than the cost of fuel to drive a couple hours out of town.
While I was getting ready for the insulation, I disconnected the dryer and noticed basically a very cold wind coming out of the end of the pipe. Upon closer inspection, there was actually frost on the pipe inside of the house, and when I took it apart, there was actual snow in the outside vent (the picture is hard to make out, but most of that is snow, except for at the very end, which is just dryer lint).
The insulation was finally done, and it couldn’t have been soon enough. It’s amazing how expensive it is to heat a house with no insulation in the basement..
As I’ve mentioned before, I’m using a spray-in foam insulation (HeatLok, though I wasn’t looking for a particular brand when finding a contractor to do it, it’s just the one mine – Frontenac Foam Insulation – used). There are some great benefits to this stuff:
I have most of the wiring run, concentrating on the outside walls since it needs to be done before insulation. The laundry room has its own circuit (GFCI-protected), and there is also a light in the furnace room/closet. There are 8 plugs in the rec-room area (since I’ll be using it as my office space, I wanted lots of plugs), on two separate circuits. There is also another separate circuit for all the lights.
Since there is no window in the basement bathroom, I’m adding an exhaust vent to it. I’m using a 90 CFM fan which is rated at 0.5 somes (which is almost silent) – although I’m putting it through 3″ duct instead of 4″, which I believe drops the rating to 80 CFM (still more than enough) and makes it slightly louder.
Of course the exhaust air needs a place to go, so that meant adding a new vent.
I’ve been getting behind with my blogging, so I’m going to try and post a few entries to catch up to where I actually am with the renovations process. I didn’t get too much done over the holidays, but I am still making decent progress. It’s a bit sad to think that I could probably do what I’ve done in two or three weeks working full-time, but such is life, and having a full-time job that allows me to pay for all of this.
One of the reasons we bought this house (as opposed to some of the other similar places in the area) was because most of the windows had been replaced within the last few years. There are 4 windows that haven’t been replaced: 3 in the basement, and one in the upstairs bathroom.
The old windows were fairly typical of 1970’s construction, by which I mean, pretty horrible. Basically they’re just two panes of glass that slide up against each other, and two layers of these so there is an air space in between.
To do the basement sub-floor, I’m using a product called Delta-FL, which I picked up at Rona. It’s basically a big roll of dimpled plastic, which sits on top of the basement slab and acts as a vapour barrier, adds an air gap that helps insulate the floor, and also raises the floor up off the ground to avoid water damage in case there is a tiny amount of water.
The house was built in 1974, so there are two implications as far as electrical goes: there is aluminum wiring, and there is a fuse box.
Not too much I can do about the aluminum, and in fact, so long as it’s done properly, aluminum is quite safe. It’s still often used for service entrance wiring (eg, from the pole to your panel), and it’s still used extensively throughout the electricity distribution system.