A Venting Fan for the Master Bathroom

When the house was built, the builder put heaters in each of the bathrooms, over the toilets.  Experience has shown that there are few days when we need a heater in the bathroom, but we commonly need to vent the humidity from taking showers.  So I replaced the heater in the back bathroom with a vented fan.  That seems to be working well.

So the objective is to replace the heater in the master bathroom with a fan also.  I got a new fan from Lowe's, a Broan 683, just like the one in the back bathroom.

The painters, when they were scraping the popcorn off the bathroom ceiling, removed the heater.

But the fan will need to be installed above the ceiling, in the floor of the attic.  Unfortunately, this is in a corner of the house, with two exterior walls, so there is not a lot of clearance to work in.  To make things worse, that corner of the attic is essentially walled off by the loft area that we put in when we remodelled one of the bedrooms, and has been so well insulated as to be nearly unreachable.

But I realized that it was just behind the built-in bookcases in the attic.  So if we remove the bookcase, we should be able to get right to the area we need to work in.

First, we need to empty the bookcase and clear away a lot of stored stuff.

Then the bookcase, which is just nailed in around the edges of the trim, can be pulled out.

But unfortunately, the loft area was built without the bookcases, and the area behind the bookcases is all finished sheetrock.

and thinking about it, the wall behind the bookcases should be very heavily insulated.  One option is to cut thru the sheetrock and patch it later, but maybe this was not the best idea.

Let's try to remove the solar board radiant barrier in the attic and see if we can crawl back to work from the attic.

25 April 2014:

Removing the  solar board, it becomes obvious that getting to the area we need to work in from the attic would be next to impossible.

 So it seems the most reasonable way to approach the problem is thru the wall behind the bookcase.  We cut out an area between two studs.

And that gets us into the attic.  This part of the attic is not floored, so we move the insulation out of the way and lay a board down across two floor joists (or ceiling rafters), and this gets us back far enough to find the electrical box with the wiring for the old heater.

 Removing the electrical box from the ceiling, and using the hole from that to define one corner, we cut a larger rectangle that is just the size of the new fan.

While it is a mess up in the attic, it looks pretty good in the bathroom.

 The instructions say to position the new fan flush with the ceiling.  To do that, since it has to be nailed to the ceiling rafter in the attic, I tacked two one by two pieces of scrap wood across the opening in the bathroom.  This will leave 4 small holes that need to be filled in, and re-painted, but the new fan sits perfectly on the 1x2 pieces at just the right height.

Once the position of the fan is established, we then need to make a hole on the outside of the house for the exhaust vent.  Careful measuring, and drilling a test hole, establishes where this should be

We then drill multiple holes in the rock along the outside of where we want the hole to be, and use a rock chisel to break the rock out, cut thru the blue Styrofoam insulation, and thru the tar paper covered exterior façade, behind the Styrofoam board and the rock exterior.  This allows us to install the actual exterior vent.

Now, we can snake the vent tube from the fan across the attic to the exterior hole and attach it to the exterior vent.  Having attached the wiring from the heater switch to the fan power wires, we now have a completely functioning vented fan.

Now we cover everything back up with lots of insulation.  We bought two more rolls of unfaced R-30 fiber glass insulation, and add it to what was already there.

The insulation goes right up over the access hole.   We add a 2x3 stud down each side of the access hole.

Which we then cover with a piece of plywood using decking screws, so that, if need be, we can just remove it if we need future access.

We slide the bookcase unit back into place and nail it to secure it.

This entire process took a couple of days, but we now have a vented fan, instead of an unvented heater.

The middle bathroom (guest bathroom) still has a heater; it appears replacing this unit would be nearly impossible from inside the house -- we would need to come in from the roof, so we are inclined to leave it until we need the roof replaced, in maybe twenty years.

Removing Popcorn from All Ceilings

When the house was built, the ceilings were textured with something called "popcorn".  This is a mixture of sheetrock compound (mud) and something like small pieces of paper or styrofoam which is sprayed on the ceiling and allowed to dry.  The rough nature of the result hides any flaws in the underlying sheetrock and provides a uniform, random ceiling surface.

But it's considered very dated.  So 1980's!   The current approach is to texture and paint the ceiling like the walls, which we did when the computer room was remodelled and when we re-did the back bathroom and bedroom suite.  Also I took the popcorn off the ceiling in the dining room and guest bedroom.

It takes a lot of work, and makes a big mess.  And the next rooms to be done would be the living room with a high "cathedral" ceiling and the library, where the ceiling is 12 feet, not the "normal" 8 or 10 feet.  It would seem that some form of scaffolding would be needed to rework these rooms.  So, I expected to hire someone to do this.

We were approached by a young person, a college student, for a company called "College Works Painting".  We are inclined to support college students.  They quoted $4343 to do the whole house: remove the popcorn, texture the newly stripped ceilings and paint the ceilings, which is about
what we expected, so we agreed to this.

The presentation suggested it would be done by college students, probably during the summer.  My goal had been to get it done by the end of the year, so that was fine.  The one constraint was to not do the work during April, since Linda would be recovering from her hip surgery, scheduled for April.

Linda's surgery got advanced to 18 March, and we got a call from Michael Harper wanting to start the job on 31 March (Monday). He stopped by the previous week to look everything over, and indicated it would take about 3 days.  I started removing A/C air vents, and objects near the ceiling, ceiling fan blades, light fixtures, the contents of top shelves.  No one came on Monday, but they did show up on Tuesday.  The job ended up taking from Tuesday 1 April 2014 until Wednesday 9 April 2014, including work on both Saturday and Sunday.  We were told people would be there at 7 AM, but they almost never started before 9 AM.

I took advantage of the ceiling work to remove the access panel to the attic that was in the Yoga room.  I built a frame from 2x3 wood and covered the hatch with sheetrock.

The first step for the work was to hang plastic film over the walls and floors so that it could be kept clean.

Once the walls and floors are protected, the ceiling was sprayed with water to soften the popcorn, and then the popcorn was scrapped off.  This was done room by room until all the popcorn was removed, exposing the underlying sheetrock.

 The greatest time was spent in this stage, probably a week.  Once the popcorn was removed, the new texture could be sprayed on the ceiling.

Once the texture had dried, it could be painted.

And then the clean-up can begin.  It took me days to vacuum, sweep, and mop the furniture, walls, and floors to clean up everything.  Then two days to put the air vents, fan blades, light fixtures and furniture back.

Was it worth the effort?  The ceilings certainly look better, but it cost over a week of time and effort.  They never did use scaffolding, just moving ladders around to get to the higher ceilings.

The process seemed very inefficient.  They put up plastic first for removing the popcorn, then took it down to get rid of the mess and debris.  Then they had to put plastic up again to protect from the texture spray.  Then they needed to protect from paint splatter.  The painters had the opinion that they would paint well enough that they did not need to mask the counters or furniture as they painted (they were wrong but dismissed the problems as "minor").  It seems that a better job could be done by putting up the plastic once, removing the popcorn and doing the spraying for the texture and painting once, and then removing the plastic, going room to room, rather than trying to do all the removal at once, then all the texture, then all the painting.  The painters seemed to underestimate the size of the job.

As with the dining room ceiling, we used Martha Stewart "Heavy Cream" for the color, but used Behr interior flat ceiling paint.  We needed 14 gallons, purchased from Home Depot.  They initially estimated they would need 8 gallons to paint, then, after going thru those 8 gallons, figured they needed 7 more, resulting in one left over gallon.  Part of this could be that they failed to prime the sheet rock once it was stripped of the popcorn and textured, but just started painting.

Jita

Jita, Kathryn's older cat, died today.  We decided to put her next to Pepper, in Zone 2.

Not as deep -- it's difficult to dig real deep in this soil.  The rock is gone, but it still has a high clay content, and the soil is also quite wet.

Out next step for Zone 2 should be landscaping and planting.

Another Rose for the South Bed

Back in January 2013, we planted a "Maggie" Rose in the corner of the South Bed, by the stone wall and the fence.  Now we have added a new rose bush, a bit further down the stone wall.

This new rose is from Barton Springs Nursery, $18.99, and is a Mutabilis Rose (Rosa x Mutabilis).


April 2015

We added a trellis to support the first rose bush -- the Maggie Rose.

This trellis was from Lowe's for  $43.57.

Dirt for the Raised Garden

With all the cement and stone work done for the raised garden, it is now time to fill it with dirt.  The raised garden is about 9 feet across, 20 feet long, and 3 to 4 feet deep.  The raised wall is one to two feet high.

First we build a ramp to allow us to move wheelbarrows of dirt up over the walls.

 When we excavated the old raised garden, we piled the dirt in two piles in the back yard.  One is on top of zone 2, just outside the kitchen.
 

So we start digging up this pile and dumping it into the raised garden pit.  After two days, the pile is gone.

and we have a bottom layer of dirt in the raised garden.

The other pile was across the back yard.

and 2 days later, it is also in the raised garden, almost filling it.

We had one smaller pile of dirt, mostly left over from the last dirt we bought and had delivered.  That was just enough to fill the raised garden.  Now we can remove the ramp, and use the decomposed granite in it to smooth out the path around the raised garden.

and we have an empty back yard again.

Limestone blocks for the raised garden

With the concrete footing for the raised garden poured, we can now compute how much limestone we need to finish the project.  The concrete has been poured to be level all the way around.  It's not perfect, but pretty close -- we will use a bed of mortar on the bottom course to even things out.  At the deepest point, it is about 16 inches below the pathway surface.  If the blocks are 6x6, that means 3 courses will be below ground level at this point.  We want the garden to be raised about the same as before, which would be 16 inches.  So that means about 32 inches, or 5 courses total.

Each course is 10 feet deep by 16 feet long, so 52 linear feet per course, and with 5 courses, that would be 260 linear feet.  At 6x6, that would be 65 cubic feet.  I measured pallets, and they seem to be about 31 inches by 48 inches by 40 inches, or 33 cubic feet. So I need two pallets.  And then I could go get individual pieces if I need more.

We bought the two pallets at Whittlesey Landscape Supplies.  The two pallets of stone were 7460 pounds of 6x6 dry stack for $535.35.  A cubic yard of decomposed granite was $57.93.  With another $90 for delivery.  6 bags of mortar from Home Depot.

We moved all this around back, laid out a string line to define the rectangle that should be where the stones go and started laying them out. Once they were laid out, mortar was put on the concrete footing, and the stones put on that, to try to get things level.

After this has a chance to dry, we put another layer of stone on top of this for the second course.

And a third course.

And a fourth course.

The rock debris that was inside the raised garden, was put out for Craig's List or used to fill in the pathway around the raised garden.  Once that was filled in, decomposed granite was put over it, to create a smooth surface.

We still have to mortar this fourth course, but this seems to work pretty well.

There is a significant slope from left to right (North to South).

Another half cubic yard of decomposed granite from Whittlesey Landscape supplies -- this time I borrowed a pick-up rather than have it delivered. $20.84, on 15 Feb 2014.

The gaps between the stones on the top (4th) course worried me.  But if I filled them up, I would want to make it "like" the limestone.  I found that there is "white mortar", so I bought a bag (50 lbs) of that (Home Depot).  It is about 4 times more expensive than regular mortar, but it is much closer to "white", like the limestone.  I filled all the vertical gaps for the 4th course of stone, so that dirt and bugs and stuff will not sink down into that.

In addition, I used the left-over mortar to smear on the inside of the walls, giving a sort of plaster sealed finish on the inside.

Pouring the Raised Garden Foundation Walls

Once we have completely dug out the raised garden, we can start forming the walls that will support the limestone 6x6 blocks of the wall around the new raised garden.  We start at the highest spot, which will have the lowest wall.  The objective is to pour a cement wall all around the raised garden at the same level, so that the blocks will be level when placed on the wall.

Forms were  put along the entire side of the pit, and then down both sides.

This gives us a concrete wall as a footing for part of the raised garden pit.

 

We then extended this across the North end, and around the corner to the back wall.

And then across the back wall, and turn a corner to tie back in to the original pour.

This has taken 63 80-pound bags of concrete so far.  Two trips to Home Depot on 16 Nov -- 21 bags for $73.88 and 15 bags for $52.77.  Then another trip for 20 bags for $70.36 on 27 Dec 2013.  And another trip for 7 bags on 14 Jan for $30.85.

With this last trip to Home Depot, we have enough to finish the cement.  First we frame up the last section.

And once we pour, we have completed the box that defines the raised garden.

Coat Closet Door Handle

The door to the coat closet off the living room jammed and would not open.  Taking the entire door off, and door knob, I eventually got it open, to find that the slide for the bolt was broken and the shaft going thru it was twisted.  These were the original hardware pieces from when the house was built (Gainsbourgh), so it was 30 years old.

Rather than try to find the correct replacement pieces, we replaced the entire mechanism with a more contemporary lever handle, similar to what we have on the kitchen/garage entry door.  This is a Kwikset Tustin Satin Nickel Hall & Closet (720 TNL 15) Signature Series, $31.25 from Home Depot.

This is continuing the switch from the polished brass to Linda's preferred Satin Nickel finish, and also switching from crystal door knobs to levers.

More work on the Raised Garden

Our last posting on the Raised Garden said that we had the digging done.  But in fact, we only had most of it.  We had dug out to the cement tiles that ringed the raised garden.  These were originally under the railroad ties.  But the dirt from the raised garden continued under them.  The tiles are 12 inch square.

So we moved the tiles back 12 inches, revealing a 12 inch wide margin of dirt that still needs to be dug out.  We started on the back wall.  The digging was fairly easy, but as we got to the actual decomposed granite walkway, it was apparent that this whole approach was badly thought out.

There is nothing between the rock and decomposed granite of the walkway and the dirt of the raised garden except a (now badly deteriorated) stretch of garden fabric.  As I removed the dirt from the raised garden, the rock and decomposed granite then collapsed into the pit of the raised garden.

In addition, digging on around revealed a couple of very large rocks still in the raised garden, in the upper right corner of the picture below.

We used the jack hammer to break these up so that we can remove them.

We also had to jack hammer out some rock in the opposite corner.

All of this work has been substantially delayed because of frequent rains which both fill the pit and make all the dirt and rock too wet to work in, so it's been months since we have been able to make much progress.

Our objective at this point is to pour a retaining wall around the perimeter of the raised garden pit, to hold out the rock and decomposed granite, and to be the base on which to build a new raised garden using 6x8 inch limestone blocks instead of the railroad ties.  We have 40 bags of concrete in the garage waiting to be used for this wall, as soon as we can finish the digging and it's dry enough to work.