Recently in Rough In Category

This morning after slacking off a few days I finished the last of the insulation. I filled every gap or nook with some type of insulation. Hopefully this will help with both sound isolation and cooling or heating bills. I used CertainTeed insulation all around. I used their R-13 smart roll with vapor barrier for all the external walls. Then I used kraft faced R-19 on the internal 2x6 walls as well in all ceiling joists. I am just happy to be done with fiber glass, I can't wait until the drywall is in to truly be rid of it.

The rest of the day I think I will finish the integrity gaskets. Then if I still have time I will either test the speaker wires or the Ethernet and Satellite wires.

I spent 4 hours finishing up the insulation tonight. Only thing left is to fill a couple of odd spaced holes. All the major gaps are filled now. At this point even without drywall I am hearing a difference already with respect to server in laundry room. Hopefully it will be even better with drywall and linacoustic up. Tomorrow night I will finish up the insulation and then finish up the integrity gaskets. Wednesday I have someone coming in to give me an estimate for drywall. Hopefully it won't be too much and can be done soon.

Friday night and Saturday I tried to do as much as I could to get ready for next steps. I continued to tidy up and tighten up various wiring bits. Along with that I keep trying to think of all the possibilities I can to plan for the future. As I do that I add another box here, some 12/2 there and even some 18/4. I ran through my second 250 ft roll of 12/2 and had to get a third. I used a good chunk of the first roll on upstairs however the majority of first roll and second are in basement. A whole lot of electrical wires running around.

In between the wiring I would work on insulation. I finished up a bit more of the external block walls, there are a few empty pieces left waiting for potential wiring. I then completed all of the 2x6 walls. I stapled the kraft facing up as well. I started on the ceiling after that. I am filling the joists with R19 as well wherever I can. Especially the gap from the main room to the laundry room.

The last thing I worked on was mounting Integrity Gaskets on all the walls and ceilings in the theater area at least. Depending on what I have left over I will try to work on the rest of the room. This product is supposed to help stop sound transmission at least a little and it is fairly cheap and very easy to install. It looks very much like a green version of the 3M double sided sticky tape (IG is only sticky on one side). I don't know how much it will help, but I am sure it can't hurt.

Tuesday night I started by taking out the first shelf I mounted. I talked to my dad and realized that mounting the shelf flush with the 2x4's wasn't a good idea. There needs to be a lip to be an edge for the drywall. I then mounted the controller shelf and the TV DVD shelf. Then I realized I forgot to put a back on the last shelf. The other two shelves basically have the back of the wall drywall as backs, but this shelf has a 9" opening behind it. I pulled the shelf back out and mounted a back on it. After the shelf I did some finishing work on the main rack's Sat and Ethernet wiring.

Wednesday night I started by finishing up the last of the speaker wiring. I then went back and cleaned up some of the wiring in other places. I finished up by making one of the plywood sides of the rack enclosure.

Today I started to receive some of the parts of my lights orders and outlet order. Hopefully I will get more tomorrow so I can work on them over the weekend. I also found out that I can't get any R-21 insulation easily so I am going with R-19 (which apparently becomes R-18 when compressed). I started the night by running the 18/4 wire for the entry light switch and an extra run for the possibility of a switch near the front row seats. These switches will be manual controls for the grafik eye in common locations. After that I started on the insulation in the 2x6 walls.

I am working 2-4 hours a night trying to finish everything I can before the lights come. At this point it is just how much time some of the tasks take, not really the difficulty. This weekend I really want to get everything other than lights done, and then maybe take of next Tuesday to work on lighting.

Tonight I built my first in wall shelf. It is the new releases shelf. It fits between two studs in the 2x6 walls. It has enough height for four shelves of DVDs or Xbox games. It sits flush with the stud and I guess I need to decide if I want to cover the edges with drywall.

I got the shipment notice for my twelve recessed cans tonight. They won't be in until next Monday so I may have the weekend off from working on basement since I will have nothing to do.

I have been spending the last few days shopping for fabric for my walls. Not my usual thing. Luckily my mom is a seamstress and knows lots so she is helping me along.

Tonight I ran conduit for my speakers. I got the conduit run for the three front speakers and the sub. Although as I write this I just realized I ran the wrong size conduit for the right front and sub combo. Might I say blargh. Hopefully I can get that already glued conduit back out. ARGH!

Sunday morning we started on the riser. The riser is 5'x9'x10" with a 10"x8'x7" step on the front of it. Let me just say, when drawing up the plans for this and imagining it somehow the size didn't come across. Once it was built it is far bigger in practice. We built it with 24" O.C. supports and 3/4" plywood on top. I bounced up and down on it so I am pretty confident it will hold chairs and people. The last thing we built was a square base for the sump pump well. That way I can put a lid on it and make it as unobtrusive as possible. Especially now the pipe that was 5 ft in the air is now gone.

The last thing we did Sunday was to go to Home Depot for the last of the seven weekend trips to get some lumber. This time I got some medium grade lumber to make some shelving out of. I am going to make some recessed shelving to hold DVD's. I am going to have some shelving for TV DVD and then a new arrivals shelf for visitors.

My dad left about 12:30 to ensure he could get home before dark. At this point all the major construction is done. I will be able to do everything else by myself until the drywall. I will have professionals come in and do the walls and ceilings for drywall. The last piece I will need help with is mounting the Linacoustic and fabric on the walls. I think both my parents will come down to help me with that in 2 weeks or so.

We started Saturday morning by disassembling the existing sump pump. We dug out the bottom of well to make it a bit deeper. We drained the well and quickly realized that the pump doesn't only deal with rain water. Apparently the well is below my houses very own sea level. Water just seems to bubble up from the ground at a pretty constant rate. We kept having to drain it with my dad's wet dry vacuum. We assembled and glued the remaining pipe pieces.

While we waiting for the PVC cement to dry we started building the final wall section. It was a normal wall with no windows or anything. It worked well except for one small problem. The water pipe that goes to the outside hose outlet came down a bit at the corner. My dad had to chisel the corner down to make it fit below the water pipe. After the wall we went back to the pump.

We assembled the final pieces of pipe and set the pump into the well. My dad then started filling the well with water to get it to run. It ran once without issue, and then we filled it again. The second time became this weekend's water incident. The pipe strap on one of the rubber couplings wasn’t quite tight. It worked its way loose and the pumps very sufficient water pressure began spraying like a sprinkler all over the basement. My dad unplugged the pump and we figured out what happened. I mopped the floor to remove the majority of the water. Then my dad went back and tightened all the pipe straps. After that the pump as worked perfectly as far as we can tell. No leaks anywhere along the piping.

After the sump pump we made the framing to go around the gas meter that is conveniently placed in the middle of the wall in the basement. Not too much to it, just two 12" wall pieces. The last thing we built was the frame for my rack. I ordered it last week to make sure we got the sizing right. It is a Middle Atlantic SRSR-X-24. We made sure to make a solid floor for the rack to mount to, since it will hang out and have some serious leverage.

My dad showed up about 4:30 PM on Friday the 4th. We started by going over my list of what I wanted to do this weekend and making sure what we needed to get. We then made our first of the seven weekend trips to Home Depot to get some lumber and other odds and ends.

Sunday the 22nd my dad and I got up again about 6:30 and started about 7. We started with the last section of the back wall that went from the outside door to the side wall. This wall had a window in it as well. It was also further complicated by the existing sump pump pipe. We next built the small wall section of wall that goes between the fireplace and the front wall. This wall has a heat/ac duct and water shut off valve for outside in it. We basically had to build the wall short on one side. This is where we stopped for the day. I had to go to work and my dad needed to leave to get home, he can't drive at night any longer.