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OK, most of you have seen the thread about my garage. Not a whole lot changed there. Still tyvek outside but now with a real set of stairs inside. This is about the house addition. I finally got my electrical, plumbing, and building inspections done. Guess what? Plumbing and electrical inspectors had a few slight issues (I did not do those trades) Building inspector had no issues with the framing that I did and signed off on the garden shed, garage, and house. Now for insulation. After spending many many hours researching online, I decided to go with Icynene foam insulation. 3 times the price of fiberglass and the payback is less than 5 years. I got three bids by 3 good rated firms and selected one after getting a few references. They had the best price and a good reputation. They showed up right on time yesterday and the 2 helpers went right to work masking everything off. Lead man and sprayer was getting set up and cleaning his equipment. Problem! Generator in the truck would not start, after a ton of tries. Finally around 10:30 they got another truck and he had to start all over with the cleaning, as well as getting the chemicals to heat up. They finally got to spraying about 11:00. Susan and I came home for lunch just as they were finishing theirs. Just as I finished lunch I saw one of the helpers run past the window at the back of the house. Then he ran back and knocked real hard on the back door. Seems there was this burst pipe on the second floor flooding the place. To get a plumbing inspection here, the plumber needs to completely fill the waste lines to the point that clean water comes out from the vents on the roof, and that was done and the lines were still full. As one of the workers was trimming the foam in the upstairs shower area he must have accidentally hit or pulled on the plug in the shower drain pipe and that sucker popped out with about 15 feet of head pressure and he freeked out and did his best to plug it with his hand. Other helper came and alerted me. Water was pouring down to the first floor through the rough openings and pooling up on the plywood deck. After a brief panic from the lead man I surveyed the situation and called the plumber who came over right away. He went into a tail spin of sorts and decided to drill a hole in the pipe in the basement to drain off the water. We had a bucket brigade assembled to take the buckets of water from the drill hole to the sump. It was just after the hole was drilled that I handed him a flashlight and told him to go into the crawl space and look at the hookup to the existing system. (note, he owns the company but did not do the work) He went in and there was a large valve and he opened it and the system drained in less than 10 seconds. I got a wet vac setup and brought home an industrial fan to dry things up. By the end of the day you could hardly notice that there was a flood. It was also now 3:00 and as the sprayer tried to go back to work he noticed that in the panic he dropped his gun and one of the valves moved slightly. Gun was plugged solid and another 20 min and he was back spraying. Just another Monday. So far today is going well, but they could not finish the second floor or the roof because of the oppressive heat. They will start back up there tomorrow, working on the first floor this afternoon.
Great moments in building history!
I must say though, in my 27 yrs as a builder I have never seen where one would fill the waste system with water. We plug all ends with pnumatic plugs and fill with 15 lbs air pressure for 24 hrs. water lines get tested the same way only with 60lbs
Spray foam? class 2?
Posted By David G. on 11 Aug 2009 06:07 PM
Great moments in building history!
I must say though, in my 27 yrs as a builder I have never seen where one would fill the waste system with water. We plug all ends with pnumatic plugs and fill with 15 lbs air pressure for 24 hrs. water lines get tested the same way only with 60lbs
Spray foam? class 2?
Have no idea what class it is, but know it is better than anything else on the market as far as safety and health issues go. Google Icynene and find out more. Ants and mice hate it also. Also getting blockers and runners sprayed in the existing crawl space. 6″ in the addition walls and 9″ sprayed right onto the roof sheathing. Ridge vent gets sprayed right over as well as the eve spaces. Ceiling between 2nd floor and attic does not get any insulation. Air handler for the second floor is in the attic so AC will be cheaper with the full envelope sealed. Air seal is so tight that I will need to bring in combustion air for the wood stove. Water in the stack must be part of our small town rules.
Susan wanted nothing to do with stone tops when we started this project…….
That has changed.Compressed air was used to test the water lines.
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