It Feels Like The Beginning Of The End

Posted on December 24, 2011 by BeatingUpwind

While the closed cell foam has been going in for a few days, yesterday when we went to the house the place just felt different – like it was the beginning of the end. Fiberglass sound insulation has been put in, and now when you walk through the house you don’t see the guts of the house so much. We’ve got yellowish white walls and either pink or yellow ceilings…

fiberglass sound insulation and closed cell foam

There’s still a little more to do (they missed a few walls – like the one in the picture below), but in general it looks great and it transforms the feeling of the house. Walking through the house is so different now – everything is just quieter and more muted and cozy.

sound insulation in the den

[If you’re wondering, the PVC you see in that wall is the condensation line for the A/C.]

One issue which I thought of just at the right moment was the sound insulation between the rental unit and our unit. When I thought about sound I realized our living room is right above their bedroom. I mentioned it to the contractor who mentioned it to the insulation sub-contractor and an $800 change order later we went with 5″ of open cell foam in the ceiling between the two units.

Open cell foam looks like closed cell foam, but it’s much softer – it feels like a fairly soft foam pillow. While closed cell foam is good at stopping thuddy sounds like someone walking overhead and the bass from a stereo, open cell foam is good over a broader range of sounds. Still, even with the open cell foam you can still hear people talking through the floor, but we still need to put the wood floor on and the ceiling below – that will improve things. I’m temped to put a second layer of drywall with a closed-cell-foamish sound proofing layer between the two layers for even more sound reduction – we’ll see.

So starting next week drywall should be going up pretty quickly. That will transform the house even more.

A White Christmas (w/ Closed Cell Foam)

Posted on December 21, 2011 by BeatingUpwind

The house is turning white just in time for Christmas… No, it’s not snowing – this (yellowish) white Christmas is thanks to closed cell foam…

In other words our house is turning into a big styrofoam cup. 🙂 And actually it was sorta snowing in the house today – as they cleaned up this powdery foam fell down the staircase – much like snow…

The other day someone asked us what about the house was “green”. I always hesitate when people ask me that question – I don’t do things just because someone calls them “green”. For example NYC requires low VOC floor sealers which these days means water-based sealers. But traditionally oil-based sealers perform better than water-based ones. I’d have no problem shipping high VOC oil-based sealer in from Pennsylvania if it means our floors will be more durable. In that particular case we were convinced to go with a low VOC water-based sealer because the modern sealers have epoxy-like hardeners in them that make them perform better than the old oil-based sealers.

So I’m not green just to be green, but I am definitely green when it increases efficiency, durability, etc. (provided it doesn’t compromise on the end result). Insulation is a huge part how our house will be green since, more than anything else, it can reduce energy usage through lower heating and cooling bills.

I had done my research ahead of time and knew that closed cell foam just performs better than the other alternatives. For starters closed cell foam has a much higher R value per inch than fiberglass – 6 to 7, compared to 3.14. Thinner insulation = thinner walls = wider rooms. But beyond that we’ve been told that closed cell foam has a real world performance that’s twice as good as fiberglass insulation with similar R value. So an R20 closed cell foam wall will perform about the same as an R40 fiberglass wall. The reason for that is pretty simple… R value ratings do not take air movement into consideration. Closed cell foam gets into all the nooks and crannies and creates a seal – there’s no way for air to get around the insulation. In contrast air can travel pretty easily around fiberglass batts.

To illustrate that point I went with a friend a few months ago to see a place in Brooklyn that was under construction. They were insulating, but in the most haphazard way possible… There’s no way the wall below is going to perform very well – look at the huge gaps in some areas and how it’s squished the fiberglass is in other areas.

In contrast closed cell foam tends to be a little oversprayed – so if anything it will perform better than expected and since it creates a perfect seal all over the wall – there’s no problem with air passing through the wall.

So sealing the house up really tight should drastically reduce energy consumption. Over time that will save us money and pay for the increased cost of the closed cell foam.

If your curious, here’s how the floors and walls are being done. NY State energy code requires R19+ walls and R39+ roofs (I think those numbers go up if the building is heated with electric). [And I should mention, if you’re landmarked or on the National Register you’re exempt from energy conservation rules. But seriously – if insulation will save you a substantial amount of money, why wouldn’t you want to insulate properly?]

That’s 2.5″ of closed cell foam, plus the R value of the brick, etc. gives us R20 walls. Actually, the R value of the brand we’re using is slightly higher than the architect expected, so we’ll have R21.5 walls.

That’s 4″ of rigid foam above the roof deck (rigid foam is similar to closed cell – except it’s not sprayed on and hence isn’t as air tight), plus 4″ of closed cell foam in the roof joists.

If you look closely at the image above you’ll see an inconsistency – the calculations say 2.5″ of foam, the detail drawing says 4″. I didn’t catch that until earlier today when they’d already started insulating. On top of that the insulation guy put 5.5″ of closed cell (R38) in his estimate, so our roof will be more like R61.5 with about R41.5 in the bulkhead. That amount of roof insulation is actually almost absurd – R60 is what “zero energy” homes have. With 3″ of closed cell foam you get 97% of its potential efficiency. So with 9.5″ (including the rigid insulation), most of our roof has got to be pretty close to 100% efficient.

The other thing closed cell foam does is reinforce the structure of the house. Because it becomes rather hard when it drys and because it fills every nook and cranny it actually becomes somewhat structural – all without adding much weight. We were told it can make a typical wood frame house 40 times stronger than normal which makes it popular in hurricane zones. We’ve got brick walls, so that’s not a big factor – but it can’t hurt.

The one downside to closed cell foam (other than cost) is that you have everything in your walls completed perfectly before you spray on the foam. Going back and fixing something you didn’t quite get right is incredibly difficult.

One thing we should mention is closed cell foam on brick walls. We were told by one insulation sub-contractor that old brick would suck up the equivalent of 1.5 inches of foam. But it turns out that was just wrong. The closed cell foam expert that we’re using says the foam is applied at 150 psi and starts drying and hardening almost immediately. It doesn’t really have time to get sucked into the brick.

Great Prices On Carrara Tile

Posted on December 14, 2011 by BeatingUpwind

Before we started renovations we didn’t figure out every detail, but we did figure out major themes. One reoccurring theme we wanted to have was Carrara marble. When you go through old townhouses you see a lot of Carrara so it seemed appropriate to use. Plus, it’s one of those materials that can look completely modern/contemporary – so we could give a nod to what used to be there without being constrained by using literal historic design themes.

When we priced Carrara tile at the major tile shops here in the City (DalTile, Nemo, etc.), prices ranged from $11/sq. ft. to over $40/sq. ft. So we looked online and found CarraraMarbleTiles.com which had much lower prices. I was hesitant to buy from them since I didn’t know the quality, but it turns out they’re just over the GW Bridge in New Jersey in South Hackensack (their business name is Empire Natural Stone). We went and looked and found what we were looking for $7 to $15/sq. ft. In fact, what they were selling as Carrara tile seems more like what other stores sell as statuary marble – it’s whiter than the Carrara at most places. [Statuary marble typically costs twice what Carrara costs.] I do recommend you go see what you’re getting in person. What they were selling as statuary marble seemed more like quartz to us.

In the front entry (between the two sets of front doors) we’ll have a basket weave pattern with Bardiglio marble accents (the gray dots and as a gray border all around). The basket weave is costing us $15/sq. ft. One of the big tile places quoted us a contractor price of $31/sq. ft.

The 5/8″ Bardiglio mosaic ($13/sq. ft.) will be repeated on the floor of the parlor floor powder room (under the stairs) with 2″x4″ Carrara tiles in a brick pattern as a wainscoting on the walls ($10/sq. ft. – would be around $25/sq. ft. at most places).

The 2×4 Carrara will be used as the backsplash for the rental kitchen as well. There’s just a sink and some counter space at that location. The messy cooking happens on the kitchen peninsula away from the marble.

We haven’t figured out our kitchen backsplash yet – other than to know it’s not going to be marble.

Going up a floor to the guest bathroom, we’ll have a Carrara on the floor in a small hexagonal pattern ($13/sq. ft.). On the wall we’ll have porcelain tile. We haven’t nailed that down quite yet. We’re thinking a light to medium brownish gray (or grayish brown) in a linear shape. The brown tile I show in the picture below is just the general direction we’re headed – not the actual tile we’ve chosen.

And lastly, in the master bathroom we’ll have dark gray porcelain tile on the floor – probably in a plank format (the dark porcelain tile shown in the picture is just a general direction of where we’re headed – not the actual tile), and then 3″x6″ Carrara subway tiles as wainscoting ($7/sq. ft. compared to a contractor’s price of about $11/sq. ft. at the major tile places). In the shower, above the wainscoting we’ll have Carrara “mini bricks” ($13/sq. ft.)

I figured out we saved about $3,500 on the Carrara compared to what we had budgeted. That more than pays for the tile we’ve decided to put in the rental cellar.

Now we just have to find a source for porcelain tile with good quality and price. Anyone have any suggestions? We’re not finding anything that’s better than the contractor prices at Nemo or DalTile…

Wood Floors Are Getting Laid

Posted on December 12, 2011 by BeatingUpwind

The other day the contractor leveled some of the floors in preparation for laying wood floors. Because the subfloors went in before the roof went on they were exposed to a lot and had delaminated a bit here and there, etc. They replaced the worst parts, but where the subfloor was in generally decent shape they just scraped off the top delaminated bits and then put a floor leveling mixture in areas that weren’t quite level (picture below).

Today, the wood floor subcontractor started laying floors…

In the picture above the dark line is tar paper that’s put under the wood to keep it from rubbing against the subfloor and squeaking. To the left of the dark line is wood that’s been nailed down. To the right is wood they’ve organized for nailing down next.

Initially we were going to lay the floors in the other direction – width-wise across the building like this…

We figured that would make the rooms look wider and hence more square. But what we realized was that there’s an inherent flex to the subfloors and the floors would be a lot more solid if the wood flooring ran perpendicular to the joists rather than parallel, so we went with the more traditional length-wise floors – even though the end result will be a bit more bowling alley-ish than we had wanted.

The flooring sub-contractor is starting in the rental unit, then he’ll do the top floor in our unit. Those two areas are using the same type of wood – 3″ select grade flat cut white oak. In the rest of our unit we’ll use a nicer wood – 3″ select grade rift and quarter sawn white oak. But honestly, even the flat cut wood looks pretty good…

Our Electrician Got Fired

Posted on December 12, 2011 by BeatingUpwind

Last week we fired our electrician. More precisely our contractor fired his electrical sub-contractor with our permission. The old electrician was a huge mess…

For starters after 6 months he still wasn’t done enough with his work to close up the walls. He dragged his feet at every turn. There was one excuse after another – but at the end of the day things just weren’t getting done.

Second, he put incompetent people on the job who couldn’t read plans. Boxes for hanging lights were put where recessed lights were supposed to go. Recessed lights would show up where there clearly was supposed to be a track lights. One day we were standing in the back yard with our architect when one of his guys drilled a hole through the back wall in the wrong location. He had drilled a hole in the right place the day before but had “forgotten” about that hole. The day we were there he looked at an exterior elevation plan, saw there was a motion sensor to the right of a light, so he drilled a hole to the right of the light – but from the interior. Of course, exterior right, should be interior left – but that fact escaped him. Not only were they incompetent but they were slow. The same guy who drilled a hole in the wrong place, generally spent more time out on the sidewalk talking on his phone than he did inside the building doing work (which may have been a good thing given the quality of his work).

Third, the electrician came back to us with a change order that was 27% of his original bid – and he gave it to us at the worst possible time (right when ConEd was about to get the electrical meters in). It wasn’t like much of anything had changed. His excuse was that he hadn’t bothered to actually price the fixtures for our job which were specified in the plans he was given. He just assumed we were doing a “Home Depot renovation”. That one really galled me – it meant that a good electrician, who bothered to do a proper bid, lost the job. And then, as if 27% wasn’t enough, apparently right before he got fired he told our contractor he needed yet another change order – that after working on the job for over 6 months there was something else he “just discovered” that warranted more money – something that was probably clearly spelled out in the plans he was given when he bid the job.

Fourth, other jobs he had with our contractor were going badly. One on Long Island took forever to get inspected and then he got the job passed by chatting up the inspector outside the house for a half hour. By the time they were done with their chat the inspector rushed through the inspection and only checked one thing. In other words, who knows how well the work was done – I wouldn’t put much faith in the inspection. On a restaurant job in the City he again took forever to get the inspection and then didn’t bother to show up. He was supposed to check things over a few days before to make sure he was ready for the inspection, but instead he showed up at 8:30pm the night before, found problems, but because supply houses were closed he couldn’t get what he needed to fix the problems – so he just blew off the inspection. Now the landlord is saying he’s going to sue because things aren’t signed off – it’s been that long…

Fifth, he was impossibly slow getting materials on the job site and then in some cases ordered the wrong things. The transformers for our track lights were a much cheaper brand. Most importantly, we’d been asking him for exterior lights for a month and he kept saying “next week”. For god’s sake – exterior lights are a security issue – how could he drag his feet on something like that?

[UPDATE] Sixth, his work was done so poorly it was actually dangerous. The new electrician discovered that he didn’t ground the electrical system. That’s something the guys from ConEd should have caught – it’s a major safety problem – one of those things you don’t forget unless you’re just really really incompetent.

And lastly, he was costing us money in other ways. For example, the plumber is charging us $700 for moving sprinkler heads that are too close to recessed lights. Had the electrician gotten his work done in a timely manner, the recessed rough-ins would have been there and the plumber would have located the sprinkler heads further away. (If you put a recessed light next to a sprinkler head the heat from the light will set off the sprinkler). But beyond that – we need to close up the walls and electrical is the #1 reason why we can’t right now. Slowing down the job = costing us money.

The good news is that our contractor found an alternate electrician who’s great. He and his guys ask the right questions. It’ll cost us more, but given how how the other electrician would have come back with more and more change orders and cost us money indirectly, it’s probably not that much more in the end. And given that we don’t get the final payment from the bank (and can’t rent the garden apartment) until we have our C of O – the old electrician’s delays could have cost us a lot of money…

The new electrician should be done by the end of the week, which means we can start insulation and closing up walls early next week. Finally!