Chronicle of the Basement Transformation

[MisterDee]

This is the story of how I'm going to transform my hideous basement into a combination office/game room (and also a finished basement for the rest of the family but who cares about those fuckers right?)

So, armed with my barely-sufficient-to-handle-minor-stuff-in-a-condo toolkit and my total lack of relevant skills, I want to turn this...





into something I can be proud of.

I'm not exaggerating about either my tools or skills, by the way. What I have is a reasonable budget to get the equipment I need, a pretty good ability to cut down complex projects into small chunks, and several friends with some amount of experience. Plus a willingness to learn and no deadline, as we're not really using the basement for anything at the moment.

So what's the wincon?

First, the area shown in the picture will be my office. It's roughly a quarter of the basement. So obviously there'll be a wall and door to build. The horrible carpet will be replaced with something nicer. I also want to soundproof the basement and office to some extent (nothing crazy - I don't do recordings or anything like that, but what happens in the game room should stay in the game room and ideally I want to be able to enjoy the quiet in my office while the boys play videogames on the other side of the wall.)

I'm also going to run cat6 cable basically everywhere in the house, so I'll do the basement at this time. I'm also going to install some electric heating in the basement to supplement the pushed-air, And finally, I really want to go all out on the finishing for my game room - I want really good, flexible lighting in there and anything else I can think off.

So, first step... removing the carpet.



Yeah, that carpet. Beyond being shoggoth-ugly, it's probably twenty years overdue to be replaced. It is the worst texture I have ever felt in my life, it's probably super toxic and dusty, and it's poorly installed to boot. Parts are stapled to cardboard because the underlayer has literally turned to uneven dust and the previous owner was of the "never do anything properly" school of home repair.

Before I get there, I need to clean out the entire room (which is probably a one-day task in itself.) We still have to have one foundation crack filled as well, so I'm aiming to be done removing the carpet (and cleaning the concrete floor below) by the end of May. We'll see how it goes.

[Josh_Kablack]

For carpet removal: Xacto knives, sturdy flat-head screwdrivers, a claw hammer/crowbar, and if it is as gross as you think: safety goggles, gloves, and surgical masks. Depending on your body you may also want kneepads for the amount of kneeling involved.

The trickier part is dealing with the subflooring underneath. But hey, you already know cardboard is unacceptable, so you're ahead of the last crew to work on it.

[MisterDee]

The carpet itself comes off with almost no effort - it's really an embarrassingly shitty installation job. Like, Mike Mearls would actually feel shame if he'd done something this bad.

The sublayer is marginally tougher, but I've got an ice chopper that does a fairly good job at scraping it off. (I saw how well it worked when we had the water infiltration problem in January.)

It'll be super messy though (definitely a mask-goggles-and-long-sleeve job), so I've budgeted some money for a Shop-vac and a tough brush to remove the remaining mess from the concrete.

Overall, the rough for this task is a single-day job. Finishing... that really depends on how well the residue washes off. I've tentatively scheduled the task for May Fourth - so at least I'll have a long weekend coming up in the following weeks if I need extra time.

[deaddmwalking]

Spending days on your knees sucks. I recommend you get a long-handled scraper like this. This lets you use two hands, get better leverage, and really scrape anything that needs scraping.

For the wall, don't forget to anchor it to the concrete. Here's a guide that looks good.

If your office walls are well insulated (which you'll probably want for the sound-proofing if nothing else) and there isn't a forced air vent in that part of the basement, it may feel cold/stuffy depending on the time of year. Since it's a lot of work, at least consider whether that's going to be a problem.

[Surgo]

and a tough brush to remove the remaining mess from the concrete.

I don't really have any experience taking up carpet, but would an angle grinder with a flap disk or wire wheel take it off easily? I hate manual labor so that would be the first thing I'd try if I was doing the job.

[MisterDee]

From what I've seen it's not a sticky mess, it's a fine dusty mess - so I sprung for a Shop Vac. But I'll definitely keep it in mind (I thought angle grinders were more expensive than they are - definitely something to keep in mind if the concrete needs some buffing.)

The job has been pushed back to the 11th though. Helper couldn't make it for the 4th.

[Maj]

I really am generally ignorant when it comes to large projects like these. But I'm really glad that you posted it here for us to see because I think I'll be learning a lot. I wish you the best of luck and will keep watching the thread for updates.

[Surgo]

I thought angle grinders were more expensive than they are - definitely something to keep in mind if the concrete needs some buffing.

It's kind of a piece of shit, but if you don't plan to use it for the rest of your life you can run to Harbor Freight and pick up their most basic and low-powered angle grinder for $10. Same goes for a lot of Harbor Freight tools actually, and a lot of them are even quite good unlike that angle grinder.

[MisterDee]

French Drain: A Basement Remodel Side-story

(Warning: the following post has no DIY content. Well, I guess if you own a backhoe it's something you could do on your own, but...)

We're 90% certain we're going to have a new French drain (foundation drain) installed. The current one is either fucked up beyond repair or an actual figment of our imagination.

Obviously, while we're at it we'll drag our entire foundation kicking and screaming into the twenty-first century. Or maybe just the twentieth, because honestly this stuff gets really, really expensive.

I live in Soviet Quebec, and this means we get cold winters and super-wet springs when the snow melts. Modern foundations are covered with waterproof extensible membranes that help the drain to keep moisture away from the concrete, and at least two inches of not-exactly-styrofoam to help with insulation.

A late seventies foundation, on the other hand, is covered with some sort of bituminous covering that loses effectiveness as the foundation ages and shifts. And outside insulation is nonexistent.

So even the basic, "let's bring the house to code" project is going to significantly improve on the livability of my basement and eventual game room. The basement is probably just a bit too damp for perfect comfort, and it's noticeably colder than the rest of the house.

After that, of course, there are options.

1-Thicker styrofoam is about the most straightforward upgrade: more foam means better insulation pretty much straight up. If you just care about heat conservation then I'd advise going with the brute-force "more foam" option over any complicated system. Plus the foam isn't going to meaningfully degrade over any relevant duration barring extreme circumstances.

The one big variable here is local climate: you probably don't need as much foam in Arizona than I'll need here in the frozen tundra.

2-For better waterproofing, however... it gets complicated. Unlike the foam, the waterproofing will degrade over time as the foundation shifts. Sure, the modern membranes are better than the old-style tar covering, but they're not perfect. So there's a reason to build some redundancy in the system, to extend its effective lifetime. But figuring out how much redundancy you need is basically guesswork (it depends on local soil, on the shape of the foundation, on how good your drain is, on the price of tea in China, and so on and so forth.)

So, what am I going to do?

Honestly... I'm not sure yet, especially since I'm still waiting on a few answers from the various contractors I've talked to. But my basement was tolerable without any of the basic upgrades, so I'm tempted to go for the basics only. On the other hand, there's effectively guaranteed value in added heat insulation, since even if I don't feel a big difference on my sensitive skin I'll absolutely benefit from a lower power bill.

For waterproofing... I really want to add some defense in depth, but rationally I don't think it's justified. Maybe if the cost is really low, but we'll see.

[Josh_Kablack]

I have helped to install one french drain. We rented a Bobcat excavator to do the big digging work. So you do not need to own your own backhoe, you just need someone who can operate something like it.

[MisterDee]

A foundation drain excavation is not the right time to learn how to use an excavator (unless you really hate your house and your water pipes), and deep trenches need to be dug right (unless you really hate the people who are going to be working at the bottom.) That's why I don't think it's a DIY project.

If you have access to someone who knows how to perform a safe dig, obviously it's a different story.

[RobbyPants]

2-For better waterproofing, however... it gets complicated. Unlike the foam, the waterproofing will degrade over time as the foundation shifts. Sure, the modern membranes are better than the old-style tar covering, but they're not perfect. So there's a reason to build some redundancy in the system, to extend its effective lifetime. But figuring out how much redundancy you need is basically guesswork (it depends on local soil, on the shape of the foundation, on how good your drain is, on the price of tea in China, and so on and so forth.)

Can you put in a sump pump?

In our first house, we finished the basement and put something called dry core down before we did the carpeting. It won't protect against any flooding, but it gets the sub floor off the concrete, and leaves a small air gap, which helps with insulation. It is a bit pricey, though.

[Iduno]

Also, if you've got enough water for a sump pump, you've got too much water for carpet.

From: the guy whose previous place was built wrong. Windows should not go in a hole below ground level if it rains ever, and the bottom of the hole should not line up with the bottom of the window.

[RobbyPants]

From: the guy whose previous place was built wrong. Windows should not go in a hole below ground level if it rains ever, and the bottom of the hole should not line up with the bottom of the window.

I've had egress windows, but you need really sandy soil to get the water to drain away. Otherwise, you will end up with an aquarium slowly draining into your basement.

[MisterDee]

Chapter 1: The Purging of the Carpet

It is done. The toxic beige carpet has been exiled from the basement.

As expected, ripping it off was easy. Getting rid of the underlayer was the tough part.



To the right: a mostly-cleaned out section. The black band on the left is all gunk still to be removed.

The underlayer came in two flavor (plus occasional cardboard, of course): Powdery (where people crushed it by walking on it) and Crusty (where furniture protected it from getting stomped into fine dust.) So we ended up shoveling lots of dust, and scraping the crust next to the walls and wherever there used to be stuff.

Most valuable tool was definitely the ice chopper, which we used to scrape the crust away. Doing that on our knees would have been horrible. Runner up was the Shop-vac, and man am I glad I didn't skimp on the motor.



The entire basement after we called it a day.

So what's next?

Well, first, probably a thorough mopping/brushing of the floor with water. That greenish spot at center-left in the above picture? That's twenty seconds with a brush and half a cup of water.



A better look at that spot.

So yeah, there's still some dust there which I need to remove. Then it mostly depends on what a couple of contractors tell me. See, my girlfriend and I have decided to strip the basement to the concrete to scrub it clean of any trace of mold and to reinsulate it. So I might strip it myself or let the cleanup guys handle it depending on the cost. We'll see.

[Maj]

Way to go!

[Iduno]

A better look at that spot.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7k8p6UflISQ

[MisterDee]

Chapter 2: It Would Be Cliché To Call It The Best Laid Plans

Well, it's been a busy summer. Our second son was born in February, and we've been in and out of the hospital with respiratory issues until mid-June. No long-term consequences, fortunately, but it was stressful and demanding.

But what actually matters more (as far as the basement project goes) is that while the whole hospital shebang was terrible to live through, it left me with more free time than I have now with two boys at home.

Still, we've made progress... of a sort.

Given the respiratory issues of our youngest, we've decided to strip and decontaminate the basement. We did an air test and the mold situation was "typical"for a forty-year-old Quebec house - meaning we're smack dab in the "You might never notice any issues, or your kids might have lung-shattering asthma" zone.

Which means we've added a "have the basement professionally decontaminated" step to the project. In Quebec, the typical mold and bacterial mix can be cleaned out with bleach, but that's only really safe for small, accessible patches. Large strip-and-sand-and-clean jobs are going to send spores flying, and you'll end up contaminating the entire house if you don't do the whole seal-with-positive-pressure procedure. And that's not an amateur job.

So that's more money to throw at the project - and that really means time to earn that amount, because we're not keen on doing everything on credit. That said, we're talking about stripping and removing a large amount of wood, drywall and insulation, and also sanding the concrete floor and removing part of the ceiling. It's a large chunk of menial work (above and beyond the actual decontamination job, which requires expertise as well.) So I'm not that frustrated about having to pay for that.

Until then, we're running a deshumidifier in the basement as a precaution to ensure the mold situation doesn't deteriorate. We don't actually use the basement daily, and the air quality in the upper floor is very good so that's fine as a medium-term stopgap.

The more irritating part is that we've spent a lot of time this summer getting expertises and bids on other home improvement/repair projects. The roof, for instance, is definitely due for replacement next year at the latest - but we're probably going to do it this fall instead, because "definitely next year" means "if we get a bad winter the roof will definitely leak this year" in Roofing-speak.

Bottom line: barring a surprise windfall, we're looking at doing the French drain next year in the fall, and the decontamination (and reinsulation) the following spring I guess. We might push that last one forward - it really depends on how good our cash flow will be once my girlfriend goes back to work.

So... not much visible progress in the last few months, but some amount of non-visible progress. At the very least, we have a clearer picture of how the project will proceed (and while I'm irritated as my dream room slowly recedes from view, I'm at least happy that we'll actually do the job as perfectly as it can be done. I'm sure I won't regret the better insulation and moistureproofing once the project is finished.)[/b]

[MisterDee]

Addendum to Chapter 2: The Upbeat Version

You know what? I've actually made some visible progress this summer.

It's not much, but it's actual work I did myself so I get to talk about it.

Basically, I have a bunch of shrubs/small trees planted near the foundation around the house. They have to go (and in fact, removing them has been a listed item in the French drain bids we've received.) They're also potentially a cause of leaks in the basement, since roots can find small cracks in the concrete, sneak in, and turn them into big cracks.

So I've begun removing them - it'll save us some small amount of money and maybe give us some Protection from Leaks buffs. No pictures, unfortunately, but I can at least give some color commentary.

First - your basic large shrub/small tree has three parts: branches, trunk and root ball, and extended roots. The goal is to remove the branches and the trunk-and-root-ball. Leaving roots in the ground is fine - they're dead once disconnected from the root ball.

Cutting branches is straightforward - your basic home and garden store has cheap pruning tools to do the job easily and it's one of those jobs that you can do in small bit if, say, you need to change a diaper in ten minutes.

The trick is to do the job thoroughly. It's really tempting to get rid of the worst and try to pull out the roots while there are still branches and leaves attached to the trunk, but pulling the root ball is a pain and having to manhandle a handful of shoots makes it way more irritating than you'd think.

Another tip: leave yourself as much branchless trunk as you can. That's leverage to pull out the root ball.

One you've got a nice, leaf-free area to work, time to take out the shovel (well, you can try to pull out the roots once first - some shrub species/soil mixes are really easy to pull.) You want to dig around the base of the trunk to expose the roots. When you find one, cut it, and when you've cut four or five, your root ball should be easy enought to pull free.

So That's What I Did On My Summer Holiday.

[OgreBattle]

Congrats

I just noticed this thread and thought the title was a metaphor for like being a basement dweller and turning into a kefka monster

[MisterDee]

Chapter 3: Yet More Setbacks... with Slight Incidental Progress

It's been a while since I've talked about this Cool Project/Metaphor for the Futility of Human Existence.

After talking with several contractors, it's become apparent that we needed to fix some further issues with the house prior to committing funds to more optional projects. So we decided to fix the garage and foundations prior to doing anything else. That's another big-ticket leave-it-to-the-pros project, especially since we were on a race against time to ensure it got fixed prior to winter. Which means in all likelihood I'm not doing the drain next year after all, which pushes back everything by a year.

Nothing much to say there. Our first contractor bailed on us three weeks before the due date so we ended up having to pay a bit more for the high-reputation, guaranteed-it's-done-on-time-with-no-extras firm. It's just an excavate, reinforce, refill and pour a new slab job, nothing fun or exciting...

Except for needing to empty the goddam garage. I had to lug everything down into the basement, then ferry five! carloads of detritus to the dump.

And then there was the wiring.

See, the pool pump is located in the garage. It's not an entirely stupid idea, honestly, but it's not original installation (pool pumps in Quebec are usually located in the basement.) Which means that it was added by the last owner. Which means that, even though the initial idea wasn't bad, the actual execution was comically inept.

See, pool pumps need electricity to run. Which means you need to run wire, usually from your electrical panel to the actual pump. Usually, it also needs to be the proper gauge of wire. Usually, it should run inside the wall, not outside in a not-quite-long-enough piece of tubing.

Usually, it shouldn't run on the floor next to the actual water-filled pump.

So yeah, we had to have an electrician over. And while we had them here we decided to, ahem, regularize our electrical situation.




Game Stats

Not pictured: the other sixty amp panel located in the garage for reasons.

So... yeah. As best as I could tell, this was a frankenjob of several "huh, I don't have enough amps for the heated floor for the bathroom remodel, but electricians are expensive, let me call my brother in law and we'll install another sixty amp panel" projects.

Oh, and you can't see it in the picture, but those 320-amps-in-total panels?

Full. Not a single Raiden-damned slot left to add a circuit. There was a circuit that served a single regular outlet (not GFCI of course, those are like five dollar more expensive) right next to the basement sink. There was a six-slot expander plugged into that outlet. Because they needed three slots to plug in the basement fridge, the lightning for the storage area, and a radio.

Rant: The Tangent:

In Quebec, we're supposed to call electricians for anything more complex than plugging in an appliance or changing a lightbulb. I am not exaggerating for effect.

I used to think that was dumb: there are plenty of easy, safe small electrical jobs even a neophyte can do safely (and good luck finding an electrician willing to drive an hour to do less than four hours' work.)

But jobs like that? Yeah, I'm starting to think we need electricity control more than gun control.

End of rant.

Anyways... changing the electrical panel was one of the jobs I'd budgeted in my basement remodel (because fucking obviously) So now we have a nice, modern, 200-amps panel with plenty of room to wire the basement when I get there. So there's that.

[Josh_Kablack]

Thanks.

This made me feel a whole lot better about the state of the electrical in my house.

[Maj]

Crap. That's downright safe compared to what we had. We had some sort of old obsolete thing from the 1950s that had been updated by a total newb who actually even wired one of the circuits outside so that it bypassed the electric meter. Thankfully, they updated the panel when they created a circuit for the kitchen remodel, and because we're computer peeps, they put a surge protector on the entire house. Sweet.

[erik]

Wow. When I last was house shopping I really liked one place except it had a lot of do it yourself work of additions through the years and it was going to need rewiring for sure (among other expensive things like taking care of an old oil heating drum under the house that is probably an environmental hazard now)... but looks like I ain't seen nothing yet.

[Stahlseele]

The Electric stuff is really funny sometimes . .
EVEN OVER HERE IN GERMANY!
Flat my buddy lived in, if you wanted LIGHT in the Bathroom, you had to run THE HOT WATER IN THE SINK.
Because that triggered the run through water heater, which somehow made the lights come on . . He could not explain that to me, and he is an electric type.

In my flat?
When i moved in, my run through water heater in the bathroom basically melted / exploded twice inside of 6 months, so i finally got an Electrician to take a look at it . .
He found a cable, thick as a thumb with terribad ammounts of current running through it that should not have been there. An additional cable mind you.
So he went, took out the breaker for the bathroom. Cable was still live.
So out went the breaker for the flat. Cable still lit.
Out goes the main breaker for the floor. Nope, still deadly currents available.
Out goes the main building breaker and FINALLY he could safely work on following the cable to a point in the wall where, according to the buildings plans, there should not be a source of electricity . .
And then we come to the funny way the hallway is wired up.
In my bedroom, there is a power-socket. In there, there is a power plug. Which has another power-PLUG wired to it. Which goes into a multi power socket thingie. From there, a plugged in cable goes INTO THE WALL.
And on the OTHER SIDE of the wall is another power-plug.
Which is the sole power-plug for the hallway.
It looks exactly as bonkers as it sounds, but somehow, through some darker than black electric magic . . it works . . and i can shut down my whole flat by wiggling the plug in the wall. Because that shorts out the main flat breaker.
Also, the power-socket in the kitchen sprays sparks like a sparkler . . but it works without shorting anything out . .