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July 19, 2006

Thinking .. and thinking

Last weekend we all did a bit of work on the bathroom. Matthew had fun helping me cut blue XPS board to begin the insulation process. It was fairly fun :-)

However, this got me thinking and re-thinking about my plan to insulate the bathroom. I originally wanted the wall system to look like this from inside out:
- blueboard and cement board (where applicable)
- 4 mill plastic sheeting (vapor barrier)
- fg batts
- XPS styro
- some sort of tar-paper (I actually did not know this was there untill the walls were removed)
- clapboard siding

I have been researching alot about the vapor barrier part and am still unsure about it.. It seems that there are just as many opinions on what you should do as there are possibilities of what can be done. I have been looking all over the net for help. I have a few more ideas in my head now and have found some very interesting reading. Here is a site I wanted to jot down so I'd have it some where.

http://www.buildingscience.com/resources/homeowner.htm

Here is what I am thinking now. XPS will stop the air for the most part on the outside. The inside of the XPS will not be that cold / hot (season) as it is fairly dense, it is however still "breathable". The batts will hold the conditioned or heated air and again the kraft faced will allow "breathability". GP products will do little for air movement but will be more suited for the bath environment... Inside out:
- gypsum (GP DenseArmor / Shield)
- kraft faced fg
- XPS styro
- some sort of tar-paper (I actually did not know this was there untill the walls were removed)
- clapboard siding

We'll see I might change after I continue to read more

July 13, 2006

Ahh... Comfort

I think we gave up on the landscape / yard sometime around Febuary this year. Litterally we now have a jungle. Any way, regardless of the jungle I still have to keep the small bit of lawn that is left mowed.

Of course when I picked out my lawn mower I went with a reel mower rather than a gas powered mower. So that dictates more times out mowing and slightly more work when out cutting the grass. Well tonight I went out to cut the grass and it is quite humid and warm here in PA. Once I was finished fighting back the vine things and pulling evil rose of sharons out of where ever I can find them, I headed inside. How comfortable it was to step into an AC environment... ahhh...

This weekend I'm gearing back up to get to work on the bathroom again I want to get a good start on the insulation and it sounds like Melissa and the boys want to help a bit. I really hope to have dry-wall up in early Aug even if we are going away for a week.

July 9, 2006

guinness.gif

Ok so the three month AC project has been fun .. *sort of*
But now I can officially have a Guinness :-)

If any did not know I decided I needed some incentive to finish up the AC project so I said no good bear unitll I finished and had things running. I am officially closing the book on this stage in the AC project. There are still a few things to be done (see list below, its growing) but the system is on and running.

This weekend the sheet-metal return was finished so I picked that up, making two trips in the camry. This unit mounted easier that I expected and fit almost perfectly into the planned space. There is quite a large draw on the intake so this will most likely have to be modified a bit in the future (add more sq in for intake) for a quieter system. For now however this works and the bit of added noise is not noticable. I also changed the drain to slope down a bit more. I had to make some cuts that I really did not want to do on the house but there was no other way to get the slope to do what was needed (crossing fingers here). So the system is running and was set to hold at 73 degrees today. This was not much of a test for the overall system but the cool air was definatly moving in the rooms.

http://www.footefamily.net/house/upload/2006/07/return01-thumb.jpg    
    [ list ]
  • - move outlet to bee-room
  • - make wall / door opening
  • - drywall utility closet
  • - thermostat / sensor
|

July 2, 2006

12 hr wall

Well at the sart of this day I was set to install the return air duct work and insert the filter to have filtered air going into the air handler. Well after a dissapointing ..

After a dissapointing mock-up of how things would fit together I went back to the drawing board. Ok I went back to the drawing board twice. So currently I have re-designed the return air system three times. ARGH!

The newly re-designed return will consist of all sheet metal duct work that forms a backward L shape. I think this will be a better fit for the install that I have than the standard SpacePak components for a return. Time will tell of course, but this way I am using a standard filter system that will alwase be avaliable (localy) and the sheet metal is a bit more forgiving on bendability/configurability with local shops.

In deigining the air return I have also been createing the wall for the box-in / "utility room" that will house the return air grill. This wall was especially hard to create and manufacture. The slope of the ceiling and the er-uh true square and level of the current wall and floor have presented some challenges. However, I managed to get the wall in place and mounted.

http://www.footefamily.net/house/upload/2006/07/12wall-thumb.jpg