A New House-Update #36 Long-With Pix

[Karl Laustrup]

Wednesday March 15th, 2006

Well, gang it's been a few days since my last report. That's because there hasn't been a whole lot going on.

Monday Norm, the electrician came over and got all the outlets in the basement installed and hooked up to switches. I installed several of my old garage/shop flourescent fixtures and we now have light in the basement. Still have some more to buy and put up to get good coverage in the crawl spaces though.

Tuesday the crew [2] showed up and put the primer coat on the walls. That took them all of about 3 hours total. That included taping plastic over all the windows. Man these guys are good. Had the temp upstairs at about 75 and the humidity from the primer made it feel like a steam bath.

Today I started prepping the bowed wall. I'm going to fill all the cracks and put that UGL waterproof stuff on. It's supposed to be pretty good. Then the GC will shore up the wall before framing and insulating it.
I was also expecting the crew to show up to do the knock down texture on the walls. When they hadn't showed up by about 9:45 I took off to do some errands.

I returned about 12:15 to find the truck in front of the house. I asked if they needed water [don't have any yet, but soon will] to mix stuff. The guy spoke little English, but said no. OK I thought, so they'll be getting after it pretty quick. I unloaded my stuff into the garage and then went into the house. My chin hit the floor. The entire house was complete with perfect knock down texture. I checked each room and each was done. I got back to the front door and they were pulling out of the driveway. Wow, they've come a long way since the early 90's doing that stuff. My house would have been at least a two day job. Now it's done in less than 3 hours. Amazing.
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I worked on the basement wall until the guys stopped by about the new water service from the well. That was a good discussion about how and where to put the new service. Looks like we may have water by the end of next week. Now all we need is the hookup to the septic system.
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Shortly after the well guy left the painter showed up to check things out and have me pick a color. WHITE! What color white he asks? WHITE!, True WHITE, I says. And what about the trim. Semi Gloss on everything, WHITE, I says. The trim? Everything. Doors? Everything, just don't paint the glass in the windows. Can you tell I like white? I like white because then we can accessorize with whatever we want and use colors that we may like right now, but maybe not two years from now. Much easier to change some accessory rather than painting.

So tomorrow or Friday is another primer coat before the painter comes in Monday to paint. Two coats. One Monday, one Tuesday.

We have snow coming tonight and tomorrow. Everytime I hear the weather the totals seem to be going up. It started at about 3 inches. Now we're up to possibly as much as 12". Guess it'll be awhile before we can get the grading done and the deck built, or the walkway up to the front door.

Just got back from Ho-Chunk Casino where we dined on King Crab Legs. All you can eat. YUM! YUM! I'm full and ready for a good nights sleep.

More as it happens. Thanks.

Karl

[Steve Ash]

Looking real good Karl, the light at the end of the tunnel is in sight. It won't be long now and you'll be moved in and waiting for company from Spartan country .

[Bruce Page]

You're almost there!

[John Miliunas]

Keeeeeeripes!!!! Those guys don't mess around, do they??? Knock down texture for shop walls???? Hmmmmm...Not too sure 'bout that one! The bozo that built my shop did one worse, though: He put sand texture on everything!!! (And he built it to be a WW shop, to boot!!! What a maroon! ) Great probress, Karl!

[Vaughn McMillan]

Karl, at this rate they'll have the house done before the ground thaws enough to regrade your lot. You'll have this brand-new house (er...shop...sorry John), and no way to move stuff into it. Your guys are smokin'.

- Vaughn

[Tom Drake]

Looking good Karl. When is the house warming party?

[Karl Laustrup]

Karl, at this rate they'll have the house done before the ground thaws enough to regrade your lot. You'll have this brand-new house (er...shop...sorry John), and no way to move stuff into it. Your guys are smokin'.

- Vaughn

Vaughn, having the house done and no way to move furniture in is my main nightmare right now.

This snow that we're supposed to get is going to set it back about a week again. Problem is we're running out of weeks.

We're still looking at being able to move stuff in Easter weekend. We'll see. I know we're all ready to get out of this rental house.

Karl

[Frank Pellow]

Good the hear from you again Karl and to know that thngs are still going well.
I was wondering.

Painters seem surprised with the "everything white" request don.t they. Four years ago, when we moved back into our Toronto house after living in the Seattle area for a little over six years, we had the entire house repainted before we moved in. It took me several conversations and email exchanges before I was finally able to convince them to use white paint EVERYWHERE -both inside and out.

[Dennis Peacock]

Looks real good Karl. I'm very proud for you being this far along.

[Rob Russell]

Karl,

If the concrete paint you're using is the Drylock stuff, I've been there, done that. I've put 30-40 gallons (yup - 7 or 8 of the big 5 gallon pails) of the oil-based stuff on the basement walls at my Dad's cottage. I used oil-based because we had seepage and you need dry walls for the latex. You may be able to use the latex version which just doesn't smell quite as bad. Here's what I can tell you based on "been there, done that".

The basic steps are:

• Prep the walls. I wire brushed them to knock off loose dirt and crumbly concrete. Then etch. Don't skimp on the etch - you want to make sure any of the efflourescence is taken care of. I have some spots where I didn't etch well enough, the white fuzzy efflourescence has come through and blistered the paint off. I'll need to scrape, re-etch and repaint those areas. Rinse well. Really well. Use your shop vac to suck up the water. I used old terrycloth curtains to make a dam on the floor to catch the rinse water. You use a garden hose to rinse and will have a lot of water to suck up.
• For you, using the latex, let the walls dry. To paint, get one of the big brushes they make for applying the stuff. You want to really work it into the pores. You will get lousy coverage, especially on the first coat. It's hard work painting, especially the first coat to do it well. You want to work into the pores, it's a big brush, the paint is thick and heavy and the surface is rough (so it resists brushing). The brush is worth cleaning, use lacquer thinner.
• Put a drop cloth down when you paint, even if it's your basement. Even though the paint is thick, it will drip. If you see some spots on the floor - let them dry as spots and scrape them off.
• Wear a respirator when etching and painting. I also used a high-velocity fan pointing out the hatchway with the basement windows open to help exhaust the fumes. It really stinks and will give you a serious headache in no time if you're not wearing a respirator. Even if you go with the latex version of the Drylock, you'll want the exhaust fan and should still wear a respirator.
• I also had an old piece of a terrycloth curtain wrapped over my head to keep the paint out of my hair. Good thing noone got a picture of that or I'd never live that down as an avator. Imagine a guy with his head wrapped in in old curtain and wearing a respirator .
• The paint is has to be mixed well and HD wouldn't do it in their machine because they said the covers fly off. I got them to do one bucket and it did leak a little. If you have a 1/2", powerful drill (I used my old monster B&D right angle drill), get one of the jumbo size paint mixers. It took almost 1/2 an hour to mix up a 5 gallon pail by hand, maybe 10 minutes with the drill and it was a LOT easier.
• Plan on more than 1 coat to seal the walls.

One other comment about the Drylock - I seem to remember that there was a curing time required for foundations before you could seal them. Maybe that doesn't apply for concrete block foundations, but it's worth checking.

Rob

[Karl Laustrup]

Thanks for all the info Rob. I did the first two steps already. I scraped with a scraper, then wire brush before I even put the stuff on to neutralize everything. I scrubbed that in with a long handled stiff brush and then flushed with clean water. I then used some of the stuff they have to fill cracks. Pretty much wasted a gallon of powder of that stuff. I mixed too much and it hardend up in the mixing can. Oh, well.

I was having a hard time getting the stuff into the cracks [in some cases pretty big] so I just went down and got some silicone. Was able to get that all the way into the cracks and sealed up any other smaller cracks. The whole thing is curing now. I figure I'll be ready to paint Monday. From what you've said about that process I'm not looking forward to it at all. Sounds like I may end up with Popeye arms after this exercise.

Karl

[Bill Lewis]

Karl,
It sounds like you are using a hydraulic cement to patch. You can extend the "pot life" by mixing it with ice water.

[Karl Laustrup]

Karl,
It sounds like you are using a hydraulic cement to patch. You can extend the "pot life" by mixing it with ice water.

Thanks for the info Bill, but it's too late. I didn't think I was mixing that much when I did mix it up, but next thing I knew I had the whole thing mixed up and working feverishly I did get some of it placed where it belonged before it went solid.

Karl

[Jerry Olexa]

Karl, you are cooking!! Looking good and fast progress. There's always unforseen setbacks but your project has generally gone well. You must be livin' right...

[Rob Russell]

Karl,

I also used the Fastplug product to fill cracks in the walls and to fill the seam between the wall and floor. I just mixed up small batches of the hydraulic cement right on the floor and just made sure I scraped it nice and clean before it dried. If it starts to get too stiff, you can loosen it back up with some water. A good consistency for applying the cement to the wall is like mayonaise - spreads and smooths nicely.

Rob