My Current Huge Project With Radiant In Floor Heating

ON the doors and their issues, the email exchange with the initial person has been very cordial. He's contacted the field rep guys, and I'm waiting for them to contact me.
No these drywall guys don't use a vacuum setup,, I wish they did, but for the little they charge, I'll eat the dust and do a cleanup to my satisfaction.. They do do some cleanup. Just not a really good one. Hell we generated plenty of dust just hanging the drywall, the Roto-Zip makes plenty, and shaving the edges of a break also generates plenty of dust. Nothing to do about it but live with it till it's done.. Once paint and flooring are done, there will only be wood dust from the trim work.

The finishers showed up, they are out there hand sanding prior to a finish coat. funny watching them tromp around on stilts. I've got several errands to run prior to repacking and heading to the airport.

Greg L

Managed to get the drywall primed today,, my older power sprayer worked last year, and was cleaned well before putting it away. But It would only pump a little bit , with no pressure this morning.
So I rented a sprayer, and with two helpers primed the whole place in about 3 hours. I'm hoping to get the ceilings painted tomorrow, as well as the walls of the 2-story foyer..

Photos to follow, just visualize the previous photos in solid white.

It's interesting to note that the place looked big, spacious inside before the drywall went up.. then it shrank quite a bit. Now that it's painted bright white, it grew larger again.

Greg L

Here are some photos.

Big project Greg. Been following it. Things are really coming together. Looks real nice. I rented one of those drywall lifts to do my ceiling. Best $20 I ever spent.

The project looks great, Greg. Thanks for taking the time to document it all here.

Installed the hanging 'Tiffany Bowl' from the foyer ceiling today, I was a bit difficult. The manufacturer provides a chain to hang the lamp from, the chain's links are not a welded loop, but a closed 'C', but really more like a diamond.. the problem is that the chain links per the instructions need to be opened to fit over the loop that is bolted to the ceiling, and then closed back up.. and the same goes for the loop at the top of the lamp itself.. The chain link needs to be either opened or twisted to create a gap to allow the loop/hanger to be slipped into the chain link, then the chain link needs to be closed back up..

Well, the 'steel' that the chain is made of is such poor quality, that the links would snap in two when either opened or twisted to creat the needed gap. This 'steel' is really more like cast potmetal. It is ferrous, I used a magnet to check, but it won't survive a minor distortion of it's shape.

So I went and bought some small chain repair links, clevis' and a few different 'S' hooks to see which ones worked best.. I ended up with a chain repair link at the top of the light fixture, and a clevis at the top of the chain at the ceiling peak.. A shot of flat black paint to match the chain, and it's done..

Looks pretty nice. Now with a few more lights and smoke alarms installed, I can remove my temporary floor on the balcony and start on the railings.

Greg L

Not to be alarmist (although we did have ourselves a neat little earthquake here last week), if that (Chinese) chain is that lousy, I'd be real nervous walking underneath that fixture! It looks REAL heavy and I'm sure it wouldn't be fun wearing it as a hat.

We probably have the same issue here with our foyer fixture....Chinese kwality from Menards I'm sure. Funny how light fixtures hung in industrial applications have to have all sorts of safety cable backups in case the main mounting fails, which is already about 10x over specified, but yet it's just fine to hang a 40# fixture from a little chain of the nastiest cheap junk in our homes....

LsFarm wrote:Well, the 'steel' that the chain is made of is such poor quality, that the links would snap in two when either opened or twisted to creat the needed gap.

Greg,
If it were my light, I'd chuck that entire chain, and replace it with something more substantial. Those links on yours are not very forgiving. They could crack and fail.
Maybe something like this?
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B000NK31XA/ref=asc_df_B0 ... nkCode=asn

That's what the wire is for, besides carrying electricity.

I'm not afraid of the unmolested chain, it doesn't open any links even when I put my full weight on it to see if it would or could fail.. it is the lack of flexibility or malablilty of the steel, combined with the directions to bend open then close a link to use the chain.

I put a 15" piece up on the hoist in the shop, and chinned myself on it, and it held my 200# without opening any links.. the light weighs only about 25#, I can easlily lift the whole light fixture at arms-length.

If I can find some better chain locally, I'll consider a swap.

Thanks, Greg L

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Some more progress today.

Took down the temporary floor/deck on the balcony, It's not needed now that the ceiling and high walls are painted, and the hanging bowl-lamp is installed. The hanging lamp looks very nice in the 2-story foyer.

Brought in the pair of old oak doors from the barn. I bought these years ago just because they were in good shape, and had nice old wavey glass with bubbles and occlusions. The doors are going to be put in as pocket doors in the wall separating the old and new parts of the house.

And I finally got some work done on the kitchen island wall that will support the 9' long granite bar top. The steel goes through the floor, and will be fastened to the sides of the floor joists as well as bolted to the foundation wall in the basement.. I want the granite bar top to be rigid and withstand several people leaning on it at the same time.

Greg L

Even a wide angle lens doesn't do the 2-story foyer justice.. I next need to get started on the balcony and stair railings

LsFarm wrote: And I finally got some work done on the kitchen island wall that will support the 9' long granite bar top. The steel goes through the floor, and will be fastened to the sides of the floor joists as well as bolted to the foundation wall in the basement.. I want the granite bar top to be rigid and withstand several people leaning on it at the same time.

Several people? What kind of "people" do you know, Greg? Are they aliens made from depleted uranium? Holy crap, you could park your AA260 on the bar top! Plus a few tons of pea.....

Well, I suppose your 260 DOES deserve a beer for keeping that drafty old place heated the last winter or two, no? It's gonna have life on Easy Street now with all that insulated space now!

Now go think of how the average contractor would do that job..... umm, yeah, exactly. Let's go get that beer now!

Looking good!

Chris

Well if I have a couple of 'hefty' people with too many beers ingested, all push down on the 22" overhanging granite bar at the same time to get into or out of the barchairs.. well you could add another 600-800# to the static weight of the 9foot long hunk of granite.. so I overbuilt it..

Yeah.. I tend to overbuild.. I'd never make it designing airplanes

Greg L

Thats funny, I like to over build also. I could park a tank on the wood floor in my barn.. great job Greg..