I’ve been watching and the Listing Agent still has not brought that property back to Active on the MLS. I’m not sure if they are scrambling trying to figure out the foundation issues. I think it’s an issue with the fact that the Listing Agent doesn’t have the 2nd remote to the driveway gate - the owner has one and gardener has other one. When we went to do inspection she couldn’t open gate to driveway - just a side pedestrian gate. So, I think she has to hold off listing it until she can get the remote. Because of the gate issue, she will have to be there for every showing which is really a pain in the butt for the Listing Agent.
Solar tube in hall bathroom has made a world of difference in there. This is the bathroom that was covered in black mold so I’m hoping a little natural light and excellent fan system - and NO WALLPAPER will keep it dry.
I loaded up a bunch of tile samples from different places into the truck and today I am going to try to make some tile design choices for at least one bathroom.
We are getting our hot mop on both shower pans early Tuesday morning so we are ready to start tiling up the showers on Wednesday. Going to install heavy duty DNS Shield wall board and waterproof it with the red goo stuff
I pulled off a crazy miracle on Sunday. I realized that I did not have the shower valve system purchased yet for hall bathroom. Ideally, we would get the shower valve and piping installed in the wall BEFORE we hot mop. I scrambled around to 2 or 3 places over the weekend and could not find the style I wanted for shower trim. In desperation I went online to Amazon on Sunday morning. There was a nice Delta modern style and it was available for Same Day Delivery for only $10!!! I thought, there is no way they are going to get a shower valve and trim kit delivered on a Sunday on a holiday weekend, but I gave it a shot.
Lo and behold… box with both pieces on my doorstep by 4:45pm on Sunday, after purchasing it about 10am. My new favorite purchase mechanism!!!
Congrats on that valve, CB! Amazon is truly an incredible company – has gotten me out of a couple jams too.
I must be in the minority…I love carpet in bedrooms and I would want it in that downstairs room too. It adds a warmth and coziness/intimacy that other options lack. Love hardwood (or, if needed, laminate) in the kitchen/great room, dining room, formal living room but carpet has it’s place!
It wasn’t even an issue of sending out someone to HD. The free labor (me!) went everywhere over the weekend and couldn’t find the modern square style i wanted. So I had to resort to an Internet purchase of a Delta style I liked at a really good price
Color me impressed on the same day delivery. You can’t say that Jeff Bezos lacks vision.
@coralbrook – might want to find a nice night when Sea World will be doing fireworks, and take pictures with a decent camera from the deck. It could make a very nice picture for the sales portfolio.
Today we got all three shower valves plumbed in just in the nick of time before hot mop at 7am Tuesday morning!
I’ve got a dilemma and decision to make about the downstairs. While I have the dumpster out front we have been walking around finding anything heavy that needs to get hauled out to the dumpster. I stood downstairs and realized that we have to insulate all of the exterior walls of the garage. This is going to cause a big mess. I have three choices at this point:
Tear off all of the perfectly good 5/8" drywall installed on three walls (we opened one up… no insulation). Then put in roll insulation and then have to put up 880 sf of drywall, tape, mud and texture. The cost of this would be about $2,500.
Or, try to blow in insulation into the finished walls. This requires identifying where all studs and fireblock cross studs are, then drilling 3" holes at the top of the wall and under each cross stud. Blowing insulation into the wall with the hose and trying to patch up literally hundreds of holes. Cost unknown at this point - don’t know how much labor this would be.
There is a slow rise foam product that can be put in through very small holes, but I priced out the product. The product alone would be about $3,500 for the square feet I need. And, I think the foam would seep out through any outlets in the walls.
So, tomorrow morning we are quickly going to perform a test of #2 alternative to see how many holes we think we would have to drill and how we would patch up all the holes.
The space is 20x40, right? So 80 linear feet of exterior walls. If it is standard 16"-on-center framing, you are looking at 60 bays or so, so around 120 holes to patch if you need two per bay. Given the height you may need more. That’s a lot of holes…
It may be a code issue, but it’s also a livability issue. This has been raw, unlivable space, and now it’s being made into nice indoor space. Seems to me insulation is a no-brainer.
Can you just insulate over what is there and drywall/frame over that? So, double drywall about 2-4 inches apart (depending on how the studs go). Seems like good installers could make fast work of it.
I know it costs…but I would be inclined to take down the drywall and insulate that way. You will be able to properly install a vapor barrier if you do it this way. And that is important.
I’m sure there are plenty of houses in San Diego without insulation…the climate isn’t exactly extreme or variable. Still…insulation is a good thing to have in terms of keeping heating and cooling costs modest (my relatives who live very near CB’s house seldom run their heat…and they don’t have AC).
Have you looked at Icynene? Their website also indicates a SDG&E 15 cent/square foot rebate if you’re insulating uninsulated walls. http://www.icynene.com/en-us/rebates
“For renovation projects, Icynene’s LD-CP-50 pour foam solution is used. This product is simply injected into small holes drilled into plaster or gypsum faced walls, or from the outside of the wall, whichever provides the easiest access to the cavities.” The holes I saw were small.
We were encouraged to consider it (and are still considering it) because it isn’t supposed to expand in a way that damages walls – we have a very old house. It is also not a vapor barrier, which can be important in some settings/climates.
We did a blown in installation at our old house about 15 years ago. Holes were cut on the outside through the stucco and then patched. It helped that we were going to repaint outside anyway as the patches made the house look like it had the measles.
Assuming you don’t plan to repaint the outside, I think I would blow in from the inside and then patch. You will be repainting inside anyway given all the construction you are doing with new room dividers etc.
The issue with icynene is that you have to go through a ‘qualified contractor’. I can guarantee that it will be a huge cost to do 880 - 900 sq feet of walls.
We do not need vapor barrier in San Diego - it is not required by code at all. My understanding is that vapor barrier is required if you have a huge difference between exterior temp and interior temp and there are issues of condensation, etc. Also needed if the exterior wall is under grade.
In general the foam spray insulation provides a superior insulation at a much higher cost. We don’t need superior insulation, it is going to get down to about 44 degrees about 5 nights a year, otherwise we are in the high 50s, low 60s at night.
Unfortunately, I cannot be in the business of providing the highest level of total insulation to a buyer. Not many people in coastal San Diego cares about insulation - except maybe if you are in a condo and have noisy neighbors. Anything built before maybe 1980 or 1990 does not even have insulation in the exterior walls. Most buyers care about insulation in the attic only. So, I have to do this purely for building code reasons to turn it into ‘conditioned’ or ‘liveable’ space. Therefore, the lowest cost solution wins.
We performed an experience on one bay of studs in the garage downstairs. The ceilings are about 12’ 8" high. We found only one cross piece/fire block in each bay. This means one hole at the very top and one right below the cross piece. We calculated 90-100 holes in the wall. We can make an assembly line cutting pieces of plywood that would get reinserted into hole and we need three screws - two to hold the plywood bracket behind hole and one in the middle of the perfectly cut drywall circle that goes back in place. We only have to tape around the top holes - no need to mud and texture because they will be inside the drop ceiling area. We will have to tape, mud and texture about 50 holes.
Half day one laborer to cut the holes carefully and store the drywall donut circles carefully (this is where there is going to be a failure - I just know it). Full day times 2 laborers to blow insulation into the bays. Two days of labor to make backing plates, screw drywall donut back in and tape/first mud. One more day of labor to do sanding/mud/final texture. We have a lot of texture repairs throughout the downstairs area so I think we will hire an expert to do a full skip trowel over all the walls anyway. Total Cost in labor = about 6 man days X $130/day = $780 (not counting insulation cost, but that is the same with method #1 or method #2)
Cutting holes in wall wins at this point - whether filled with some type of foam solution that can be purchased for less than $3,500!!! or we blow in the cellulose at R19 factor. I believe the code for wall insulation in San Diego is R13 and R30 for attics. I just need to call City and make sure they will accept cellulose blown insulation into finished walls.
Just typed in the zip code in the Icynene website to find my ‘local qualified contractor’. No results found within 100 miles of this zip code. I have a feeling that there isn’t much money to be made with the fancy foam insulation here in San Diego
