Striking to the Gut (Reno Tales: Part 4)

Back in Part 2, I talked a little bit about why I was doing what I was doing. After seeing the kind of mold infestation I had in my ceiling, I wanted to make sure that I uncovered and got rid of *all* of the problems, all of the places that had water and rotting bugs in them, and looked at the structure thoroughly to make sure that none of it was rotten to the point of deterioration.

A bunch of people have asked what it looked like as we were doing the demo, and what it looked like after it was all bare. (Believe it or not, more people have said, “More pictures!” than “You’re crazy!”, which stunned me. Either that, or everyone already knows I’m crazy.)

So — Here’s pictures. Ladies and gents, this is why I gutted the place. And this is how much work it was, and this is how much I love my girlfriend for helping throughout all of it.

Below: Dust under the carpet padding after I pulled the carpet up. You can see where the vacuum has, er, vacuumed. (I vacuumed at each stage to keep things clear, to pick up nails and staples so that I didn’t step on them, and to make sure I could see what was falling on the floor.) Most of the floor was covered in dirt under the padding, and the carpet was dated 2004. This is why cleaning carpets isn’t enough, and why people who have allergies like me want uncarpeted houses with area rugs.

Below: Groovy wrapping on the original insulation. Remember the picture of the ceiling from Day 2? It was so moldy that you couldn’t read what the wrapping said. The places where it looks “chewed” along the top is where the carpenter ants and other critters got to it.

Hey, remember that 30 Cu. Yd. dumpster? Here’s a crummy cell phone pic of what it looked like when it was empty, right after I’d pulled the carpet out…

Below: Half the ceiling’s missing in this shot. Most of the horrible rotten stuff is down. The insulation that had been installed (improperly) when the water damage was repaired is either the black or brown stuff — I’m not sure because I’ve found the black stuff in other places in the house, but the brown stuff was more rotten and seemed older. Who knows? The black tarpaper stuff wasn’t eaten by ants; the non-tarred kraft wrapped batts were eaten by ants.

Ah, the TV area. With it’s wonderful blown-in insulation. (Actually, most of the attic is full of blown-in insulation.) This stuff was hell to clean up. I was this close to putting on my dust mask and using the leaf-blower to blow it out the front door, but we bagged it like responsible citizens… You can see how dusty it was from the amount of dust that the flash caught.

That’s the girlfriend helping bag up the crap. she’s wonderful. Note the safety glasses and respirator, and the 6 mil plastic sealing the door to the rest of the house. On the other side of the plastic, we had a HEPA filter running on high — and fiberglass STILL made it all the way to the back corner of the house.

The added sprayfoam sealing the wall between the TV area and the garage is mine; the bent-up, mineral-coated 3/8 inch copper flex is OEM (or was installed early in the house’s lifetime.) The green boxes are low voltage ports and basically just provide a clean place to collar the wiring and attach a faceplate. The one on the right without anything in it later got 1 inch conduit run down to it, and is going to be for ethernet.

Here’s the clerestory and most of the ceiling bare… Note that I left the labels on the windows. This was so that the inspector could verify that I’d put in windows with the right kind of glazing.

Here’s what the floor looked like after dropping the top half of the ceiling. I was basically up on top of the scaffold flailing with a hammer. The scaffold is 14 feet tall in total, with the bottom deck at 10 feet. The ladder is 10 feet.

… And here’s what the dumpster looked like at about this time. It’s only 1/3 full, and it’s got all the drywall and insulation in it.

Aiee! My house … it’s naked! That’s my friend’s son, Michael, helping pull the few remaining nails out of the ceiling before we started installing insulation. The grey things from the soffit on up is soffit baffles, which I installed as a little bit of extra insurance to make sure I didn’t completely plug the soffit vents up.

Blurry and Bare on the other side… this faces the back bedroom. You can see the two black cans where I’m going to install the sconces. They’re going to be centered over the buffet that goes against that wall.

I’ve already posted this picture, but… Here’s the clerestory and living room without anything in it. You can see the can lights in the ceiling. You can see the little bit of blue conduit in the background for the ethernet.

Caveat: Those are the incorrect can lights on the bottom left. They’re full-profile slanted ceiling can lights, but left no clearance between the sheathing and the can, and therefore aren’t allowed. I think I’m just getting around to ripping them out when I took this picture. I ended up eating the cost of three of them, the rest were able to be returned to Lowe’s.

And here’s the kitchen side without any drywall or insulation. Again, improper can lights on the bottom, proper can lights at the top. Wiring for the can lights was 100% correct, I just listened to the packaging — “Oh, it says it only requires a 7.25″ clearance!” — and didn’t really think when I bought them.

Tomorrow, I’m either going to post some more pictures of what I did while I had the dumpster, or I’m going to talk about insulation for a little while. Not sure yet. Depends on how much work I do…