My Wet Basement

Outdoor Caulking Done

noreply@blogger.com (JCA) — Sun, 25 Nov 2007 17:57:00 +0000

Today was a good-weather day. Armed with confidence and a can of DAP expanding foam, I headed outside to finish up the weatherproofing of the new hose bib. Naturally, the hole was just as I had left it some days ago.

Per the directions on the can, I shook for one minute, and then keeping the can mostly upright (not like in the photo; it's hard to pose and shoot at the same time) I sprayed some foam into the gap. It said to fill the gap to 90% and let the foam do the rest. I filled it to about 150%, which the foam kindly increased to about 165%. I ran inside to grab some paper towels (why didn't I think of this before?). Wiping around the edge made for a nice clean foam-filled gap that looks like it should stand the test of at least some time.

I'll of course monitor it for a while. I'm concerned about the amount of play in the hose bib, and I suspect it'll pull the foam free unless it remains flexible. We'll see. I've seen this stuff crumble if applied at too cold a temperature.

While I'm at it I'll probably run out to do the driveway light on the front of the house. I foamed that one about a year ago and it's pretty much crumbled. I did a real hack job on that one in extremely cold weather, with total disregard for climatory admonitions on the can. I'll add words about that job below here as an edit when I'm done.

Cheers

Progress Delayed

noreply@blogger.com (JCA) — Thu, 22 Nov 2007 22:38:00 +0000

Things were going so well, too. I procrastinated a couple days too long, and in that time winter arrived. I was dithering over which caulking or foam to use, and couldn't make the decision.

I have a can of "DAP multi-purpose insulating foam sealant" which I had planned to use. Reading through some other blogs it seemed that the best option would actually be a straight outdoor caulk job. The DAP says to apply above 7deg Celsius, and it's most certainly below that now. Also, I used it last year in replacing the outdoor lights on the side of our house. That work seems to have broken down into crumbly pieces (the temperature was character-building that time too). After this job, I plan to re-do around the lights.

But, back to this job. With winter weather, I'm at a loss... do I wait for warmer weather (the snow likely won't last), and do it with the expando-foam, or do I buy a caulk gun and some outdoor caulking and just do it now? I guess I should make a move, one way or the other. Tomorrow I'll see if the outdoor caulking products will do okay in cold weather. In the mean-time... we wait.

Updates soon.

EDIT (Nov 24/07): Birney Summers over at Energy Boomer tells me DAP is good stuff for this after all. Soon as the weather warms a little I'll give it a shot and report back.

Soldering On!

noreply@blogger.com (JCA) — Sat, 17 Nov 2007 04:19:00 +0000

Last post detailed the demo work done to prepare for pipe and valve replacement. In today's post I'll show you how I installed the replacement plumbing, along with some safety tips.

On with the show!

As you can see, the work area was quite confined. Floor joists, foundation wall, exposed insulation, vapour barrier, and annoying TV cable were each obstructing things in their own way.

I decided it would be best to solder up as much of the job ahead of time in a spacious area. I'd be practicing in relative ease, before trying my hand in the tight basement confines.

This was a good move. I aborted by first "join" part way through. Trying to solder a threaded adapter onto the valve was a no-go. I couldn't heat the valve enough without potentially damaging the rubber valve seal. I later learned I could have disassembled the valve to remove the valve stem prior to heating. Oh well. Chalk that one up as practice.

Tip #4: Do as much of the work as you can in an open area. Ventilated too!

First thing to do was arrange the work area with all the tools I'd need for the job. Soldering pipe is essentially a five step process:

Clean the joint (any contacting areas)
Apply the flux (to those contacting areas)
Fit the pieces
Heat the joint
Apply solder

No doubt the pros whip a joint together in a blur, but for my first time I didn't want to miss anything. I scrubbed the contacting surfaces with some sandpaper until the area was bright, shiny copper. Copper naturally oxidizes, leaving a green substance called copper oxide. Even if you see no green, it's present on all but fresh copper. This will prevent a good solder joint from forming, leading to leaks. I used 80 grit all-purpose paper to sand it clean. I think that may have been too coarse. In future I'll use finer paper. I was confident it had done the job though, and pressed on.With the surfaces clean on both pieces (the valve and the 45deg elbow), I cracked open the solder flux. The flux acts to wick the solder into the joint, all the way down. This helps create a good join. Any excess flux will wash away with the first flow through the pipe as it's water soluble. I was told that flux should not be left on the outside of the pipe as it can accelerate the oxidization process. To combat this, I kept a wet rag nearby. The solder flux was a white creamy substance, and is easily applied with a small brush. You can buy these brushes from any hardware or plumbing supply store. You'll want to coat the entire area over which the pieces will be in contact. Following this I fit the elbow into the hose valve. Naturally it was a perfect fit, and the piece bottomed in the valve as it should.

I sparked the propane torch and immediately realized that I was hyper-alert about where the flame was pointing. I guess this is a good thing so that I don't burn the house down... or myself. With the valve sitting upside down, I directed the flame at the joint, moving it around somewhat to evenly heat the area. It heated up much quicker this time. I think that's because of the increased contact area between the pipe and valve vs. the threaded contact. When the flux began to sizzle a bit I began touching the solder to the joint. The key is to touch the solder to the side opposite the heat (the top in my case). If the opposite side is hot enough to melt the solder, you can be sure the entire section is. At first I broke a couple solder pieces off pressing it against the joint. The means it'sgetting close, but still isn't hot enough. Once it was hot enough to melt fully, slight pressure against the joint caused the solder to flash over the joint, circling the pipe and filling the flux gap. Perfect.

After wiping down with the wet rag - it will sizzle a bit as the water is boiled - I did a quick pull-test (ie. pulling mighty hard) and decided the joint was a good one. With the 45 successfully attached to the hose valve I felt ready to move on to the pipe section. Same process as the last, I sanded the joint, fluxed it up, fitted, heated, soldered, and wiped. Beautiful... well... not beautiful. But functional. As an engineer I figure those are one in the same.

After a quick cut, I was able to slide this piece into the house from outside, filling the hole the old one had come from. The weight of the valve made the pipe more stable in the upside down position. I decided to go with that instead of trying to balance it upright. I'd mark the pipe inside the basement, and flip it just before soldering. If I'd tried to balance, it might have rotated a bit as I worked, and I'd have to keep checking outside to verify it was upright. Much easier this way.

The cut had worked out perfectly too. The valve and attached pipe were the perfect length to match up with the old pipe through the new 90deg elbow, and the piece I cut off was perfect to match the old pipe to the 90deg. What luck!

Being an expert pipe joiner (2 joins under my belt) I felt ready to attack the rest in the confined basement space. I opted to do the small pipe and 90 elbow first, followed by connecting the pipe from outside to the 90. Again, this order was chosen to give me more practice before super-constraining myself with the last connection. Baby steps.

Repeating the joining process was fairly easy. I was able to fit the pipes and then use one hand for the torch and one for the solder. Again, being hypersensitive to where you point the torch is good. There were lots of things I could burn in that area. Probably wouldn't have ignited a fire, but could have burned holes in vapour barier, scorched insulation, scorched wood, burned through cable TV, etc.

Tip #5: Drape a wet rag over the pipe on either side of your work area. This will prevent the pipe from heating up in areas you don't want heated (the rag will generally keep things below 100deg C as the water boils off it). Don't try to solder pipe with water in it. It's virtually impossible.

My joints in this area weren't the best. Fluxing the connections was difficult with no visibility behind the pipe. I grabbed a small mirror and taped it to a makeshift handle to get a look behind. This was a good move as I found areas with no flux that I would have missed otherwise. Similarly, I tended to apply more solder than needed here, resulting in a couple of large solder drips hanging below the connections. Evidence of amateur plumbing, but the joints are solid.

With all connections soldered and wiped down, I was ready to do a proof test on the piping. I shut the outdoor hose valve, shut the indoor shutoff bleed valve, and SLOWLY opened the shutoff valve. Water under pressure filled up the new piping and I was extremely pleased to hear... NOTHING. Silence is golden when you're testing a plumbing job. I went outside again, and hooked up a hose and sprinkler. Turning the big red handle allowed water to flow. The flow was much stronger now. I guess the kink really was constricting. Turning the other way shut off the flow, as expected, and again I listened. Nothing bad from outside. One more trip inside to look for drips, and it seemed all was well. I turned the shutoff again, opened the bleed valve to drain the downstream section, and that was that. THE PLUMBING WAS BACK IN GOOD SHAPE!

I'll probably monitor the integrity during the first part of watering season next spring, but I don't expect any failures; I really soldered the piss out of those joints. :)

Future posts will detail the removal and replacement of the wet basement insulation, as well as the process of buttoning up the area after it's all done. Hope you're keeping up!

Cheers.

Plumbing Disassembly

noreply@blogger.com (JCA) — Fri, 16 Nov 2007 00:00:00 +0000

In my last post I showed you the damaged area. The water entry point was fairly obvious, and the pipes were in a good position for easy disassembly.

First order of business was to equip myself for the task. I took a quick trip to Rona (the first of many!) and bought some things. Aside from bug spray, I grabbed a little hand-held pipe cutter to make quick work of the copper just inside the outer wall. I was puzzling over two cutters of the same brand, trying to decide what size to get, when I spotted another brand of cutter hidden behind a misc-parts bin. No prices posted, but the package looked simpler. Turns out it cost less than half as much (~$9 vs. $19+)!

Tip #2: Check off-brand tools! They may be cheaper.
From my reading I knew I would eventually need a propane torch, a sparker (to light it), lead-free solder, plumbing solder paste, and a brush to apply it. I bought those, though I knew I'd be back to purchase the appropriate pipes and fittings.

Back in the basement I decided to cut in two places. One directly on the pipe segment coming through the wall, and one just past the first elbow joint. In the end I didn't have to make this second cut, but I guess doing so allowed me to practice my soldering skills later! :) Before cutting, I shut off the valve to the hose bib. In my house it's located just inside the wall. The valve has a little drain to clear the line once the flow is shut off. I left the drain knob closed and headed outside to open the hose tap... er... bib. Doing this would ensure water could drain from that section. Back inside I opened the little drain cap and water poured out. Luckily I suspected this would happen and had a small bucket handy to catch the water. Now the pipe was ready for cutting.

Tip #3: Make sure to shut off the water supply to this segment of pipe first, and drain completely! You may have to vent the pipe while draining to allow the water to flow out. No, I didn't fall for this one, but it's still a good tip!

The cutter is operated by opening the device wider than the pipe (standard 1/2" in this case) and closing it on the pipe. I closed the cutter until I could feel some tension building, and then rotated it about the pipe once. This starts the cut. Then I alternately tightened and rotated until the pipe was completely cut. I figured this is probably the right way, as opposed to doing it all in one turn. Didn't want to risk compressing the pipe out-of-round, as this would make fittings unfit for fitting. Anyone know if I should/could have just tightened harder and turned once?

I now had a little elbow piece separated from the rest of the plumbing, and the hose bib was seemingly ready to be pulled from outside.

Now outside, I grabbed hold of the hose bib and pulled a little. Not much movement. I pulled harder and the tap came out along with the pipe. Outdoor caulking was restraining until I overpowered it with my superhuman strength.

What a surprise! I had expected to see a split caused by freezing, or something similar (though it hadn't been very cold yet this year). Nope. I had also expected to pull out a hose bib, 45 degree elbow, and a piece of straight pipe. Nope! Turns out there was no 45. Some asshat had decided that the best way to make a 45 degree angle was to reach down and haul back on the tap, bending it into place! What a genius! Anyone who's even thought about bending pipe by hand knows that the bend will buckle the pipe, leaving a nasty kink. Just like how you stop a hose from flowing by bending it.

The repeated plugging/unplugging of hoses had certainly strained and weakened the kink, and it finally gave way.

Having found the source of the leak (I checked it in my sink), I headed back to Rona to buy the parts I would need. I picked up a new Dahl globe valve tap, a 45deg elbow (!!), 3 feet of 1/2" pipe, and a 90deg elbow.

At the suggestion of the Rona guy in the plumbing section I also grabbed a female thread to 1/2" ID adapter. He suggested that the old tap was done incorrectly, with the 1/2" pipe inserted into the male thread on the tap, and that I should thread the adapter on, solder it, and solder the pipe into the 1/2" ID end. I tried this, but found I couldn't get the threads cleaned to help create a good solder joint. Also the slow contact area meant I had to heat the tap a lot more to flash the solder, to the point where I smelled the seal burning. Result of this misguided adventure was another trip, this time to HD, to buy another valve. Oh well. Live and learn.

The coming posts will detail the initial pipe soldering and installation. See you there soon!

What's The Damage?

noreply@blogger.com (JCA) — Thu, 15 Nov 2007 01:43:00 +0000

First thing to do (after soaking up the water) was to determine the full extent of damage. Quick examination of the basement floor showed no ill effects, other than some bubbling of the paint layer in a couple of areas. No big deal. The water hadn't been there long.

With a utility knife I cut a vertical line down the vapour barrier, peeling it back like an orange. I felt the insulation inside. Dry on the surface, but digging deeper I could feel it was soaked. Not good. At this point I resolved that all insulation in the vicinity would have to come out. I don't want to risk inviting a mold colony into the basement. Something tells me they don't pay rent!

Pulling the insulation out from around the hose tap exit and getting my handheld light in there I could see where the water came from. The top of the foundation wall was soaked, and the wood support (anyone know what this is called?) looked pretty badly stained at its base. Water had been coming out the hole onto the top of the wall. A black scrim layer (again, anyone know the name of this?) separating the wood had been soaked pretty badly. I think its purpose is to keep the natural moisture in the concrete foundation from sitting against the wood frame of the house. Either way, no chance this was coming out. Tearing down the back half of the house is not an option.

The visible pipes looked okay. A little oxidized, but no leaks or bad joints. The problem had to be downstream. A nice little pipe chicane provided an easy location to cut. I could then pull the pipe out from outside the house without having to play with the hose valve (I've since learned these are called hose bibs).

Oh, did I forget to mention all the bugs? Probably 20 potato bugs were scurrying around, having a grand old time in the warmth and moisture. Despite that, all in all the damage didn't look that bad. My dad assured me that wood can handle short-term wetness. It doesn't look like the water roamed very far or wide. The job ahead was clear:

Kill the bugs
Fix the plumbing
Pull and replace the insulation
Seal up the area against moisture(that is: tape & patch the vapour barrier, and caulk the wall penetration)

Future posts will discuss the initial plumbing disassembly and repair. Hope you're enjoying!

My Wet Basement

noreply@blogger.com (JCA) — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 05:16:00 +0000

Hi. My Name's Justin. Welcome to my first blog post! I hope you'll bear with me as I learn the ropes around here. This will be a long post, to set the stage. Future posts should be more concise. I promise!

Anyway...

As the masthead says, I became the proud owner of a beautiful, wet basement the other day. I discovered it quite by accident one morning, proving conclusively that I'm not an unlucky guy. As I sat down to a bowl of Raisin Bran and a Globe and Mail I heard a faint grinding/gurgling sound.

Tip #1: Don't ignore your house's sounds!

We've owned our house (our first) for almost two years now, and in that time I've become hypersensitive to all the little groans, creaks, and taps that it makes. The house breathes, you see. It has a daytime character. It has a nighttime character. I'd swear it's alive. I used to be fearful of these sounds, hunting them down until I found the source. Now, after finding most of them harmless, I've come to appreciate them. They let me know the house is operating normally. Ducts expanding and contracting with the daily temperature swings. Normal ground settling over time. New noises become cause for investigation, not concern.

The gurgling was coming from the back of the house. I immediately suspected running water. I ran outside on the back deck to find water spraying from the base of a hose tap (or hose bib, as I later learned), running down the outside of the house wall. I verified the valve was shut and my heart sank. I ran inside and down to the basement, and confirmed my worst fear.
Water was streaming in a slow trickle down the basement wall, pooling at the base, and running across the basement floor toward, in a manner, the drain. Luckily it appeared to be in the early stages, as there was not much water. Despite this fortunate fact, I was still terrified. The water had come down the wall behind the insulation and vapour barrier. One word: Mold!

Thoughts of emergency plumbers charging usurious rates, not being present while the job was done, poor workmanship, all raced through my mind. Of course I have the highest respect for the home-building trades, and I expect (read: know) the job would be of higher quality were it done by a professional. But in the end, I'd be in the same position I was in the day before. Helpless.

I resolved to do the work on my own. I would learn the tools, techniques, and tricks required, and better myself in the process.

Over the coming series of posts, you'll see the process I took getting this job done. Up-close photos, description of tools, repair techniques, and even finishing touches will all be presented. Mistakes too! I made a few, and it cost me some dough. I might as well help you avoid the same trouble.

Hopefully homeowners facing similar problems, or even just those looking for inspiration to tackle a job DIY style, will come here to learn. More importantly I hope people more knowledgeable than me (not hard to achieve) will post suggestions for those who follow.

Once the wet basement series is finished I'll continue posting here with other home maintenance jobs as they come up. I'll spotlight some of the things I've already done during the past two years as well.

Cheers, and enjoy the ride!
Justin