With the second day of construction drawing near an end, the basement bathroom is quickly taking shape. One of the benefits of the bathroom is that its walls also serve as structural support, something that is desparately needed in this house. The walls are located under the double joists which support the walls on the main floor which support the second floor. One double joist had sagged 3/4 of an inch while the other one sagged 5/8 of an inch. The contractors used two jackposts to crank the joists back up to level before installing the stud walls.
Day 1: The plumbing is roughed in
The contractors used a jackhammer to break up the concrete in the area where the plumbing is to be run. Hearing protection is a must! As luck would have it, I was on phone catching up with a friend who I hadn’t talked to in almost three months.
The sewage pit and the trench for the plumbing.
Once the trench and sewage pit were dug out, the ABS was roughed in. The waste will travel to the sewage pit, which will house a pump that will eject the waste up to the main drain.
Plumbing rough-in for the bathroom
With the rough-in complete, the contractors began building the walls. Our large workroom will now be three separate rooms– a bathroom between two 10×12 rooms– roughly what the original layout was on the main floor. The main drawback is that I have now lost my potential interim workshop, so I hope we will be able to do the addition and garage sooner rather than later.
The doorway to the workroom
This is the doorway to one of the new rooms. The structure has to carry the weight of the main and upper floors.
Day 2: Framing the bathroom
The contractors actually used three jackposts to bring the joist back up to level before building the supporting wall. By comparison, the other side was much easier. Because the load bearing wall on the main floor had been removed by the previous owner, there was nothing above that joist.
Three jackposts were needed to get rid of the 3/4" sag in this double joist.
When you jack up a structure such as this, you have to expect some damage to the finishing materials on the levels above. Fortunately, the main floor on this side of the house is going to be gutted anyway, so the resulting damage to the main floor bathroom was no big deal.
The resulting crack in the main bathroom
Other cracks showed up in the hallway (also slated for demolition) and in the bedroom upstairs (minor damage that will be relatively easy to repair). Damage to tile floors is also common when this type of repair is executed. However, there was no damage to any of the floor or wall tiles in the bathroom.
At the end of the second day, the framing is complete (except for the header over one of the doors), and most of the wiring has been roughed in.
Meanwhile, on the main floor, we still have to finish clearing out the bedroom in preparation of demolition. Another trip to Home Depot is also in our future as we finalize our tile choices for bathroom and the flooring choices for the rest of the main floor renovation. Anything that has to be special ordered now will likely not arrive in a timely manner, so we will unlikely be using that members only showroom again for this project. In fact, the likelihood of ever using that particular venue again is pretty slim.