The Word From On High.....

Surprise
Is it EVER a good thing when your building inspector shows up onsite unannounced?
That's what happened to us today! Yay! I guess its a good thing that we've developed
such a close relationship that he feels like he can just 'pop on by' whenever he wants....

Thumped From Above
Today I made it through to my inspectors boss. We had a nice chat about the electrical
code and the plumbing code. He had done some research on my case and he had
discovered that my permit was issued 6 days into the new code cycle....that if it had
been issued 7 days earlier I'd be under a different less stringent code....yay.

So, in no uncertain terms, I need to put the lights on an AFCI breaker, I need to run both
TPR lines outside and I have to change out every single outlet (24 of em) to a tamper
resistant model....this is the part that I wouldn't have to do by 7 days...

Rant Mode On
By the CBC it is now illegal to use any outlet in a house that is not marked TR for tamper
resistant. Why the F do they sell a HUGE assortment of outlets that are not TR at Home
Despot? In fact all the stores I've looked at have huge assortments of non-TR outlets but
only a couple TR outlets?!?!?!?
Rant Mode Off

Plumbing Fixed
Here is the code legal solution for the TPR valves.

Approved by the inspector today...imagine hangers every 4 feet.

Electrical Panel Fixed

Ya, exciting...the blue tape are empty breakers. I will probably replace the empty
double with another 15A AFCI breaker so I can split the overhead lights back out.
Now they are all on the same circuit.
Turns out, you can make splices inside of sub-panels in Alameda.
As of now all outlets work correctly and all overhead lights.

Paint For The Entry Way
We need to paint the entryway, laundry room area also.
We want to use some combo of the colors we've already used (have the paint).
So, what do people think?
The colors we've used are bright yellow, sky blue, slightly darker blue, light green, and
a slightly darker shade of light green.
I think the light green on the ceiling and the light blue on the walls?

6 Days left till permit expires!

Elec and Plumbing Inspection Today.......yay...

With seven days left on our permit we had our inspector out again today to
look at the electrical and the plumbing.

Neither of which got fricken finaled.....

Plumbing
The plumbing was all good except for the lack of TPR line ran to the outside
of the house....the inspector was not buying my argument even though I followed the manf
instructions to a T...still wants it outside...arrrrrrrrrgh. I've got a call into his
boss so we'll see.

Electrical
Hmmmmmm, this was a mixed bag for sure.
All the outlets worked correctly except for one room where we had a floating ground...
All the overhead lights and switches worked.
The kitchen was wired correctly.
I screwed up on the AFCI breakers.....
In the code books it says something like, 'all outlets not GFCI have to be on an AFCI breaker.'
Okay I think, no problem, each room is on its own 20A AFCI breaker for the outlets.
I ran two 15A circuits for the overhead lights splitting the apartment down the middle longwise.
That was my BIG mistake....apparently, in code speak only, an 'outlet' is also the overhead lights!!!

Yay, so now I have to fit at least one more AFCI breaker in the sub-panel for this unit.

Unit Subpanel

All full! No room at the inn....not sure what the heck I can do about this...don't want to change
out the panel for a bigger one. To make this work I will have to combine circuits but since you
can't double tap an AFCI breaker (right?) I will have to put in a junction box below the panel
to tie some of the separate circuits together.....
Anybody else have a better idea?

Now Pics Of Paint And Lights!

Hallway

 Hallway leads to this little family room.

Off of which is two bedrooms.
The small one.

The medium one.

Turn right from the family room and into the kitchen.

The master area isn't painted yet but here's some fuzzy shots of the master closet.

 Pretty light.

So that's it for now.
Next inspection and probably our last one is this Thursday......wish us luck.
Did I mention how tired I am? Or how bad my back hurts? Yay.

Seven Days Left On Permit!!!

Passed Another Inspection!!

Whoop, Whoop, I say, Whoop!

My intrepid inspector was out today and signed off on the HVAC portion of my permit!!
Whoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooop!

Now, 'all' we have left is the plumbing and electrical....ya that's all....

Electrical Final
To final the electrical I think all I have to do is well, install all the fixtures! All the lights,
the switches, the outlets and they all gotta work....
I'm about halfway done. Lots of box extenders unfortunately...

Plumbing Final
Just a couple of small things to clear up here and...
ONE HUGE THING!

What to do with the TPS lines for the tankless water heaters?

Guess I messed this up pretty bad... It was my understanding that you did not have
to run the TPS line outside if they are venting into an unfinished basement space.
My BI has a different opinion....he wants me to remove the valve at the unit, run
copper pipe up to inside the joist bays (which are already covered) put the TPS
valve waaaaaaay up there and have it gravity drain to the outside.
I think further research is needed....these heaters have 3 gal buffer tanks and only
heat when they are on...doesn't that mean that at max I would get 6 gal on the floor?
Couldn't I just put two separate six gal tubs under each line?

Of course this is the ceiling where the lines would have to run.

Level four and primed, ready for paint....yay...
This one single issue could blow the entire timeline....

Our next inspection appt. is Monday the 18th with another scheduled for Thursday
the 21st which looks like its our last chance for a final as the permit expires on
Monday the 25th....

But hey look, there's a kitchen sorta.

 Yep, yellow walls and a sky blue ceiling and I think neat looking CFL lights.

Crazy corner sink? check.
Brand new stove and microwave from the Sears outlet, check.
BTW the Sears outlet in San Leandro is amazing...I've always heard about the
place but never made it out there....well, I tell you what, I'm not buying an
appliance from anywhere else if I can help it. Soooooooo cheap like half off
and there is like soooooo much there....overwhelming.

Anywho, 12 days till the permit expires...

Potential Renters
The unit will not be ready till mid Sept!
Stop friggen pestering me unless you're ready to put some cash down.
 

Some Progress in the Basement

Well, I lied...not all the demo was done.....

I forgot to have this wall to the mechanical room removed.

Now you see it, now you don't.

New Wall.
I've never built a load-bearing 2by6 wall before...
And officially I still haven't as the wall shown below does not have a 'real' footing underneath it. Its just sitting on the 4" thick slab.

There was no room to tilt up the wall so I built it in a way no real carpenter would. Besides, working alone how would I tilt up a 21' 2by6 wall?

How Not to Build a Wall
First, I laid out the bottom plate and made sure it was parallel to the center load bearing wall. I tacked it in place with the ramset.
Then using two 'cabinet jacks' I stuck the top plate roughly in place. Then I used a 'straight' 2by6 and a level to make sure it was exactly in line with the bottom plate. Then I shot the first top plate to the underside of the joists, up from below. Then I nailed the second top plate to the first.
Then I measured and cut each stud separately and nailed them in place.

I also built my first triple 2by8 header. The span table said I could get away with only a double 2by8 header (and two jack studs to span 3-2) but then how would I make up the rest of the space in the 2by6 wall?
So, I used three 2by8's (good for a span of 3-11) and two sheets of 1/2" ply. I used construction adhesive to glue all the pieces together then I nailed the heck out of it with the nail gun. Its a very heavy, solid piece.
If you notice the header is nailed directly to the double top plate...there is just enough room for the door underneath it, as long as I don't get too crazy with the shims.
Putting that bugger in place was a comedy of errors...trying to lug it up there while getting the cabinet jacks underneath it...I picked that thing up, hefted it into place at least 8 times before I got it right....

Its a good thing building the header went well as I have a sinking feeling that there are no code compliant headers over the two doorways in the 'official' load bearing wall...

After I built the wall I swear the floor above feels a ton stiffer.

Built this little wall

To fill in the open area where the kitchen was.

The doorway from the mechanical room into the other kitchen was also filled in and I mounted the units electrical sub-panel in the opening.

I also mounted most of the new electrical boxes in the walls, ceilings.
I will not keep most of the existing electrical it seems...at least the existing in the kitchen has to go...I'm hoping to re-purpose the stuff in the other rooms.

Had some important visits last week.

First up, my building inspector.
I wanted him to come out and take a look at the situation since we uncovered a lot of 'hidden conditions'. He was like, 'Ya, gotta fix all those buried junction boxes.'
He also pointed out a couple of code violations that I had missed.
Its against code for copper water pipes to touch galv gas pipes...didn't know that.
He also said that there needs to be fire stopping between the top of the furring wall and the actual exterior wall. He said that stuffing the hole with Fiberglas insulation would be okay. I also plan on filling all the joist and stud bays completely with Fiberglas insulation....so hopefully belt and suspenders fire stop wise.

The BI also did confirm that the HVAC soffits are not built correctly...

The soffit needs to be uh, enclosed on the inside completely with fire code sheet rock...
So, hurray, more demo, as I will have to yank the existing soffits down and put up the drywall then rebuild it...

Actually, I'm not sure how to do the soffit. I've been puzzling over the HVAC plans and how to implement them in the 'real world'. Right now it seems like I have more HVAC trunk line than I have space for it...
However it works I will make the soffit big enough to conceal the trunk line, plus any number of utilities like the gas lines, the main water lines, electrical, TV-phone lines...If I'm lucky I won't have to drill thru hardly any joists! Course I have to build the fricken thing....

I was also happy about what the BI said about the floor joists. You see, floor joists have specific code specified lengths they are allowed to span. Depending on the type and grade of the wood and its size.
The BI confirmed that they are Douglas Fir and that he would be very comfortable with using the #1 column in the span tables!!! That's really good cause #1 wood spans a lot farther than #3 or #2.
I couldn't get him to agree to let me use the Select Structural (the strongest modern wood grade) column. He said I would have to get a structural engineer for that.

Visit From My Structural Engineer
The next day my engineer could make it out to look over the situation. I wanted him to take a look at three places where I was not sure if I needed to add posts-beams. I wanted him to asses the lack of earthquake retrofitting, and I wanted him to tell me what he thought the joists could span.

You see I thought the joists where old growth redwood, which you can not find in span tables really..

The engineer confirmed that the wood was Doug Fir and he said that it was 'at least' as strong as a modern structural select 2by10!!! Which means now, officially my joists can span 17' with no problem. Actually the farthest span I have now is only 12'-6" so I'm feeling really good about the structure.

Even, better, he confirmed that I could remove the existing post-beam, beam no post, and the load bearing wall in line with the joist situation did not need any re-inforcing.

Which means I can get rid of this post-beam in the new master bedroom!

I can get rid of this beam hanging from the joists.

I am so freaking glad of this development...the other option would of been having to use some sort of fancy engineered beam to span the spaces and I would have to dig-pour new footings for the posts...that would of been a significant expense and a huge time suck.

I was so happy about the results that I cooked everybody a fancy dinner to celebrate.

Earth Quake Retrofitting
Not so good news here... I don't know how to do it.
My simple cook book method of figuring out how much shear walling I need says that I need 23' on each side of the house!!! Because of windows that is pretty much impossible to do....especially on the short ends of the house....

Soooooo, I'm going to have to have my engineer figure out a more clever way to get a safe amount of strength in those cripple walls...

Wow, that was a lot of words wasn't it!?!?

Bottom Floor Apartment Ideas

Some Ideas On What To Do With The Bottom Floor.

Oh man, have I mentioned recently how big a pain in the ass it is to do really, really accurate as-builts of a house? Not some boring square tract house but a crazy friggen Victorian with all sorts of weird features??? Walls are all sorts of weird thicknesses and everyone is a little bit different...no rhyme or reason to anything apparently....ugh.

To review, here is the existing basement floor plan.-Still not 100% right but its close.

Yep, we've got ~14" thick wall around most of the basement!

So, it turns out that we have a couple different sets of friends who are basically begging to live in our basement! Weird huh? They've got a couple small kids and would love to be in the Franklin school district this close to Franklin park. If I can get this apartment legalized we could help them out with hopefully a nice place to live and they could help us out with the mortgage, a win-win.

Here's my first try at reconfiguring the space to make what I think a family with two parents and a couple of kids would think would be an acceptable domicile.

I really wanted to figure out a way to make a 3-2 while using the existing locations for the bathrooms but just couldn't figure out how to get the far bath included...

Turning the 2 bedroom into a 3 bedroom with a good sized master bedroom.

One of the problems with the original layout is that the kitchen area is just too darn small. I think that it needs to be big enough to be eat in as there really is no where else to eat. To accomplish this I moved the two walls of the bedroom for the other apartment and moved the door and removed the stairs leading up to our unit.

The layout above works I think but the existing door to the one bathroom is just in a super awkward place in terms of the kitchen layout.

2nd Stab at a reasonable 3-1 with a workable eat-in kitchen

I moved the closet in the master bedroom to the other side and moved the door into the bathroom over. I think that this makes for a much more workable kitchen. One thing that I'm surprised about is just how much of the bottom floor this decent sized 3-1 takes up!
At this point I'm not even sure if its going to be possible to move the walls for the master bedroom...I've got to check and see what (if anything) they are supporting above.

Well, I think I've made a reasonable apartment what do y'all think?
One odd thing is that the kitchen and the bath is going to be windowless....not sure how  weird that's going to be...The plan does show a lot of lights in the kitchen but....also the family room and the one bedroom are kinda on the small side...

Egress Windows...dang this issue is going to be a tough one...all the windows from the bedroom need to be official egress which means they need a clear opening of at least 5.0 sq ft...and the minimum openings have to be 20"wide by 24" high...not a single window makes the height cut...the rule is supposed to be so a firefighter can get in through the window....but firefighters don't open windows the smash their axe's through the windows and yank em out so they have a nice BIG opening...to meet this egress rule I will probably have to switch out all the windows for casements that open fully...which won't look right for sure...

But, wait, there's more..on the interior the sill height can only be 44" from the finished floor...right now I'm at 45.5".....I'm going to have to lower the windows (which I don't know if possible cause there is going to be a bottom plate possibly in the way) or raise the floor or a little of both...

Hurray!!!

I've got someone coming over today from the city to take a look at my plans and weigh in...hopefully it will be good news...

Update
After talking to some people I had this idea

I really, really, really, like this idea as I don't have to remove any walls!!

I will completely lose any storage space in the basement but the unit will now be a 3-2!!! With a Master Bedroom Suite!!!

One of the design considerations is that the laundry area and the utilities area need to be accessible from common space. I will need to gain access to the utility room where hopefully the 2 new house heaters and water heater for this unit will be kept. The laundry room is for both units so that needs to be not in private space.

From Breaktime Classic we have this idea.

And from Jessamyn we have this one.

Thanks so much everybody for the ideas.

Just got done meeting with the city's man and he didn't see any problem with my, 'take over the bottom floor' for a single apartment idea.

I'll have to work on refining the design and I'll need to bring in the plans for converting the two studio apartments into a single one bedroom at the same time...which, don't exist yet...

So, there is some hope!!!