Wiring Dilemma

Before the sublfooring in our attic conversion was installed, I used some of my newly acquired plumbing skills (and leftover pipe) to run a chase from what will be our "utility room" upstairs (one side of the low space behind the attic kneewall) all the way under our bedroom to the other side of the attic, behind the the other kneewall. The plan was to use this chase for wiring, such as cable TV, phone, etc.

Well this weekend during the Menards-17%-off-anything-in-a-bag-sale, I couldn't resist the temptation of topping off our bag with some Cat-5 (computer network) cable as well as cable TV (RG6 coax) cable. I already have tons of telephone cable (Cat-3) left behind at my employer's previous location, so I was all set to go.

I started running these three cable types in our attic last night - RG6 Coax, Cat-5, and Cat-3, but I paused halfway through the job with a question (plus it was 1:00 am); Will having these three different cables all bundled next to each other result in any signal bleeding or interference? What if I run audio speaker wires alongside too? Hmm.. time for some research.

A baffling roof ventilation problem

Warning: Technical and possibly boring post. But nonetheless I wanted to document this.

Remodeling HumphreyHouse has presented us with an opportunity to change the air movement in our attic. In order for a good roof to maximize its expected lifetime, and to increase a home's comfort level, it's important to have good ventilation in the attic.

In summer, the underside of a roof collects a ton of radiant heat, as Jay found out first hand this weekend when Chicago was gripped with a heat wave. Without ventilation coming in to move that air up from the underside of the roof to a vent near the peak, the heat has nowhere to go but through the insulation and into the house. Making an attic unbearably hot. During the winter, the heated air from inside the home carries water vapor from laundry, bathrooms, cooking etc. and when the warmer air hits the cold rafters and roof decking, it condenses and can create moisture problems.

Warm air can also cause the snow on top to melt and run down the roof. Now, you may not think this is a bad thing, except when that water runs over a soffit, which is not heated, it will form an ice damn near the end of the roof eave, causing water to refreeze on the shingles and work its way underneath to enter the house. We had some loooong icicles last winter, so hopefully we can avoid them turning into ice damns in the future by increasing ventilation.

However, the problem we're running into is one of headroom. Our rafters are only 2x4s, and we want to get as much insulation as possible without shrinking the room too much. We settled on R19 (2x6) insulation for the sloped part of the ceilings, which requires simply furring down the existing 2x4s. The flat part of the ceiling will have R38 (12 inch) insulation. But this doesn't leave much room for vent chambers - especially the typical foam baffles that you can purchase. These are 2 inches thick, and while we put them under the dormer roof, and will still have plenty of insulation, we won't have much room if we do that in the rest of the attic.

So with our HVAC installer's help, we devised an alternative solution that maximizes our insulation while still creating air chambers for ventilation. We installed a PVC pipe that connects the behind-the-kneewall part of the attic to the peak of the roof, and put a pipe into each rafter bay. In the laundry room, which will generate a lot of moisture, Jay drilled the PVC every few feet to ensure any moisture will get carried away in winter.

But how will the air travel up those pipes to begin with? We plan to install standard 2x4 insulation in the kneewall areas just in case we want warm/semi-heated storage, and to keep extreme weather from coming inside. So before stapling up that insulation, we furred down the 2x4 rafters behind the kneewall with 1x2's. That would leave a 1" gap for ventilation across the lower part of the roof once the insulation was installed (ice dams, bedamned!) These chambers terminate at a mini-peak at the top of the kneewall to take advantage of existing mushroom vents in the roof, and the PVC is right there to carry the air up to the attic peak where we have more mushroom vents.

So, to make a long story short, our plan is to have sufficient air movement under our roof and above our insulation, which will hopefully keep everything more comfortable and enjoyable.

Piping for 13 hours

Saturday was quite possibly one of the longest days working on our house. Or maybe working in an attic during the 105 heat index made it feel even worse. The day started off well (and cool) enough, as our electrician Fred showed up as promised bright and early. After walking through the details with Jay, he put together a shopping list of a few extra items that Jay had not already picked up.

While Jay ran to Lowes, Fred started drilling through walls studs, sawing 1/2" metal conduit with a cool cordless bandsaw (which Jay promptly nicknamed "The Green Machine"), and contorting metal conduit into all kinds of funky shapes. Smartly, Fred started working on the non-A/C side of the attic first (the side that faces West and will be the master bedroom). He had most of the bedroom complete by the time Jay returned.

In the past year since Fred wired our basement, Jay had tried a few times (mostly unsuccessfully) to work with conduit and the pipe bender he has. Now, Jay was a willing apprentice as Fred tried to teach him some of the tricks of measuring and bending conduit. With a little help, it actually wasn't too bad. Jay ended up doing the stairs, half of the hallway lighting and smoke detectors, and half of the spare bedroom before the day was done.

Granted, that is only about 15% of the work and Fred needed help on some things a lot, but still, not too bad for an amateur.

By 5 o'clock we started moving slow as the heat sunk in and the A/C struggled to keep up. But Fred was determined at that point to get all the piping done before he left for the day. We pressed on, figured out a way to route the conduit down to the main circuit panel in what's termed the "homerun". I thought Fred kept referring to the Cubs spanking the Cards until I figured that out. Additionally, the centrally-wired smoke detectors will need to be wired into existing smoke detectors in the basement, so that required another pipe coming downstairs as well.

Then we determined that we were out of conduit. We'd already gone through about 450 feet of pipe(!) but needed another 40 more to finish the spare bedroom. Mostly this was because an earlier pipe Jay had run before the floor was completed turned out to be unusable.

After thinking this spelled the end of the day, Fred said no way. He was not leaving when we were so close to finishing. Maybe he's just a glutton for punishment. Or was trying to avoid his visiting in-laws. At any rate, when the work was finally done it was pretty much 8:30. Subtracting the half hour for lunch, that was 13 hours of work! Wow.

Fred says pulling the wires should only take 1/2 day though. Not quite clear if that means a normal 7.5 hour day or a true half day (4-5 hours) though. At any rate, he'll be coming out to finish the job and hook up some temporary outlets and lighting for us. Then we'll actually have power (or Lectre) and be able to call for the rough inspection. Woot!

The 'Lectre is coming!

When my cousin Chase was around 5 years old, he had a tendancy to give special powers to his toys. The action figures invariably had the ability to "Lectre" any villians. I thought this was some wierd invention he came up with, or maybe something was lost in translation due to the foreign culture (he's from the South). After all, he later told me how he wanted to be a firetruck when he grew up. But after several weeks, it finally dawned on me that this was his shorthand for "Electricity."

We at HumphreyHouse are looking forward to this weekend, when our electrician Fred will be coming over to Lectre the upstairs. While it is doubtful he will complete everything, hopefully we will at least get some decent lights up there, and be able to walk up and down the stairs without tripping over extension cords anymore.

Maybe Fred can even teach Jay how to measure and bend conduit on his own for the future, too! We can only hope that our anticipated 99 degree highs (with 80% humidity) can be tempered with the extra window A/C unit and temporary HVAC we've routed from downstairs. Or hopefully at least enough to avoid dehydration.

How it feels to live in HumphreyHouse

Over the past weekend, we saw many friends and family members, who invariabily asked "How's the house coming?"

Well, sometimes it just gets overwhelming, so much so that it can almost be difficult to express in words. That is, until you find a cartoon that sums it up perfectly:

Also interesting was that the Chicago Tribune devoted an article to "houseblogging" on Friday - yes, there is a term for what we do here at HumphreyHouse. And others who do it too! In fact, for those inclined, you can read (or commisserate) with others over at houseblogs.net