chiahead's Man Cave - Page 3

While ordering DC04 clips from BPape last night, I asked him about the wall connections, and I decided to buy a few more DC04 clips, to isolate the isolated walls from the connected walls.

I have been trying to find MLV locally, but have had no success. Most places I call don't even know what it is. I found one guy who knew what it was, but he has found no place locally either. So I think I might be paying almost $60 shipping for one roll of this stuff.

Well, I have now ordered some DC04 clips, accousical caulk and my roll of MLV. The work on the walls can really begin now.

Well, last night I decided we needed to have a neighborhood get together. So how could I gather everyone on short notice? How about fire trucks!!! My son would love that. Well, how to get them here? How about using the nail gun to shoot a nail through the gas line? PEREFECT!!!

Well, the neighbors all had a good laugh at my expense and got to check out the fire trucks. They left and had the gas company come out and check too. New houses no longer are using black iron around here, they are using corrugated stainless steel. And the lazy builders instead of mounting it in the middle height wise of the joist leave it at the bottom of the joist. Builder's motto "quickest and laziest way to get the job done!".

As Holmes on Homes says, building to code is like getting a D on a report card, it passes, but it is wrong.

So a plumber came out today and fixed it and ran a pressure test on the line. I couldn't do it because you can't get tracpipe at HD or Lowes. I thought DIY was supposed to be cheaper, but I am not so sure after a $471 bill.

Yep, that's why we got out and called 911 from the neighbors house. The fire dept said the gas was gone in about 20 minutes after it was shut off, but the smell they add to the gas stuck around for a few hours. They said you can smell that stuff at 15 parts per million, but you need about a 5% gas to air solution to burn. Now I also know how to shut off the main gas line. Stupid that you need pliers when you can use a 90 degree shutoff for water (and there is more pressure in a water line.

My thanks to allworld. He sent me a bunch of coupons ($10 off or $25, $10 off of $50, $25 off or 250 at Lowes and 10% off at Home Depot).

I have only used the $10 off of $25, but I have been buying studs 13 at a time, for $25.09, then taking off the $10. It is almost a 40% savings. Fun to watch them try to figure out how I got 5 of them. My wife and I each went in at once, and they said "I didn't know they sent more than 1 of these to each address". I said they didn't, a friend sent them to me. She didn't care.

These each expire on 10/2, so I was using those first, next is the 10% at HD (on 10/5). May need to get a Ryobi 18v cordless kit. I want the drill, but it is not sold separately, only in a kit with other items I don't need (flashlight, circular saw, sawsall).

So thanks again allworld (mailman) for the coups. My framing is about 20% done (remember I am doing the whole basement) I will probably start the actual framing on the theater soon. I need to figure out how I am doing the MLV, Accoutisc Caulk and DC04 clips. I will post some pics of the MLV for the floating floor people when I get there.

Well, before I leave for a few weekends worth of vacation, I wanted to finish at least one framed wall in the theater, and I have the MLV attached to the floating bottom. So here are some pics of the wall and the MLV.

Here is the wall itself. You can see the main theater door, and the AV closet door in the background. This is beyond the back wall looking towards the front left.


Here is the closeup of the MLV attached to the floating wall. It is stapled to one side. Then the wall placed above, then insulation placed inside, and stapled to the other side. The connections to the floor, and the top will be caulked.


No more work before vacation (I am out of supplies, and am not going to buy more until after the trip).

Yeah, I am back, but not really rested. My vacations tend to cram more than I should in. In 10 days, we drove 4 days, Disney for 3 days, 1 day at Universal, 1 at sea world, San Diego Wild Animal Kingdom, 2 NHL games, USS Midway Aircraft Carrier tour, and time at the beach. Got home Sunday night, and stayed on the couch all day Monday.

I did make it to HD in Tuesday night to get more studs, Tapcons and deck screws. And I even pulled a muscle in my back, so no work Tuesday night.

Last night I spent a little time getting the second wall up in the AV closet (1 to go). It takes a little time, becasue these walls are ones that connect to the theater walls, so I don't want to cause the theater walls to get coupled to the rest of the structure. I will try to get a picture tonight of the wall connected with the RSIC clips, and I will try to get the last wall of the closet done too.

I am going to HD at lunch to get some HVAC duct to move a line a little to be able to get another wall up in the theater. I also need to move allot of junk out of the theater area. I had a friend get new cabinets in his kitchen, and he gave me all his old ones, so they have been stored in the theater area for the last few months. I need to move them to get the walls done. They are pretty beat up, but I will get new doors and do a full facelift on them. Just order some veneer and get them looking new again.

I think overall I am a little over 50% done on the wall framing. Then still need soffits and to lower the theater ceiling, bar frame, arches, and some more decorative framing areas to be done with all the framing in the whole basement.

Ok,some progress and pics...

I finished framing the walls in the AV closet. One wall has no connections to the joists above, so it is really flimsy right now, but there will be a soffet along that ceiling so the wall will tighten up. Here is a shot looking into the room from the theater. The left wall is the flimsey one. Didn't help that I measuerd it wrong and needed to cut out a funky hole and patch it. That whole measure twice and cut once I keep messing up and doing measure once and cut multiple times. Oh well I will learn eventually.


Now, the left and right wall needed to be uncoupled from the theater wall, so here is a shot of one of the clips on the wall. There are 4 at each wall connection.


And as for the rest of the basement, here are shots of where it stands. This is the bar area looking at the front of the theater. All the junk in the front right is the cabinets I got and a few cheep bookshelves. I need to move these because the HVAC I currently need to modify is right above them.


Here is a shot of the stairs looking to the bar/bathroom area. You can see part of the stair wall I cut out. I will be adding another wall along there to make it and the column thicker.

Well, not much was done this weekend, It was our 12 year anniversary yesterday, and with halloween sugar hangovers, just a liitle got done.

I tried to caulk the MLV, and I only used 1/2 a tube of the 29oz caulk so far, and my hands are killing me. Does anyone have any ideas to make it easier?

Yeah, I am cheap. I bought the cheapest one at HD. I will either need to get a new gun, or my next thought was to use my quick clamps to squeeze the caulk gun trigger.

Well, I got another wall in the theater done last night, and I did the caulking on that wall too. On my second tube of caulk, instead of just poking the hole in the top I widened the hole. It helped a little, but was still very difficult to spread out. Hopefully by the time I get to green glue, it is easier.

I did an informal test on the RSIC clips last night. I tapped a coupled stud with a hammer then a decoupled stud, and asked my wife to listen upstairs. She said the second was muffled, but couldn't tell me how much, so we switched positions. WOW, the decoupled wall is 70-80 percent quieter for direct impact noise. I can't wait until I have double drywall with green glue to see how it sounds. I think impact noise will be the worst. I don't see much hammer tapping on studs happening during movie watching, so I am excited to see results.

It is hard spending money on these items when you can't use your ears until it is all done, so this test helped to know I am not wasting my money.

Well, more updates, here is what I accomplished this weekend:
Finish framing the last wall of the theater.
Finish caulking the MLV under the floating walls of the theater.
Build column frame to the right of theater door.
Ran out of materials, so I only build the base plate for the wall connecting stairs to the theater wall (including framing column to the left of theater door).

Still have wall framing for the rest of the basement, then to lower the ceiling in the theater, and build soffets in the rest of the basement (theater soffets will be post drywall), before I can state that framing is done.

COD WAW? never heard of it...

[hanging heand in shame]
Yeah, that has been eating up time..
[/hanging heand in shame]

That and funds... These last few weeks, I was able to do the wall from the stairs to the theater (isolate the theater connection) and add the colum frame to the left of the theater door.
I widened the wall along the stairs that will contain the railing, and built a column at the bottom of the stairs for creating an arch when entering the basement.
I also got the floor plates secured along the entire kitchen wall that has windows.
Once again, studs are all gone, so I need to pick up more.

With Christmas comming up there will be parties, and such, so I can see time being eaten up there too.

The long weekend didn't get much work done. A friend of mine's 10 year old daughter had problems with the right side of her body. MRI showed a tumor in her spine just below her brain stem. She had surgery, last week, and they found out Saturday that it is cancer. Good news is it is low level. So this weekend was spent helping them behind the scene's, and decorating their house for Christmas while they were at the hospital.

My friend knew about it, but it was a surprise to his wife and kids. A group of us decorated the outside, inside, got a fresh tree, cleaned bathrooms and did laundry, and stocked the fridge. They like the decorations, but don't like decorating it themselves, and it is his daughter's favorite time of year, so if she can rest and enjoy it, it is all worth while.