The ducts are up!
We had another weekend of house work, and my parents came to help us! We’ve been really lucky to have friends and family help us with this project – Steven’s dad and two of his friends were up here last weekend, and our friends Eric, Bobbi, John, and Troy have all been here a few days. It’s so helpful to have extra hands, and especially people like my dad, who’ve been doing stuff like this for years.
Steven, me, Mom and Dad
We tackled the ductwork this weekend. We took out all of the flexible ductwork when we demolished the attic. It was in bad shape – animals has chewed holes through it and it was barely held together with duct tape. We bought rigid ductwork to replace it, hoping that if animals get in the attic again (nooooo), that they can’t chew through (as fast?).
Our plan, which Steven did a “sh*t-ton of research and maths to figure out” (<—- that’s a direct quote):
No bathroom return because you don’t want those fumes circulating around the house!
It’s A LOT of metal parts and pieces to put together:
Eek!
(I’d like to mention, we tried to get MANY companies to come out and do this for us – if they returned our calls, most wouldn’t come visit. If they visited, they didn’t want to do it/never got back to us. Um, the ceiling is down, making it MUCH easier to work on. Why doesn’t anyone want our business?! Frustrating. I GUESS WE’LL JUST DO IT OURSELVES IF YOU DON’T WANT OUR MONEY.)
On Friday night, Dad and Steven got right to it, and started putting the ductwork in.
Troy replaced the nailers for the new drywall that’s going in (Steven cut them all), Steven worked on getting another (grrrr) nest out of a rafter, and mom and I cleaned up the nest, and the mess it made, and started vacuuming and checking all the drywall tops for animal smell. Oh! And I got to take some of the plastic down (it was time – it had so much stuff on it) and vacuum! I’ve never been so happy to vacuum – I hadn’t seen the carpet in over a week! And I was pleased to see the tarps and plastic protected it.
Dad and Steven continued working on the ducts and supply and return vents – we picked new locations for them – on Saturday
Installing the trunk line
Putting in the east master bedroom supply vent
Marking for the west master bedroom supply vent
Supply vents up, and starting to add the ducts
Installed (and pic of a drywall nailer)!
and I continued vacuuming the drywall tops and checking for smells.
And found another spot that needed to be entirely ripped out (plus Steven had found another in the am!).
Gah. Good thing we found it though! Mom painted the first layer of Kilz on it and I did the second.
And I put a small layer of plastic up on Saturday. And decided I never want to see blue painters tape again. I kind of reached my breaking point on Saturday. No surprise there.
On Sunday, Steven and Dad finished up the ductwork install, and moved on to lighting and electrical. They got a few lights up, and fixed a few switches.
Ductwork leading to supply vent in bathroom
Hi, Dad!
Guest bedroom supply vents
I spent most of the day sealing all the connections with acrylic duct sealant. Gawd, it took forever.
Partially completed sealant work
I don’t know all the details of the work Steven and Dad did to put up the ducts since I was busy doing other stuff while they did that. But man, I was impressed that they got most of it up in a day and that it looked so nice (before I painted it)!
The ductwork is what I felt most concerned about because we’d never done it to that volume before. But Steven and Dad seemed to whiz through it! Even though we have so much left to do (including cover the ductwork with insulation), I feel relieved that is done!
My parents were so helpful when they were here! We worked all day and in to the night, and Mom cooked all the meals, which saved me time driving to get them, and more importantly, made me feel better, physically, eating less take out!
Fajitas and naan!
This weekend felt like a big help to getting us on track for the new ceilings in one week (on August 22). And this will be another week of work. We still need to put the insulation around the ductwork, install some lights, fix electrical, install a catwalk in the attic… and much more.
We’re all ready for this to be done! Especially Data. Um, he was not too happy this weekend…
Themocracy
Good night Irene. You guys deserve a spa weekend after this – ducting an entire house? Incredible.
Thank you! That does sound lovely! I took a nice soak with epsom salts and bubble bath last night to treat myself. And yay, all the sealant came off my arms (and out of my hair, ha!).
OMG, I am just so impressed with at all the progress. It is so good Hubby and your Dad are so skilled. That will provide you with such good piece of mind when it is all done, that you know it is right. All work completed with love 🙂 That is really nice.
You are quite the worker bee too! Are you feeling sore in new places?
Yes! I will feel much better about all this, knowing it is done right… since the whole reason we are doing all this is because the contractor wanted to half-ass it!!!!!
Thanks 🙂 My legs and feet are more tired than normal, and my traps hurt yesterday when I lifted my arms up for squats. LOL.
I am so continuously impressed with the kind of work you guys are doing. This is definitely YOUR house, you’ve put so much time, effort and love into it!
And I’m glad to hear that your mom was there to cook you some real food this weekend (since you didn’t need me to bring you any food!) – I was worried you were stuck eating out more! That definitely starts to feel blah, especially with all of the exhaustion and soreness you must have going on.
Thank you! I am starting to feel more proud now, and less frustrated and overwhelmed!
Yes! I was going to tell you! I told Steven about your nice offer and we were going to take you up on it, but mom cooked every meal while she was here (except Friday night). I wish she was still here to do that, HA!
You should feel SO proud!
I was really just hoping to escape the bees for a bit on Sunday to deliver some food 😉 Glad you guys were taken care of! That’s what moms are for.
Ha! If you need to escape any time this week or weekend, we will still be at it!!! We’re hoping to have everything ready by Sunday night!
What can I do to help this week? Hopefully things are back to normal here by the weekend!
Maybe we can take you up on the food offer! 🙂
Gahh I am so impressed with all the work you’ve been doing! I hope you do something special when you finish this hard work! I’m sure you will be glad to get your house back too!
Thanks! I was thinking about getting a nice manicure since my nails haven’t been tended to much lately! LOL.
I can’t WAIT to clean and put everything back where it goes! I hate having my stuff all over!
Wow, is there NOTHING you two (+ helpful friends and family) can’t do? This is amazing. I’m so impressed that Steven has done all this research and that you two are committing to doing it together. I really can’t even wrap my head around the scale of these projects. Did you know before moving in that you’d have to rip out and replace so much?
Thanks 🙂
No, we didn’t know until we took out the insulation in the attic, how bad the ceilings were.