Here are some "before" photos of the awful duct work job that they did in this part of the house. This is the duct that passes through the power room, goes up through the Office, and into the floor in the corner of the L Room. This was taken after all the awful column/drywall around it was removed.
This is the top, where (if you can remember from previous photos - which I can't link/show at the moment) it was all buckled and bashed-in at the top.
And this is how well connected it was in the basement, just over the electrical panel.
Yes, the corner joint is literally just roughly pointing upwards into the vertical duct. I also can't figure out why, but they had also re-crimped the joint even more onto itself. I'm guessing that they didn't have enough patience to carefully fit the joints together, so they just scrunched it up more, and jammed it in.
The following are a group of photos that show the interior of the power room in the basement.
The duct you see here is the one above, which has a lot of unnecessary twists and turns in it. Just awful.
This is the most simple shot of what the power room looks like (or rather... looked like, but I'll get to that shortly). As you get in you have to duck under the main water line with the "Watch Your Head" sign on it. You also need to duck because of the other flat duct over it for the vent in the Office floor (which will be shown below).
This wall doesn't even touch on one side.
It's literally made of cobbled-together random scraps of wood and 2x3s, along with a newer section in 2x4s instead.
My dad said that one of the people who lived here not long ago was a drug dealer, and my friend Devin confirmed this by pointing out the 3 outlets on the wall, and the fact that this room had a padlocked plywood door over it (which I removed a long time ago).
You can see a small leftover of an old linoleum floor covering. There are still a bunch of old tacks in the wood floor that I need to take off.
Neat! Blogger automatically detects broken links. I had forgotten a few closing brackets. Oops.
This is looking back out (by the electrical panel). You can see the other flat duct for the Office floor register on the upper left.
You can see that the last 3 feet or so is the newer section in 2x4s.
This is the wall facing the power room, as viewed from the bathroom door. The wall looks fine, but it's actually bowed and curved in several places.
Another overall view "before".
DEMOLITION TIME! Did you see it coming? C'mon it was awful. As I was tearing it down, I could see that MOST of the upright 2x3s were not even attached at the top. There was not much holding this "room" together.
See?
The aftermath. What a dusty mess.
Continue in Part 2
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ReplyDeleteAll that wiring is truly frightening! Have you had anyone check it for safety?
ReplyDeleteOh I've been through most of it. It's all pretty new (the new electric panel was put in place in 1992, and the entire house was rewired shortly afterwards). They used the right wires and breakers in all the right places, it's just that whoever did it was really sloppy about it (just like whoever did the duct work). What you see in the photos is mostly because I took out all the staples, since I'm untangling that whole mess, and cleaning it all up. It will look wonderful once it's done. I want to make sure that all the wires are properly organized, and not too close to the ducts, etc.
DeleteThe floor doesn't look too good either... proves that just throwing down a wood floor over dirt doesn't really stand the test of time.
DeleteRagnar: The wood floor in the basement is laid over some wooden 2x3s laid over the foundation floor, but it is over concrete (not dirt). The problem is that the foundation has been leaky (on/off) over the years, so the moisture has rotted it in places. Also, this floor only covers a portion of the basement, and I'm 99% sure it was made out of leftover wood planks from the upstairs floor, or the exterior t-g cladding the house (interior and exterior of outer walls). Basically almost the whole house is made up of this 4" t-g, so I think they did this floor with what was left.
DeleteAh, that makes sense!
DeleteWe're in the process of installing a new wood floor on top of a concrete slab. After getting dozens of conflicting opinions we decided on our own method... first we put down strong felt (the kind they also use in road construction), then heavy plastic as a moisture barrier, small squares of cork, wood blocks to level the 2x3s, 2x3s to support the floor and perlite in the cavity between and underneath the sleepers.