Tub work is now entering 3rd day. On the first day, the tile demolition team arrived at 9:30am and were done by 10:15. They removed all the old tile, but left the sheetrock just above the tile. I called Carrillo and they said that was OK. Considering the mess that must have been made, they left everything amazingly clean afterwards. The old fiberglass insulation was looking somewhat rotten in places, but I doubted it would make much difference. I spent much time thinking how the niche was going to be installed in the somewhat off-centered and peculiar space in the side wall, but in the end decided it would just be a bit off-center and my plan (as of Sunday night, when I had previously emailed Naomi) was still good, that is for 12" wide nice that's 28" high with shelf in the middle. (Naomi said the shelf would be made of the tile itself, so no trouble with color matching.)
On the second day, plumbers arrived around 9:30, took a one hour break around noon, and left around 4:45. They removed the tub and toilet and installed the new valves and water lines connecting to the spray head and spout. They had quickly sealed the existing water pipes (1/2 copper) with caps in the morning so I can't even remember how short the water was off. They dug out the tar in the tub drain and put new drain into place and aligned it to tub (by lowering tub a few times). They soldered in the new toilet flange (the old one had been merely crimped on, not soldered, so no wonder the toilet had often felt loose). When they left there was still a smell of flux in the air, but I left doors open to the garage and my efficient ventilation system took care of it quickly.
Around 6:00 my friend took a look. She was appalled at the appearance of the old insulation. She asked me if they were going to fix that. I said that nobody had said anything about it, and the plumbers surely weren't going to replace it. Since I was not doing this project through a general contractor or builder, just a plumber and tile company, I didn't think there was anyone to fix the insulation.
Looking some more, I also realized there was a missing piece under the tub near the front of the tub, actually in the plumbing drain void in the house…a particularly bad spot for missing insulation. Cold air leaking in through there would reach all under the tub and the bathroom and kitchen walls, and perhaps even deeper into the house. I remembered later how this piece got missing--it was my fault! When my mother and I bought this house in 1992, it had been badly treated. There were openings behind where a refrigerator would go. (I didn't learn until later that these openings are often needed for plumbing and extermination work.) The bottom opening, wide open, had a large ant mound inside. I dug out the ant mound, and then I started pulling on something that seemed like fibrous garbage. Before I could see what I was doing I had pulled out an old rotten piece of fiberglass. There wasn't any way to push it back in from there. I soon forgot about that amidst all the repainting and minor repairs. The first handyman we hired plugged up the holes with with sheetrock.
In the years since, I always wondered why the bathtub seemed so much colder than the bathroom itself on cold days. Cold air seemed to be coming from somewhere. The tile around the tub also seemed especially cold. The lack of insulation in this critical part of the house could even have caused the deterioration in the tile itself (though, shower water leaking through increasingly large cracks could also explain it).
I never would have thought that underneath the bathtub the wall wouldn't even be finished, making the insulation there even more important.
Around 7:45 PM I went to Home Depot and selected R13 insulation (I picked the nicest looking roll, many were half open, stained, etc), a stapler and staples (I had only recently discovered my old Arrow T50 was broken), a dust mask, and a pair of garden shears and a new pair of gloves. Though the correct way to cut fiberglass is somewhat involved (you are supposed to cut with on a scrap piece of plywood) an easy way is with garden shears, as I had just read online, and I had just one piece to cut, 13 inches long.
After Home Depot I went grocery shopping and got home around 9:45. I watched a short video on how to (mostly how not to) install fiberglass insulation. Sometime around 11 I started working on replacing the fiberglass piece and I was finished around 1:30AM. I put towels around the work area and cleaned out the weeds that had grown into the void and some bits of old insulation. Putting on mask and gloves, I removed the roll of R13 from the car and cut off the plastic cover with regular scissors. I marked 12.5 inches with scissor cuts then cut somewhat crudely, intending to fill the gap below with a second piece. I took the piece and pushed it into place. Well I had failed to notice that there was a gap above the piece, so it was more than 1/2" short. I pushed up a little hoping to push the piece into the upper gap, but that didn't work very well.
This was where it started to get complicated and difficult. It was hard to cut a very short piece that was very straight, and where the fiberglass was cut to the same length as the paper backing. Mostly it wasn't. Finally I filled the bottom with several pieces, and some extra paper where the paper backing had come off. Then I noticed that the far side was short too. For some reason the spacing for this inner void was actually wider than the normal 14.5 inches between studs. So I cut some pieces to fill that.
Here I had an idea which goes beyond typical construction (not that my actual work does). It occurs to me that I want all open airspaces like this void to have paper in front of the fiberglass. The paper protects the airspace from fiberglass breaking off and going into the air stream.
When I had pushed the pieces into the far side of the gap (which was also hard to reach) it left a big piece of visible fiberglass. I fiddled with this for the longest time. Finally I decided simply to cut off a new piece of paper (with fiberglass on it) and press it over the exposed pink. I did similar work on the near side where there was visible fiberglass after stuffing another piece underneath. All this extra fiddling was at least an hour's work and I even had to take a break to wipe of perspiration. I also tried to stuff a bit of insulation into the gap above the piece, behind a horizontal 2x4, but that didn't work well and I gave up easily. It was hard to work in such a tight space, being careful not to touch any of the new plumbing.
By code, I didn't do a great job, maybe not even passible. But by my standard, I at least did get all the visible fiberglass covered with paper. And the insulation work, if not great, is at least far better than nothing. I may have squeezed too much fiberglass in the far side, but not enough in the gap up above the main piece, and I think those were the biggest technical weaknesses. I continued looking for awhile and took pictures. I was thinking I could already notice the difference in warmth and lesser transmission of noise from the refrigerator. That was probably just my imagination. WRT the noise, it now seemed to be coming from the ceiling instead of from lower down.
Even though the energy savings will probably never be as great as the cost, I think it will be nice for the bathtub not to be so cold in the future. My version of construction goes like this. I get the best professionals I know to do the big jobs, then I do little bits of detail work, sort of like extra hot rodding. That's because making my home is art, not genius. I once got a fortune cookie which said "Art does what it can, Genius does what it must." On my home, I do everything I can to make it nicer.
I emailed the tile company about the ratty looking fiberglass above the tub, and they said they would fix that when they come out to do the tile on Thursday.
On the second day, plumbers arrived around 9:30, took a one hour break around noon, and left around 4:45. They removed the tub and toilet and installed the new valves and water lines connecting to the spray head and spout. They had quickly sealed the existing water pipes (1/2 copper) with caps in the morning so I can't even remember how short the water was off. They dug out the tar in the tub drain and put new drain into place and aligned it to tub (by lowering tub a few times). They soldered in the new toilet flange (the old one had been merely crimped on, not soldered, so no wonder the toilet had often felt loose). When they left there was still a smell of flux in the air, but I left doors open to the garage and my efficient ventilation system took care of it quickly.
Around 6:00 my friend took a look. She was appalled at the appearance of the old insulation. She asked me if they were going to fix that. I said that nobody had said anything about it, and the plumbers surely weren't going to replace it. Since I was not doing this project through a general contractor or builder, just a plumber and tile company, I didn't think there was anyone to fix the insulation.
Looking some more, I also realized there was a missing piece under the tub near the front of the tub, actually in the plumbing drain void in the house…a particularly bad spot for missing insulation. Cold air leaking in through there would reach all under the tub and the bathroom and kitchen walls, and perhaps even deeper into the house. I remembered later how this piece got missing--it was my fault! When my mother and I bought this house in 1992, it had been badly treated. There were openings behind where a refrigerator would go. (I didn't learn until later that these openings are often needed for plumbing and extermination work.) The bottom opening, wide open, had a large ant mound inside. I dug out the ant mound, and then I started pulling on something that seemed like fibrous garbage. Before I could see what I was doing I had pulled out an old rotten piece of fiberglass. There wasn't any way to push it back in from there. I soon forgot about that amidst all the repainting and minor repairs. The first handyman we hired plugged up the holes with with sheetrock.
In the years since, I always wondered why the bathtub seemed so much colder than the bathroom itself on cold days. Cold air seemed to be coming from somewhere. The tile around the tub also seemed especially cold. The lack of insulation in this critical part of the house could even have caused the deterioration in the tile itself (though, shower water leaking through increasingly large cracks could also explain it).
I never would have thought that underneath the bathtub the wall wouldn't even be finished, making the insulation there even more important.
Around 7:45 PM I went to Home Depot and selected R13 insulation (I picked the nicest looking roll, many were half open, stained, etc), a stapler and staples (I had only recently discovered my old Arrow T50 was broken), a dust mask, and a pair of garden shears and a new pair of gloves. Though the correct way to cut fiberglass is somewhat involved (you are supposed to cut with on a scrap piece of plywood) an easy way is with garden shears, as I had just read online, and I had just one piece to cut, 13 inches long.
After Home Depot I went grocery shopping and got home around 9:45. I watched a short video on how to (mostly how not to) install fiberglass insulation. Sometime around 11 I started working on replacing the fiberglass piece and I was finished around 1:30AM. I put towels around the work area and cleaned out the weeds that had grown into the void and some bits of old insulation. Putting on mask and gloves, I removed the roll of R13 from the car and cut off the plastic cover with regular scissors. I marked 12.5 inches with scissor cuts then cut somewhat crudely, intending to fill the gap below with a second piece. I took the piece and pushed it into place. Well I had failed to notice that there was a gap above the piece, so it was more than 1/2" short. I pushed up a little hoping to push the piece into the upper gap, but that didn't work very well.
This was where it started to get complicated and difficult. It was hard to cut a very short piece that was very straight, and where the fiberglass was cut to the same length as the paper backing. Mostly it wasn't. Finally I filled the bottom with several pieces, and some extra paper where the paper backing had come off. Then I noticed that the far side was short too. For some reason the spacing for this inner void was actually wider than the normal 14.5 inches between studs. So I cut some pieces to fill that.
Here I had an idea which goes beyond typical construction (not that my actual work does). It occurs to me that I want all open airspaces like this void to have paper in front of the fiberglass. The paper protects the airspace from fiberglass breaking off and going into the air stream.
When I had pushed the pieces into the far side of the gap (which was also hard to reach) it left a big piece of visible fiberglass. I fiddled with this for the longest time. Finally I decided simply to cut off a new piece of paper (with fiberglass on it) and press it over the exposed pink. I did similar work on the near side where there was visible fiberglass after stuffing another piece underneath. All this extra fiddling was at least an hour's work and I even had to take a break to wipe of perspiration. I also tried to stuff a bit of insulation into the gap above the piece, behind a horizontal 2x4, but that didn't work well and I gave up easily. It was hard to work in such a tight space, being careful not to touch any of the new plumbing.
By code, I didn't do a great job, maybe not even passible. But by my standard, I at least did get all the visible fiberglass covered with paper. And the insulation work, if not great, is at least far better than nothing. I may have squeezed too much fiberglass in the far side, but not enough in the gap up above the main piece, and I think those were the biggest technical weaknesses. I continued looking for awhile and took pictures. I was thinking I could already notice the difference in warmth and lesser transmission of noise from the refrigerator. That was probably just my imagination. WRT the noise, it now seemed to be coming from the ceiling instead of from lower down.
Even though the energy savings will probably never be as great as the cost, I think it will be nice for the bathtub not to be so cold in the future. My version of construction goes like this. I get the best professionals I know to do the big jobs, then I do little bits of detail work, sort of like extra hot rodding. That's because making my home is art, not genius. I once got a fortune cookie which said "Art does what it can, Genius does what it must." On my home, I do everything I can to make it nicer.
I emailed the tile company about the ratty looking fiberglass above the tub, and they said they would fix that when they come out to do the tile on Thursday.
No comments:
Post a Comment