projects on the go
This is a house built in 1906 at 1403 3 Ave. N., Coalbanks (later to become Lethbridge), AB, Canada. I bought the house in Dec. 2021 as a rental property. It has a 3-bedroom suite on the main floor and a 1-bedroom suite on the 2nd floor. This is the story of the upper suite (“up”).
The baseboard heater works now.
According to my electrical engineer friend, the thermostat was arcing. When dialing it up and down, one can hear a kind of buzzing or hissing sound, the sound of a small arc going on within. Likely the contacts are dirty. He thinks it’s fine, but I think I will replace it anyway. Arcing leads to carbon building which leads to more arcing.
More finish work was done today. I added faceplates to most of the outlets and switches. Double outlets / switches aren’t done yet because I bought the wrong ones. I’ll pick up the right ones tomorrow.
Seam sealer, normally used in vinyl flooring, was used to seal the butt joints in the countertop.
The baseboard heaters were all installed except in the bathroom. The heater does not work.
After working outside for a while, the microwave was installed today. It took a while to get it installed because of the same problem as the rear suite at 520 – the cabinet bracket screws are almost lined up with the microwave mounting screws, forcing the mount to be slightly off-center.
However, there is a little flange that sticks out at the top left, preventing the cabinet door from opening.
It seems to have no purpose, so…
Because the entire property only has 100 Amperes (80A main floor, 50A upstairs), the upstairs suite cannot handle the on-demand water heater I had planned … yet. As well, there is no room in this small suite for a water heater of any decent size. (I have a 6-gallon, but for two people it should be minimum 15-gallon.)
So, they will share the main floor hot water tank. To do this, they need a flow monitor to measure how much hot water they use and pay the tenant downstairs.
The work begins. These valves are for the upstairs.
Over time, things get swept up, boxed, misplaced, or outright lost. I have no idea where the cover for this window crank went. I’ll have to order another, after I have a Thanksgiving weekend.
The kitchen blind was finally put up. When I get the measurements, I’ll go empty out Home Depot’s stock of blinds again for the remaining windows.
The Canadian Tire P-trap doesn’t fit. The pipes are 1-1/2″, and this P-trap is 2″. Nonetheless, I found the right one. Where? In the plumbing box. <sigh>
The tenants need a shower, but the shower door still needs to be resized. In the mean time, a simple shower curtain will suffice.
Along with a shower curtain, screws to hold the window cranks on.
The tenants will be here at 10:00am to begin moving in. Still lots to do.
7:45am – With the painting done in the kitchen and living room, the living room lights were mounted.
9:09am – The bathroom was primed yesterday and painted this morning. The walls need some drywall mud and paint touch-ups but are adequately done. Even though there is no 240VAC dryer, the outlet was mounted.
This morning, Erin at Home Depot set me up with new cabinet legs and the little screws needed to hold the soft-close mechanisms in place. Perhaps I can still find the others, but, in the mean time, I need these to move forward. The 36″ corner cabinets have 8 legs.
Levelling these is pretty easy. You just twist the legs in or out.
The 30″ cabinet drawers next to the fridge were installed, as were the 36″ next to the sink.
Little rubber bumpers were added.
I wish we had a few more days of preparation. The place will not be ready in time. I’ll have to negotiation a deal with them.
I started the kitchen. I removed all the stored boxes and began priming. As it turns out, Dave was not done mudding some of the ceiling. I saw one piece of green tape but didn’t know how far it went out.
Next, priming the living room. Primer complete, this is how things stood.
Next, the range outlet wires were mangled and had to be trimmed as the outlet had been put on and taken off so many times.
Next, the cabinets. The floor was cleared of paper and cardboard, and building began. The first upper cabinet is up on the north wall.
As the title says, more drywalling was done today. The bathroom must be finished soon so that Dave can come in and tape. However, more fiasco happened as well.
I found, in trying to put up this sheet on the top half of the east wall, that there was no backing at the top. I added some angled pieces and Tuck taped the cut vapour barrier.
I say fiasco because it was a miserable failure, bulging, breaking, sticking, being the right size but not shape, etc. I ended up ripping it from the wall in many pieces and tossing it outside.