(no subject)
I replaced a basement window yesterday. ALL DAY yesterday.
The window nearest the washing machine and dryer had one pane removed, with the replacement being a panel with the dryer vent in it. The constant moisture and warmth (and proximity to the ground, I suspect) had rotted away the lower part of the window frame such that it had the structural integrity of a stale piece of white bread. Clay has been after me all summer to replace the windowsill.
Getting it out was easy; it was rotten after all. The mortar holding the sides had long since let go, and the top wasn’t nailed to anything except the sides (the top of the opening is the sill plate (board) that the house wall sits on).
The big question was, do I make a new frame from scratch (which I have the skills to do) and re-use the window sash - which was in fine shape - or do I try to buy a whole new window?
I had to go to Home Depot either way, so off I went.
The materials to make a new window frame was by far the cheaper option, but way more labor-intensive. A pre-made vinyl replacement window (complete with frame) was about $100, plus the cost of a board to make a box around it. The box is to give me something to fasten the window to besides the brick basement wall. Making a new frame for the old window meant a lot of table-saw work and trying to find a thick enough piece of wood for the sill, which on the original was 1-3/4” thick! Not a normal size of lumber you might find at Home Depot.
I went with the pre-made window and just hoped to God I’d measured correctly.
It turns out I had, but as is true of all old houses, nothing is square or true anymore, so the box I made to put the new window in had to be all wonky in order to fit. I caulked THE CRAP out of it to deal with the several huge gaps. Then I had to actually trim the frame of the window to get it to fit into the opening that I’d so carefully measured.
None of this was the tough part. The TOUGH part was...well, you remember the dryer vent through the old window? That wasn’t going to work with the new window. I had to put a hole in the wall of the house, above the foundation wall and sill plate, to install a new dryer vent.
Now I have a hole saw the right size - 4” - and it was simple enough to select a spot to drill through, that is between the floor joists, in the wall, up at the ceiling of the basement. The builders of my house back in 1930 decided that such decisions are too lightly made, though, and threw in a mighty monkey-wrench.
Someone had put a board between the floor joists, filling the space between the sill plate and the floor above, and side to side between the joists, and filled the space between it and the outer wall with concrete. This is ABOVE the sill plate. Normally you do not put concrete on top of wood, for one thing. I suspect that this is a balloon-framed house*, and this concrete was meant to be what’s called a “fire stop,” which is meant to stop the spaces in the walls from acting like chimneys and carrying a fire from floor to floor in a house. The concrete was, unfortunately, in my way as I tried to put a hole for the dryer vent through the wall.
It took about 3 hours of pounding with sledge hammer and chisels to get the concrete out of the way enough to put the vent through. My arms feel like overcooked spaghetti today.
In the end, it was done, though. You should have seen the look on my face when I pulled the hole saw away and saw the smooth, clean concrete filling the resulting hole. I had trashed the shingles around the hole, so I had to replace them (luckily I had some left-over from the last shed project) and then installed the freekin’ six-dollar dryer exhaust, finishing about 6:30 in the evening. I’d started at 10 am.
Sadly, I didn’t take ANY pictures. When all is painted (the finishing step), I’ll photograph the finished product. Is as too busy to take pictures!
I much prefer home improvement projects that I don’t NEED to do but WANT to do. And that list has grown short indeed...
* Balloon framed houses have their outside walls constructed first, all the way up to the roof, and then the interior floors and walls are added afterward. This is how houses were built into the middle-third of the last century, I believe, though I am unsure of the exact cutoff. Restoman could probably supply the details in a heartbeat. Balloon framing was replaced with “Western Platform Framing,” where the floor is built, the walls built ON TOP OF the floor, the next floor is built, and so on. This means there are no clear passages from the basement to the attic, unlike a balloon-framed house.
The window nearest the washing machine and dryer had one pane removed, with the replacement being a panel with the dryer vent in it. The constant moisture and warmth (and proximity to the ground, I suspect) had rotted away the lower part of the window frame such that it had the structural integrity of a stale piece of white bread. Clay has been after me all summer to replace the windowsill.
Getting it out was easy; it was rotten after all. The mortar holding the sides had long since let go, and the top wasn’t nailed to anything except the sides (the top of the opening is the sill plate (board) that the house wall sits on).
The big question was, do I make a new frame from scratch (which I have the skills to do) and re-use the window sash - which was in fine shape - or do I try to buy a whole new window?
I had to go to Home Depot either way, so off I went.
The materials to make a new window frame was by far the cheaper option, but way more labor-intensive. A pre-made vinyl replacement window (complete with frame) was about $100, plus the cost of a board to make a box around it. The box is to give me something to fasten the window to besides the brick basement wall. Making a new frame for the old window meant a lot of table-saw work and trying to find a thick enough piece of wood for the sill, which on the original was 1-3/4” thick! Not a normal size of lumber you might find at Home Depot.
I went with the pre-made window and just hoped to God I’d measured correctly.
It turns out I had, but as is true of all old houses, nothing is square or true anymore, so the box I made to put the new window in had to be all wonky in order to fit. I caulked THE CRAP out of it to deal with the several huge gaps. Then I had to actually trim the frame of the window to get it to fit into the opening that I’d so carefully measured.
None of this was the tough part. The TOUGH part was...well, you remember the dryer vent through the old window? That wasn’t going to work with the new window. I had to put a hole in the wall of the house, above the foundation wall and sill plate, to install a new dryer vent.
Now I have a hole saw the right size - 4” - and it was simple enough to select a spot to drill through, that is between the floor joists, in the wall, up at the ceiling of the basement. The builders of my house back in 1930 decided that such decisions are too lightly made, though, and threw in a mighty monkey-wrench.
Someone had put a board between the floor joists, filling the space between the sill plate and the floor above, and side to side between the joists, and filled the space between it and the outer wall with concrete. This is ABOVE the sill plate. Normally you do not put concrete on top of wood, for one thing. I suspect that this is a balloon-framed house*, and this concrete was meant to be what’s called a “fire stop,” which is meant to stop the spaces in the walls from acting like chimneys and carrying a fire from floor to floor in a house. The concrete was, unfortunately, in my way as I tried to put a hole for the dryer vent through the wall.
It took about 3 hours of pounding with sledge hammer and chisels to get the concrete out of the way enough to put the vent through. My arms feel like overcooked spaghetti today.
In the end, it was done, though. You should have seen the look on my face when I pulled the hole saw away and saw the smooth, clean concrete filling the resulting hole. I had trashed the shingles around the hole, so I had to replace them (luckily I had some left-over from the last shed project) and then installed the freekin’ six-dollar dryer exhaust, finishing about 6:30 in the evening. I’d started at 10 am.
Sadly, I didn’t take ANY pictures. When all is painted (the finishing step), I’ll photograph the finished product. Is as too busy to take pictures!
I much prefer home improvement projects that I don’t NEED to do but WANT to do. And that list has grown short indeed...
* Balloon framed houses have their outside walls constructed first, all the way up to the roof, and then the interior floors and walls are added afterward. This is how houses were built into the middle-third of the last century, I believe, though I am unsure of the exact cutoff. Restoman could probably supply the details in a heartbeat. Balloon framing was replaced with “Western Platform Framing,” where the floor is built, the walls built ON TOP OF the floor, the next floor is built, and so on. This means there are no clear passages from the basement to the attic, unlike a balloon-framed house.