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Old 11-13-10, 01:02 AM   #1
strider3700
Master EcoRenovator
 
Join Date: Dec 2008
Location: Vancouver Island BC
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Default My basement and cold closet project

It's been over a month since I started on this project (much to my wifes unhappiness) and I'm going to push hard to be done to the point of paint by Sunday, after that I'm not overly concerned if it ever gets finished.

The initial project started way back in September when I harvest about 150 lbs of potatoes from the back garden and had nowhere to put them. After a little thought we decided to build a cold closet in the North West corner of the basement. It would be roughly 5'x3' wedged between a basement window and the basement door. Here is what I started with. Note the potato bins already built and ready to go.



After emptying everything out my first step was to remove the paneling from the wall. I figured there would be no vapor barrier since the house was built in the early 60's and I wanted to add one in that area.
Also while in there I wanted to insulate the outer wall where the floor joists butted up to it. My daughters room is above there and quite cold in winter. As you can see There was zero insulation to the outside there.



So I pulled the paneling off and saw that the insulation behind was not what we would consider good these days. You can also see in this picture two pipes that go outside. This corner used to have the oil tank for the furnace, that is the fill and the vent tubing. Both poured cold in during the winters.



AS you can see insects had been living/dying in the insulation and it had mostly collapsed.



I even found an ancient wasps nest about the size of an apple



At that point I was going back to the studs. This was one of the better holes that had no insulation in it. I also found that their was 1/8" down the side of the door with no caulking on it that the breeze moved through nicely.



And here we are back to nothing and ready to start building


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