Greg In The Desert

One Project Closer is giving away $100 Home Depot gift certificate. To enter you can use one of the following methods:

• 1 entries: Leave a comment.
• 10 entries: Subscribe via e-mail.
• 50 Entries: Blog about the Giveaway.

Please, go over and leave a comment to get your one entry, but please to not create a blog post. I would like to keep my 50 entry advantage.

Actually One Project Closer is a great site. Their radiant floor heating installation was a great resource for my own master bathroom radiant floor installation.

Another milestone is complete in the ongoing (3.5 year) master bathroom project as the self-leveling concrete was installed on top of the radiant floor heating. The process wasn’t exactly what I expected and the results weren’t perfect but the floor did come out level.

The manufacturer of the concrete product recommends not to install it when the heater is running and when the humidity is low otherwise cracking could occur. That meant I needed to wait until summer when the heater didn’t need to run and the evaporative cooler could be running. I didn’t need the cooler, it was installed on one of the rainiest days of May and the humidity in the house was over 75%.

Prior to pouring the concrete I made a riser out of aluminum flashing to extend the height of the air duct in the bathroom. I held the riser in with some cardboard and sealed it to the old duct with some concrete sealant. I did the same for the area around the toilet.

The entire house has an expansion joint around the perimeter and one wall of the bathroom has part of this expansion joint. The self-leveling concrete cannot go into the expansion joint or bridge it or it will crack. I sealed the joint with concrete caulking and put foam under the drywall so it sticks out over the joint.

I had scheduled 3 friends to come over to help (although only two showed up), one who had worked with self-leveling concrete before. It takes at least three people: 1 to mike the concrete with the drill, 1 to pour water and concrete into the 5 gallon bucket and 1 to pour the floor. My $88 corded Dewalt drill had a tough time with the concrete mixture. Luckily I had an old heavy duty single speed craftsmen drill that tore through the concrete without a single complaint.

The only problem we found during the pourig of the floor is there wasn’t enough water in the concrete and it wasn’t quite liquid enough. This made some rough spots where the different pours came together. it work in our advantage since one area where I had sealed the expansion joint gave in and started filling with self-leveling concrete and I completely missed a small crack in the concrete slab near another wall. The self-leveling concrete set too quickly for this to impact the level of the floor. Had it been more liquid the entire floor could have drained down these cracks.

It took four bags of self-leveling concrete and I ended up with a 3/4 inch floor, I will have to recheck my calculations as I expected a 1/2 floor. It cost about $50 in supplies and a few beers.

I was a bit hesitant about doing this pour myself and considered hiring someone. I’m glad I did this small area first and I’m confident I can do the master bathroom with enough people. I may have to have a pour-party and get about 10 people together to have a constant flow of self-leveling concrete then bar-b-que when we’re done. I had meant to take more pictures but I was too busy working on the project, the pictures I did take can be viewed on flickr.

The next step is to install the Schulter Kerdi waterproofing material and to finish up the shower stall before laying tile. This will be a non traditional installation of a shower floor. I’m not sure if I will start this during the summer as I plan to spend my time working on outdoor projects as much as I can.

• Federal Trade Commission’s plan to change rules on ad endorsements, testimonials worries marketers — chicagotribune.com – Updated guidelines on ad endorsements and testimonials under final review by the Federal Trade Commission—and widely expected to be adopted—would end marketers' ability to talk up the extreme benefits of products while carrying disclaimers like "results not typical" or "individual results may vary."
• News : Small store hanging in there with big boys – Rio Rancho Observer – Owner George Meyerson was asked the secret to staying in business for 20 years, especially in light of the large home-improvement stores moving into the area, not to mention a Kmart and several Wal-Marts?

  Observer '�” Gary Herron photos The silver hammer sign at True Value Hardward, at 2108 Southern Blvd SE, has been a steadying presence in Rio Rancho. The business is celebrating its 20th anniversary with a 20 percent off sale today and tomorrow.

  “The right products, reasonable prices and good service,” is his answer.

• An old engine learns new solar-power tricks – Mar. 24, 2009 – J.D. Sitton's mission was to find a new market for a 193-year-old engine that nobody wanted. His innovative answer: turn it into a solar power collector, then persuade top auto-parts suppliers – currently eager for work – to build it.
• Green By Design » Barefoot Dreams in the Dead of Winter – Perhaps the most appealing aspect of the radiant floor heating is that it creates not just a warm room, but an entire warm floor. The heat still rises, but it’s rising uniformly from ground zero instead of from a single fixture or a couple of vents. The result is often that rare anomaly, barefoot comfort in the dead of winter. Such systems are particularly good for homes with high ceilings, where forced-air heat often ends up where it is least needed unless the homeowner is endowed with the agility of a bat.
• Rear Engine Front Driver – Not all of Gregory’s front wheel drive experiments were racy. This particular 1947 Gregory sedan features front wheel drive and a rear mounted engine.
• Direct Stock Purchase Plans: A Better Way to Invest – Hundreds of companies that trade on the major stock exchanges allow you to buy shares directly from their transfer agents for very little or no money.
• Mexico’s health insurance success offers lessons for US reforms, Lancet study suggests | Science Blog – As America considers major healthcare reforms, it may have lessons to learn from Seguro Popular, Mexico's ambitious plan to improve healthcare for its estimated 50 million uninsured citizens, suggests Ryan Moore, co-author of a study published April 8 in The Lancet, a leading international medical journal.
• Why We Need the New York Times – When the Jayson Blair story erupted, I realized that if the Times couldn't even properly and effectively assess their own, how could they be relied upon to assess public officials and figures? It was then that I stopped buying the paper. A lot of people did. In Manhattan, copies of the New York Times often pile up everywhere.

  But lately, the alternatives seem wanting. In the Times recently was good reporting about the poor documentation of the deaths of deportation detainees by various state and federal agencies. Another article recently captured the abyss of disputed workmen's compensation cases and the endless troubles that greet those who fall into it. I don't see that on MSNBC. Frankly, I don't see that on TV at all.

• Road Tested: Voltaic Systems Generator laptop bag – I had a chance to road test one of these incredibly cool bags for a month and was very impressed. What makes it so special? Well, it could be the big photovoltaic panel on one side of the Generator that provides 15 watts of power to feed your electronic devices. Voltaic points out that the Generator is the "first solar bag powerful enough to recharge a laptop." That panel charges an internal 58Wh Lithium Ion battery pack that can run most laptops.
• The Road to Area 51 – Los Angeles Times – As for the guys who picked him up, they were tracked down and told to sign national security nondisclosures. As part of Collins' own debriefing, the CIA asked the decorated pilot to take truth serum. "They wanted to see if there was anything I'd for-gotten about the events leading up to the crash." The Sodium Pento-thal experience went without a hitch—except for the reaction of his wife, Jane.

  "Late Sunday, three CIA agents brought me home. One drove my car; the other two carried me inside and laid me down on the couch. I was loopy from the drugs. They handed Jane the car keys and left without saying a word." The only conclusion she could draw was that her husband had gone out and gotten drunk. "Boy, was she mad," says Collins with a chuckle.

This was a long work week. 4 x 12 hour shifts and workouts afterwards meant I had little energy left at the end of the day to work on the master bathroom. With the weekend here I finally was able to complete the installation of the heating elements.

The first step was cleaning the living piss out of the floor. I’m installing an insulating layer, which the manufacture of the heating system says will improve heat transfer. It’s not required but I would like to try to use this as the primary heating system for the house. (One Project Closer did this same project and there’s some debate in the comments on whether or not insulation is needed. They went without the insulation.)

The insulating materials is a dense closed cell foam that’s about 1/8″ think. It has a black plastic mat on the under side and attaches to the floor like contact paper. I have to first put a tacky glue on the floor and let it set for about 20 minutes.

If I was experienced at this, I could have cut the mat in one or two sections and applied it all at once. But I’m not so I cut it into small pieces and applied it to the floor a little at a time. It was much easier that way.

Installing the heating elements was a little more involved. Not only did I need to cut it, I had to do some manual wire layout where the floor was not square in front of the shower.

Since I will be embedding the elements in self leveling concrete, it’s important that they are anchored onto the floor so they don’t float up in the SLC.

The heating element is sewn onto the green mat but the round edges are not. They can easily stick out and have to be glued down. The manufacturer recommends using hot glue, a procedure I tried. After about a half hour and when I ran out of glue I thought there had to be a better way. There’s no way I can do this when I do the much larger master bedroom.

I found double-sided carpet tape at Lowes. I taped the green mat to the floor then taped the rounded edges to the mat. Not only does the double sided tape do a better job of holding down the mat it’s a lot faster and easier to put down.

Next up is to lay the self-leveling concrete. Concrete is still kind of magic to me and SLC is just that much more of magic. I will definitely need help with this part.

It’s been months since I have worked on the Master Bathroom project, I think the last update was in July or August. Call it a lack of motivation. My friends have noticed a lack of progress and have really been lying down the guilt.

Sometimes it takes some mocking and peer pressure to give me a kick in the pants.

This weekend I ran wiring thought the wall. The plan here is to run the main power from the breaker to a GFCI receptacle. From there it goes up to the thermostat. Power runs from the thermostat to the radiant floor heating elements and a temperature probe runs from the thermostat and will be embedded in the floor.

I still need to drill the hole through the top plate in the wall cavity and run the wire over to the breaker box. I don’t need the connection to the breaker box right now.

Another interesting thing I have noticed is the walls are filled with cellulose insulation. The insulation has settled over the years and there is a good 6 inch gap at the top of the celling that is missing insulation. I suspect the rest of the house is like this.

I’m thinking that at some point I will have all of the stucco removed and I will put a layer of styrofoam around the house and put new stucco over that.

It’s been almost two months since my last post on the master bathroom remodel progress. I had to wait for a special order shower head to arrive which took over a month. I also had to pay for the previous months remodel.

The special order bathroom fixtures I bought were very expensive. I can’t believe I spent so much on them. Non stock fixtures are simply not cheap and i really didn’t like the stock fixtures. I think i will be really happy with them once they are installed but I didn’t expect to pay that much for them.

Today a plumber friend came over and help me install the new shower and vanity plumbing. OK, really he did all the work. I have never done any copper soldering before so I wasn’t able to do this myself. Now that I see how it’s done it’s really not that hard and i think i could do it myself next time.

The first thing which needed to be done was to replace the dual control shower controls with a single control and route the shower head from the west wall to the south wall. There wont be a regular shower head installed here, it will be a handheld shower with a slide bar. Therefore I thought it would be best to install it on a separate wall from the shower controls.

I decided to move the vanity from the north wall to the east wall. I think i can better utilize this small space and install an extra cabinet next to the sink by having the cabinet on the east wall. The connections points however were too far over to be hidden under the sink. The cold water outlet and the drain pipe both needed to be moved over several inches.

I can now start putting the walls back up. Before I do I will put some insulation in to act as sound dampening materials. I also ordered the electric radiant floor heating for both the master bath and bedroom. Warmly Yours is having a 15% off sale for order of $1500 or more which i took advantage of. It may take me a few more months to pay that off and start work on the bathroom again.