Renovation update

Today was a day of considerable progress, especially since I wasn’t actually doing any of it. But progress in any form is appreciated, since it means I can continue moving forward with changes and getting things back to normal around here.

Well, assuming that “normal” means “slightly less than insane”.

First, as you already know, concrete finally arrived. There were some burps, but it’s in and (believe it or not) already hard. That’s because it’s not actually concrete, but Gypcrete — a very lightweight concoction that is designed to radiate heat, rather than form any iota of structural strength.

In other words, you can’t use Gypcrete for a finished floor. The stuff, as the concrete guys explained to me, is not dissimilar to the stuff found in drywall (Gyp Roc, plasterboard, wall board, sheet rock, whatever you wanna call it). Meaning that with enough scraping, it comes off. Enough water, it gets damaged. It’s only meant to serve as a medium to put something on top.

Looks like we’re back to looking at floor coverings again. But at least it’s there.

It didn’t go in perfectly (burps aside). Our floor isn’t exactly level, so some areas are deeper than others, and others aren’t as deep as they should have been. Like the utility room. The floor drain sits higher than the rest of the floor. A bit of a problem, n’est pas? I’m sure that can be fixed, just have to figure out how. Other parts of the floor have more than the requisite 1.5 inches, meaning some of my temporarily-placed boards need to be yanked. I’m still not sure how I will build some of the walls in lieu of this. But I’ll figure it out.

Oh, and they covered over the sump pump. A truly dumb-ass move. I’m not really upset, just shaking my head about it.

The electrical inspector came by today as well, and verified that the rough-in is good, meaning we can now move to have Enmax come over, prune an overgrown tree a bit and wire in the new service. Then we can move the old panel out of the way and get on with life. Until then, we’ll make do with what we have.

ATCO Gas also dropped by to talk about moving our meter outside. Like a few places in Calgary, ours is still in the basement. And moving it out is officially non-trivial. The problem is that the bloody thing has been down there so long (and the rules changed so many times, I believe) that simply moving it outside isn’t possible. Three feet away from any electrical socket, opening (window or door), and you can’t have anything obstructing access.

Problem is, our house is small enough (at the moment) to prove a significant challenge. In the thousands of dollars range. And given that we’re still doing other things around the house, perhaps this is something we’ll just push off for the time being. Which is fine, really. I can avoid framing that area for now, and deal with it when ATCO returns in a couple of years under their Meter Moving program to move it outside for me.

Which is when we’ll talk about making things better. Like taking out the deep-underground connection, putting the meter off the planned garage, and routing in a new access. Cheaper (though not likely by much) and safer, long-term.

And — this is one I’m happiest about — we’ve made an appointment for delivery of our appliances. Finally. And hopefully by that point, we’ll have roughed-in water and sewer for the washer and dryer, so we can actually do laundry again. Particularly important when we think about using cloth diapers.

No pictures to go along with this one, really. Most of what you want to see is already posted (click on the Renovations tag at the bottom of the article to see everything else). Everything else is yet to come!

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