Lots of Basement Work

On January 28, Keith made a chase in the basement wall to bring in the geothermal pipes, a new domestic water pipe, and electrical wires for the new water pump and the flow center, which will be located out in the milk house.


I started tearing down the wall between the north and south basement rooms for the duct work. Notice the header in the doorway, which was fashioned from half of a log.




On the 29th I enlarged an existing chase over the header between the east and west ends of the basement for wires and water pipes and continued working on the wall.




Keith moved electrical outlets and pipes away from the planned path of the ducts. Up in the laundry room we made a hole for the dryer vent using the remnants of a terracotta ring in the old chimney.

Over the weekend Aaron helped take down the chimney on the south end of the roof.


He also helped us move the oil tank in the basement to give us access to the wall behind it where we needed to make a huge hole in the wall for chases between the old structure and the addition. Since it had 250 gallons of oil, it was very heavy and potentially unstable, so it was quite a production to do move it without incident. First we removed the feed and breather pipes that went through the wall to the outside, then we disconnected the flexible tube to the furnace. With two floor jacks and boards underneath, we just barely raised it off the floor and eased it out of the way. Then we made a temporary breather pipe and reconnected the feed to the furnace.


The rest of the weekend was spent knocking a hole through the stone up to the concrete block foundation of the addition.


We also piled up all the stone from the various holes in one place and cleaned up what seemed like tons of rubble.


Garrett continued the operation by cutting out the concrete block and fabricating a form for a poured concrete lintel.


Next Ben placed rebar across the top of the hole and poured the lintel using a mixture of concrete and stone, then finished it off beautifully with some of the stone from the wall.


Now we have our duct chase for the HVAC, a water pipe chase up above the insulation in the floor joists, and three other chases for wires and other stuff that may have to pass between all this stone mass.