Cellar Construction

[AndrewH]

@Mont Stern

A little late to comment, but I hope you were very meticulous with a vapor barrier between the drywall and your insulation.

Closed cell foam is a vapor barrier in itself.

[AndrewH]

@James Dennis

I assume in Northern VA the soil temp below would be about 55/60 if I understand the charts for our area.

Having done this calculation for DC, you are correct. It is 57, and at 10 feet down it is about +/-5 F during the year.

I’ve attached the temperature variation chart with this information for others to use. Next post has average ground temps by city.
groundtemps-variation.pdf (48.7 KB)

[AndrewH]

Here’s the ground temperatures by city/state
GroundTemps.pdf (40.7 KB)

[James_Dennis]

Andrew, thanks for this and your subsequent post. Will do the calculations some time today and see where it leaves me on tonnage.

[Chris_Kravitz]

WOW…that’s a lot of foam. Did you price out hiring a contractor vs DIY for the foam?

@James Dennis

Chris,

It was several kits maybe 8, but they had a bulk deal so I just used all of what I got. And rest assured I will never over foam a wall again. A total pain in the ass and a huge mess. I’ve moved on mentally but learned from my mistake. I could do a split system but it creates some placement issues outside the house, manageable but would require some thinking. It would be nice to reduce some of the noise and heat though. Will think through it anew. Thanks for the advice.

Ken, was going to start looking at wood locally at a few places in a week or so. Leaning towards mahogany but not committed. We could drive around one of these weekends and see what the local lumberyard have in stock and available to them. Perhaps a beverage or two along the way.

[James_Dennis]

DIY although I’d probably hire that out if I was doing it again. That is some nasty sticky stuff. Not sure how much I really saved by doing it myself price-wise although I probably got more insulation by doing it myself. Just lots of hours of shaving the walls down so the drywall would mount flush. I hope to get a solid 20 years out of the cellar so I might see some savings back by then.

I think I have figured out how to move the supply ducts up high without it slowing things up. Thanks for the suggestion.

[James_Dennis]

I looked up my receipts and it was 7 kits. So a little better than 8 but not much. As I recall I really didn’t need much of the 7th - that’s when i started to overfill.

[p_raghib]

James, where did the foam kits come from? Initially I was thinking of doing this myself, but after reading your posts I’m not so sure.

thanks

-paul

[Kirk.Grant]

James,

Thank you for posting. I’m in the process of closing on my first house…and the “family room” with a HUGE walk-in closet will become my bedroom because it’s on base-level of a slab built house. My thought was to turn the closet into my wine room. What would you say supplies cost and how much time is reasonable to assume that you have invested in this project?

[Howard_Cooper]

James, any final pictures?

[James_Dennis]

Howard, I’m hoping to get some momentum over the summer. Finally finished the design and started buying the walnut I am going to use. I’m doing a split system, but before I could install that I had to build out the current pad for the HVAC units. Before I could do that I had to build a bunch of retaining walls, Before I could do that I had to install the generator which needed a trench running right through where the pad was going. You get the picture.

Kirk, I’m going on 3-4 years on my project so I’m probably not the best person to ask. I’ve got young kids and other things that have distracted me over the years. Cost-wise, I hope to do the whole project for under $20k but I’m using higher end wood which will eat up a lot of that. My guess is a comparable product would cost $80k plus but I did a lot of rewiring, speakers, etc that was probably unnecessary.

Paul, it was Tiger Foam. Its funny, I just responded to your post. As I re-read my post here from a couple years ago, its clear that time has altered my memory. I’d go with the contemporaneous one above.

[Kenneth_Brown]

Likewise, I have been waylaid by other projects since out last proof of concept on the racking. Still game though if you want a hand sometime this summer. I have a Spencer Trapiste for you if you haven’t come across any yet. I was actually just looking at buying a table saw yesterday.

[James_Dennis]

Ken,

I’ve started buying my lumber that will need to be planed and then cut into pieces on the table saw. A significantly easier job for 2 people. Let’s touch base and get back on this. We should be able to knock out most of the wood cutting in a weekend or two.

James

[Kenneth_Brown]

Sounds good, just shoot me a PM/email or call. I spent all spring re-doing our Lake House, but that is finally over as of next weekend.

[Clint_S_Q_U_I_E_R]

James - I built my own out of walnut as well. Buy good blades, preferably the fine cut. Don’t skimp on the table saw or miter saw either. So happy I bought good tools.

Bad news is, it took way longer than I expected it to. Though I guess it depends on how fancy you want to get.

[James_Dennis]

That was my thinking Clint. I’m putting the DIY savings into the tools. I bought a SawStop table saw a number of years ago for the obvious reason. Works great - just need a few good blades.

For way too long, I made the mistake of going cheap on tools. Now I try to figure out what is the right quality for the job and maybe upgrade.

[M_Sai]

James - it’s nice to read about someone else’s project, and it looks like you are taking your time and doing right. I’m looking forward to the time when I can do ‘non essential’ projects like this - I’m in the midst of pushing through a remodel of our guest bath, which has temporarily reduced the number of working bathrooms in our house to just one, going on 6 weeks now. We have family coming to stay the first week of June, so I’m pulling 10 hour days on the weekends, and managing 2-4 hours of work on the weekdays in the evening.

I’m envious of your leisurely pace!

[PaulM]

@James Dennis

Thanks Kevin. We need to have you and the family over. I think the last time we enjoyed a few bottles was before we had kids.

Gary, I’m thinking a 1 ton wine guardian ducted system. I’m planning on running two ducts in low along the floor for the supply and then a return high along the ceiling with the unit in the other utility room. I’m seemingly falling right between a 1/2 ton and 1 ton unit. I insulated the hell out of the room so I think a 1/2 ton would work but hate to create a weak link in the chain. It’s on the list of final decisions that have to be made in the next week or so.

How big is your space, and how did you calculate the cooling load? I’m looking at a 25 x 12 x 8 space with similar insulation, and the WG worksheet had a half-ton unit as significant overkill.

EDIT: Whoops, just saw the size and R values. FWIW, the WG spreadsheet estimates your cooling load at 2367 BTU/h, which is well within the capacity of a half-ton unit. What am I missing? (I should have a bit more insulation than you did, but I don’t want to undersize my unit either.)

[James_Dennis]

Mike, bathrooms are always so tempting aren’t they in large part because contractors seem to charge so much. If you don’t move things around much remodels can be pretty easy although the tile work can get painfully tedious. Of course, nothing ever goes like its supposed to and reducing the house by one bathroom makes for some serious tension. I’ve been eyeing one in our house for a few years now but haven’t heard the nerve to attack. Good luck on getting it operational before the family arrives.

Paul, you are correct. I am going with a 1/2 ton due to the insulation. The room is a bit odd shaped so the volume is a bit of a guess. Ordering it this week now that I have finished the other projects that needed to be done before I could put the split in.

[PaulM]

@James Dennis

Paul, you are correct. I am going with a 1/2 ton due to the insulation. The room is a bit odd shaped so the volume is a bit of a guess. Ordering it this week now that I have finished the other projects that needed to be done before I could put the split in.

Cool. I was genuinely concerned that the fact you were doing something different meant I was messing up.