Electrical Panel eh? Why not!

I designated Friday as the day that I would replace the electrical panel.  I took the day off of work, scheduled with Xcel, and even called the city to schedule an inspection for same day.  It was go time!

Kim from Xcel Energy came over promptly at 8am to shut of the power from the main in the neighbor's backyard.  This was necessary to do because not only was I replacing the electrical panel, but also the meter socket.  The meter socket is the place where their energy meter goes ... it's how they tell how much power you're using.  I had to upgrade ours because I was also upgrading our panel from 150 amps to 200 amps.

Some say: "Why upgrading to 200 amps? There's no way you'll need that much power."  These people obviously have no idea what kind of juice it takes to power a batcave!  Well actually, those people are right but that's not why I need 200 amps.  It's actually only because I couldn't find a panel locally that had enough spaces for all the breakers with 150 amps.  I was able to find a 200 amp 30-space 40-circuit panel for the same price as a 30-space 30-circuit panel -- so it was a good deal!

The old panel was a Federal Pacific Electric (FPE) panel.  If you Google FPE, you'll see why we wanted to replace it.  It was actually a huge item during our home inspection when we were buying the place, but the previous owners got one over on us by saying they'd replace the dishwasher instead.  We found out later that they had already purchased a new dishwasher, so that worked great for them!  Not so great for us.

Back to the panel -- the old panel had these Stab-Lok breakers that pushed into the bar at the back.  Since I was adding three new circuits for our master bath remodel, that meant I would have to buy three new breakers for this panel.  Do you see three empty spots?  NOPE.  Plus, each breaker for this old type of panel is $43 each!  A breaker for a new panel is only $3.15 each, and it will actually work when it's supposed to!  New panel it is!

When it came to the materials that I had to buy for the replacement, nothing was straight-forward. I actually ended up doing a lot of shopping, a lot of research, a lot of returns, a lot of shopping, a lot of research, and more returns, then a final purchase before ending up with all the right stuff.  I decided on a Square D 200A Outdoor 40-circuit 30-space panel.  It has only 30 spaces but allows for 40 circuits because 10 of those spaces are for tandem circuits.  Tandem, in this case, means that one space holds two breakers (it's like a 2-in-1 breaker).  This part was crucial for me since I'll be adding basement circuits later on and need the space.

I spent all day Friday replacing the panel.  I started at 8am and finished around 9pm.  Most of the day consisted of getting everything in place and running the 56' of copper ground across the house to the cold water hookup ... and then a few hours of splicing wires!  I had to splice all the neutral and ground wires since they all were really short (because of the old hookup near the bottom) and they wouldn't fit on the new panel's neutral and ground buses.

Old box with short wires attached to ground/neutral bus.

Pulling supply lines into the new panel.

Finished splicing all of those lines and tucking them in.  Looks good for what I had to do!

The splicing of all of those wires - about 40 - took forever and I did most of it in the dark.  By the end of the night, I got it all done and the power back on without any fires!  Yay!

Saturday and Sunday were spent cleaning things up and running the new lines from the bathroom as well as figuring out what each breaker controlled.  Running the new lines was definitely the biggest pain in the butt, especially since I accidentally drilled into some live wires!  Luckily I hit them right above a junction box and was able to pull them in and splice it back together.

The inspector came out on Monday and said everything looked pretty good.  He did say that I missed a few grounds though, one to the meter housing and another to the cable and phone hookups.  I got all of that done and ready for the re-inspection on Friday, which I passed easily after making the needed corrections.

Total cost for upgrading to a 200 amp electrical panel and meter housing with bypass lever:

Electrician: at LEAST $1500-$2000

Johnny: $601.66

About $150 of that cost was for the bare copper for the FIVE grounds and extra cable for splicing.  Not bad at all!

Why Aren't You Doing The Plumbing, Too?

Last night, Ariane asked me "So why don't you feel like you can do the plumbing, too?"  She said that with every other aspect of the bathroom remodel, whatever I didn't know, I just learned how to do it and went along my merry way.  If I couldn't figure something out, I'd research it until I felt comfortable and then I'd move forward with it.  I'd even planned to hire an electrician but after some coercion from friends, I've decided to take that on as well.  I've even decided that I can replace the main breaker box!

So why is it that I still feel like I can't do the plumbing?   My response was this: electrical is like math.  There is one answer.  It's either right, or it's wrong.  Plumbing is more like poetry explication to me.  It seems like there are about 1000 ways to screw it up and have a different answer or way of doing things with it!  Even if it seems right to you and actually works well, in 5-10 years when there's a leak, you know that it actually wasn't 100% right. 

New electrical panel

But electricity doesn't do that, really.  If it's done right, it'll spark or short or trip immediately when you turn on the power.  Oh yeah -- it'll let you know if you did it wrong. Then you can do it again until you get it right! 

With plumbing, you could solder some copper on and think you covered it all when in fact you missed a tiny little spot on the underside of that union.  It's fine for awhile, but when the pressure starts really flowing ... it's gonna leak.  Slowly, slowly, slowly ... until you notice a bulge in the ceiling below!  Yuck.

That's why I feel OK with hiring and paying a qualified, experienced plumber to do his work.  He knows what he's doing and he knows that he has to do it right.  As long as the plumber is an honest, hard-working person, then he's good.  Sure there are worthless "plumbers" who want to charge you $60 to push the button on the pilot light, but we don't have to hire them. 

I'll gladly pay someone to just explain that poem to me.  Yuck.

Lots of movement ...

Since the window, there has been some good progress.  First and foremost, we got our tub!  We were really excited and surprised when it showed up on our doorstep.  I was about to go downstairs to start working (from home) and Ariane was about to leave for work when the doorbell rang.  I, of course, thought 'WTF' and opened it to see a delivery guy and a Ferguson truck outside.  He said he had a bathtub delivery!  I was surprised because I had planned to pick it up from Aurora that evening and didn't expect a delivery at all ... Ferguson was just being nice!

So, the guy helped me carry it upstairs and put it in the bedroom -- and it looks great!  It'd probably look better in its final resting place, but it is still a nice big tub!  Ariane especially likes it and that's what's important here, right?

Here's some pics of the new plumbing job.  After watching a very experienced plumber spend all day doing this, I am pretty glad I had someone else do it!

Before:

Old heater.	Old shower drain.
Old stupid vent pipe.	Capped off shower lines.
Vanity wall.	Shower view.

That same day, the plumber was coming to move all the plumbing for the vanity and bathtub.  He arrived at about 9:30 and didn't leave until about 6 so you can imagine the cost.  However, everything is just about ready for the tub and THAT is great!   The only thing left to do before installing the tub is to have the city do an underground plumbing inspection (under-floor) and for me to add some plywood to the floor under the tub.  That plywood should add about 1.5" which will allow for the drain to go over the floor joist to connect to the overflow instead of run right into it, which wouldn't work.

After:

SO glad I didn't have to do this part.  Ugh.

New Window!

Last weekend, John and I put in a new window!  Since the bathroom is still pretty small, the thinking was that ANY light is a good thing. The new window definitely proves that to be true!

I spent a good amount of time trying to find a small window that would look good and fit the space that we had, but couldn't find anything.  Several trips to Home Depot, looking all around online, and even a trip to the local ReStore were unsuccessful.  I talked with Home Depot about ordering a window for the space, but it would take a few weeks and cost about $150 for just the window.

Finally, Ariane and I decided that a fixed window we found at Home Depot would work just fine.  The window was 31" x 19", already frosted, and low-E.  AND, it was only $57!  Deal!  It was so cheap because someone had ordered it months ago but decided they didn't want it. 

When John came over to help he explained that I should probably use the full 2"x10" header.  That required another trip to Home Depot but was definitely worth it.  The framing looked a lot better and I'm sure the inspector will like it:

We cut the hole in the side of the wall with the reciprocating saw, then John went out and cut the siding off using the circular saw.  After some adjustments, we put the window in.  He screwed it in, put the flashing up, and put the siding and trim up around it.  On the inside, I wasted about an hour putting in then trying to take out a shim that I had slammed in there!  Good job, John.

Ariane was kind enough to take a bunch of pics of the window in the morning with the sun shining through.  It's awesome. Take a look at that light!

Bagster is pretty cool

Prior to starting the remodel, I was thinking in my head 'what to do with all the crap?'  However, I must have seen one of these Bagster things from Waste Management somewhere - either on TV or in front of someone's house - and put it in the back of my mind.

One nice lil' Saturday at Home Depot, I picked one up for $29.99, still unsure of it's AWESOME POTENTIAL.

Sunday Demo

I think it's full.

More demo in the bathroom today.  This morning, I thought I would start in the bathroom by trying to clean up a bit.  I tried ... but it's hard!  I vacummed a little bit and tried to make some piles of drywall and dust, but gave up quick enough.  It's really gonna be a pain when I decide that it HAS to all be cleaned up!

The grandparents came over today and helped, which was great!  Grandma with the little one, and Big John helped in the bathroom.

DEMOLITION MAN

Well. Today was one helluva day.

Great movie.  Great.

Our little boy has been sick, and he definitely woke up this morning feeling bad. Unfortunately, Ariane also had a stomach bug today and felt like crapola too! And since I started filling up the Bagster bag-dumpster thing last week, it's been just sitting out there since then. Doesn't look great for the house next door that will be on the market soon!

So that meant that I had to continue demo today. Luckily Ariane and the boy were able to take it easy and avoid most of the racket I was making!

We're also going to remodel the bathroom NOW!

Soooo.  We've wanted to remodel our bathroom for some time but never got around to doing it, mostly because of the cost!  However, while looking on her phone one day, Ariane came across some double vanities that were SUPER cheap because they were all last year's models!  So we went down to look at the cheapest one and of course they're sold out.  They are also sold out of any other one we wanted ... except one last vanity that is still new in the box.  The guy goes and opens the box and rolls the vanity out to us ... we look it over and say "how much?" and he says he can give it to us for like 40% the original price.  And we take it.  And we load it up in the car and drive it home.

Here's the vanity we bought!

So now it's sitting in the garage ... and we're fearful that it'll get scratched or dinged or something while in there.  So that means it's time to remodel the bathroom!  NOW!

We're gonna finish the basement!

We finally decided that we are going to finish the basement.
With a baby now in the house, we've realized how much we need each little living space we can find -- and that need will surely grow as he gets older!  Just finding a place to put all of the stuff is hard enough!

Building the Batcave - Part II

Looks like I forgot to post on here after last year ... but we kind of stopped doing home projects.  We were preparing for the birth of our son!

Anyway, I wanted to throw up pics of the finished Batcave -- so here it is as of March 2012: