Procrastinet

The Basement Chronicles, Part II

filed under: Demolishments and Renewvations

(Click here for Parts I, II, III, IV, V, VI, or VII)

Thus endeth week 2 of the Great Basement Caper.

The arrival of the dumpster was complicated by the refusal of the lock on our security gate to let Lisa get out of the house to meet the driver. She was unable to flag him down, and he was unwilling to get out of his truck and instead kept calling his dispatcher to call and hassle me (at work, with Lisa heading towards hysteria on the other line). I told the dispatcher my wife was trapped in the house (her response: a belly laugh followed by an immediate, chagrined "I'm sorry that's not funny...") and got her to radio to the driver that he should go let Lisa out of the house, so that she could move the car and he could put the dumpster in the space we'd been holding. Which he finally did, with the helpful observation "boy, I bet you're glad there's not a fire..."

Saturday was The Big Removal of The Big Pile. Captain Daniel Schachner was on hand for the whole day, showing up promptly at 9:00 am, having brought me coffee (stop it, people will say we're dating). In spite of his weak floor (I wanted to do a cute link to an article about hernia risk but could only find this... um...) Dan went completely Stellan on the pile:

(Please note that no, Dan's not four feet tall - we have stairs up through a door in the sidewalk...)

Within about an hour and half, we had the basement clear and the dumpster was full. So for those keeping score at home, a "five yard" dumpster is about right for 480 square feet of drywall and the attendant stud and insulation:

[CONTINUED - click "keep reading" ==>]

Our next task was to go over every bit of the wall with hammers and chisels, getting rid of the loose concrete that was already there. Then I got to use my new grinder (boy I love an excuse to buy power tools) to clean up all the edges and get rid of loose mortar. The grinder did this cool thing where it would hit a rock in the wall and make it glow, like when Superman turned the coal into a diamond for Lois Lane, except of course he just used his hands 'cause he's Superman.

Dan didn't want to use the grinder. I think Dan was a little afraid of the grinder. Dan and I have a little exchange program where he tries to make me act like less of a dork and I try to make him act like more of a man, so to keep up my end of the bargain I made him use the grinder:

So of course he proceeded to bogart the thing for like 15 minutes. He knew he looked like a badass, or a zombie fighter or something:

With the wall all "prepped," it was time to apply the Quikwall.

Let me tell you a little about Quikwall. No, scratch that. Let me tell you a LOT about Quikwall. I feel like Quikwall and I had some kind of torrid, destructive love affair, such are the intensity of my feelings towards the substance.

Quikwall is concrete, and fiberglass, and plastic all in one. One of its main ingredients is "portland cement," which is corrossive and irritant to the skin, lungs, and eyes. This allowed Dan and myself to use, not once but many times, a phrase we had never had cause to use before: "Dude, please stop dropping corrosive concrete on my head..."

The problem with Quikwall is, if you add the suggested gallon of water (and Acrylic Fortifier, which we used so much of I bought out the local Lowe's and had to go to Long Island for more...) you end up with a tub full of 50 pounds of Corrosive Cement Balls. And while Corrosive Cement Balls sound real funny and all, they're no fun to try to spread on a wall.

Only when Dan talked me into using more water than the recipe called for, overriding my concerns that it would be "detrimental to the chemical makeup of the cement" (remember that "dork" bit, above?), did it become manageable, and even then only after some pretty backbreaking hoe-work (now *there's* a Google-friendly term...)

For the first 50 pound bag, I used the recommended application method, which uses a fourteen inch trowel. After that, we discovered it was way easier just to moosh it on with your hands - wearing giant blue rubber chemical gloves.

We got through about 1/2 of the wall, using a total of 200 pounds of Quikwall and 8 bottles of Acrylic fortifier:

We spent some time spent watching a dude named Julio deliver lumber to my neighbor Rafi on the roof:

(That's our little bebbe dumpster at the bottom of the crane...)

But other than that and a spaced-out trip to Lowe's (I swear we spent ten minutes staring at light fixtures), we put in about a 12-hour work day. So big thanks to Dan for yeoman's service. I owe you many.

Sunday I got a late start, due to a birthday party (note to self: once you have a kid the amount of time you spend at birthday parties increases by approximately 3,789%). I had to remove our bottom three stairs:

...which creates the amusing situation of having a three foot jump down into our basement. After two more bags of Quikwall (hate you, Quikwall! Love you, Quikwall!), the wall was 90% finished.

I told myself that I left it not-quite-done so that, if it rained this week, I could see if water came in the unpatched, hole-y wall but NOT the Quikwall-shelled wall. But really, I just couldn't bear the thought of mixing another bag.

All in all, as I pledged to Dan, I'm never making fun of stone masons ever again. 'Cause I used to. I'd see one walking down the street and I'd be all like "Hey, you stone mason! Who do you think you are?!" Not anymore, buddy. Them stonemasons are all right.

Next week: coating one of the two brick walls with Quikwall (hate you! love you!), and then taking the grinder to the brick and learning to repoint...

Posted by rjt at May 24, 2004 04:38 PM