Mine is a Seek Thermal camera for Android. They're relatively cheap in comparison.

https://www.thermal.com/compact-series.html

Well, today got really interesting. Going on day 6 of a "2 day" insulation job... I'm talking to my wife and look out the window and there's a drywall truck at the curb. Holy crap, the drywall is here. The insulation isn't done. The insulation inspection isn't done.

I had delayed the drywall a few days, but then became now.
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I call the town to get the inspector out here, to get the inspection done, so drywall can go up. All he really checks is that the insulation on the drawings matches what's in the walls. It's more to protect homeowners from getting screwed over by contractors that may skimp on insulation. He shows up at 10, takes a gander around and all is well. The garage still isn't finished, but I just need to send him some pictures when it's done and he's fine with it.

I call the insulation company, "where's my crew? They need to be done, as we're on day number 6 of 2!" "Oh, we had to send them into a job in Buffalo today."
So, I ream the guy out. I get two guys at 11 to finish the garage and some soundproofing around the master suite.

Now, by 9:30 the entire truck was unloaded and there's about 9300 sqft of drywall in my house. My shoulders, elbows, wrists and basically everything above the belt is officially shot from the last 8 months. So i'm glad I hired this out.
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There's no way in hell I could have handled even hauling this into the house.

The guy doing it is the brother of a close friend, so we're in good hands. He's a perfectionist and I'm already thrilled with his work. I've learned more watching him for a day than I thought was possible.
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While all of this was going on, I got to have fun interviewing for a couple different jobs today. The company I was working for decided to lay off 10% of their workforce back in November, including me. Positive spin: I've had a ton of time to work on this project.

Hey, we just had an earthquake this morning. Just about 6:15am. I was already awake then there was a huge boom and everything shook. I thought there was some major settling that just occurred with all of the extra weight from the drywall. But then I started getting texts and found out that there was just an earthquake a couple miles from here.

Not that it's super obvious, but you can see a judder in this video and hear a boom

I need to take some more pictures for an update on the project. Hopefully later today.

Finally, time for an update as I'm mostly coherent, I have a lot of pictures and my addition did not cave in.

I learned more about drywalling than I thought possible. Since The guy doing the drywall is not just some random resource, I was able to ask him piles of questions along the way. Why do you use three kinds of mud, why aren't there screws there, why do you use those types of corners, what grit sandpaper, and another few thousand questions. I shall be ready when it's time to drywall the basement. He said he's taking a month off to watch me do it. Seems fair.

I had just sent my wife pics to show people a full walkthrough, so I think those would work well here.

The garage:
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Great room:
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Master:
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Master bath, with nice purple Mold and mildew resistant drywall:
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Skelly became a place to hang one's sweatshirt:
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And I finally got the lights up in front. I used a "standard" dimension, which as you can see, was way too low. I had to move them up quite a bit as I have 8' doors.
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We really think we like our truncated corner now.
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And since I haven't updated in a while, here's a second one. I managed to set up the fireplace in the master. A few years ago, there was a family that just built a house a few miles from here. Their first night in the house they put on their gas fireplace and fell asleep. Well, their house burned down. They were all okay, but that story kind of freaked me out a little. So I decided to completely set up the fireplace and have it run for a while, making sure that all was good with the setup.

Cut a hole in the drywall:
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Frame out the specified opening for the thimple:
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Insulate:
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Reattach drywall:
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Use a router on the outside to cut the hole, perfectly flush:
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Whip out that caulk:
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Put one side of the thimble in place and tape it up:
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Add the exterior vent:
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You can see the thimble with the double wall pipe. The outer layer of the pipe is for combustion air:
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Interior thimble installed:
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So, some amount of pipe will be inside the wall and run into the existing pipe in the wall. This is where it comes in handy to mark up the pipe. In this case, 0 is no pipe insertion and then the numbers are inches of insertion. I want at least 2" of overlap according to the manufacturer. If you don't mark it up, you'd never know.
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At this point, the fireplace is installed and ready to test.
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That thing stunk so bad from the paint and manufacturing oils, that I had the garage open as well as the windows to drive the stink out. It took a good 4 hours for the room to be tolerable, smell wise. I ran it for 2 full days while i was out there working. I just wanted to make sure that everything was all good before framing it all in.

It turned out that the family whose house burned down had the vent pipe disconnect under the attic. The heat from the stove set the attic on fire. These pieces of pipe have almost a 2" overlap that locks after you rotate it an eighth turn. Everything is now ready to be framed in.

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The companies do a hell of a good job with these gas burners. The broken glass looks just like hot embers and portions of the logs glow when heated up.
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Finally, after months of waiting, I got my HVAC guy here. He already had the plans, and he came up with an initial design, but this was the final measurements and seeing how things would run with the framing. We got through that, all is good, and then.....
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Yup... he stepped wrong. He offered to pay to get it fixed, so that'll happen when the kitchen gets done. But I was more concerned that he got hurt. Fortunately, he was fine. I had flashbacks to my fall.

Almost every day since April, there were about 5-10 beers consumed. So, 7 per day on average equates to about 2100 cans of beer. Add in the previous year of digging, teardown, and foundation and i think this is currently the 3000 beer project. Not 100% me, but likely 60%.

One thing I realized is that I didn't take into account the final resting place of all of the lights. I had dimensions of where i wanted them to be located, but the reality of where they went was another story. My design says 3' in from that wall and 2'6 from that one, but there's a joist in that location. Therefore, the light location was moved. Then there's the consideration of what's in the room. Are there shelves on one side and I decided to move one joist over? I did a lot of these things on a whim, and it wasn't the best method.

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However, I took a ton of pictures. Those saved me. I scanned them for any view of where the light boxes were. What side of what joist.
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My drywaller had asked me if i marked the lights, I said no. He told me that builders normally mark the floor under each light and make sure that I cut the holes before priming anything. Once you prime, you lose the joist locations.

I cut a lot of holes. One mistake. I swore that I moved the one light to 5' from each wall. But no, it was 6'. ugh.
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My drywaller asked me how I was going to paint. I said i was going to buy a sprayer, use it and sell it off later. He says he has one, but it doesn't work. He thinks it's the hose. I said I'll take a look at it and hopefully i can fix it. Turns out the entire paint side of the pump is completely jammed. Paint streams everywhere. Every filter and orifice are plugged. I cleaned everything out, bought new filters and hose and got it running like new.
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I've primed entire houses with a roller and it's the worst thing imaginable. Drywall sucks up so much primer that a full roller lasts a swipe and nothing more. I bought 30 gallons.

Spraying primer is also a little dusty. All overspray turns into dust in the air.
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Something about primer makes walls look finalized. So far I've sprayed 30 gallons, but I have another 5 or so before I'm done.
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I can't say i enjoy this at all.
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Cleanup is not fun with the sprayer. No, actually it's not horrible, you just need an extra 20-30 minutes to cycle enough water through.

Today was the day i was finally going to get the furnace in. Everything was delivered on Friday. The guys were here, hauling everything up to the shop attic. I wandered away, and I heard, "Oh shit, lookout!"

CRASH!

Yeah, they dropped the furnace. About a 200-pound box. It fell about 10' and got all messed up so there's a new one coming on Monday. Installation is now going to be starting on Tuesday. Ugh...

Ah, the fun of being a side job. I realize that these guys are doing my furnace after hours and on weekends and I'm saving a pile of cash, but it's slow going. At least some work has been done. Everything is waiting of the furnace. I can't tear down the kitchen walls until i have a furnace. Which means that I can't gut the kitchen, level the floor or paint the walls. So I'm trying to find things to do.

I now have a passthrough between basements for the containers. I can also fit through
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We decided that a half wall would work around the spiral staircase to the basement. Nice and solid.
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Got everything all masked off to prime most of the great room today, but the needle in the spray gun snapped. No paint store in the area carry it, but could have it for me in two weeks. Amazon will have it here tomorrow.
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Some furnace and ductwork progress.
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Since we're removing the back wall of the kitchen, there are two ducts in it for the two existing bathrooms upstairs. Those will now be fed from the new furnace. The existing lines will go to the back of the new kitchen.
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14" return
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Neighbor didn't like my light. It is pointed straight down to meet code. Strangely his flood lights on the back of his house, point right at the side of my house. I'm waiting for a complaint.
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Here's one of those, not too exciting, but will likely pay off in the long run things.

Rim joist insulation.

I probably should have done this a long time ago, but energy savings was not high on my list of priorities. Due to the amazing foundation work, I had plenty of air leaks, even with the sill seal in place. I mean full on daylight. Either under the sill plate or between the rim joist and sill plate.

I decided to put 2" of extruded foam (R10) against the rim joist, held in place by spray foam and then a layer of rock wool (R23) and then also a 1" layer of extruded foam (R5) outside the sill plate on the top of the foundation. This is more for air sealing.

Step 1: buy 4x8 sheets and cut all of the pieces. Foam on the table saw is a blast.
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A layer of spray foam works like adhesive against the foundation. A 4" piece outside the sill plate and a 2" thick piece against the rim joist. 2 small pieces to fit in the web of the i-joists.
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Topped off with R23 rock wool. It's a nice and rigid solution.
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The torpedo heater in the basement has already been turning on at a much lower frequency. Mission accomplished.

It absolutely is bitch work. The cost for the foam and cans was $180. I don't think you can get anyone to even look in your direction for under $500 now.

It was satisfying though. Except for that 2" wood splinter that stuck 1/2" under my finger nail. Officially the second bloodiest splinter in my life.

It's going to be a bit. There's still a kitchen, flooring, bathroom, a shit ton of trim, siding, yard and then I get into the basement. But the thought of those machines getting into pinball alley keeps me going. It's weird, standing in the basement and picturing where everything is going to be and how things are going to look.

I think i summoned a couple.

We finally had a nice day outside today, which means it was time to install the other fireplace. This time it goes through the roof.

The basic mockup was done in AutoCAD.
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The other day I built a platform for the fireplace and then put pieces in rough dimensions to give us an idea of how it would look.
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My wife and I both like it, so i got it underway today.

First step was going up to the roof with the top pipe so i could mark the location on the drywall for cutting. I had already put the flange up when i was roofing last year. It just had a piece of ice shield on it to seal out the water.
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Of course one of my pieces of drywall backing was in the way so I had to pull the pipe back out, cut the backing from the roof, drop the pipe back in and then go back into the attic to trace around the pipe. Then back to the roof again, pull out the pipe and cut the hole in the drywall.
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The hole was a touch closer to the wall than I had planned, so I had to cut an inch off of the firestop flange.
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I mounted 2x6s around the hole and then installed the firestop.
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The Manual stated that I needed at least one foot of pipe above the roof for a 4 pitch, so I marked the pipe. I decided that I wanted a maximum of 18" so i put another mark there.
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With the pipe inserted down to the flange, I had an extra 11.5". So that drove the piping below.
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These pieces of pipe are crazy expensive. A 45-degree elbow is $107. A 30-degree elbow is $182. So, I used 45's. I had a ton of extra pieces. My supplier gave me a variety of pieces and he said, "Just bring back what you don't use, and I'll refund you." That way I don't have to worry about getting mid-install and finding out that I don't have a piece that I need. I managed to figure out a combination that worked and minimized the pipe usage.
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These pipe twist lock together. They're double wall so combusting air is pulled in from the room on the outer layer and then the exhaust goes out through the middle. The twisting was quite difficult on a solo basis. Trying to twist the top on, would rotate the 45's and then get it out of plumb, but once I got it, it was locked in forever.
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Then it was back up to the roof to caulk the hell out of the flange, pipe and storm collar. So. Much. Caulk.
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Straps were added just to support the weight of the pipes and attached to nearby studs.
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I hooked up the gas line, electrical and then fired it up. The windows were opened as well as the garage door to let the stink out of everything burning off. This thing get hot. Really hot. When on high, there's no standing within 2' for too long. So I made the rounds checking everything. The attic looked good.
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But how about in IR?
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Still Good. But then the rest of the piping?
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I think those temperature readings are a load of crap. I don't know if it's the low emissivity of the shiny surface throwing the app off, but the surface is about 130 degrees. You can touch it, but it's uncomfortable after a few seconds. 78 would almost feel cold to the touch.

I'm thrilled with this fireplace. I had really forgotten what I ordered last year, so it was good to see it all together again.
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The flames look amazing. The "logs" glow from the heat as do the coals. I haven't put the rockwool in it yet to make more things glow. But that will come later.
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I don't think I ever took a pic of the SolaTube dome, so since I was up there, I grabbed one. My handy dandy bathroom light. So here it is.
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It amazing how much light this thing transmits.

Well, I just did the most terrifying part of this project. I took the back wall down. That means that I'm completely trusting the beam and post, because they're holding up everything. The existing second floor, the new ceiling in the kitchen and great room and the roof above both. One stud at a time, making sure that nothing moves. about half way down I hit a really tight stud. It grabbed the sawzall blade hard. Scared the crap out of me until my wife pointed out that there was a crack in the soffit in the kitchen.
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It was just a lot of weight from the drywall and 2x12's that they were framed with. There were a few others that were a little tight, but they all came out nice. I had to work around some wires, the kitchen sink drain/vent and the hvac lines to the upstairs. Slow going, but the wall is 100% gone.
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I had a stop motion video of the wall removal and fortunately I watched it first. Pants were hanging way too low, and way too much buttcrack. No one wants to see that.

Now to rip out tile, hardi-backer and then level the floor out and put the plywood down level with the addition.

We've now begun gutting the kitchen. All of the cabinets and countertops are getting removed. That means that I have no idea where anything is. We now have cabinets and everything from them in the new pantry, mudroom and laundry room. Making lunch is a nightmare.
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Time to start the process of blending the existing kitchen with the new addition. Since the foundation morons poured the foundation an inch high, I have to modify the plans. Originally the existing 2x10s were supposed to match up with the new TJIs. But that plan is out the window. Now I'm trying to just make it all work. The 3/4 sheeting on top of the TJIs is very close to the level of the tile in the kitchen. That tile has a lay er of thin set underneath it and then 1/4" Hardi backer board and another layer of thin set. All of that together is pretty close to 3/4". That means that I can remove the tile and backer board and lay 3/4 ply over the top, leaving a surface that's even with the addition.

One issue, the existing kitchen floor is extremely wavy. There's up to a 1/2" variation in that 250 sqft. I bought a new fridge a few months ago and had a hell of a time levelling it out, since it's a french door type. The doors won't line up because the back of the fridge drops so much. Once I rip out the tile, I'll be adding some self levelling concrete underneath the 3/4" ply.

Here's what I'm working with.
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I put that floor in back in 2005. It's in properly, meaning the backer board is held down by screws and thin set and then a layer of thin set under the tile. I've been dreading ripping it up. Damn me for doing things right.

Fortunately the Hardi backer is soft, so it can be removed from the thin set pretty easily with the rotary hammer and a 4" chisel attachment and the screws are left behind.
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All the screws have mortar in them (square drive), but that comes out pretty easily using a paddle bit on each screw head. Then they can be easily unscrewed and then it's just a matter of the mortar.
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I've been using a combination of a trowel and a putty knife to scrape off the remaining thin set. It's working quite well, and I have nothing, but bare plywood left. Ready for the next step.

I'm going to say that the amount of humor and beer on this project has approached unprecedented levels. I had called this the addition of a thousand beers, but i think we're approaching 2,500.