Does a basement crawlspace require HVAC outlets?

Our 1960's crawlspace (has a poured concrete floor) has 2 outlets from our ductwork. We're in Toronto. I'm wondering if these are required or not?

Here is one of the outlets. I like the high tech styrofoam cover inside:

The crawlspace floor and walls and ceiling are uninsulated. The walls are concrete block, floor joists exposed.

Will need to do some research to find out.

Thus far, one HVAC pro from Missouri of all places, suggested to permanently seal the crawlspace ducts. He suggested putting a 4 mil. plastic vapour barrier on the crawlspace floor. I'll research that as well.

More investigation on our ductwork

I have been trying to investigate what the best approach is for addressing our low airflow duct issue in all of our upstairs bedrooms. I contacted an HVAC guy, who is more of a ductwork installer, to come and look at the problem. Naturally, his recommendation was just ductwork related! Shannon over at http://www.house-improvements.com/ also feels that it will improve things, and I trust his advice.

I know that it will. But, will that be the best bang for the buck? I'm not sure. Are there other options that HVAC specialists might know about? I'm not sure also. So, before I call in more contractors, I thought I'd try to use the collective brains of the internet for this one. So I setup an account at http://hvac-talk.com/.

http://hvac-talk.com/ is a site for HVAC professionals to chit chat with, and they also help out homeowners with questions. It's also very active for an HVAC site, so I thought that I might get some responses fairly quickly. And already I did. Essentially, the HVAC pros need more information. So I provided more information to them at http://hvac-talk.com/vbb/showthread.php?1402171-Should-I-address-this-ductwork.

Shophound agreed with Shannon and Larry, the ductwork specialist who came and looked at the issue. Shophound said "that duct configuration would be an airflow killer in ANY installation. Especially at the 90° elbow with no turning vanes and a poor radius on the inside corner. Some folks forget that moving air has momentum: that is one contributor to turbulence within a duct. Within that elbow I can visualize all manner of turbulence as air exiting the transition must suddenly change direction."

Udarrell said "That duct configuration is an absolute nightmare airflow killer..."

Good! So far, the pros are in agreement, the ductwork is a terrible design.

Wahoo suggested that more information is needed. So, I provided more information to him. For reference, I'm including what I provided to him below:

Our furnace is a high efficiency furnace. Manufacture date was Oct 2011. It looks like an "International Comfort Products" model number G9MVT0801716A1. I don't know anything about furnaces, but it says:
- Input BTU/HR HI = 80,000, LO = 52,000
- Ouput BTU/HR HI = 78000, LO = 50,000

Air filter - using a passive filter, 20x25x5", manufacturer is Duststop. Just installed it about 1 1/2 months ago.

Our house is a 2,300 sq ft above grade. Basement is about 700sq ft at 7' height, then about another 700sq ft at 3 1/2' height (in the crawlspace area). The furnace is installed in the bungalow of our split level. The bungalow side of the house above grade is about 700 sq ft. The 2 level side of the house is the other 1,600 sq ft above grade.

The furnace has 2 main runs leaving it. The ductwork to the bungalow area of the house is 12 x 8". The ductwork to the 2 level side of the house, that goes through the concrete block, is 16 x 8".

Here are pictures to help with the research:

Met with K H Davis Engineering consultants today to review main floor sloping issue

They arrived to look at the sloping on my main floor. Since I removed the ceiling in our basement, the joists are very clear to be seen. The engineer reviewed the floor sloping issue, and took a bunch of measurements.

He did say that the joists all appear to meet code based on his measurements, and that the main floor sloping issue isn't going to cause the house to fall apart. So I was happy to hear that.

He will get back within a week or so, with details of exactly what is the issue, and what options are available to fix it. I'm excited, but at the same time hoping that the options won't be incredibly costly! He did mention that joist sistering will likely be one of the recommended options. Fingers crossed.

Should we address the ductwork?

There are 2 things in our ductwork that I'd like to address.

One is that, our upstairs bedrooms have very low airflow coming out of the ducts. We have a split level house, and the furnace blower is in the bungalow part of the house. The basement in the bungalow part of the house has a 7' high ceiling. The basement in the two storey party of the house has about a 3 1/2' high ceiling.

The furnace feeds the upstairs bedrooms through ductwork that goes through the concrete block as shown in these photos (apologies for the poor quality pics):

I had an HVAC guy come yesterday to suggest that there is a lot of airflow lost before the air even gets past the concrete block, due to the way the ductwork angles up from the furnace, and then angles down at about a 45 degree angle. He suggested that smoothing this out will significantly improve airflow, in addition to applying mastic on all duct joints. Right now it's quite obvious that the old foil tape, and complete lack of sealant in other ductwork joints, is probably contributing to loss of airflow.

At this point I need to validate the theory that the ductwork coming out of the furnace, and then angling down, is contributing to a large loss of airflow. I'll get some additional perspectives on the issue.

Edit: Shannon over at house-improvements.com agreed 100% with the HVAC guy who came to the house. As I trust Shannon's advice a ton, I feel good about making this improvement and will likely go ahead with doing it.

The second issue is about rerouting the ductwork in the basement. I'll post about that one separately.

One 20 yard bin down!

This past weekend was a big milestone for me...I filled my first bin! This was a big milestone for me. For me, it was a pretty significantly physical effort to do this (I'm out of shape!) and on top of that, I was able to do this around a very busy work and family schedule. Imagine having a 6 month old and a 2 1/2 year old toddler. That does not equate to free time for basement demolitions!

I called the bin rental company back, Remove My Junk, and they came the same day to pick it up! I'm still waiting on the bill though. Hopefully it doesn't rain before they weigh it!

Address mechanical and infrastructure issues while you have the chance!

As we are still in demolition mode with our basement renovation, it gives us the opportunity to address issues that we might not otherwise. For example, on our main floor, we have some serious floor sloping in one area. The main floor is right atop our basement. Now that our basement ceiling is fully removed and exposed, I thought that this would be the perfect time to investigate the cause of the slope, and possible remedies.

My gut feeling would be that our basement posts need to be raised, or we need additional support in the basement for the main floor, to remedy it. At first I went to Shannon from http://www.house-improvements.com. Shannon really knows his stuff, and is extremely helpful. I started a thread on Shannon's forum asking for his advice. Shannon suggested that I look into a few things, which I have, but at this point I'm just throwing darts in the dark. It would really be a tedious and trial-and-error research process.

Since I don't want to bombard Shannon's with all of this trial and error stuff (the guy definitely commits a lot of extracurricular time to his online presence and does contracting), I started to think that maybe a structural engineer would be the better way to go from here.

So I contacted K.H Davis Engineering Consultants in Toronto (aka Ken Davis Structural Engineering on homestars.com). I contracted them out to come to our house this Thursday to look at our main floor sloping issue. For $450 + HST, they come onsite, and research the issue. Within a week or two they then deliver you documents that detail the steps to remedy the issue. I'm hoping that this will be money well spent.

The other issue that I have the opportunity to address is our incredibly low airflow from our bedrooms ducts. We live in a split level home that was made in the 1960's. Split levels are well known for temperature variance between floors, but in our case, the issue is exacerbated because we hardly get any airflow coming out of our top floor bedroom ducts! In addition, it might be nice to move the basement ductwork around a bit, to gain more headroom where it matters more. More to come on that.

Homestars - the customer is sometimes wrong

As a prudent DIYer, I try to research contractors to find ones that are a good fit for me. Part of my research lately has been to use homestars, a Canadian contractor review website for homeowners. I've had luck finding great contractors through homestars. But after using homestars for some time now to research contractors, I have found that "buyer beware" is very important when looking at contractors on homestars.

One such company that I found on homestars is called "Furnace and AC Direct", based out of Mississauga. They have "87 reviews" at this time, and a perfect 10 / 10 record. WOW! They must be the gods of furnace and AC work! Have a look for yourself:

The business owner, Khuram Zaki, must be a fabulous person. But, take a look at some of Khuram's reviewers. Many are "flagged for verification". Flagged for verification?!? Look at the bottom of page 1 of Khuram's reviews as of today:

Page 2 has even more! Now, without being judgmental, I will say that this is suspicious. Maybe another contractor paid people to give bad reviews of Khuram's company. That would be sad if contractors try to cannibalize one another's business this way. However, maybe Khuram is abusing the homestars system by flagging all of his customers that didn't provide a 10 out of 10 feedback score. 

For this reason, it looks especially suspect that Khuram is abusing the homestars system, making it appear that homestars is a system very biased toward the contractor. Which makes sense, since contractors pay homestars to be listed on the homestars service. Which is also unfortunate, since homestars is meant to be a research tool for homeowners to find the next great contractor. 

Hopefully homestars is able to evolve into a system less biased towards its contractors over time. Until then, be mindful of all of those 10 out of 10 reviews!

Ordered and received a disposal bin

As I've been clearing out the basement all the way to our cement block foundation, I've been leaving everything scattered all over the floor. Probably not the best way to leave a worksite! It really did get piled up.

I ordered a bin from Remove My Junk. The bin arrived here today. Their rates are pretty good compared to the competition. At this time, it's $150 for a bin (you pick your size) that you get to keep for 5 days, plus $85 per tonne of waste (that's metric tonne).

As I'm trying to DIY as much as possible, and save as much as possible, I considered renting a U-Haul to haul the junk away to the dump myself. But after careful consideration, I just felt that the bin was worth the extra cost. I'll save time since I don't have to go to U-Haul to pick up a truck, and I don't have to drive the truck to the dump and then return it. So it will be time and effort saved, both of which I want to maximize!

I'm hoping that I can completely clear out our basement within 5 days. But since I'm doing this in the little spare time that I have, such as 30 minutes at lunchtime, or early morning before work or very late at night after the kids are asleep, I'm not all that confident!

Basement bashing over lunch

Luckily I have a fantastic job that allows me to work from home, to spend more time with my family. It also lets me eat really quick and then get back to the basement and bash away!

I had a pretty productive lunchtime basement bashing today. I took down some more framing, but there is still quite a bit more to go. I also still have to remove the furring straps that are nailed to the joists, since I won't be using them when we eventually drywall our ceiling. We're going to likely do some sound deadening in the ceiling, using Roxul Safe and Sound, and resilient channels. I have to research that stuff still.

Tearing down your basement ceiling and walls

Guess what, I tore down my basement ceiling and drywall with 2 things:

1. My bare hands (actually covered in cheap suede protective gloves)
2. A chisel! Yes, one of these:

It really is that easy to literally rip apart your basement drywall and ceiling! If you have lots of time and patience, you don't need a million tools. All you need is literally a chisel! Using the chisel and a bit of muscle power, I was able to pry off the drywall and ceiling tiles. I was able to cut through the drywall with the chisel as well. 

Our drywall was pretty thick. Probably 1/2" or greater. I didn't measure it, because I was just in the mood to destroy it! The ceiling tiles were stapled on acoustic ceiling tiles, that were 1' x 1' each. 

Of course, I had the requisite eye protection and a dust mask. Both of which shouldn't set you back for more than $20 or so. And of course, I'm sure there are tools that would make this a lot easier, but I didn't have any handy!

What did I learn?

I learned that removing ceiling tiles can be very messy. I could have literally ripped them all down by yanking really hard and yelling "timber!" but I would have had a lot of nasty dust all over the house. So instead, even though it took longer, I slowly pulled off the ceiling tiles, trying to pull them off "parallel" to the ceiling as much as possible, to minimize dust falling off the underside of the tiles. This seemed to keep the process somewhat clean. 

I didn't put them in bags as I went along, but I feel after the fact that I should have, as it would have kept things more neat and tidy. 

I also learned that a chisel probably isn't the best tool to remove drywall. I was using it to score the drywall to help with removing it, but it's not really sharp like a razor blade. Still, it got the job done, and I just got a better workout.  

I also learned that, it's important to go very slowly, to watch for wiring, and to never cut all the way through drywall in case there is wiring behind it. 

Next steps

Next on the agenda is to remove the framing, which will require at least a prybar and a hammer! Then to throw everything out that I tossed. 

Renovating our basement

We made the decision to renovate our basement. We had a bit of sewer backup due to the massive flood of July 2013. Thankfully we had sewer backup insurance. We're going to repair what was damaged, and just bring the whole thing up to date (it's a 60's house, and the basement needs a bit of TLC).

Although I have next to 0 DIY know-how, I feel comfortable enough to do stuff I have very little to no knowledge about. I think that the internet is largely to thank for that. There are some excellent resources out there, and some very supportive folks who can help to point you in the right direction.

Today is the day that I started the DIY work myself. I'm going to do the demo work myself. I'm removing everything in the basement, all the way to the studs. When done the basement will be all the way back down to the concrete block!

How I'm DIY'ing our basement

My goal is to DIY as much of our basement as possible. We're trying to do it on a budget. We live in Toronto, and our basement was damaged by sewer backup this past July 2013. Now that the basement is nice and clean after that incredible mess, we've decided that we're going to finish the basement so that we can reclaim that space as a playroom, and as office space.

The basement height is about 90 to 91 inches from concrete floor to joist. It's lower in some places, like where the duct work and metal support beam are. It's definitely high enough for us!

I have 0 knowledge of construction, or of finishing basements. But that doesn't matter! I feel confident that I can do a lot of of the work myself, while still being smart about it. For example, I plan to install rough wiring and outlets, etc., but pull a permit with the City of Toronto and have an inspector come in to make sure the electric work was done properly. Anytime you DIY you should try to "do it right" as much as possible!

I feel confident because I know that I can use the "wealth of the collective". There are so many DIY forums and videos online that cover literally everything you would ever attempt to DIY yourself. A lot of these folks are incredibly knowledgeable, smart, and happy to help you when you have a question. So, even if you know nothing, I believe that you can take the time to learn what you need to know in order to accomplish what you want to accomplish. I will definitely recognize some of these folks as I go through my DIY journey.