Main Stream Net Zero?
Last Post 20 Oct 2020 08:08 PM by Smart Shop. 22 Replies.
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Smart ShopUser is Offline
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20 Oct 2020 12:59 AM
Since my downstairs is a garage/shop, my shop electrical will have some exposed conduit and most of the runs will go up to the ceiling and head to a couple of truss bays where my plumbing and mini-split refrigerant lines will be.

I'll have my upstairs electric running up from the floor and probably have a spot for wires behind the baseboard with plenty of outlets and network runs installed for some level of future-proofing and a lot of it run through conduit so I can pull new wire if CAT6 becomes obsolete before the building does. I'm probably going to put a few recessed floor outlets in the living room area so I can have power under the couch and coffee table for electronic devices and chargers. With my cheap vinyl floor, I can move, add or remove floor outlets pretty easy and patch it up without refinishing or other problems if I just keep a few extra pieces of flooring stored away. My overhead lighting will run up interior walls that are not ICF and then between the roof joists.

I'm going to build some of the upstairs trim removable so that I can access those conduits at strategic spots and have several access panels in the shop ceiling to expose the entire truss bay.

Instead of laying out spaces and putting in the mechanicals as an afterthought, mechanicals are a part of my design and in some cases are dictating the layout of the spaces rather than the other way around. I'm thinking a lot about this kind of stuff. I think my electrical installation should be an easy 2-3 day job, probably with a concurrent plumbing rough in.

In a Log cabin I helped build, a lot of the electrical is kind of buried. It's all in armored conduit but you probably couldn't pull new wire if something failed. It just wasn't designed for simplified wire runs, too many corners and some of them are about as tight as the conduit will bend, then there is the issue of limited access. Also the ceiling tongue and groove paneling is run over the log rafters and has the roof deck and insulation deck screwed in to it from the top. There is pretty much no way to get anything in to the ceiling without removing the roof. Hopefully that isn't an issue for my friend but I'm going to do my ceiling as a cosmetic finish that I can take down and put back up if I want to change something badly enough or even to inspect the underside of my roof deck if it starts leaking.

My heating demands should probably be low enough to use the heat pump feature of my mini-split AC so no radiant heat for me. My slab will probably not be insulated. I won't mind my shop being a bit cool in the winter and it shouldn't have any frost heave issues. I am planning to insulate my upstairs floor joists, for sound mostly but it should let me keep the shop cool without causing cold floors upstairs. It won't be as solid as a slab, I think I'm going to hit 1/600 deflection on my worst span but it's not a long span. Most of my floor should be closer to 1/960 which should be really solid compared to most typical construction. For reference 1/360 is minimum code, 1/480 is fairly normal and 1/720 is considered a much better and pretty high end standard. Of course my plywood T&G subfloor will be glued and screwed so fingers crossed it won't squeak or creak.


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20 Oct 2020 06:17 PM
Yes, always best to place lots of conduit to future proof a building. We placed more conduit and spare conduit than I can count and it is all easily accessible via attic truss design (see photos). And building to code just results in the crappiest building you can legally build...

I think if I was doing a wood sub-floor for my place again (but after living with heated stamped concrete, I wouldn't...), I would glue it and use pneumatically driven spiral nails. Conventional straight and ring nails eventually get loose. Screws eventually fail from shear stress because of their lower material strength and thread stress concentration points. They use spiral nails to construct wooden shipping pallets. If you have ever had the misfortune of trying to disassemble a wooden shipping pallet, you will understand why I recommend using spiral nails...

Attachment: 329_Insulation_(300x225).jpg
Attachment: 328_Insulation_(300x225).jpg

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Smart ShopUser is Offline
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20 Oct 2020 08:08 PM
Yes, I will have plenty of conduit but it will all go back to that one truss bay, easily accessed from the shop or by removing some baseboard.

Heck, I might just bury some shallow two gang plastic electric boxes with a conduit to the baseboard every couple feet and if I ever need one, I just cut out the plaster over it.

I will have to look at what kind of nail gun those spiral nails need. I was planning to glue and screw because I will have plenty of time and a cordless drill to throw in lots of screws, maybe 60 screws per 4x8 sheet or more if I can get longer sheets of T&G plywood subfloor. That would be about 3 screws per foot over my 2' joist spacing. I will be using a 11.75" I-joist with 2x4 top and bottom plates spanning about 20' which I think is above 1/960 deflection on the span chart. It shouldn't move much which will reduce shear and I'll reduce individual loading by using lots of screws. The PL Premium construction adhesive also has a better bond strength than the more expensive version of liquid nails so that should handle a lot of the shear load too.

Worst case if my floor squeaks, I can add in those spiral nails when I replace my cheapo vinyl flooring in 10-15 years. It's not that I don't like the idea of spiral nails, I just don't want to buy every tool that's out there when I could just use my cordless drill and compensate by using more.

Oh, I have "disassembled" a bunch of shipping pallets but it was smashing them in to the ground to make them diamond shaped and then twisting. They are usually pretty easy to break down for the burn barrel after that. I didn't pay much attention to the nails beside trying not to get stuck.


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