Drywall :(

I've been doing a bit of drywall the past couple of days.

There is a little 10x8 utility room in the basement that I've been wanting to finish since we moved here.  It's never really been any kind of priority though... and also I hate installing drywall.

I'm about halfway done with the project as of now.  The only reason I'm going to the trouble of  finishing this room is noise. 

The well pump controller is in the utility room, and it absolutely shrieks when it runs.  The controller has a crossflow blower for cooling, and it can easily be heard on the main floor of the house, wailing up the stairwell.

It sounds about like the fan in the video below:

It has always been annoying to hear the fan shrieking when water was running.  The racket would last the entire time the lawn sprinklers ran, whenever someone was in the shower, flushed a toilet, did laundry, dishes, washed hands, etc, etc.

My first chore was to insulate the walls, because I wanted to be absolutely certain noise would never again escape.  Afterwards, I began installing the drywall.  There's a reason I put this job off for years in spite of all the noise: Because of all the interference.  Attached to every wall in this little utility room is duct work, plumbing, electrical, vents, junction boxes, conduit, and support straps. 

There is no surface that doesn't have something strapped, screwed, nailed or otherwise attached to wall studs or the ceiling.  Once the tie-downs are removed, I still have to try to slip the drywall in behind the pipes and ductwork.

I probably would have been better off installing a false ceiling and then dry-walling that, but I finished the ceiling before I thought of that, hahaha.  I'm still short a drywall panel, and also need to get some mud, so I brought the truck to work today.  I'll pick that stuff up after work in the morning.

My opinion on drywall work hasn't changed since I last did a drywall job.  I'd almost rather be starving and living in a cardboard box than having a full time job doing drywall.  Maybe it's different when it's new construction...

UPDATE:

The drywall portion of the job is complete.  It was pretty much the nightmare I was expecting.

The small room, coupled with all the interference, eliminated the possibility of using any large sheets.  There wasn't even one spot where I could install a full 4x8 sheet of drywall.  I ended up splitting all the drywall sheets into 4x4 sections, and then had to cut most of them even smaller to slide them behind all the ducts and plumbing.

Below, the staging area (click any image to enlarge).

When I started this project, the utility room had only one screw-in bulb and it didn't provide nearly enough light.  At first I used this portable red utility light.  Unfortunately, it's an old-school light that uses 2x500 Watt halogen bulbs, and it throws off as much heat as it does light.   Really, it's just a powerful heater posing as a light source.  At some point, I'll probably replace this with a LED one.  Not only are these painful to touch and uncomfortable to work in front of, but the bulbs burn up on the regular.

After finishing the ceiling, I installed an inexpensive 4 ft LED fixture.  This fixture doesn't even have LED tubes in it, just a couple of strips of LEDs mounted to the sheet metal backplate.  It's bright though, and that's all I care about.

 

Below:  Looking toward the back wall from the doorway.  We are partially taped at this point.  It was really hard to install the ceiling.  The black 3" PVC pipes penetrate the ceiling, so you can't slide drywall past that point.  The heating ducts kept me from installing any large pieces.  I should probably insulate those ducts. 

The small black PVC pipes are the sewer vent and the lift pump discharge.  The lift pump is the one with the red-handled valve. The larger black pipe is the radon fan suction line.

 

I squirted expanding foam insulation into the penetrations, to help trap the noise from the fan and to cut down on bugs.  The crawl space is vented outdoors, and bugs always manage to get past the vent screens and make their way indoors.  The foam was still wet in this picture, and will need to be trimmed flush.  I ran out of foam before I finished sealing the openings though.

Below, the left wall: 

Above: Everything for the well pump is installed on the sheet of OSB plywood, and the plywood is mounted to wall studs.  I decided that it wasn't worth the effort to replace the plywood with drywall.  Too much effort for too little return, so I just butted the drywall up against the plywood.  I might paint the wood though.  The howling fan is in the light gray box with the blue sticker.  That box is the well pump controller and soft-start.  The electrical box above is a 230 volt J-box for the furnace.  I decided against re-mounting it, because even if it was flush, I would still have a hole in the drywall from the black conduit.  Instead I just drywalled around the conduit and foamed the hole shut.

Below, looking back toward the furnace. 

Above: The white PVC pipes are the incoming combustion air supply from the outdoors, and exhaust to outside.  Propane supply is below that, then power.  At  the very bottom with a green light, is a propane leak detector alarm and fuel cutoff.  The 3/4" PVC is a drain line for the heat exchanger.  When the heat pump is operating as an air conditioner, the heat exchanger gets cold, and accumulates condensation.  The small white PVC pipe drains the heat exchanger to a floor drain.  I ran the drywall along the furnace about a foot back from the edge of the vertical duct.  Unfortunately there was no way to fasten it there, with only a couple of inches of clearance.

Below, looking back toward the entry door. 

Above:  The upper box on the left is for the alarm system.  The lower box is a network and cable distribution box.  The data box distributes coax, phone and CAT 5 to every room in the house.  Very cool installation, but it's also kind of pointless, now that everything uses WiFi.  It's also pointless because our phone-line DSL is barely faster than dial-up.  Whatever.  It's where the phone line ties in, and it's a handy place to put the DSL modem.

I'll get some more pictures up when this is done, hopefully early next week!  At the end of the job, I'll probably install some inexpensive paint-grade baseboards and door molding, just to give it a finished look. I might install floor tiles - I bought several boxes from the church garage sale.  But there is a giant plywood seal over the lift pump to prevent radon from entering the basement.  I'm not sure how that would work out...

UPDATE 2:

I trimmed the dried expanding foam off.  It made a bit of a mess.   To trim it flush with the wall, I used a loose hacksaw blade up against the drywall, and worked my way around each pipe, trying to avoid cutting into anything except the foam.  The hacksaw blade is on the blue bucket lid.  Messy business.

Below:  The hacksaw blade cut the foam off reasonably flush with the drywall.  I'll press some drywall mud into the pores (and holes) and see how it looks afterwards.

I ran out of foam the first go-around, and had to fill these yesterday.  This was still wet when I took the photo.

There was still a gap on top this pipe when I ran out of foam the previous time.

UPDATE 3:

I decided that getting the finish just right in this little utility room was not worth the effort, and really just wanted to be done with this.  Major painting is complete.  I just need to finish the corners and the tight spaces that I couldn't reach with the roller.

 Below, taping finished and sanded, primed with clear, and ready to paint.

Same situation, different view.

Same

Getting started with the paint.  I used "Eggshell", which is one step glossier than flat.   I didn't want too much gloss showing off all the screw-ups.

Different angle.  Corners and tight areas are not yet painted.

Not my best work, but it's all the effort I'm willing to put in right now, hahaha.  I keep wondering how good of a job I'd have done if I wasn't a shift worker and had more time to invest in this. 

The project is done, the final post on this is here.