Thread: Man cave digout

Next lesson.
Do not store anything that can get damaged by water on the floor. At the very least have it in a watertight container.
These things happen. At least you had not put down carpet.

Use one of the wet area waterproofing sealants, especially those designed for balconies.
When I do waterproofing in houses I put the manufacturers recommended number of coats on then add another 2. Never had a failure yet.

The other alternative is use fibre glass water proofing but make sure you etch the concrete first and use a flexible sealant at all corners and junctions after the fibre glass curers. You will need an efficient respirator/mask if you use the fibre glass method.

bummer

Originally Posted by surfdabbler

I've done some work on the concrete floor finishing this week. I put down a penetrating sealer, and then a contractor called Debbie came in and put a 300mm thick self-levelling compound on the floor. It has a beautiful gloss finish, despite the colour, which I call "Fresh Silt". Strangely enough, even though the finish itself is 300mm thick, it hasn't affected the head-height at all. Being a completely wet finish, you can just wade through it.

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Yep, cyclone Debbie did the man-cave. Overnight and through the morning, a small amount of water was still getting through the concrete walls, but nothing I couldn't sort out in a couple of minutes with the wet-dry vac. Then while I was out, my wife went down to check and found this. The sump pump had jammed on a rock, and the pit outside backed up. The very corner of the wall where it meets the existing structure was not waterproof enough to keep it all out, and it ran back into the man cave. Curse those pumps! This was the main reason I didn't want an internal pump like a french drain system. I've got the pump running again, but I can't fix anything properly until we get some drier weather, and that could take a while. I will have to take some of the drainage completely apart and rebuild it, as well as line the sump pit with something to make it waterproof right up to ground level, with a surface overflow drainage channel.

Meantime, I just have to baby sit it, and turn on the pump inside the room whenever needed.

Hey an indoor pool. Nice idea

Cleanup is done, and work moves on. The insulation is in the walls and most of the ceiling, and gyprock is here, ready to go. The insulation in the walls makes it sound dead inside the room, which is pretty cool, but that will go back to normal when I put the sheeting on the inside. I’m just waiting on the plumber to sort out the sink and move a couple of pipes in the ceiling before I can finish off the insulation and start on the sheeting.

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I’ve also done some more work on the drainage in the last couple of days. The outside sump pit is set quite deep below ground level, and just had the natural rock walls above the plastic pit. Some of the natural rock collapsed into the pit with the recent rains, completely jamming the pump. The rock is also a source of a lot of silt when the groundwater seeps through the walls and into the pit. So, I have completely plastered the walls of the hole with mortar to support the rock, and drilled some holes through the mortar at intervals to allow the groundwater to still seep into the pit from the outside. In doing so, I found a couple of decent size holes where the pipes go through the end of the wall into the room, where the water was getting around the waterproofing and pouring through to the man cave. It’s pretty tight space in there with blind spaces behind the pipes, and I missed a couple of spots. I’ve mortared up the holes now, and in a few days, I will paint a waterproof membrane in this corner, to really seal it up tight. The scary part will be testing it when it's done - by turning off the pump and filling it with water...

hopefully it works,

still in awe of your effort to dig that basement out over the qld summer we just had..

Walls and ceilings! I’ve pretty much finished the sheeting today, apart from some details near the door, where I’m not sure exactly what I’m doing yet. I couldn’t have done it without the help of a sheet lifter and my family. The blush pink sheeting and the mint green doors make a lovely colour combination. Perhaps I’ll paint it the same colours when it's all done.

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The painting with a like semi-gloss will help reflect the lighting in the room, though IMHO extra lighting is always an advantage with fast sharp spinning things in front of your fingers...

Keep up the good work, enjoying the thread...Cheers, crowie

Looks great and good to hear the sound insulation working so well.
You must be so pleased with the way it has worked out!

Before adding the lining I would have run a circuit for OH power points out onto that middle beam. I have 5 OH 10A double GPOs and they get a lot of use.
Maybe you can still add these in ?

Originally Posted by BobL

Before adding the lining I would have run a circuit for OH power points out onto that middle beam.

Yes, I had thought of this early on, but I've not used OH points before, and I wasn't really sure what I wanted or how to do it, so it kind of got forgotten in the process of building. To run it through the ceiling at this stage would require pulling sheets down. Fortunately, having the steel beam up there means that I can easily run an extension lead along that to the middle of the room without it being in the way, or looking too bad.

That beam would also take a trolley and winch for lifting stuff that's a bit more than you want to pick up by yourself. Like picking up a table saw to put wheels under it, or assembling a lathe you brought down in pieces. All done with the understanding that you can't pickup tons with it without bringing down the house.

Pete

Originally Posted by surfdabbler

Yes, I had thought of this early on, but I've not used OH points before, and I wasn't really sure what I wanted or how to do it, so it kind of got forgotten in the process of building. To run it through the ceiling at this stage would require pulling sheets down. Fortunately, having the steel beam up there means that I can easily run an extension lead along that to the middle of the room without it being in the way, or looking too bad.

Yep do it - you will really use it.

As a suggestion re the overhead GPOs, I've bought a number of rare earth magnet eyebolts off eBay - smaller 20mm diameter ones for running the flex cable through and then a large 50mm one at the end to hang the pendant from. That will let me run the flex cable out along the underside of my roof truss in a number of hanging loops, with flexibility to move the pendant to any location by just moving the magnetic eyebolts to suit.

Your sparky would need to be happy with it obviously, but mine has said he's fine with it.

Wow, I didn’t realise it has been so long since my last update. Work has certainly been progressing. After the sheeting, I had to do the plastering, and cornicing.

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One part of the ceiling had some gas and water pipes, so I’ve made a dropped ceiling (by 70mm) in that corner to cover the pipes, but there was also a lower water pipe right in the corner, and I didn’t want to drop the ceiling by 200mm to cover that, so I just sheeted around that pipe, hoping the cornice would cover it, but it didn’t. I put it in the too hard basket for a while, leaving it as a problem for future Dave. Anyway, future Dave dropped by and thought about it for a while, and decided instead of trying to make a fiddly little bulkhead to cover the pipe, he would put wall cupboards above the sink, and cover the pipe with the cupboards. I can always use more cupboards. Nice one future Dave! You can see the top shelf is lowered in the photo to fit around the pipe.

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The staircase area also needed some extra finishing off to the framing, then sheeting and plastering, and I’ve created a bit of a doorway frame, and made it all nice to join into the existing building.

And on the weekend, I got the painting done. It’s not done in this photo, but it’s underway. You can also see the featured wooden beam across the middle of the room, which I’ve sanded and varnished to make it look nice.

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The electrician came today and finished off the lights and power points, so the room is alive! I’m very excited now. There’s still a few painting bits left (like those lovely green doors), and a couple of other finishing details, but I don’t know whether I can hold out moving in for that. I think I need to though…