7: Building Stairs and Interior Walls

Once I was able to close the building's envelope, our three subcontractors, plumbing, electrical, and HVAC, could do the bulk of their work.  They were three tradesmen I had met while working on various building sites and they were willing do their work on "the side", for reduced rates.

After the interior walls went up the plumber could run the drain, water, and gas lines and the electrician could put in the electric service drop as well as the main electrical panels in the apartment and owners unit.  From those panels I ran emt conduit to all the recessed lights and outlets.  I think there were around 40 lights plus who knows how many outlets.

(Click on any image for a larger view.)

I built a solid set of stair stringers from the 2nd to 3rd floor. It was nice to finally get rid of that temporary ladder.

Virginia is cutting insulation, while in the foreground are all our tools chained to a Knack lockbox. 

Until we got the building sealed up, we couldn't leave anything on the site overnight for fear of it being stolen, and had to haul everything back to our apartment at the end of the day.   We only got broken into once; they tried to get into the Knack box, but could only pry up one corner of the lid.  Not enough to get at the tools.

The HVAC guy put a gas furnace in the basement unit and one on the main floor.  He ran the main plenums and installed the chimney.  I ran the branch lines.

Here are the 3rd floor plumbing walls that have the drain pipe already run.

On the left side of the picture, you can see the stairs are clad with plywood.  Eventually I would make some nice treads and risers in my makeshift garage shop. 

After I framed the necessary walls, the plumber installed this tub in the guest bathroom.