Canreef Aquatics Bulletin Board

The dream is alive and so maybe should this thread have injected a little life.

This won't look like much of an update but it does represent a major milestone for me. Tomorrow, Monday, is inspection day for the permits and so the wall framing is complete, the plumbing is complete, and the electrical rough-in is complete.

It doesn't sound like a lot, and won't look like a lot, but .. it has been an indescribably immense amount of work to get to this point. I divided my work out for myself into tasks that would take roughly 2-3 hours each, and there has been somewhere in the order of 80 to 100 of those since December - so you can well imagine I have sunk somewhere between 180 to 200 hours to get things to this point. Plus, that's not taking into account that with many tasks I estimate "2 to 3 hours" that ended up being "4 to 8 hours". :neutral:

I took a week off from work the first week of February and that made a HUGE dent into things. Ever since then it's been "2-3 hours here, 2-3 hours there" and a lot of late nights.

So, it is with a HUGE sigh of relief that I say "things are ready for inspection." Once passed inspection, or any deficiencies found during inspection are remediated, drywall can go up in the tank room and then I can concentrate on an actual tank build, and not so much a basement build. In fact, the rest of the basement will take a back seat to the tank project at that point. I am looking forward to that phase.

What's left at this point, the plugs in use and light switches have to be pulled out before inspection time and I will do that before going to bed tonight so that it's all ready for tomorrow.

I have been existing on 4 hours of sleep for the past few months and this is taking a toll on me physically. So after inspections tomorrow, I am not doing a single thing on the construction project all week. Not one thing all week! :lol: The following week the family & I are off to a beach vacation, and when we're back from that the drywalling will commence! I can't wait.

This is the view into the basement looking in from the bottom of the stairs. On the right is a hallway that skirts in behind the 2-piece bathroom/"powder room" that leads into the furnace room/utility room.
http://photoshare.shaw.ca/image/a/d/...img_0007-0.jpg

A few steps forward and a turn to the left in the L-shaped hallway and that enters into the main rumpus area. The 280 is just ahead and to the left of the view point. You can see the existing 115g cube in the back there and the 40g carpet anemone tank is behind that.
http://photoshare.shaw.ca/image/a/d/...img_0008-0.jpg

The next two photos show the mini-kitchen area - there will be a mini fridge here, microwave and a sink. I had to do a drop down for the ceiling there to work around the furnace and HRV vents. I extended this across the whole basement mainly for looks and also so I'd have somewhere to run the bathroom fan ("fart fan") ducting.
http://photoshare.shaw.ca/image/a/d/...img_0009-0.jpg

http://photoshare.shaw.ca/image/a/d/...img_0010-0.jpg

And last the tank room itself. There's a preview of what the electrical will look like (I have to take it all apart now for inspection, oh well. :lol:)
http://photoshare.shaw.ca/image/a/d/...img_0011-0.jpg

And this is where the work sink goes. I took the sink out so the inspectors can get in there and see it all. My personal favourite feature is the pot light that will illuminate the sink when I'm working there.
http://photoshare.shaw.ca/image/a/d/...img_0012-0.jpg

As for the concrete issue, I ended up chipping out all the distressed concrete. Once it all dried out it wasn't as bad as I thought. There is about a 3' diameter section of floor where it's all chipped out, but there are no structural concerns. So I'm leaving it be.

Thanks for looking..