Or it already IS a new shed

See: me pressure-washing my cement patio with a rented high PSI gas machine and thinking “I should do the sides of the planter box while I have this” and pretty much annihilating the thing.

Been looking at buying a low budget Ryobi 1800 PSI electric unit just for getting lichen off the fence and other light duty stuff when the winter’s over, do you figure that’s probably safe?

They had some sales in January for Radon something or other month. I picked up the basic radon meter for nearly half price.

Framing is correct for an interior wall with no load

https://www.buildingcode.online/1848.html

The issue they are pointing out is that the air gap in the wall is connected to the concealed space in the floor assembly. If you fill the studs with insulation, you are excepted from the fireblocking requirement.

Otherwise, you can block the space between the framing with lumber or plywood or drywall.

For insulation, you need to add exponentially more for it to make a difference. Basic insulation should achieve 90% heat retention. Doubling that gets you to 94% and returns diminish from there.

I would just air gap it

Makes me wonder, what is the warm side in OPs case when there is such a big temperature difference between summer and winter? I guess the inside is the warm side since the delta is larger during the winter than in summer?

Agreed. Less dusting for the win.

Run away from these crazy fucks.

As I understand the issue with a loose neutral to the power company, you get power coming in through hot and instead of returning through the neutral connection to the power co, it’ll go though your ground rod next to your house (since ground and neutral are connected as in your breaker box).

There should be barelly any air comming out from the oil cap. If any significant amount comes out when new then the unit is faulty.

Also, that unit is very weak. It is about only good for finishing nail gun. It do not have the air flow to power any significant tools, and virtually no reserve capacity.

I thought about the shelf/ledge approach, but then I thought about all of the extra drywall work, and having to dust my walls until the end of time. Dusty baseboards are bad enough.

I think it's already insulated well enough and extra insulation isn't needed. How cold is it right now in the basement?

I've never considered how walk-out basements require this secondary interior framing inside the foundation walls. You're already done framing, but you might have considered only framing a pony wall in front of the foundation and having a step back to the exterior framing. You regain 4" room depth above the foundation walls and avoid reframing around all the windows etc. The shelf it creates in the wall may be a plus or minus depending on your aesthetic.

Cool figured it had to be

Yeah, heh, I don't want to be 'dude, you should retile that wall and probably the whole bathroom' but looking at that tile wall... the combination of cracked grout and smeared silicone... ick. But I have a fair amount of experience with tile and don't want to assume, heh. The wonderful thing with tile is it really isn't very expensive, it's just work.

Even if air were gelatinous enough for convection to be meaningfully affected by making baffles that way, you're mostly just making the air gap smaller, allowing more thermal bridging.

That’s the answer I was hoping for. I thought the money is likely better spent elsewhere, but maybe some Redditor who insulates homes for a living knows better.

The only way to finish the walls and not lose the space would involve having a weird ledge on all of the walls. I’d rather sacrifice the space and have straight walls. My motivation for finishing the basement isn’t more space and I’m only finishing about half of the available space. If the basement wasn’t a walkout, I’d probably never finish it.

OP, these bozos put you and anyone who walked into that room in danger. 2x4s, stacked drywall remnants, and cuts of 1-by that look like they were pulled out of a dumpster, used (basically) as pseudo furring strips/spacers!? And the "frame" they built around the ceiling perimeter (assuming they did that)... when drywall was hung on it, would cover the window trim at the top. Who does that?

While covering the ceiling will work, a better option is to take it all down to the joists and redo it the right way... or, to save time and money, take a metal spackling knife, "knock down" the popcorn texture on the ceiling, spackle divots/holes, sand, prime and paint (assuming you don't have lead paint). If you do, that's a whole other safety issue.

Man, I pray they didn't hang full span 4x8 drywall to those boards. From the look of the pic (it's hard to discern) I don't see screw holes anywhere but in the inadequately-spaced boards and in some parts of the ceiling near those boards. The drywall board weight and lack of properly-spanned support would've caused the boards to sag, buckle, and drop in no time... which seems to be what happened. I'm also surprised (or maybe not really) that there aren't any drywall screws/nails still clinging in the 2-bys, etc., due to pull-through. If they hung full-span drywall (depending on the board thickness) someone was apt to get knocked out -- or worse -- when those boards fell from ceiling height with anyone in the immediate area.

OP, sorry to say, you've been duped, scammed, hornswoggled -- intentionally or otherwise. There are nice people, with good reviews in one area of expertise, who think they know what they're doing in another because they likely watched pros, who make a craft "look" so easy. It's years of practice that get pros to where they are. You pay for that honed skill set. Any knucklehead can go to a box store and pick up drywall boards, screws, tape, and compound. Nice (or not), well-reviewed (or not) these designer/"installers" were negligent in every sense of the word -- and were severely out of their depth here.

Get your money back. You have the pics of their shoddy "craftsmanship." Threaten a lawsuit if they refuse to reimburse you the full amount, because now you'll have to pay someone to undo what they did just to fix it the right way.

After getting your money back, hire a licensed and insured contractor who knows what they are doing and has references that can speak to past success with the same type of work you need done... not another interior designer.

Based on the pic, I wouldn't even trust these folks to hang a ceiling lamp, let alone amend a ceiling.

Good luck, truly.

That's a really really helpful tip. Thanks for commenting.

Wow. Those guys are morons. I’m a contractor. That’s not even close to how you do it.

Canada doesn't use the IRC.

Also, fireblocking materials in that reference include glass fiber batts... so OP's literally proposing to fill the wall with approved fireblocking by that reference.

I've seen issues from flooring not being able to move. It was a low quality grade of the product. Make sure since it's a kitchen to not run underneath. Kitchens are a high traffic,spills dropped items area and this type of floor is easily damaged

Old ceiling is uneven cause it was probably installed with lathe, plaster and nails. Screwing drywall into the joists will securing it all and be a lot more flat plus no demo. 1/4 inch will do.

This work looks like it comes with a complementary copper pipe removal.

Absurdly, superlatively, inexcusably bad work. That’s not the way you do that. Get your money back if you can and never let them on your property again.

do this or rust in place