mat r Poly covered batt insulation in the basement walls can fail in as little as a year, saturated with trapped water vapour feeding mould in the drywall. (See brewbeer's link above.) The bottom plate does not deform when it's on top of XPS. Just score and snap sections wide enough to fit under the plate. (I used to use Super 6 vapour barrier; this keeps vapour from wicking up, but doesn't do anything if you get standing water.) XPS between the studs isn't ideal, but it sure beats most anything else. If there is space between the foundation wall and your stud wall, it would be better to slip in even half inch sheets along the wall. In that case, and that case only, you could safely use batts on the warm side of the basement wall with or without a facing. Just slitting the facing on the batts and putting them in by themselves is inviting trouble. (Following "best practices" at the time, I used to put a poly sheet on the concrete wall and leave it loose at the bottom; the idea was that the moisture on the wall would roll down and somehow get into the room and evaporate. A lot of hoping! And by slitting the warm side barrier, you'd be counting on the vapour going through the insulation, condensing on the warm side of that same poly and running back into the room as water. Long term, I bet it will fail too.) Above grade, Building Science Corp. says unfaced batt insulation is acceptable. (See Link above.) Electrical boxes. Just mount them on the 2x4s as on any interior wall. Do not attach the 2x4s to the walls; use plates (2x4 laid flat) top and bottom. If you have a concern about the wall thickness, you can use 2x3. Or even 2x2 light steel; but only where there is XPS on the wall and as little air movement as possible, as the steel will condense any water vapour that gets into the wall. Number of fasteners for the floor plates--every three to four feet. While XPS is my preference, Building Science Corp. says that EPS is also acceptable. But it has a lower R value per inch. Finally, be sure to provide mechanical dehumidification during the summer months to keep the moisture levels down. If I were to treat the walls first, I would use a permanent product, preferably a crystalline waterproofer in a slurry coat.

We had a lot of issues that could have been avoided if I had been there every day, all day. THen again, if I were able to be there every day, all day, I probably could have figured out how to be a decent GC myself. But we both work full time and have young kids so our lives are occupied from 6 am to 10 pm every day with work and childcare. I stopped by the house every night, often with a kid in tow, and tried to see what was happening. This often meant that I caught things after the fact, and had to decide whether something was worth changing or not. The more critical issue is that I didn't have a lot of experience in remodeling, hadn't been planning a remodel for years (unlike some people here) and didn't know just how many decisions there would be to make. I think planning in advance exactly what you want and being proactive about communicating is important (so now I really know how to do a remodel, I just don't want to ever again!). in terms of critical days, I would say counter top installation. I made our fabricator come back and recut the counters after a less than optimal seam. i also think being there for any kind of structural work is good--verifying that walls are being properly supported with temporary supports, etc. We had a very bad experience there!

you should really start a new thread as you'll get more input Donna. first understand that for mold to grow it needs two things, moisture & a food source. eliminate the moisture source, once you find out what it is. I'd start at the roof. open the ceiling, remediate..maybe as simple as letting things dry out once moisture is stopped, maybe materials need to be replaced. you won't know until you can see it. it takes time for mold to grow, it doesn't happen overnight, so maybe hoa will have to cover it if it predates your repair of roof. inside the home it can take 5 years...but in a garage? don't know. you'll want someone experienced in mold remediation to handle materials properly & safely as they are removed. and be able to prove it if necessary to hoa. that may be expensive. I do a some of mold remediation, respirators, sealing off room, double bagging materials etc. reason for doing the work is that too many people treat mold like a gold mine & scare homeowners with toxic mold stories. realistically, only 2 types are toxic, and every house has mold...somewhere. so try to steer clear of those folks. so, if you were to diy, fix leak, open ceiling. once you open a spot up...you can look to see how far the damage extends. cut out sheetrock to that point & look again, cut so that you can easily replace it with new sheet/piece. remove insulation, if any & look at 2x's to see if mold has grown on them. I use tsp (tri sodium phosphate or something like that) & scrub with a brush. let dry, rinse, scrub again. let it all dry for a few days. put a fan on it. check moisture level of wood & at 30% you can close it up again. tape & float sheetrock. sometimes I'll kiltz or bullseye/zinner the framing members when the area is opened. hope your hoa will do what is right here for you. best of luck

It's not ceiling height, it's the context of the ceiling height. It seems like the increase in ceiling height corresponded with the rise of the McMansion. Not that every new house with a higher ceiling is a McMansion, but I think it's a result of the same mindset. Most McMansions are a checklist turned into a house. Certain elements are "desirable" or "good" and certain elements are undesirable or bad. The thing about McMansions has generally been that it doesn't matter so much how the "good" gets there, as long as it's there somewhere, that's sufficient. Context and proportion and all those sorts of things are mostly secondary to meaning the list of requirements. High ceilings are one aspect of that. I'm not against high ceilings. I am not against low ceilings. I'm against doing either when doing so flies in the face of good proportions or good sense. I have lived in places with 14' ceilings, 10' ceilings, 9' ceilings, 8' ceilings, 7'6" ceilings and believe it or not 6'8" ceilings. (The 14' and the 6'8" were in the same apartment. They divided the height in half with a loft area. The 14' was main living space, and the 6'8" was the kitchen, a dining area and closets and a bathroom. The 14' was nice because of the Greek Revival detailing, but other than that was a bit too high for my comfort. The 6'8" was not so great...but those are extremes). The 10 and 8 were in one apartment and they both had their benefits. The 8's were the bedrooms and bathrooms, those were fine. I can tell you from living in a building which went 7'6" English basement, then 14, 12, 10, 8 on the way up, that a lot of people don't have a great sense of 6-12" increments over 8. Some people can't tell the difference between 8 and 9. Some can tell the difference between 8 and 9 but not 9 and 10. Over ten and lots of people have no clue. One of my neighbors who lived in the 14' apartment kept saying it was almost 18' (He was thinking the lofts were 8 with a bit over a foot in between, not under 7 with 8" in between...no clue really). ----- I think whats happening now is that as houses get more complex with a lot of rectangles stuck together, they are creating "open concept" that still are made up of complex boxes stuck together in their middles, bleeding into perimeters that 1) go off in every direction and 2) create a bunch of smaller spaces in their own real and assumed boundaries (because we still try to assign rectangular boundaries to complex open shapes) . These smaller footprints end up having awkward proportions because they are topped off by high or multi leveled ceilings. The new construction in many neighborhoods here is built on 12-13 foot lots. The older two or three story houses are 9/8 or 9/8/8 with the first floor a step or two above the street. The the new ones are 6 steps or so above the street. 9ft. basement half above the street/10 ft./9ft./9ft/ and they loom above the street and the other houses in sharp narrow 'fingers'. And the inside rooms are toaster slot proportions.