In getting ready for my rough inspection from the city, I had several odds and ends to take care of. There was some rough carpentry, so final electrical wire to pull, and something called draft protection. Draft protection is insulation stuffed between the studs and the cement wall in an effort to slow the spread of a fire, should one ever start behind the wall.
I had been putting off a few items that now needed to get done before the city building and electrical inspector came by to sign off for my rough inspection. One of these was an annoying piece of duct that didn't quite fit under my soffit. The picture to the left shows that. Also notice the insulation. That's the draft protection that extended through the entire top-plate, and then again on a vertical stud every 10 feet or so.
Another piece of carpentry left was a partition wall dividing the exercise area from the rest of the basement. In this partition I also had a drain pipe to box in. I had been putting this off because I could never quite figure out if we wanted a door there or not. In the end I framed in an area where a door could be mounted, but at this time we decided to leave it open.
This picture to the right shows this partition wall. Also notice some of the rough wiring. You can see how I put a nail plate in every stud that had a 2x4 pass through it. Also further down in the room you can see the fluorescent light fixtures. These are just screwed in temporarily so that I knew where the cable had to be pulled to. Eventually these will sit in the suspended ceiling grid.
Finally, when I though everything was done, I made an appointment for an inspection. I set the date about a week later so that I had time to finish all of these last minute items.
When the inspection finally came, it was pretty uneventful. It lasted all of 10 minutes. At first the inspector didn't want to sign off, because I hadn't stripped the ends of my electrical cable, to show that there was 6 inches of workable wire. When I asked if he could just come back later in the day, he just said, "Oh forget it. You know what to do, I'll just sign off now".
I had to ask him if he thought my draft protection was ok. He said it wasn't required for code but seemed like a good idea. I thought so too.
