Venting issues

See that white thing just above the back object? That is the boiler vent. The object just above that is the water spigot, and if you look up toward the corner along the same wall you can see the woodstove air intake. Still buried is the intake/exhaust for the HRV unit. I was able to stand on the snow and easily touch the roof

Our car. We got a near record amount of snow for a March storm

This morning we were awoke by the not-quite-full-on smoke alarm signaling intermittently. Not smelling smoke we quickly opened the doors and a bunch of windows in case it was a CO alarm, which it actually seems to have been.

We quickly ascertained that the boiler vent had been covered over by the prodigious snowstorm we experienced last night and today. The boiler is able to detect when the vent is blocked and will shut itself down which would prevent an accumulation of CO.

I suited up and went out to shovel the vent out. The amount of snow covering this thing was stunning. What was curious was the fact there seemed to be a bit of a bubble, for lack of a better way to describe it, around the vent. In other words there was a non-snow space that I shoveled into when I got near the vent pipe. What this makes me think is that the heat of the boiler vent gas was kind of creating its own little pocket under the snow and perhaps this was the reason the boiler seems to have not actually shut down, hence the CO alarm.

With the vent cleared and the house thoroughly aired out we shut the doors and windows and felt okay about the situation. It was a bit later that it occurred to me to check the HRV air supply duct as well. Like the boiler vent, it was also burried, and like the boiler vent it seemed to have it's own little air-space pocket in the snow once I reached it. Like the boiler vent it is venting warm-t0-hot air, so it makes sense.

We take this stuff absolutely seriously; I was aware of these potential problems when the installation work was done, but I got a bit of resistance and didn't push further about locating the venting higher up. I wish I had. The task now is to correct it.

To that end I'd already put in a call last week to the plumber about the situation, so we are going to correct it. On the upside, we are grateful for the alarm system and glad it works.

Keepin' warm

Sunlight on cabinets

The stair railing

The thermostat control

Today we decided to turn our thermometer down to 50 degrees--effectively turning the heat off. It's been in the back of our minds to do this for a while but with our efforts concentrated on just getting the house done it's been easier to let the boiler/radiant system keep the place warm. With the wood stove hooked up and a little more available attention to spend on our wood supply and lighting a fire as needed we thought we'd nuke the back-up heat and see what happens. Mind you it's been unseasonably warm the last couple of days, but it's supposed to cool back down again tomorrow and stay that way for a while. I'm fascinated to see how the house performs.

I got the railing mostly built today. There are some odds and ends to finish up and the whole thing needs a finish railing cap to top it off, but it came out pretty well. To do it again I might make the triplets of balusters a little closer together to accentuate the groupings, but basically I'm happy with it. Moreover, it's great to have a railing in place to do it's job of keep us safe.

Onwards...

Painting the bathroom floor

The boiler at work heating up the house via the radiant system for the first time

Today Joe continued work on the window returns, which is coming along, while I was busy painting in advance of his work. Meanwhile Felton was back to do some finish electrical work. This is very exciting for us as it means we'll have working outlets around the house and a few lights here and there to turn on. Of course this also means we have to make decisions about light fixtures and all that, but its great to see all this stuff coming together.

We also fired up the radiant heat for the first time today. Stuff like that sort of seems like a bit of a miracle; you put all this pipe in, you have a boiler installed and then you do nothing for a couple of months when it starts to get a little chilly in the house and you hook up a thermostat and signal the boiler to start doing its thing. On the one hand its what's supposed to happen and all, but on the other hand it is like "Wow, you just push a button and like that the house starts to heat up. Cool!"

For extracurricular fun I continued painting this evening and gave the second floor bathroom its first coat of blue floor paint. Both Nance and I dig it and are feeling ongoing happiness at having Teri's help working out all the color choices. The house is anything but boring when it comes to color, and that's what we were shooting for.

Tomorrow I go back over the mountain for another load of lumber for window trim and the bead board that will go around the bottom of the bathroom walls. I'll also be looking for a large stone hearth to put the woodstove on.

Pre-insulation and other news

Stops in the rafter bays. These are meant to create smaller compartments into which we'll be blowing in the cellulose. The smaller spaces help to avoid settling in a really long uninterrupted bay

Joe installing the fabric stops

Expanding foam installed between the window frame and the framing

Checking to see what sun is available when. The solar hot water panel will be placed at the upper right hand corner of the roof on the right. The key hours for solar activity are between 10:00 and 2:00. We'll be in good shape with this location

Like the first few raindrops before a shower, there is tangible evidence of our being very close to insulating. I've been spending time installing insulating foam around the windows, Joe has been installing fabric stops in the roof framing cavities, I have the cellulose blower on site, and our supplier is due to deliver 450 bales of cellulose on Thursday. Yes, 450.

We are busily checking off the last few items that need to be taken care of before we start sheathing the walls with Insulweb fabric, which is the first step in the insulating process. Its felt like we've been so close to ready for a while but there are seemingly always a few more things needing to be cleared up.

In other news, we have done some research and have now worked out the arrangements such that we'll be able to install a hot-water solar panel on the roof. This will supply hot water to our boiler so that it does not need to heat the otherwise cold water all the way from cold up to hot. With the collector in place there may be times when the boiler does not need to heat the water at all.

We are really excited about this development, thinking it would be something we'd plan for in the future but couldn't do now. Knowing we wanted to do it eventually, I installed the necessary copper lines so we wouldn't have to open up the walls later on. As I was doing this work it seemed like maybe we should just see what it would take to do it now, knowing it would save some headaches later on. One thing led to another and with the Federal credit it looks like its going to work out.