Hi Mary...

Garage in the foreground, with numbered days

Our to-do plan and schedule for the next 2 1/2 weeks

Among the many items we need to move on, a Easy Spindryer vintage washing machine. I had fantasies of running of powering this by bicycle. Never happened, but we did actually do a couple of loads of laundry in it

I re-framed the opening for the window coming up the stairs, and soon we'll relocate the window to match the new height. The original location was a bit high.

Recent events have prompted us to refocus our energy on taking down the garage sooner then we had originally planned. It means some scurrying now, but we're both excited at the prospect that the house will be able to stand on its own without the dubious presence of the garage right in front of it.

Given this new challenge, Nance and I have been working through the logistics of everything that needs to happen to actually have this thing torn down. Currently (no pun intended) the electric line from the pole goes to the meter and panel housed in the garage, as does the phone line. Relocating these requires timing, coordination, digging, and materials all be lined up and carefully ordered so that we are able to maintain service and make the switch safely, allowing for a large excavator to come in, knock down the building and then load it into dumpsters. Never mind that we have tons of stuff in there we need to sort through and then relocate to the basement. Its a big project, and it will delay focused progress on the house a bit, but it is ultimately part of getting the whole project done, so it really is just a reordering towards that end.

Friday Edition

There's some tidying-up to do, but I finished all the significant electrical work today. I'll have Felton come up again early next week and we'll do another walk-through to find any omissions or problems.

Window inspectors

Window inspectors at work

This photo shows where each home-run electrical circuit comes down into the basement. Soon enough, the electrical panel (properly known as the load center) will be mounted on this space and each wire will connect to a circuit breaker. The wire coming out of the pipe in the wall is the (unconnected) power supply into the house

The electrical work continued today, with a brief visit by two young window inspectors, along with their chauffeur. While carrying out their duties, they also checked out a couple of special spots that are excellent for kids to hide in while they play hide-n-seek with their uncle. As a thank-you for their services, they were sent home with some just-made maple syrup.

Closing in on the electrical

The electrical punch list

Some wires in place

A triple switch box in the kitchen

This is where the bed will be. You can see the matching outlets and light switch boxes to the left and the right with the blue light mounting box above in the center

Last Friday Felton came up to the house and did a walk-through with me to go over the progress on the electrical work. It was useful and as we talked I made a list of things I needed to change, correct, or complete. With the list in hand, I want to work through this stuff and be as done as I can be with the electrical work. I hope that I'll be there in another day or two, although it seems to go slower then it seems like it should.

Before moving on I'm going to go around and label everything so we know what is what and what is going where for what purpose. I've been labeling along the way, but not thoroughly, so I want to make sure we can understand everything once the sheetrock is covering the wires snaking through the walls.

The challenge is to anticipate and wire for intuitive light switching as you move through the house. I drew this all out in plan but have found myself mostly just doing it from feel in the actual house. Today I ran a circuit that allows us to turn on a light centrally located on the first floor from either entrance doorway or at the bottom of the stairs. A similar issue has been working out lighting for coming up the stair and going to bed. We've decided that we'll have a light over the bed that can be switched from either side of the bed and at the top of the stairs as you come up. The last photo shows the boxes in place for this as well as the blue light mounting box affixed to the rafter centered above.

I'm ready to get done with the electrical work and move on to completing the plumbing.

Before:


After:


Made the changes to the mudroom/kitchen entry today and it feels really good. We loose a little closet space, but I think its well worth the improvement in flow and transition.

Drain and vent

This is where all the drains come together and leave the house, headed for the septic tank

These are our water supply lines

On Saturday Paul and I pretty much wrapped up the PVC drain/vent plumbing throughout the house.

Next up is running the water supply lines. In the old days, these were the copper pipes that ran through the floors and walls supplying hot and cold water to the house fixtures such as a tub, toilet or sink. These days its much more common to use PEX pipe, which is a flexible plastic tubing. The advantages being cost, ease of installation, material flexibility, high performance, and simplicity when it comes to making connections. In the old days you had to sweat (solder) each joint of copper, these days you just make your connection and crimp it with a special tool that cinches a compression ring.

I've installed the mounting board in the basement where all the hot and cold lines will terminate and tomorrow afternoon Paul and I are going to start running the lines.

Plumbing continues

How to get a pipe in the house. Note the second hole to the left of the pipe

The pipe in place on the inside, one each through the two holes on the outside

The rigid insulation in the basement. You'd be surprised how many times I've whacked my head harder then I'd like on that white plastic pipe coming out of the wall.

I've been plugging away at the drain and vent lines.

What surprised me was that in order to get certain lines into place in the floor joists, you have to continue your line of holes right out through the side of the house. What do you do if you've built a house out of concrete?

I've been enjoying the plumbing work; you basically have a pile of fittings and you dry-fit them together with lengths of PVC pipe and when everything is good and they are pitched the way you want them, you glue them all together with nasty smelling solvent glue.

I've also been continuing with the insulation of the basement in advance of our HRV unit being installed. (HRV stands for Heat Recovery Ventilation and is the mechanism that will supply us fresh air, since the house will be highly air-tight and super-insulated. Without this system there'd be no opportunity for fresh air to enter the house, or stale damp air to exit. More on this later.)

Anyway, the HRV unit will be installed soon in the back corner of the basement and I want to have the insulation in place so I'm not trying to fit it behind the unit after the fact. Putting up the insulation requires hanging sheet plastic from the sill , taping the overlap seams of plastic (the red tape in the photo), then cutting the boards of insulation to fit over the pink board coming up from under the slab. I then drill a pilot hole through a piece of strapping and the insulation into the concrete and finally screw a concrete screw to hold it in place.