Making Progress

Now that the roof is done productivity inside the house is not dependent on the weather so we had 3 different crews all working at the same time this week: plumbers beginning to add valves to the pipes, framers working to isolate the attic for insulation, and the HVAC/geothermal crew doing all of the geothermal plumbing and HVAC venting.

The little closet off the garage is plumbing central:


Up in the attic is where most of the action is for the HVAC:




We got a dryer vent, vent for the stove hood (not pictured) and lots of vents coming out of the roof now for all of the plumbing:



The framers put up some foam walls in the attic to isolate the attic areas above the patios from those above the rest of the house. Next week we are getting insulating foam blown up in the attic against the rafters/roof instead of on the attic floor. This means the whole attic will be insulated and does not need to be vented! The framers also quickly framed in the small bathroom for the shop.




Lots of other activity from other people as well: we got our patio and screen porch doors installed, a couple more windows put in, and the city installed the power pole that will be used to draw power to the property.





The pile left over from our last burn day, still slightly smoldering but now much smaller!


Next week, even more activity as the weather should be pretty nice:
- power transformer installed by the city (yay no more generator fuel bills!)
- foam blown into attic
- well digging
- more plumbing

Hopefully we'll get some good pics of all the activity!

Nice Weather Weekend

Since not a lot had been going on at the house, and we had a beautiful weekend with record-breaking temperatures, I'll post a couple of pics or the nice weekend.

Saturday was a rare Winter day with no clouds and no wind. This means it's an ideal day to burn some of the trees and wood debris left over from clearing the land for building. Particularly at my neighbor's where a lot of trees were removed and put in big piles between our properties. Living with a firefighter provides an opportunity to quickly call in for a burn permit and safely light up some piles of wood!





With so much dirt surrounding the piles, no grass and no wind, it was just a matter of watching everything burn and drinking lots of water!

Sunday was the record-breaking temp day so we went to the zoo! Lots of animals were out playing in the sunshine, and all of the big cats, gorillas, and especially bears were all out playing. We got some pics of the grizzlies, giraffes, and a curious ostrich.





And of course the pic we always take of Vivi on the komodo dragon (and carousel when it's running).

Slow progress

Well thanks to Old Man Winter we made very little progress over the last couple of weeks.
On the plus side, the roofers were able to pretty much finish the roofing during the weekend when it was warmer so the house is at least mostly protected on the roof.
But of course today it snowed a couple of inches so now we're back to waiting for the weather to change. Unfortunately many of the next steps in the process need to be done outside!

Here are some pics from today anyway with the snow:

icicles and all!



Lucie goes on my walks to the house with me but in the snow she really wants to go home after a few minutes!


My first project in the shop: a mid-1950's Ford 640 tractor, given to me by my generous neighbor. Needs work (that's classified ad-speak for rusty and doesn't run).




Saturday when the weather was nice, we burned some of the trees that had been cleared during the pad-building process. Along with the trees we started burning some of the scrap lumber left over from the framing, all small pieces of wood a foot or less and some boards with lots of nails in them that could not be reused. The rest of the wood will be reused as cement molds or is nice enough to keep or return for credit. Anyway, that was 5 days ago and today there is still a small section of tree trunk with dirt around it that is smoldering!


Hopefully the weather will hold for a week in a row so we can really get rolling again. Next steps, not necessarily in correct order: preliminary frame inspection, blow insulating foam on the rafters, get power transformer, dig water well, dig geothermal wells, run HVAC pipes, start plumbing...

Short Update; More Roofing Supplies

Well not much went on this week because of the super-cold weather. I suppose it's hard to get on a roof when it might be icy! It's been getting into the mid-teens at night, well below freezing and turning dew into frost.
They did drop off more roofing materials Wednesday and installed the windows and set the side door up in the shop.
To get the shingles and tar paper up to the top of the roof they use a truck with a hydraulically lifted conveyer belt and just set the material on the conveyer and it is taken to the top where the guy up top takes the things off and sets them on the roof boards. It only took two guys to do this. But one of them has to be crazy enough to get up on the top.


The bracing used for the framing of the shop was all taken down now that the framing is done so you can really see the size of the ceilings..they are nice and high.
At least it has windows now!




That's probably gonna be all for this week. We were supposed to get our power transformer from the city but they never showed up. And Friday is supposed to be snowing/sleeting and freezing so that's probably a no-go. Maybe they'll work on Saturday when it's supposed to be in the mid 50s.

Shingles and Windows

As planned the shingles and windows showed up early this week and are in the process of being installed.
First a cool shot from Sunday of the shop framing (did I mention 15' ceiling in the center? ;-))


Some shots of the shingles and windows (and side doors to the mechanical closet):




We got our fireplace already! Here are some shots of the fireplace and routing of the pipe through the roof:




Windows waiting in the garage for installation:


The shop in it's current state with eaves and trim, ready to be covered with roofing board.



Closeup of shingles - the color is "antique slate" which is fancy for grey with a greenish tint.


Here's a low-angle shot of the front of the study/office. You can see how the window sticks out from the wall and the trim around the roof is all set off from the wallboard in preparation for adding brick to the wall so it will all be flush when the brick is done.

I will take a shot after the brick is added and it will hopefully all line up!

It's supposed to snow or at least freezing rain tomorrow so I don't know how much will be done. Also the high temps for the next few days are in the 30s! More pics to follow when there's progress...

More Pics Update

Another post with lotsa pics!
Framing on the outside is basically done on the house, and roof board laid down ready for shingles.
The shop is getting a "Texas Hip" treatment to the ends where a little bit of roof is brought down on the ends to give it some character. It's brilliant-looking, and the inside of the shop framing is 15ft high in the middle!



Lots of exterior trim details were done like the roof under the back patio, little arches in the hallways, the cathedral ceiling in the study/office, and the many rafters in each room.






Our attic space has been cleaned up and some wood laid down for the next team to come in a do the AC/heating vents (aka HVAC). The bonus room is all framed up and the framing for the clerestory was actually re-done at an angle to bring even more light into the laundry room.






More exterior shots (when these pics were taken not all of the roof panels were on but they are now!):





Finally two more shots of the shop - these were taken about 20 minutes after the first shots in this post. If you look closely you can see the guys have added several framing beams in just a few minutes!



That's all for the week of 1/7 - 1/11/08!
This week we're supposed to get shingles on the roof and the windows come in. But we're also supposed to get snow Wednesday so we'll see how far things get.