Week 21 - End of August

Week 21 (end of August)

It has been a summer of record heat here in the mountains, with temperatures in the mid to high 90s, day after day.  Open crawl spaces, floor and roof decks act as reflectors of the sun light increasing the heat by 10 to 20 degrees.  I was drinking a gallon and a half of water a day. It wasn't until after the family reunion that I realized that working in that heat for 5 weeks had sapped my energy, I was suffering a form of heat exhaustion.  Carol confirmed that I was not much more than a walking zombie for weeks.  Now that I have recovered, I find that I am very sensitive to the sun and hot days... thankfully the summer is slowly coming to a close and cooler days are on the horizon.

I have been working alone since the family reunion, Mark, my carpenter threw out his back working on another project and then last week developed a blood clot, likely from a mountian bike spill.  He thinks he will be back the day after labor day.  I am anxious to get him back on the job and he is anxious too, but I am concerned that he has adequate time to heal... this will be his call.

I completed sheathing the north and west walls.  All the joints in the plywood were caulked creating an air tight barrier.  Then the walls were covered with house wrap, not as a air and water barrier but as a "drainage plane", a device to help shed water in case any should get inside.  Then I lapped the Ice and Storm Shield layer from the roof down over the housewrap. 

Neighbor Brad came over with his back hoe and dug holes for footings along the west wall of the house for a wood deck.  I set 12" Sonotubes in the holes and mixed up 42 bags of Sacrete (concrete mix) by hand, it took the better part of a day and was a nice workout... these nice, regularly spaced workouts have helped me lose a little over 20 pounds since New Years.  Carol helped me build the deck.  The deck is more of a walk way that traverses the west side of the house and serves to get us to the mud room door. 

I started assemblying the exterior roof.  The exterior roof has Craftsman style exposed rafters and also contains another 4 inches of roof insulation.  I really need Mark's help to proceed with this project, it will take the two of us to line up all the rafters.

I completed the installation of the 200 Amp power panel outside the kitchen, completed the installation of the 2" PVC conduit from the disconnect in the garage to the new panel and installed the mechanical room 125 Amp subpanel and got it connected to the main panel.  Completed the installation of two rows of lights in the crawl space.  I am subcontracting the installation of the wire between the disconnect in the garage and the house; pulling 140 feet of wire is a lot of work and requires younger bodies!

John Graves, with Quality Plumbing, dropped by on Thursday, he will be here next week to install the sewer and water. We walked thru the house and talked about where the plumbing was to be installed and how we going to solve problems.  I have a couple of walls to frame up, one in each bathroom, before he gets here and I will get those done today.

We have had a lot of big dragon flies over the past month.

Start of week 16

I am finally getting back to the blog after months of inactivity.  I have several saved entries that didn't get published, so I will start with these. 

Start of week 16 (last week of July)

Since I last wrote we completed the installation of the 12" I-joist roof rafters, got the roof sheathed and waterproofed.  I subcontracted with Malon Insulation to fill the cavaties with 12" of blown in fiberglass - it was over 100F the day they completed the work - the guy in the truck, dumping bags of insulation into the blower was wringing out his shirt.

Howe Excavating installed the sewer line from the house to the septic tank, installed conduit from the house to the garage (for power, cold water, solar heated water, telephone and cable), installed weepers (a Canadian term used by Mike Holmes on his show to indicate footing drains) to daylight and installed a water line from the well to the house.  The water line required some explosives to break up the rock.

Just as Howe completed their work we were getting ready for a family reunion.  Monday night I used the tractor and box blade to smooth out the area around the house, which earlier in the day had been an open excavation.

Kristen and Gabe arrived on Monday night with our granddaughter from Fargo, Gabe had accepted a job in Boise and were on their way, U-Haul in tow to their new home.

We took off a week for a family reunion, the last week of July.