End of January 2013

We returned from Dallas on Friday afternoon.  I attended the Annual Winter ASHRAE (American Society of Heating Refrigeration Air-conditioning Engineers) meeting because I needed Continuing Education credits to keep my Professional Engineering and Certified Energy Manager licenses.  Not sure why I feel that need to keep my licenses up to date as I am mostly retired at this point… but this will be the last time I renew them.

Carol and I drove the Mustang to Dallas, two days there and two days for the return trip.  Stopped in Cheyenne and had lunch with Jan Schroll, an old friend of Carol's.  After lunch we met with a kitchen designer at Schroll’s Cabinets.  They do very nice work.  After that we headed for Denver and shopped at two Architectural Salvage yards, both fun places, and selected a lamp for the powder room and some door hardware... with some cleaning up it will be spectacular.

 

Both of the Architectural Salvage places had a selection of Arts and Crafts fireplace surrounds.  We had thought about a very chic modern concrete fireplace surround but after we saw these old surrounds we began to rethink the fireplace.  No decisions yet.

The Mustang is a good traveling car, rides and handles well.  We enjoyed our drive, putting in lots of hours a day behind the wheel.  The ASHRAE meeting is always good, lots of cutting edge energy conservation in HVAC and building design and research.   I attended about 6 hours of seminars each day for three days and the Laboratory Ventilation Committee Meeting on Tuesday afternoon.  Carol did some snooping around the area and found some cool places to spend the evenings.  One night we had brews at the World of Beer; I had a flight of 6 Texas microbrews and a Delerium Tremens for my second beer... I was in heaven.  One night we met Michael Smith, a former judo student at the Mockingbird Taproom... it was great catching up.  Had another new beer.  The weather was warm, mostly shirt weather for this old Norweign, rained a couple afternoons, but I was at meetings.  We stopped off in Norman, Oklahoma and spent the evening listening to Scott Strandburg play some orignal music at the Deli, a bar in Norman.  Both Carol and I enjoyed the music and the witty banter he provided between songs.

Four days of sitting in the car and another four days sitting in meetings is WAY too much sitting for me.  I was so sore yesterday that I could hardly move, it took about two hours of yoga, judo, karate, aikido, jodo, kendo movement to get my glutes loosened up to the point that I could move without pain.  Normally I stretch during the day when I am working.  I have incorporated much of the movement that I learned from 40 years of martial arts study into my daily movement, stretching as I go.  When muscles tighten up, at times I am forced to do some pure martial arts exercises, much of it handled by training with a martial arts weapon, a simple wooden staff called a "jo".

Today I shoveled snow for about two hours and then fired up the chainsaw and chunked some trees that Verl, a neighbor, and I cut down a few weeks ago.  Altogether we cut down 38 trees infected with the mountain pine beetle.  To kill the beetle it is necessary to cut up the tree into 24" lengths or less, as I plan to burn these in the fireplace I am cutting them to about 16".  I cut down three big trees on the rock directly to the south of the new master bedroom suite, one, to allow the sun to shine thru and two, to keep them from falling on the house once it is completed.  The cutting was getting pretty slow because the chain was getting dull so I postponed cutting down one last tree until I get the chain sharpened.  I got a nice sweat going and now feel in good health once again.  Health thru movement!!!

Prior to leaving for Dallas...
The sheetrock is completed.  Scott Snyder did a very nice job texturing the walls, it looks like old fashioned plaster... just what I wanted.

Carol and I completed priming all the new sheetrock, painted the sheetrock ceilings and painted the walls in the greatroom and sunroom a warm brown color.

My neighbor Mark came over on Tuesday and helped install the radiant heating system in the mudroom hallway. 


















The electrical service panel is nearly complete.

Luke was here too; working on the trim in the great room.

So that does it until next time.


So be sure to have a most excellent New Year.

Vern












 

2012 wrap up

Getting close to the end of 2012.  The weather has turned cold and we have about 6 inches of snow on the ground.  The scenery is gorgeous!   We have had a couple of cold nights with temps below zero but the next day it was close to 40 F.  We love the winters here!

The house is closed in, all the doors and windows installed except for the door to the crawlspace, which has a sheet of plywood over the opening... the crawl space is not full height so a shorter door has been ordered and should be here this next week.  The house is staying warm with one portable heater, 1500 Watts, equivalent to a hair drier, which on most days I turn off during the day.  In the morning the temperature will have dropped to about 60F and if the sun shines the temperature rebounds into the mid 70s by mid day.

It was a chilly Monday morning (17 December) when  Mark Lyndoe, owner of Mile High Masonry and Concrete, his crew and the cement mixer arrived on site to pour the slab for the master bedroom suite.  Steam was rising out of the top of the slowly rotating drum on the cement mixer.  The concrete has been mixed with hot water and 1% calcium to keep it from freezing.  The crew got busy and soon the concrete was sliding down the chute and into waiting wheelbarrows for a short trip to the other side of the slab.  I set up forms for footings for the main entrance and mud room entrance bridges and filled them up.  The forecast was for temperatures in the low 40s. We had been worried that we would miss a window of opportunity to pour the slab due to the arrival of cold weather... it was touch and go for a few weeks but we got a nice day to pour... a few days later and we would have been out of luck.  The sun was beginning to fade as they finished troweling the concrete smooth and covered it with insulating blankets.  Two days later the temperature had cooled off by another 10 degrees... so we lucked out.  We are thinking that we can start framing up the walls in early February.

Luke was here a couple times the month of December, he is working on another project so is limited to working here on Saturdays.  Luke and I built the bridges to the main entrance and mud room entrance.  We also completed framing in the main entrance, caulked the sheathing, put on house wrap and hung a temporary door for the tower entrance.

We have had a dickens of a time trying to find someone to hang and tape sheet rock.  We started looking way back in November, we left a lot of messages and got few response, one said at least 2 months... wow, that was not what we wanted to hear.  Finally we found a guy who said he would be available on the 3rd of December, then he called and said he would be here on the 10th, and then the 11th, 13th, 17th and then the 20th and then I told him I would find someone else to do the job.  Mark Lyndoe recommended Scott Snyder, an independent contractor who had just returned to the Custer area.  Scott started on the 26th, has been here for two full days, one by himself and another with a helper and they completed hanging the rock.  The house really changes when the sheet rock goes up.  He plans to complete the taping and texturing this week.

After Scott completes his work Carol and I are going to prime and paint the walls right away, get that chore done before we start working on the floors.

Carol and I started installing the radiant heating system.  I purchased some 3/4" boards with routed circular groves (see photo above).  These are installed on opposite walls and the space between is filled with strips of 3/4" plywood that we ripped on the table saw and glued and screwed into place.  Then aluminum heat transfer plates were stapled down to the plywood and the PEX pipe pressed into place.  The last step was to glue and screw down a thin layer of  plywood.  It is a pretty easy installation and we can do one room a day.  We completed one bedroom and the bathroom.  We dropped the project so as to not interfer with the sheetrocker and will get back to it after they are completed.

I have been working on the heating system in the crawl space.  It is slow work, as I have to think thru each sub assembly before I start to cut the pipe, but I am picking up speed as the work becomes more familiar and am hoping to complete the work by the end of this next week.

As Carol and I look back we are amazed at how many unexpected gifts life continues to bring, even for someone who has lived as many years we have.  We truly never know what to expect, but that keeps us young at heart and still filled with wonderment. May you all live long and prosper. Here's to a great 2013.

December is here

Welcome to December, we are nine months into the construction. 

Here are some pictures...

Luke, Mark Strege and I installed the windows one Saturday.  When the sun shines the house temperature rises into the 70s, the highest temperature we have noted is 76 degrees F.  Overnight the house is heated with a 1,500 Watt portable heater... equivelant to a hair dryer.

This is a picture from October of the master bedroom suite just as the footings were going to be poured.












After the two piles of dirt were removed, the ground was leveled and we are getting ready to put down highway cloth (think landscape cloth) and will be following that with 3" of 3/4" rock (same rock I used in the gravel garden in Fargo).







We got 7 to 8 inches of snow one weekend.  Carol applied for a burn permit and I burned two slash piles about 50' from the house.  I got them started early in the day and by the time the sun set they had burned down to almost nothing.







We were rushing to get as much done before the next snowfall.  We got three loads of class 5 road gravel on the 30th of November.  I spent half a day getting it leveled out. 










Our driveway had been a source of mud since we broke ground back in April - we were sooooo happy to get a layer of gravel over the mud before the winter set in.




Carol helps install the extruded polystyrene between the foundation walls in the master bedroom suite.



This is a view of the rock that will be visible through our master bedroom window.  The 3/4" landscaping rock will extend from the bedroom walls to the rock.










Carol and I installed the PEX radiant heat tubing over the course of two days.  It was only in the 30s both days so we would work for and hour or so and then have to retreat back into our apartment for a cup of coffee to warm up.

We took advantage of the 11% sale at Menards, I purchased most of the materials that we will need to complete the house, on Wednesday we got the rebate for a bit over $3,5000.

 

We hired a couple of guys to hang and tape sheetrock, they should be here middle of December. 

 

We hired a company to pour the concrete slab in the master bedroom suite.  It has been too cold to pour concrete the past few days but the forecast is for temperatures in the 40s by mid week, so the plan is to pour the slab on Wednesday.  The contractor will have to use hot water to mix the concrete, calcium adjuncts to improve cold weather performance and cover it with thick concrete blankets to keep it warm overnight.

 

 



Niwa at 1033

I started working on the garden at 1033 in 1983.  The early garden was two distinct sections on either side of the walkway from the house to the garage.  To the north of the walkway was a big rectangle of pea rock, perfectly flat, designed for setting up a judo mat.  The south side was a free form garden... it didn't look like a Japanese garden.

In 1993 I put an addition on the house, a 3 season porch that borrowed a lot of ideas from Japanese architecture, and a two story garage, technically a single story garage with an attic.  We practiced judo in the attic.

I started the garden in the pictures below in 1994.  Rather than go on about the pictures I will let them speak for themselves.

 

November is here

It has been a beautiful Fall in the Black Hills... perhaps a bit windy.  We have had a couple of days with snow but at this time of the year it doesn't hang around for long.

It is the 9th of November.  We are in week 31 of construction.

 

It is so beautiful here when it snows.  I am looking forward to getting the construction materials removed so I can do some work with the landscaping. 

Installation of insulation in the exterior walls and roof is done.

 

For two years this was our water system, twice a week I would stretch a garden hose and a 220 volt extension cord out to the well, rain or shine... a few times when the temperature was below zero.  With just 180 gallons of water we got very good at conservation.

Sam works on connecting the pump for the new water system.  The new system has storage for about 1,200 gallons of water... the tanks are rated at 625 gallons each.  I still have some controls and electrical work to do but we have almost endless water finally.

Luke and I completed the timber framing for the engawa on the west end of the garage.  It is going to remain open.  If the winter is mild, hopefully, I will get a chance to put on the roof and the railings so it will be ready for next spring and summer.






Luke installed the sheetrock on the ceilings and Carol and I are installing the sheetrock on the walls.  We completed the hallway yesterday (11/10/2012) and are planning to get one of the bedrooms done today.

And one morning Sam came up to the door of the garage, he stayed in the camper, for breakfast and said you guys have to see this....

Today, as I complete this blog, is Veterans Day.  I salute all my brothers and sisters in arms.  Thank you for your service to our country.  May the road rise up to meet your feet and may the wind always be at your back. 

 

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.