21 October 2014
Got an email and picture from Kevin saying / showing
that the sauna building roof was complete.
18 October 2014
Weather forecast was for rain showers starting
Saturday afternoon. Woke up at
6:30 to a pitter patter on the rooftop.
Quickly put the slide-out in, leaves and all… which is another way of
saying that Delores was a good girl and started right up. After breakfast, took her up to Kampersville
for her final constitutional of the season.
Back t’ Fern Lake by 9:30 and continued the winterization checklist,
ignoring the intermittent rain showers.
Was finishing up when Perry arrived just before 11 to help put on the
big blue tarp. Unfortunately, so did a
downpour. After watching it rain hard
for 15 minutes with no signs of the rain relenting, we uttered an earthy term
that, roughly translated, means “we give up”.
So left Delores sans tarp and headed south. Got back to Springfield 9
hours later. Chree appreciated the
birthday cake; I appreciated the Black Label she had ready.
17 October 2014
Jeff Many came by at 8:30 and quickly diagnosed the
problem with the southern garage door not locking as being due to operator
error. Well, just color my face
red! Kevin arrived at 9:30 (having been
otherwise engaged this morning fixing somebody else’s leaking roof) and found
the source of our leak was an unfilled nail hole… which he had made while
putting on the valley flashing. You can
color his face red, too. While I spent
the day cleaning and packing, Kevin finished the house roof. Sean came by, just as I was starting to make
Chree’s birthday cake, to check on progress… and take away the second
installment of his contract management fee.
Sean also designed a simple gutter to be installed over the woodshed
people door to divert water away from the ramp.
16 October 2014
As forecast, rained hard all morning and showered
most of the afternoon. One substantial
leak under the roof valley… one of the areas over which the metal roof has not
been finished. Still shouldn’t leak, though, with the Zip System and waterproof
paper and ice & water shield already covering that area. Grrr….
Spent the day cleaning and packing.
My motto: “A clean woodshed is a happy woodshed!” Another fabulous gourmet dinner over at Lynne
& Perry’s.
15 October 2014
Kevin and Brian continued roofing the house, getting
all but two small sections on the east and west sides of the Sun Room
done. I spent the day in Burlington
spending money at Lowes, retrieving the repaired air compressor, taking Alverta
out for lunch, and ordering a replacement washer and dryer for our condo. Got back to Fern Lake at 5 to find that the
temperature inside Delores was well over 80°, the lake water temperature is down to 61°, and the lake level is 18″ below the top of the
dock.
14 October 2014
Kevin and Brian pulled in just after 7 and went to
work on the west side of the house roof, getting most of it done before beer
o’clock. Earned my pay today: noticed,
after they’d put on only one pan that had to be taken back off (ruining
it), that they’d put the rain diverter over the Shop door in the wrong place, something
they wouldn’t have caught until much too expensively late. Jeff Many arrived mid-morning and finished
installing the garage doors. Kevin and I installed the metal chimney on the
sauna building, which I then cleaned and secured for the winter (the building,
not the chimney). I also put the Kubota to bed for the winter and then started
putting together the pile of tools that will be making the trip back to
Virginia. Perry came by late afternoon and helped me move Hopea Kanootti and
the kayak from the waterfront up to the sauna building for winter storage.
13 October 2014
Mouse #15 was captured and moved, before dawn, to
the tree stump in the Silver Lake parking lot.
Kevin, Brian, and Jimmy all arrived about 7:30. Kevin & Brian put up half the pans on the
south side roof, installed the third (west facing) skylight in the Sun Room, erected
staging along the west wall, and put on the west roof drip edge. Jimmy quickly
finished the big retaining wall. How
big, you ask? 12½ feet tall at the
highest point and 115 feet long at the upper perimeter. In rough-grading the croquet court filled
area, he came up with a good-sized pile of smaller rocks which he moved to
where Chree’s garden will be, as we’ll need a smaller retaining wall there,
too. Wink brought in a truckload of crushed dirt which he spread over that part
of the driveway which was re-graded earlier this summer… and has been rougher
‘n a cob ever since. James came with the
skid steer just before noon (and just as Jimmy was finishing up) and smoothed
out the new fill. Just because I could,
found out you now can go 20 mph down the driveway without losing all the
fillings in your teeth. Merry came up to
see the doings and invite me down for chicken soup, made with a whole chicken
and every vegetable she could get her hands on.
Fabulous, as always!
12 October 2014
Cutting / splitting / stacking firewood most of the
day. Finished filling the north side of
the wood shed… and then some, as I misjudged how much wood was on the last
fork-load I brought up from the storage pile, which is quite a bit smaller than
it was last spring (see before and after pictures below). Gave the log splitter a bath and put it away
for the winter. Also gave the Kubota a
bath… she being such a nice girl and all.
11 October 2014
Spent the morning putting in the rest of the 1½″ PVC conduit in which the sauna building ½″ PEX water line will be run. Finding decent soil with which to cover the
conduit was a time-consuming challenge, even using the Kubota to cheat like
crazy. Spent the afternoon cutting /
splitting / stacking firewood. Got to within
a dozen pieces of finishing the 5th row (out of 7) in the north side
of the woodshed.
10 October 2014
Jimmy arrived at 8:30 and set me to work scavenging
wall building rocks from around the property, while he continued stacking them
one upon the other. Found a dozen in the
300 to 1,000 pound range, dug them out with the backhoe, and hauled all but the
two largest to the work site with the Kubota.
At lunchtime Jimmy went over to his gravel pit and brought back 3 more rocks
in the multi-ton range. That should give
us enough to finish the wall, which stands just over 11 feet high at its apex. From the house to the wall measures 50 feet…
we are going to have one heck of a croquet court! Sean stopped by again this morning to admire
our creation. Kevin and Brian showed up
at 3:30 to take away their metal forming trailer, promising to return first
thing Monday morning. At the end of the
day, Jimmy dug the trench from the house down to where the sauna building waterline
conduit now ends. I need to put 1½ ″ pipe in that trench; he dug it 3 feet
wide! Think it’ll fit?
9 October 2014
Kevin and Brian were off doing flat roof jobs
today. Jimmy got here at 8 to continue
playing with rocks. We made the MOST awesome cave… EVER!!!! The piece de resistance was a 4¾ ton 9′ x 6′ x 1′ flat rock that Jimmy
had lying around in his gravel pit and brought over to be the cave roof. The inside dimensions of the cave are roughly
4′ high x 2′ wide x 6′ deep. Now the bad news, as hard as this will be to
believe: we are rapidly running out of suitable rocks (i.e., 500 pounds or
larger) for the retaining wall. Who’d a
thunk? Marty (Merry being away babysitting grandchildren) came up for a
real-man’s meal: Scotch, steak, and potatoes, topped off with double chocolate walnut
brownies and ice cream. What’s not to
like?
8 October 2014
Kevin and Brian got here just after 7. They installed the east- and south-facing
skylights and the rain diverter over the garage people door. Then they put all the pans on the east side
of the house roof by their mid-afternoon quitting time. Most of the day I spent cutting / splitting /
stacking firewood, getting to just about the halfway point of filling the north
end. Jimmy arrived at 1:30 and worked
until 6 on the west-side retaining wall.
What he’s done so far looks FABULOUS!
Unfortunately, every time he grabbed the huge rock I wanted to use for
the cave, the rock moved him instead of vice versa. (By rough measurement, that rock weighs about
11½ tons.) However, a “small” rock (on
the surface) that I thought Jimmy might use in the wall turned out to be a 4½ ton
monster that he was able to slide uphill into place to form one side of the
cave. Building stone walls is SO MUCH
FUN!!!! Sean came by for a beer
for an hour to check on progress, talk about a few minor outstanding issues,
and cogitate about continuing the house build next summer / fall / winter.
7 October 2014
Rain showers all morning… a good time to review the
RV winterization procedures and update the inventory of “stuff” that will
either stay in Vermont or go back to Virginia sometime in the near future. Spent the afternoon cutting / splitting /
stacking firewood. Jimmy Ploof dropped
off his big excavator just before 5.
6 October 2014
One match set the accumulated detritus from this
year’s activities well ablaze. Except
for 5 stumps left over from the last burn, all was consumed by noon. While I was doing my part for global warming,
Kevin and Brian started putting pans (the technical term for the part of a
standing seam roof that lies flat against the sheathing) on the north side,
getting that side done by beer-thirty.
While that was ongoing, I split a bunch of kindling wood for this winter
/ next spring, then cut up and moved into the woodshed some of the slab wood
pile left from Toby Rheaume’s beam-sawing endeavors back in August 2010. That red oak and maple has been under a tarp
the whole time and still is in very burnable condition. Went over to Kate’s for
wine and hors d’oeuvres, joined there by Tammy and Fran. A fun time… and somehow we made two bottles
of vino fino disappear.
5 October 2014
Finished caulking the house basement control joints
and securing the basement for winter.
Installed the door handle and deadbolt lock on the sauna building. Put the horizontal wedges on the hydraulic
log splitter ram. With those on, one
pass will split a 9″ diameter log into 4
perfectly sized pieces. Spent two hours cutting, splitting, and stacking
firewood, finishing off the first (of 14) rows. Each row will hold slightly less than ½ cord
of wood.
4 October 2014
After just a little bit of chainsaw / splitting work
yesterday, my left elbow is pretty much dead.
Not good! Rained most of the day,
as forecast. Spent much of the morning
figuring out what was wrong with the balance in the checkbook used for house
construction and logging expenses; been screwed up since sometime in July. Given the number and size of the checks being
written out of that account, knowing the current balance is just kinda
important. After lunch, put the radial
arm saw to bed for the winter, did a Type-A cleaning job in the house basement,
and caulked some more of the control joints.
3 October 2014
One of those days where I got virtually nothing done
except at the very end. Kevin and Brian
arrived about 8:30 and finished putting the hip caps on the house roof, then
put the drip edge and two of the hip caps on the sauna building. Found out that Labatt Blue really isn’t too
bad… for lunch, which is when the dynamic duo left to attend to another job. I
spent several hours in the morning using my new Porter Cable angle grinder
(Merry Christmas, Chree!) sharpening the Northstar hydraulic log splitter
blades. The Orkin guy came for his
bimonthly spraying visit, finding no problems. Took the two Anderson CW34
windows to Goodro’s to be put up for consignment sale. Finally got myself a 2″ trailer ball so I can tow the log splitter
around with the Tacoma. Did so, setting
up a log processing station in the house car turnaround area (in front of the
woodshed). In somewhat over an hour,
cut, split, and stacked about 1/5 of a cord of firewood. New
chainsaw and log splitter ran like champs!
Found out that Labatt Blue really isn’t too bad for dinner, either.
2 October 2014
Another glorious shirt-sleeve fall day. Acorns are dropping like rain and the leaves
are starting to show some good color. Kevin
and Brian arrived at 8, having already spent an hour bending metal into drip
edges and hip caps. After maneuvering
their portable shop (big trailer) into position, Brian started putting on the
house roof’s drip edges while Kevin went off to another job site for a few
hours. They worked until mid-afternoon,
getting on all but the west side drip edges and most of the hip caps. Meanwhile, down at the sauna building, I put
on shingles until I didn’t have (in a stained condition) the next two of the size
I needed. Then I brought tools and
materials up the hill from that work area, starting the process of securing the
property for winter. Rough calculations:
I’ll need to stain and put up another 450 shingles (roughly ¾ square, which
will use about 1½ gallons of stain and 950 staples) to complete the sauna
building siding… which should take me around a week to do next spring.
1 October 2014
I challenge anyone to be able to put down The Disposable Man by Archer Mayor, once
begun. Started that book after dinner
last night and, even knowing I had to get up early this morning, didn’t finish
it until midnight. Ack! Set the alarm for 6:30, hoping to at least be
vertical when Kevin Betourney (the roofer) got here at the expected 7
o’clock. He pulled in at 9… In 3 hours, working by himself, he erected
staging around 3 sides of the house. No
staging on the west side because it would interfere with Jimmy Ploof’s anticipated
grading and stone wall building activities next week. I stained another 99
shingles in the morning. That’s the last
batch to be done until next spring; say “Halleluiah!!!!” After lunch, took $8.10 worth of returnable
bottles and cans into Brandon for redemption, then immediately spent that cash
on the two most important food groups: beer and ice cream. When I got back to
Fern Lake, put a bunch more shingles on the west wall of the sauna building. Perry stopped by late afternoon to check on
progress and talk about a shingling job he will be doing next week, for which
he’d like to have his air compressor back.
Good timing, as I’ll be done using it tomorrow.
30 September 2014
Stained another 99 shingles in the morning. Put up shingles on the west wall, getting 11
courses done before I ran out of stained material. Found a half-eaten acorn under Dolores’
kitchen sink… not a good sign! Also
(after only 5 years of living with Dolores) finally found out what the
second electrical switch in the bathroom does: it turns off the water pump!
29 September 2014
Over the weekend, discovered that when we changed
the size of the windows in the two Guest Bedrooms, I never updated my
fenestration spreadsheet to reflect that change. Consequently, when I used a printout from
that spreadsheet to order the house windows, the delivery last week included
two CW34 (6′ x 4′ emergency escape
triple casement) windows vice the two CW24 (4′ x 4′ emergency escape double casement) windows that we
want. Tim Combs (Goodro’s part-owner and
their primary window and door person) will send a letter to Anderson requesting
a return for credit and replacement.
This just proves that the old sobriquet, “The client is always right!”
should really say, “The client needs adult supervision!” Stained another 99 shingles in the
morning. Installed the bottom 9 courses
of shingles on the south wall of the sauna building… which is over half of that
wall done because of the window. Evicted
a chipmunk from the basement. Down the
hill to Marty & Merry’s for Cornish game hens for dinner. Delightful company and delicious food, as
always!
28 September 2014
Another glorious Indian Summer day; temps in the
upper 70’s and rarely a cloud in the sky.
No bugs ‘cause we’ve already had a hard frost. Stained another 99 beers in the wall
shingles in the morning. After lunch,
stapled 6 courses of shingles onto the north wall of the sauna building, then
made preparations for starting the south wall.
Lake water temperature is still 68°, so went for a very refreshing swim. Water level is 18″ below the top of the
dock.
27 September 2014
Stained another 99 shingles in the morning. (The 100th clothes pin is no
longer with us. Very sad!) Today being perfect Indian Summer weather,
after lunch gave Dolores’ carpets their annual shampoo. Then went looking for an internet connection,
with no joy everywhere I tried. Finished installing the house rafter tie-downs. Installed the brackets and 2x4’s that will hold the rows of firewood in place
inside the northern half of the woodshed.
Thought seriously about going for a swim, but then chickened out
decided it was time for dinner instead.
26 September 2014
Steve and I climbed Mt. Osceola (elevation 4,156 feet) in the
morning. We were the first ones on top
this day after an invigorating 3.2 mile trek.
On the way back down, we passed at least 50 more people making the
ascent. Absolutely gorgeous weather with
(I’m told) views of 40 out of the 48 peaks in New Hampshire that are higher
than 4,000 feet. Headed back to Fern
Lake early afternoon. Just after leaving
Steve & Carole’s, a bull moose crossed a short distance in front of the
truck on the Stinson Lake road. Saw a
great motivational sign in Woodstock, VT.
“Always give 100%... unless you’re at a blood drive”. (Oddly enough, there was a blood drive ongoing.) Got back to Fern Lake at 4:15.
25 September 2014
The Goose Creek crew (Fred, Luther, Ty, and Ian)
started arriving before 7. Good thing,
too, as the Goodro’s truck showed up promptly at 7. By the time Sean got here to supervise at
7:30, all of the house windows (plus some miscellaneous goodies) had been
unloaded and placed near where they will be installed next year. After the Goose Creek folks departed for
greener pastures, stained another 100 shingles.
Hit the road at 10:20, stopping in Burlington to spend a few more
dollars at Lowe’s and pick up another four gallons of Cabot Weatherizing
Stain. Then drove to Plymouth, NH to
procure a new Jonsered CS2253. Saw some
spectacular fall foliage at the higher elevations along I-89. Stayed overnight with Steve and Carole Osmer,
catching up on news from over the past year and enjoying a fabulous repast.
24 September 2014
Stained another 100 shingles in the morning. Finished putting shingles on the east wall of
the sauna building and started doing the same to the north wall. While waiting for stain to dry, almost
finished installing the house rafter tie-downs; only two more to do. Nonstop phone calls early afternoon
coordinating the next couple of days’ activities.
23 September 2014
Stained another 100
shingles in the morning, then stapled a bunch more to the east wall of the
sauna building in the afternoon. Do you
begin to see a pattern here? The Fyles
Brothers truck came by to give Dolores a 13.4 gallon drink of propane.
22 September 2014
Stained another 100
shingles in the morning, then stapled a bunch more to the east wall of the
sauna building in the afternoon. Marty
and Merry came up for what Merry described as my best lasagna yet. Guess it weren’t too terrible bad!
21 September 2014
Stained another batch
of shingles. Calculated that, at the rate the Weatherizing Stain is
disappearing, the sauna building is going to consume over 6 gallons of stain,
twice as much as went on the woodshed.
Hope this means that the sauna will be twice as protected… Went into Brandon to use the internet and buy
victuals. Spent most of the afternoon
cooking, making preparations for tomorrow night’s grand repast. My brother, Steve, stopped by late afternoon
for a tour, short visit, and beer. He
was out touring on his new motorcycle and just decided to pop in.
20 September 2014
Completely filled the
back of the Tacoma with the recyclables I've been collecting since July and delivered same to the Leicester “dump”,
which consists of two garbage trucks (one for recyclables, one for trash) that
park down at the town garage in the mornings on the 1st and 3rd
Saturdays of each month. Spent the day
doing laundry and helping Perry haul firewood from his woodlot to his storage /
spitting area. He served another
fabulous lunch, worthy of a 5-star restaurant.
In the evening took Lynne, Perry, Sean, and Ashley out for dinner at the
Shoreham Inn. Excellent food and lively
conversation, though Sean sure can tell
a great ghost story, so maybe that should be deadly conversation!
19 September 2014
Finished staining the
first square of shingles for the sauna building… only three more squares to
go. Groan! Put six courses of shingles on the east side
of the sauna building, which used up pretty much all of the shingles stained to
date. They sure go on a lot faster than
it takes to dip ‘em and dry ‘em. Ordered
the brackets that will be used to hold in place the 2x4’s that will brace the
interior ends of the rows of firewood in the woodshed. And here you were
thinking that the woodshed was completed ages ago. Not quite! Finished The Long Way Home, the latest Chief Inspector Armand Gamache novel
by Louise Penny.
18 September 2014
Jeff Many came back to
(in theory) quickly finish the garage door install. I dipped another batch of shingles while he
was doing his thing. After awhile, he
came down the hill to tell me that his distributor had sent him the door opener
hardware for 7 foot high doors, not the 8 foot doors we’re putting in. Jeff was most perturbed about the screw up
and promised to return as soon as the right hardware arrives. I packed up and headed to Burlington to do
errands and drop off the sick air compressor at Burlington Tool Repair (which
is actually in Essex Junction). Took
Alverta out to lunch and shopping for a new telephone to replace one of hers that
recently died mysteriously. Borrowed
Perry’s air compressor on the way back to Fern Lake.
17 September 2014
Jeff Many arrived at 9
to start installing the two Wayne Dalton 8300 series 8 x 9 garage doors. After getting him settled to his work, I did
a timed trial to see how long it really takes to dip cedar shingles. Bottom line: 2 hours to do ¼ square (1 square
= 100 square feet of coverage with a nominal 5″ exposure on each course). The sauna building will take 4 squares. The
house will require close on to 22 squares.
Looks like we’ll be buying pre-finished shingles for the house… Sean stopped by to bring me the 1¼″ stainless
steel staples I special ordered from Goodro’s yesterday (that’s what is used to
fasten the cedar shingles to the wall sheathing) and to do his building
inspector imitation. After lunch, had just
finished the first course of shingles on the east side of the sauna building
when my air compressor stopped working. Perfect
timing, he says with heavy sarcasm.
Bought the misbegotten son of a xxxxx in March 2013… with a one
year warranty. The Stanley Bostitch rep
I called said the nearest repair facility was just outside Albany, NY (2½ hour
drive away). Bother! But, looked online and found that there is an
authorized Bostitch repair place in Essex Junction. Called them, only to find they have a four
week backlog at the moment. Double
bother!! Decided this would be a good
day to finish the open bottle of gin.
16 September 2014
Took $300 worth of
lumber and other leftover items back to Goodro’s. Got a call later from Ann, one of their
accounting people, to tell me that I was her most favorite customer ever… for
giving her a detailed list of all the items returned, including the invoice
numbers. Sometimes it pays to be a Type
A. Set up my cedar shingle dipping and
drying operation after lunch, with the weather clearing as forecast. Rained when I was halfway through treating
the first 100 shingles… of course! For
some reason that batch isn’t drying any too fast… Made the sauna building
storyboard, which is a piece of stock that is marked with exactly where the
bottom of each course of shingles will be relative to the soffit; that distance
changes from 415/16″ above the window sills to 4¾″ below
that point. Used the storyboard to mark
each corner of the building, which will ensure that all the shingle courses
align going around the building. Took
the plunge, literally, and went into the lake to raise the dock steps into
their winter storage position. Them
suckers were H∙E∙A∙V∙Y after being immersed since mid-April! The water was, to
say the least, bracing refreshing chilly nice, once you
got numb. Over to Lapidus’ for a
delicious “hodgepodge” that Merry created starring some succulent shrimp,
avocado, and all the vegetables she could find in her refrigerator.
15 September 2014
Finally trundled out
of the RV at 9… sure is nice being able to sleep as late as I want vice having
to be ready for work at 7. Cut and
installed the 5/4 x 1¾″ KOMA pieces that bridge between
the window / door / corner trim at the top of the sauna building walls. Then gave the soffits, fascias, feature
strips, window and door trim, and corner trim their final coat of paint
(Valspar Medallion White 4300). Put on
the 6″ insect screen at the top of the walls (keeps critters from getting down
into the Home Slicker behind the cedar shingles) and was just starting the
bottom pieces when… I found out that I hadn’t bought as much screen material as
I thought I had on Saturday. In project
transition mode, went back up towards the woodshed and found a UPS package in
the garage… the light fixture for the sauna.
So installed that light, discovering in the process that yesterday I had
put in the switch upside down. Problem
easily fixed. Lake temperature is 68°
and the water level is 16″ below the top of the dock. On Saturday I put five very dead
wooden pallets out by the road with a spray-painted FREE sign on them. This evening they were gone. My neighbor across the street, Dave Todd,
said he put a whole bunch of poplar wood out awhile ago, and it sat there for
months, until he changed the sign from FREE to $20. The wood then disappeared overnight…
14 September 2014
A raw, nasty morning,
spent finding an internet connection that would work at more than a snail’s
pace, then catching up on blog postings and email. No joy at Kate’s (two connections), the
Salisbury Free Library, or the Brandon Free Library. Finally found an unsecured
router in Brandon… undoubtedly owned by some hacker who is now pillaging my
back account. The weather broke for the
better after lunch, so finished the electrical work in the sauna building,
minus installing the special high temperature / wet environment light fixture
for inside the sauna itself (en route from Seattle via UPS). Then spent an enjoyable hour (yes, yes, I
know I need to get a life) placing the sauna stove rocks into the bin on top of
the stove. Thought the stove seller had
sent me twice as many rocks as would be needed, but only ended up with a dozen
left over. As the sun was sinking in the
west, jury-rigged a looped “clothesline” for drying cedar shingles, using my
100 foot logging cable, the snatch block, one of the blocks from the 5-fold
purchase, and the come-along (to tension the cable). Pretty slick (if I do say so myself),
assuming it works as advertised…
13 September 2014
Spent the morning and
part of the afternoon moving everything out of the north end of the woodshed in
hopes that Santa Alex soon will be here… to chop, split, and stack some
firewood. Put the four squares of cedar
shingles in the basement, close to where I’m going to set up a dipping and
drying station. Once the woodshed was
neat and clean, transitioned to electrician mode and started wiring in the two
lights and second receptacle in the sauna building, discovering that I am 10
feet shy of the 12-2 AWG wire needed for that project. Rained all afternoon but, miracle of
miracles, the house is completely dry on the inside! Left a voicemail for Sean, undoubtedly making
his weekend one of joy and thanksgiving…
12 September 2014
Fall fell overnight…
was sweatshirt weather today. Knowing
that Perry was going to be late arriving this morning, didn’t roll out of bed
until 7:45… guess I must have been tired.
Brian showed up at 8 (a true Vermonter, he was dressed in t-shirt and
shorts) to put Grace Ice & Water Shield® and Roofguard II® underlayment
on the house and sauna building roofs. By the time I finished getting ready to
face the day, picked up some of the waste from Brian’s endeavors (stuffing the
backing paper from the ice & water shield back into the box the roll comes
in), and put the handles on the sauna’s pocket door, Perry pulled in. We installed
the pocket door, then put the sauna stove exactly where I wanted it and shimmed
the gravestones so that the stove sits on them solidly and reasonably level. That done, we cut an elliptical hole in the
roof directly above the stove’s flue pipe attachment point. Then we installed
the 10″ x 10″ square metal sleeve that protects the ceiling joists and attic
insulation from the chimney’s heat and supports the weight of the insulated metal
chimney. Finally, we put together the
insulated metal chimney pipe and then fabricated metal brackets to brace that
pipe where it goes through the roof sheathing.
That done, Perry packed up all the rest of his tools and departed for
greener pastures. Once Brian finished
the sauna and we had picked up the rest of the roofing activity detritus, we
kicked back for a well-deserved malt beverage, whereupon I noticed my cell
phone was (once again) missing in action.
As soon as Brian left, went searching for the phone. While making
increasingly frantic sweeps between the woodshed and the sauna building, Tammy
arrived over at Kate’s to check on work Nate has been doing there this
week. Went over to say hello and ask her
to call my cell phone. She did, three
times, with nothing heard anywhere I was working this afternoon. Meanwhile, over at the Kevin’s Roofing shop
(only a couple of miles away, just on the other side of Fern Lake), Brian was
just throwing the last ice & water shield box into the dumpster when the
box started ringing! Brian very kindly
brought the box back over here where, sure enough, we found the phone, still in
its carrying case, mixed in with the backing paper stuffed into the box. Whew!
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