7 February 2016

Well, I had every intention of cleaning the lower level of the new house today.  Best laid plans, etc.  After getting the blog posted and catching up on the house construction finances, installed 1½″ Blueboard^® around the sauna pocket door to slow down some serious air intrusion we’ve been experiencing.  With the outside temps around freezing haven’t been able to get the sauna much above 180° lately (somewhere between 185° and 200° is about optimal).  Then it was off to Burlington to find that, once again, Lowe’s didn’t have any Square D QO 20 amp plug-on-neutral circuit breakers in stock.  If that sounds like Greek to you, imagine my surprise when the person staffing the electrical department said the same thing.    Stopped at The Lighting House in Shelburne on my way back south and, once again, they had everything I was looking for… and at very competitive prices.  That’s not to say that I didn’t leave half a grand on the table when I walked out, but at least now I have the closet and accent lighting fixtures that have been holding up the ceiling drywall installation.  Perry and Steve came for our weekly sauna.  Lit the fire at 4:30.  At 5, with the door to the dressing room open the whole time, the sauna was up to 130°.  At 5:30 it was at 190°.  When we entered the compartment shortly after 6 the dial read 217°… and eventually topped out at 223°.  Obviously, the air intrusion problem has been solved!  Now 223° is pretty toasty.  So toasty, in fact, that the Blueboard^® on the sauna side of the pocket door partially melted, thereby causing the door to almost stop working.  Ooops!  Me thinks we may be going back to the drawing board…

6 February 2016

Usual Saturday routine: laundry and house cleaning.  Got the main level of the new house ready for inspection.  To celebrate, enjoyed a pre-prandial solo sauna late afternoon.

5 February 2016

Sonny and Doug put up as much of the kitchen ceiling sheetrock as they could, the limitation being that they had to leave access for Black Diamond to spray foam the roof structure above part of the kitchen.  They then put up the wall sheetrock on the master bedroom side, filled the void with R-19 fiberglass insulation (won’t attenuate the WiFi signal but will dampen noise) and then put up the wall sheetrock on the living / dining room side.  A little paint and some throw pillows, et voilá, we have a wall!  Steve was here for half the day and started to leak test (using 80 psi compressed air) the cold water PEX tubing.  Judging by the new words I learned, the test was not successful.  Goodro’s made two deliveries of sheetrock and insulation, neither of which (surprisingly) was during lunch.  After an emergency run to Green Mountain Electric Supply for yet more wire, Tom and I finished all but two of the house electrical circuits and, more significantly, ran all the RG-6 coaxial wire from the mechanical room to all of the locations where television jacks will be installed.  In addition, I started to run the daisy-chain wire that will connect all of the telephone jacks together.  [Note to file: the north telephone jack located in the second guest bedroom is where the two loops split.]  Jim and James Ploof brought in one of their big excavators, their little excavator, and their skid steer first thing this morning and then went crazy piling rocks on top of rocks.  By the end of the day Jim had built a nice retaining wall on the north side of the house while James built the retaining wall that defines the east side of the patio and started on the retaining wall that will be the west and south sides of the garden.  They also moved a small mountain of “excess” rocks out to the end of the driveway where Mount Ploof used to be, material that I will use, in future, to build a nice rock wall along Lake Dunmore Road.  In addition, Jim brought in two loads of crusher run gravel and significantly improved the driveway and turnaround area near the house.  Busy day!

 

4 February 2016

Ran down to Brandon at crack of dawn, getting to Aubuchon Hardware just as they opened.  Unfortunately, they only had two of the 4″ round ceiling boxes I needed.  Rats!  Sonny and Doug spent a couple of hours sheathing the area under the stairs with plywood so that Steve could start installing the cold water manifold and associated equipment in that space.  Then the sheet rocking duo went back to putting up ceilings.  With many distractions, they got part of the living / dining room done today.  Steve continued the plumbing rough in for part of the day.  Due to some confused communications, the floor under the walk through closet will be in the heating zone controlled by the study thermostat rather than (as was intended) in the zone controlled by the master bedroom thermostat.  Oh, well, at this point it is what it is…  Sean was here for much of the morning to talk about the next month’s work schedule.  Jim and James Ploof showed up unexpectedly mid-morning to see if I wanted any work done now that the ground is again thawed.  Answer: yes… and they’ll start tomorrow.  Brian Thomas (Black Diamond Builders, the insulation subcontractor) was summoned when Sean and I couldn’t agree on how to insulate the area where the kitchen flat ceiling transitions to the sun room vaulted ceiling.  Brian was on-site within the hour and successfully mediated the discussion.  The end result will be that the entire main level ceiling will be insulated to R-60 vice R-39 over the sun room and R-60 elsewhere.  Me likey!!!!  Me checkbook, probably not so much.  Goodro’s truck showed up mid-morning with vast quantities of R-15 Roxul insulation and the 20-minute fire-rated door that will separate the garage from the mud entry.  Tom and I continued work on the electrical wiring.  He linked all the smoke and smoke / CO detectors together with 18-2 wire so that, if one goes off, they’ll all go off.  Tom also made up many more of the electrical panel connections, discovering in the process that the previously installed utility room circuit breaker not only was in the wrong slot, but couldn’t be moved to its proper location because the wires were too short.  Solution: the utility room shall hereafter be known as the mechanical room… a term that everyone was already using anyway.  Late afternoon I made a mad dash into Middlebury to retrieve 5 AFCI and GFI circuit breakers that Glen Peck graciously is selling to me… saving me another run north.  Also stopped for my daily electrical material fix at Green Mountain Electric Supply.  Over to Marty & Merry’s for another fabulous stuffed salmon dinner.

3 February 2016

Sonny and Doug put up the ceiling sheetrock in the upper hall, master bedroom, and walk thru closet.  Tom and I wired hither and yon.  Steve continued doing his plumbing thing.  At 4:20 I burned rubber to get to Green Mountain Electric Supply before they closed at 5.  Got there just after 4:30 and the door was locked… ‘cause that’s when they close.  But Jordan Steele, the manager, let me in anyway, which enriched his company by several hundred dollars.  From there I headed to Burlington, stopping for a Big Mac, fries, and vanilla shake fix en route.  Lowe’s had only one of the six Square D QO 20 amp AFCI and GFI circuit breakers and only two of the 4″ round ceiling boxes I desperately needed.  Bother!!!!  Stopped for awhile to visit with Alverta on my way back south.  Got back to Fern Lake at 9, just in time for bed.

2 February 2016

Geisha was born in South Burlington, VT 14 years ago today.  Chree and the dogs departed for Virginia at 8 and arrived safely 9½ hours later.  With an hour time out to rebuild part of the storage room wall to create a space into which Steve mounted the manifolds for the tubing supplying heat to the north end of the house, Sonny and Doug spent the day putting up ceiling sheetrock.  They finished the garage, study, and entry hall.  Steve was here most of the day putting in the radiant heat manifolds.  Dennis stopped by early afternoon to check on Steve’s progress.  Tom and I spent the day wrestling with the house wiring, with Tom also putting much of the pantry subpanel together… very, very, very neatly!

 

1 February 2016

High temperature today was 53°!  Guess we must be having the traditional January thaw a tad bit late.  Hoping that the water line conduit down to the sauna had thawed, ran many gallons of water into the pipe up at the house end.  Could hear the water gurgling, but no water came out the sauna end.  This is not a good sign!  First thing this morning Goodro’s dropped off 35 sheets of ½″ x 12 feet sheetrock destined for the main level ceilings.  A reasonably quiet day with only Sonny, Doug, and Tom here. Since the weather was good for working outside, Sonny spent the morning putting more KOMA^® blocking on the house for the outside spotlights and bathroom exhaust fan vents.  After a couple of hours working on the garage ceiling sheetrock, Doug put in KOMA^® blocking for the woodshed spotlights, which required removing the existing halogen spotlight on the northeast corner so we can replace that light with an LED.  Of course, the octagonal junction box that light was attached to had to be torn out as well in order for the blocking to match that on the other corner.  Not a hard job except for the severe slope in that area, which makes putting up a ladder most difficult.  We improvised an OSHA-approved (sure, Wilbur) base for the ladder using a stepladder and my aluminum plank… which actually worked quite well, defined as the ladder didn’t fall down while Doug was up there working.  Sonny transitioned to the garage sheetrock job after lunch and Doug joined him in that endeavor mid-afternoon.  Tom and I put in more junction boxes and pulled wire down in the basement all day.  Can you tell me again who the idiot was who specified AWG 10 wire for the shop outlet circuits?  That wire will never need Viagra!