21 July 2016

Jim, James, Burt, and Perry were here all day.  To clear room for Jim’s work, I moved Delores over to Kate’s driveway.  She started right up… but does she ever need a good cleaning!!!!  Obviously the sheets of fabric softener scattered about were less than effective in keeping critters away last winter / spring.  Jim removed about 6″ of dirt from off the top of the driveway while James continued smoothing out areas around the house that will become lawn.  Burt hauled in sand Ploof’s #2 topsoil for James and took away (over to the low-lying area at Kate’s that is being filled in) the material that Jim was excavating from the driveway.  Soon after he started, Jim found a rock that he thought was right on top of the conduit where resides the main power line that goes from the exterior electric panel to the house.  Using the Kubota, I dug that rock out with no problems.  A few yards further up the driveway, Jim found another rock, which he didn’t think was anywhere near the power line conduit. Unfortunately, that rock turned out to be right on top of the PVC pipe.  Luckily, damage was limited to the PVC; the power line itself was unharmed.  A couple of wraps of Vycor^® and the conduit was, once again, waterproof.  A few yards even further up the driveway, Jim very carefully excavated until the conduit carrying power to the RV was uncovered… undamaged.  Excavating the rest of the driveway was, needless to say, a piece of cake.  Over the course of the day, Jim, James, and Burt moved out to the road all of the extraneous rocks that were sitting in piles around the property.  Those rocks will become (one of these years) a nice stone wall along our Route 53 property line.  Perry and I continued our storage room multi-hued shelf building marathon.

20 July 2016

James Ploof, Burt Wedge, and Tyler Truman arrived first thing and spent the morning repairing the patio base erosion problems.  They also dug out the 3′ x 12′ area in which Kevin will be building the outdoor fireplace and wood storage structure.  In the afternoon, the Ploof Excavating team started grading off the backyard, which we want to be absolutely smooth and level.  Using their fancy laser-leveling system, we determined that another course of rocks would have to be added to the monster lake-side retaining wall so that the yard could be made flat at the same elevation as the tops of the septic tanks’ manhole covers.  Fortunately, rocks of the right size just happened to be lying around…  At its peak, that wall now is 16 feet high!

 

19 July 2016

Jim Ploof and Willy Reopell (the D&F Excavating & Paving estimator) were here just after 7 am to confer about the excavating and preparation work that Jim will be doing to get the driveway ready for the D&F paving crew.  Perry and I worked all day on building shelves for the storage room.  Chree decided that she wanted those shelves painted, so we used the numerous paint samples she had collected from Home Depot when we were deciding on colors for the house interior walls.

15 July 2016

Another large pool of water on the mechanical room floor this morning.  Called Dennis, who sent Steve out mid-morning to investigate.  Steve determined that the air vent that he’d put in the air handler condensate drain line was preventing the condensate from draining out of the air handler condensate catch pan, which was, consequently, overflowing onto the floor.  A piece of duct tape (no kidding!) over the air vent opening fixed the problem.  Kevin Haight stopped by to see if we were ready for him to start putting in the patio.  Unfortunately, all the recent heavy rains had eroded the stone fines base to the point that it will have to be redone before the patio pavers can be installed.  So we put off the patio installation for another week…

14 July 2016

Dennis was here most of the morning insulating pipes in the mechanical room.  At the time, we thought condensation dripping from said pipes was so bad that it was producing the large pool of water that was collecting on the floor, which then was running under the wall into the second guest bedroom… soaking the brand new carpet.  As a result of that soaking I had a very unhappy wife… and, if mama ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy!   Dennis also closed the damper between the HRV and the air handler, as the air handler blower was overpowering the HRV, effectively stealing all of the HRV’s output.  Dennis then adjusted the six HRV supply vents so that we’re getting 15 – 20 cfm from all of them.

6 July 2016

Roger and Joe Desabrais came by early afternoon and installed the glass walls and door for the guest bathroom neoangle shower.  Fran and Frank, here visiting for a few days, were first users.  No more stinky guests!!!!  Or, alternatively, no more people transiting the master bedroom while the home owners still are abed.  In the great news department: after 12 months of listing on Craigslist, many, many inquiries, a few rejected offers, and much angst, I finally sold the under-sized “5068” Anderson patio door (original cost north of $3,300) for the $2,000 price I was hoping to get.  A bath, but at least the water was moderately warm.

 

3 July 2016

Tasi, Rachel, Alex, Katy, and Devin here for the weekend following the annual Tarrio family reunion at Anne’s place in New Hampshire.  Tasi and I (with help from Chree) finished putting in the copper heat shield behind the sauna stove.  That evening, the boys and I made sure the shield was working properly.  The kids enjoyed a day of canoeing and dumping Dad into the lake.  The boys and I also had a marathon game of make-up-the-rules-as-you-go-along bocce ball.  One of the standing house rules is that, if you hit the house with a ball, that ball is disqualified.  Unfortunately, the ball that landed, rather loudly, on the standing seam metal roof, landed right over Chree’s head.  She was not pleased.  We players, on the other hand, were hysterical.  Whatever you do, don’t tell Dad… who happened to be the person whose throw didn’t go exactly where planned.