We have designed our electrical system so that power comes from the street, goes under the driveway in conduits, and comes out in the northwest corner of the garage. Power will then go from the garage to the utility room under the pantry. It is done this way to keep the electrical meter as far from the living area as possible (since the meter uses radio waves so the meter reading truck does not need to visually read the meter). It also provides a convenient point to wire in the backup generator, which is located behind the garage.
Anyway, I just got this picture from the builder, who says that we have connected the wires from the town power lines to the garage. This step is needed so we can power up the whole electrical system before March 16th for the scheduled EMF testing.
Inside the house two different crews were working on the electrical system. The electricians are continuing to wire the subpanels in the basement, but they are also putting in the speakers, and starting to add face plates to all the outlets and switches.
Here is what the main electrical panels currently look like. Today they were finishing up the left subpanel, which I believe to be the one for everything with a motor.
Last week they added fire proofing around all the wires going through the studs. This is to prevent any fire from spreading easily inside the walls. The fire proofing is the orange goop you can see where each wire goes through a stud in the following picture.
Meanwhile, today a team of people from our A/V consultants were on site terminating all of the Ethernet wires. They had a work area set up in the basement and were splicing ends on some of the cables. They were also adding ends on the wires where they come out of the walls. When they are done, they will test each cable to make sure it works properly.
Because we will be doing an EMF test of all the electrical wiring starting on March 16th, we are trying to get as much load installed in advance of that test as we can. Previously, they finished the HVAC system so that can be fired up. And yesterday, they installed the water heater. This system is a heat pump, which is supposed to be very efficient, although it steals heat from the basement (which then has to be added back by the heating system).
The construction crew has also been busy. Here is what the north side of the house looked like over the weekend. Although I did not take another picture today, those last remaining areas were also sided yesterday.
I actually have a construction video of the work done on the north side of the house. In the middle of the video you can also see the small plow that removes the snow from our yard. I do not get to keep it.
Inside the game room, the construction crew were designing the beams, which will be decorative. First they installed the core for all the beams, which are in this picture.
Then they prototyped the maple cladding for our review. These will get lightly finished to match the shelves (to be installed later).
Daphne and the landscaper discussed the plans for the front yard, including the foundation plantings. I will present the plans for the plantings in a story page at a later date. The landscaper wanted to install an irrigation system, even if it was not underground. But Daphne really wanted to avoid that. She will stick to drip hoses coming off the water faucets we already have on the outside of the house.
Estimated days until completion: 111 days (late June)
