Another couple of hours pulling invasives. We are now working in the afternoon since temperatures have dropped. Here you can see Daphne pulling out Japanese Honeysuckle.
The siding is delayed, but other work continues. The deck got its first coat of fire retardant paint today. Yes, the painter was working on Saturday.
Last week the electrician was mostly working in the garage. Here is north side of the garage where the power meter and main shutoffs will go.
And here is the other side of that wall. There will be a sub-panel in the garage, and two of them in the basement.
But most of the activity was the installation of the heating units and the duct work. Here is a picture of the three air handling units in the basement – one for the first floor, one for the basement and one for the master bedroom (horizontal). The second floor air handling unit goes into the attic and is still waiting to be installed. You can also see the basement wall insulation panels which will eventually be install on all the basement walls.
Finally, here is this week’s construction video which only covers the second half of the week (when I moved the construction camera into the basement). Next Wednesday, the camera will move outside again to catch the start of siding.
Installation of the siding was supposed to start this past Monday. However, in order to start the siding, the construction crew needs to be trained by the Nichiha technical representative, and that person has been tied up and will not be on site until October 17th. So instead of showing you the siding on the house, I will show you this picture of what the siding looks like (sitting in the garage).
We had another meeting where we moved around the HVAC units in the utility room. But I think we have a workable plan. Meanwhile, the HVAC team has been busy working on the ducts. The construction camera, unfortunately, was outside (where I wanted to get a video of the siding in progress), so I missed the action from the first half of the week, but I have moved it back into the basement until next Wednesday.
Here are two pictures of the HVAC work. The first shows the air handling units and the second shows more duct work.
On Monday, they filled in the trench (and I already posted pictures of the completed work). On Wednesday you can see them working on the deck (and installing the gutter sample).
Then at midday on Wednesday, I moved the camera into the basement. In this video, you see two and a half days of duct installation.
And here is a picture of the work in progress.
Nothing else to report today. Next week – the siding starts.
As expected, the siding has been delivered and is piled in the garage, waiting for installation, which starts next Monday.
There is also a large HVAC crew in the house today working on ducts. (I had to show the workers how to get on the porch during their break, which is much, much more pleasant than siting on the living room floor.) There is also an electrical crew working on the panels in the basement, and the painters are finishing up priming the deck framing.
The trench which includes the electrical cables in numerous conduits has been filled in. Here are two views, one from the road and one from in front of the garage.
Outside, they are priming the deck supports. Then they will add a fireproofing coating.
Speaking of deck supports, the stairs from the back yard up to the deck have now been framed (just in time to be primed and fireproofed).
The builder has installed a sample of the gutters. It is mounted on a little block, which will eventually be painted black to match the trim.
Inside, we had a meeting with the HVAC installers. We want to install the air handling units (basically everything with a fan) as far away from places where Daphne will hang out as possible. But they also need to be able to be connected to the ducts and to be serviceable. We think we came up with a location, which includes splitting the utility room into two separate rooms – one for electrical and water (yes, I know that those don’t mix), and one for air handling (HVAC, ERV air exchanger, make-up air and dehumidifier).
Here is the group having that discussion, with a proposed location for the ERV in cardboard and actual air handlers. What impressed me the most was that the HVAC installer can route all the ducts to all the equipment in his head when figuring out what locations would work.
And here is the plan we worked out.
No electricians on site today. But the builder has completed the insulation and sealing behind where the electrical panels will go. You can see it in this picture showing the wall behind the electrical panels.
The siding gets delivered later today. Next week they will start doing the siding, starting with the north side of the garage (as practice). Once the siding is done on the north side of the garage, they can install the propane tanks, which will be used to heat the house during the winter, during the construction. (This is only temporary – final heating system is electrical air-based heat pumps with forced air ducts.)
The siding is expected to take 6-8 weeks to finish and will be done by the same crew that did the framing. Meanwhile, work continues inside the house.
We met with the tile installer today and made a decision to use a porcelain ceiling in the master shower, matching the sides. We were going to have just a plaster ceiling, but using porcelain will keep the mold down (but probably add a few thousand dollars to the cost, sigh). We also decided that the quoted price for a fixed metal awning over the living room windows was much higher than we were willing to pay so we are going back to the drawing board to see if a constructed wood awning would be less expensive.
Last week I said that we thought that there would only be one more weekend of pulling invasive plants this year, but I was wrong. After three hours of work this weekend, we have decided that there is still more to do.
Here is a current view of the yard, wetlands and river. In the foreground you can see that we have cleared out a lot of the plants that should not be there. Near the river, you may be able to tell that the water is up a few inches from its previous low. And, of course, colors are starting to change.
The trench was filled with concrete and I have a video of that work. This has been slowed down a lot because the whole process was only around 20 minutes. There was nothing else of interest on the construction camera all week. The trench will be filled in with dirt on Monday.
Here is a picture of the telephone pole where some of the conduits terminate. I do not know what will happen if this pole ever needs to be replaced.
Inside the house we have two crews working, the electricians and the HVAC installers. The electricians are installing the panels in the basement (first picture) and inside the garage.
For the HVAC, I noticed a new pipe. This black pipe contains the connection that will go to the external heat exchangers. Here you can see it coming up through the closet wall on the second floor.
And here is the crawl space above the front bedroom. You can see where the black tubes come out as well as some of the duct work. These will connect to the air handling unit for the second floor.
It seems like all of the openings for air vents have been cut, and many of them have the end of the ducts installed. The first picture shows the returns in the game room. The second picture shows the duct ends in the basement under the living room (the blue water pipe runs to the exterior faucet).
Here is the work list for the upcoming week:
Back fill the trench on Monday
Siding being delivered Wednesday
Complete deck framing and deck stairs
Then prime deck frame, hopefully this week
Install gutter sample
Continue HVAC duct work
Continue electrical wiring
The construction camera was not moved so it will capture the backfilling. Then I will reposition it for the siding work (which will be the week after next).
As the HVAC installers work on adding the ducts for heating/cooling, they discover that the original plans did not workout as expected and some ducts need to be relocated to work around framing, beams, water pipes, etc. With the latest changes, we had to relocate some of the ducts into the area between the basement door (which leads out to the river) and the bottom of the basement stairs, which is probably the only stretch of the basement where we will regularly be walking.
This matters only because we want to have a high ceiling in the basement wherever possible, but the ducts run up against the base of the first floor so they reduce the ceiling height wherever they are located. Now the basement will be unfinished, so we are not talking about ceiling tiles. We only mean that when we have basketball players visit us, they may need to be careful if they go out to the river through the basement.
In general, the basement ceiling height will be 8 feet (actually 7′ 11.5″ to be precise). But anywhere there is a duct, the height drops by approximately a foot. In particular, the ceiling height in the middle of the area between the bottom of the stairs and the backdoor will now be 6′ 11″ (although it will be taller right at the base of the stairs).
Since the architect sent me an updated drawing for my approval, I am sharing that with you. This is the current basement ceiling plan. I asked them to add a plywood facing on the side of the duct where it faces the stairs so if you do bump into it (for example, carrying a ladder or furniture down the stairs) you will hit the plywood and not damage the duct itself.
The yellow areas are all a fraction under 8 feet tall. The white areas are all approximately a foot shorter. The utility room is a little different since it will have a drop ceiling (which is part of our EMF shielding plan).
In 30 or 40 years when we are no longer living in the house and it gets sold, the new owners may want to add a room or two in the basement, and then the lower ceilings will be their problem (as will the lack of heating capacity). For us, not as much.
Today features light drizzle, and the same was predicted for the rest of the week. This means that filling in the trench has been delayed until Monday (unless the forecast for Friday changes). Meanwhile, I did go around to the north side of the garage to see where all the conduits come up, as shown below.
Meanwhile, the electricians have moved into the basement where they are installing the main panels. Here is a picture of them working in the area just above all the conduits.
There was also some work on the outside stairs down from the deck, although that work is not finished yet. As soon as it is finished, they will add the fireproofing coating to the deck framing.
At our Wednesday meeting we had the tile installer come by to measure the bathrooms so we know how much tile to order. We (meaning Daphne) picked the color we will use for the lattice work under the deck and under the porch. Friday we go to the showroom where we will select our counter top and given them a deposit before they raise their prices by 15% on October 1st.
Siding has been delayed a week so it will not start next week, but rather the week after. Meanwhile, the HVAC installers are still putting in ducts. I suspect they will be working for another week or two. The duct work has caused us to relocate some of the ducts in the basement reducing the ceiling height in a section near the basement door by a foot (it will still be over seven feet).
As you have seen in earlier posts, we have conduits running from the basement (utility room) to the street and the garage. These are buried 4 feet under ground and then covered in concrete and then dirt (and eventually asphalt driveway and paving stones). The purpose of the concrete is to provide some measure of EMF shielding between the wires and any humans walking across the driveway and front walk.
Today the concrete is bring poured over the conduits and the builder sent me this action shot.
Once again, we returned to the backyard to pull invasives. I am pleased to announce that we are almost done for the year. Perhaps an hour or two more and then we will have pulled everything we can until more sprout next spring.
Here is a view, looking North, of the backyard post invasive removal. There is only one buckthorn remaining (can you find it?). It was too big and inconveniently placed to remove so we just girdled it and it should die in a year or two.
As far as construction goes, there is steady progress on deck framing and on duct work for the heating system. The most visible changes were in the trench where they are putting conduits between the road (telephone pole), garage and basement. Here are some pictures showing the progress. First looking at the front of the garage, then from the side.
And here is the current conduit ends in the basement.
I can not read all of the labels on the conduits, but here are the ones I can read:
spare
alarm to garage
spare to street
spare to garage
fiber to street
cable to street
cat 6 to garage
switch to garage
power to garage
water meter
I was hoping to have a good construction video showing the conduit work, but the electricians are camera shy as you can tell by the end of the video (I have another day and a half of that same view).
