No more invasive plant removal for us for the rest of the year, but we did visit the house to get an update on the construction.
Here is the first section of siding. They have not tackled the complex area where the electrical conduits are located.
And here is our generator. It is still missing the connection to the gas and to the electrical system.
And here is a video showing the installation of these two new house features.
The water level of the river is up and the leaves are coming down as you can see in this picture.
Finally, we are going to try to get a bid from a domestic cabinet manufacturer given the tariff uncertainty. Hopefully we can get that bid before we commit to the current choice (which is Canadian).
Here is the first section of siding installed on the north side of the garage, only two months later than originally scheduled (with more delays coming). And look, the generator has been installed as well.
The good news is we now have the correct screws to install the siding. The bad news is that we are missing some flashing strips that are used to hide the edge of the siding panels at the edges of windows.
The installation crew noticed that the default flashing that is used at the edge of the siding (which is installed in vertical slats) does not work well for the edges of windows. A call to the manufacturer representative, pointed out that other people have noticed this same problem, and there is a new flashing strip that works better. But that new solution it is not yet available. Fortunately, the manufacturer has an alternate solution which uses two different parts. One part is installed when the siding is installed and a second part is snapped on later. This means we now need a new set of flashing strips shipped to us (from Georgia), and we need to ship back the strips that will not work for us. Later they will ship us the second part of the solution, but that will not delay installation.
They can still install siding on walls with no windows, so they will start tomorrow with the north side of the garage, but once that is done, we have to wait for this new part.
By the way, here is a picture of the flashing that does not work for a vertical installation at window boundaries. It’s that piece of black metal, on the right side of the picture, that is only partially covering the edge of the siding.
Work continues in the basement. The basement HVAC work is almost done. Here is a picture of the utility room that has the HVAC air handling units. They are currently working on the dehumidifier.
The construction crew has also built out the utility room that will hold the electrical panels and the water heater.
Right now, the construction crew is putting walls up around the stairwell. The vent at the bottom is the air return for the basement. The black tubes will go out to the condensers behind the garage.
Here is the rough schedule for the next few months.
Next week work on the electrical infrastructure continues. It should take around 6 weeks.
In early January, we will add insulation in the walls.
Once that is done, we will plaster the walls.
After the plaster is finished, we can tile the bathrooms, install all the doors and put the “slats” in place, which is an accent in the living room and dining room.
Meanwhile, siding will take 6 weeks once we get the new flashing.
The awning over the living room windows will be installed in a few weeks.
The deck surface will be installed in December.
Meanwhile, I want to rant a little bit. Our dear leader’s tariffs with Canada are increasing the cost of our kitchen cabinets by around 7 thousand dollars, and this is after the cabinet company said they will eat most of the current 25% tariff expense. Tariffs are scheduled to increase to 50% on January 1st so we are rushing to try to the get the cabinet order to the factory in the next 2 weeks so they can be shipped before year-end. If we fail in that, we will have to switch to a much more expensive American manufacturer (because the total cost for the Canadian cabinets with added tariffs will be more than that).
I am not an economist so I can not comment on the long term advantages of our current tariff policies (well, I can comment, but this is not the place for that). All I can say is that it is costing me many tens of thousands of additional dollars, maybe more since the cabinet manufacturer is the only one to have admitted that they are increasing their costs because of tariffs. I am sure, for example, that I paid a lot more for wood because of tariffs, it just wasn’t broken out.
I wanted to open this update with a construction video of the first day of siding installation, but that is not meant to be. When the siding technician came out to the house on Friday to train the crew, he discovered that we did not have the necessary stainless steel screws. So no siding was installed. The screws will show up on Tuesday. Big sigh.
Meanwhile, work continues on the heating system. The HVAC crew believes that they have just one more week until they are finished. The construction crew took advantage of the lack of screws to start work on the two (side by side) utility rooms that will contain the air handling units, electrical systems and water heater. Here is the side that contains the air handling units.
And here is the heating systems seen from the side (a wall be added where that board is currently in the foreground).
Outside the house, more fire retardant paint was added to the deck. They need a few more coats before we can install the deck surface.
Meanwhile, we had another afternoon of pulling invasive plants. At this point we are removing mostly ground cover plants. Daphne thinks we have one more session to go for the year.
While I was there I took some pictures since the foliage is near peak.
Next week, finish HVAC, start siding and work on the electrical system.
The only crew working so far this week are the HVAC installers who are actually getting close to finishing. Here is a view of the basement from the corner under the master bedroom. Straight ahead are the air handling units (which will eventually be enclosed in a wall forming a utility room). You can also see some of the insulating panels installed on the left, and the remaining panels stacked to the right. Between the silver panels and the silver ducts, the basement will be very shiny. (We are contemplating painting the panels later on.)
No electrical work in being done this week, but the electrician will be back next week.
The builder confirmed that the siding technician will actually be on site on Friday so siding starts on Friday. They will start with the north side of the garage, where the electric meter is and where the propane tanks will go. The goal is to get that wall sided so the propane tanks can be installed. Those tanks will be used to heat the house (using a portable unit) during construction. They do not want to use the newly installed heating system since they do not want to have all the ducts get coated with construction dust.
We are now picking out a garage door. The original door we choose was from a manufacturer that our installer warned us against, so we are finding another door we like. Speaking of doors, we have decided that the sill for the door between the pantry and the breezeway will be accessible to make it easy to roll a wheelchair over the sill. The downside is that the sill may leak a little water in a severe storm (but the door is under the breezeway, not really out in the open). All the other doors will have a step up to get over the sill (which is typical).
No progress on the deck fire protection paint since it has been raining. But the rain has now stopped so I expect that work will start up again soon. The fire protection paint is very light, so we are thinking that we will add a final coat of a darker paint, which will prevent the deck joists from being noticeable under the deck planks (yet to be installed).
All that rain has raised the river by quite a bit. Here is a close up of Mary’s Ditch (as our neighbors call the inlet in our waterfront) as of today next to a cropped picture from 2 months ago when the water was at its lowest.
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.
