7.31.2018

Jim is enjoying doing a little bit of woodworking in his shop now.  He spent some time this morning working on aligning and tuning up his planer.  It had lots of travel miles on it and needed some attention.

 

Then Jim worked on making the riser for underneath the door sill going into the apartment....

 

And finishing up the door sill by making the plug holes and rounding off the edges...

 

First coat of stain on the door sill - looks so pretty!

 



Then he installed the temporary bathroom door - our first door in the apartment!

 

 Then he added the door stops...

 

We found a huge hornet nest hanging from the soffit by the front of the carriage house the other day - Jim knocked it down and I bought some hornet spray today.  Then he went into the back of the truck looking for filters for the Bobcat and the truck and saw this huge nest on the truck!  Yikes!

 

High 81/Low 62 - beautiful!

7.30.2018

Jim went back to working on the plumbing connection from the toe board heater.  This has given him a lot of grief - he figures he has about 8 hours just in this area!  Plus the working conditions are worse than normal too - this jointer is too heavy to move so Jim has to try and work around it.  Today he made a plank to work over the machine while he was soldering.

 

 

There were so many joints to be careful of when soldering this area - especially where the adapter met the Pex connector.  This is all the heat shielding Jim had to do to try and protect joints already soldered.

 



 

 But it's all done now and looks great!

So with that finished, Jim was able to test this entire zone.  He had previously tested up to the eating nook but now this zone is finished through the toe board heater.  It's holding steady pressure so far but Jim will make sure overnight. 

Jim is waiting for some parts from Supply House that should come in tonight that will allow him to finish the rest of the other zone.  All the Pex is run; he just needs to make two connections once the parts come.  That will definitely be great news!

However, Jim was able to move on and do something different.  So he started working on the door sill going into the apartment.  Typically, he likes to put the door jamb over the sill but since the door went in first, there was no way to do that.  However, Jim made this a perfect fit and it looks so good.  He just has to do some more millwork on it before staining.

 

The next step was the riser.  He got pieces ready...

 



 

 And then glued them together...

Jim was having issues with one of his staplers so at lunch, he took it apart.  There was a tiny spring wire that had come out of place but then it sprung out of the stapler.  He took a hand brush and swept all around where he was sitting, dumped the dustpan out on his work table, took a magnet and was able to find this tiny wire!  Check it out below to see how small it is!  But he was able to get the stapler put back together and working better.  Always something!

Jim ended up his day doing some trimming...yard work waits for no one.

High 80/Low 59 - nice!

7.29.2018

 

Not only does Jim have to deal with finishing up things at the carriage house so that we can move in, but he has to deal with all the moving issues!  Every day, we load up our cars and take boxes out to the carriage house.  Jim rearranges them into our ever-growing stash in the metal shop.  But that's the easy(ish) part - we are each working every day to go through things and get them packed up.  This morning we spent time going through clothes to donate.  It all just takes time which we are a bit short of at the moment!

It was a short day after all that since we have to knock off early to go to church, but Jim is working on the lines from the toe board heater to the eating nook.  Unfortunately, it was one of those days and one of those very difficult projects.  You can see he worked on the copper plumbing to connect the two.  However, soldering everything together is becoming a big issue.  The new solder joints are right next to already soldered joints.

Working on soldering the pipe...

 

Jim caught a deer looking at him as he was working today...

 



 

High 76/Low 54 - beautiful!

7.28.2018

Jim went back to work on Pex tubing today - and basically has all of the runs done.  Yay - this has been a ton of not-so-fun work for Jim.

 

Here are the 4 lines going to the manifold (2 supply and 2 return).  He still has to make the connections to the manifold but the Pex is all run.

 

It looks so neat out in the wood shop too.

 

So  the toe board heater was the last piece of the puzzle that needed to be done in the apartment.  Jim first marked where the heater had to be placed and drilled pilot holes.

 

Then he used his hole saw to make the holes through the flooring...

Trying the heater out for size.  By doing so, Jim realized that it was going to be impossible to get the heater with the soldered down tubes on through the opening.

So he did some modification of the floor of the cabinet...

Then he soldered the down tubes onto the heater.  The heater required 1/2" tubing so the last connection had to be a converter to the 3/4" he is using everywhere else.

 

Now the heater fit in perfectly and Jim got it fastened down to the flooring.  So all of the heating work that needed to be done in the apartment is now finished!

 

 

The view from below.  As you can see, as luck would have it one of the down tubes came down right through the runner Jim made to anchor the Pex.  So he had to drill through the runner and make that down tube longer to compensate for the extra length required.

The only other plumbing that needs to be done in this area is the connection from the heater over to the heater in the eating nook - a distance of around 5'.  But Jim had used every bit of the two Pex rolls he bought.  He's going to use copper to connect the two.

Jim put polyurethane on the laundry room door sill today and it looks much less shiny - perfect!  You can also see he attached a door stop into the floor.  We had this type in Ohio and really liked them.  This stop had to keep the door out a bit further because we plan to have barn doors over this opening.

Jim resanded the bathroom door sill and then put another coat of polyurethane on it. 

 

High 79/Low 57

7.27.2018 - Update

I'm home from my trip - I wasn't gone that long but it seemed long.  I was very happy to get home and see Jim and catch up on all that happened while I was away. 

On Wednesday, Jim opened up the toe board heater box to get that started.  It looks really nice.  This will go underneath the sink base kitchen cabinet.  If timing had been different, Jim would have installed the heater before the cabinets; however, getting occupancy was more important.

 

So Jim had to do a little modification to get the heater in place.  First, he figured out where he wanted the heater to be.  This cabinet is a bit smaller than the permanent one will be, so Jim had to center it based on the permanent dimensions.

Then he had to cut out that marked section to fit the heater.  Once the heater is installed, Jim will put a false bottom over the hole so that I can use this space.

Jim had used up the roll of Pex I picked up the other day, so at lunch he went to Lowe's to get another roll.  He also had to stop at State Farm to get some insurance questions answered.

Once he got back to the property, he went back to Pex work.  He sweated another Pex adapter on one of the down tubes.  He used a piece of leftover Pex to connect the two different baseboard sections in the master bedroom.  You can also see the blocking he has to make and install.

Jim's Supply House order came in which included a bleeder valve.  The end of each line has to have a bleeder valve to eliminate any air that gets trapped in the top of the system.  Jim was smart and planned to have the bleeder valves in the bathroom and laundry room where there is tile flooring just in case of any water issues.



Once he got the bleeder valve installed, he was able to do the first pressure test of the run that includes the bathroom, living room and the eating nook.  He pumped this section up to 40 psi.  When the system is operational, it will only see 15-20 psi, so 40 psi is a good test.  At the end of the day on Wednesday it was maintaining 40 psi but the test was going to be overnight.  Since I'm writing this on Friday, I can happily state that the system is still maintaining 40 psi so that is extremely good news!



On Thursday morning, Jim worked on the toe board heater.  This will have to be plumbed into the system but unfortunately, it came with 1/2" fittings and Jim only has 3/4".  So he ordered those Wednesday night when he got home.  However, the heater also has to be wired to plug into the wall receptacle that Jim put underneath the sink.  This is before...

 

He had to open up the case and wire in a cable - this is afterwards...

Then Jim finished the back Pex circuit that connects the two baseboard heater sections in the master bedroom.  He had to work over the woodpile for this job which makes it even more challenging.



Next, he started to run the Pex from the second bedroom all the way down the building to reach the manifold.  This is before...

At first, Jim was going to make blocking to kind of "jump" over all the trusses.  However, once he started that, he wasn't happy with it.  So he made and installed this runner down the entire length of the building.

Starting to unroll and run the Pex line.  As he does with wiring, he always rolls it out to the end of the line to get an accurate measurement and then works backwards so he doesn't have any waste.

After all that work, he even managed to cut grass at the end of the day!

On Friday, he worked on the Pex again.  From the manifold, he had planned to run the Pex through the same opening as the hot/cold water lines, but he wasn't happy with the way it looked inside the bathroom.  So he rerouted things and cut new holes at the top of the wall.

You can see how good it looks coming out the top of the bathroom wall and then back to his blocking.  What looks like a nice graceful curve though requires a ton of work.  This Pex isn't flexible - Jim has to get out his heat gun for every bend and try to soften the Pex enough to shape it.  Of course, all of this is working above his head and around everything on the floor.
 

Then the Pex goes across the side of the building and then runs down the length.

You can see how neat everything looks fastened to the runners.  When you walk in the shop, you can barely see all this Pex tubing!

We got a different brand of polyurethane and Jim put another coat on the door sills.  It's still a bit shiny so we may look for yet another type!

We continue to bring boxes over and get them organized in the corner of the metal shop.  It's a good start!

 

 Whew - Jim accomplished a ton of work while I was gone! 

 

 

High 80/Low 61 - late evening shower