After all the snow yesterday - and it snowed another 3" after Jim was done plowing - the word today is FREEZING! We woke up to -9 actual temperature with windchills hovering around -30 degrees. That's insanely cold.
Jim has done quite a bit to keep the carriage house in good shape with these cold temperatures. Besides all the things we did earlier that we are grateful for now (all that insulation work and getting insulating blinds), he has been gradually warming up the concrete in the wood shop and stairwell. It took awhile to warm up all that concrete mass in the shop floor, but once it got it to the low 60s, it maintains its temperature pretty well. That also helps put some heat in both the metal shop and the apartment as well. But if we were to lose power, having that extra heat would certainly help. It was also a very wise decision not to have the PEX operational in the metal shop - having any water in those lines right now would be scary.
Jim worked in the metal shop this morning - he put wood along both sides of the partial wall in the auto bay to allow for drywall...
Then he continued bringing his dedicated conduit for the air compressor around the corner, through the little space between the wall and the beam. Unfortunately, he needs one more clip to hold things in place before he can glue it. Hopefully we'll be able to get out to the stores this week.
The conduit wraps around to the auto bay - from here, Jim will use armored cable to go down to the air compressor.
After lunch, Jim warmed up the Bobcat and then ventured out into the arctic temperatures. If he could just sit inside the Bobcat, he'd be warm, but unfortunately, the work he did today required lots of outside work. First he had to dig out the bucket and then get it attached. Then he had to pull the snow away from the front of the garage doors but then had to hand shovel close to the building.
Then he headed down to the end of the driveway to clear that out. He was so surprised to see that one of our down-the-road neighbors had plowed out the bottom of the driveway! This is a fellow who drops feed for the animals across the road from our driveway - Jim keeps that area clear for him so he returned the favor! Jim just had to clean it up, extend the plowed area and get closer to the mailbox. But we can get out now if we need to!
Once he warmed up his bones a bit, he started working on the high power wire for the compressor. He first ran his fish tape through the conduit...
Then we unrolled the wire and marked off 25' sections just so that Jim could be assured he would have enough wire. He'll need two of these black wires and a green ground wire for this circuit. (Note - I almost caught Jim's eyes rolling as I stopped to take a picture of this - ha!)
In order to get this thick wire to attach to the fish tape, he had to slice it open on the end, and pull enough strands through the eye of the fish tape to secure it.
Pulling it through...
Good to have the first wire through - he wants to get the clamp on the conduit before he does the other wire.
 |
| High 1/Low -10 (windchill warning to -40!) |
No comments:
Post a Comment