6.24.2017

Jim continues to open up valves and test the plumbing system...he opened up 2 more today and so far, everything is perfect!



Jim worked this morning on more blocking in the apartment...this is for the banquette seats.

Working on the blocking for the other side...

He also spent more time on insulation...he got pieces cut and fit for some of the small areas in the bathroom and laundry room.  It will make it easier when it's time to go back and glue them.

 

Plus he spent more time trying to come up with a good plan for the hollow spaces around the window.  He came up with a good solution - he can use the loose insulation on the sides of the windows as well as a little ways on the horizontal parts.  Then he'll be able to use the spray foam for the rest of the horizontal parts.

 

But using the loose foam means kind of taking it apart so that it's loose and expanded, which takes time.  I worked on that at various points during the day - Jim had a steel comb that worked pretty well.

 

 

I got a garbage bag and 2 pails full of insulation that he can use.  I'll just keep him in supply so that he can just stuff it in the window frames.

 

 

It was back outside to finish the last two rows of siding on this section...

 

Both of these rows require each piece to be cut...

The very last row is very small - Jim has to cut and predrill each piece.

Making progress...

All the siding done - measuring for the fascia board.

The fascia board is cut and primed and now Jim is pre-drilling.

Jim is starting to put the board into place.  I ended up going up on the scaffolding to hold one end - it's complicated to get it to fit underneath the drip edge.

All up and starting to fasten it down...

Next Jim put up a temporary piece of wood to simulate the freeze board so that he could put the soffit piece in place.

This is a smaller soffit so Jim had to cut it so that the vented areas were in the right place and he still had room to fasten it down.

Putting up the soffit...

End-of-the-day picture...

High 80/Low 53

 

Hard to believe it's been a year - Happy Anniversary to Kyle & Julia!!

 

 

 

 

6.23.2017

Today we had our first real visitors to the carriage house (besides neighbors) - we were so excited that Julia's parents were able to stop by on their way to the Berkshires in Massachusetts.  It was one year ago today that we met them for the first time the day before Kyle & Julia's wedding!  It was so great to see them and give them a tour of the progress on the carriage house.  Hopefully next time we'll have a few more accommodations and maybe they can stay longer!

This morning, Jim put together his test set up for the plumbing.  The red is the air valve connection; the blue is the air gauge.

After visiting with Julia's parents, we came home for lunch and then Jim headed out to the Drywall Center to pick up some angle he had ordered as well as more baffles and adhesive.

Once he got back, he worked on installing the baffles in the kitchen valley rafter area...all done and ready for fiberglass insulation!

Then he made and installed the rigid foam board in the area at the back of the laundry room.

Jim had bought a bag of the loose insulation that is used in the blowers to see if he could use it for some specific areas - like around the windows.  You can see that he pulled a chunk off and had to separate it - it has an expansion rate of 17 times!  He tried a few methods around the windows and wasn't real happy with anything yet.

So after getting tired of insulation issues, he went downstairs to work on the plumbing manifold.  He put a Pex tube in a loop from the hot to the cold so that when he pressurizes the system both the hot and cold lines can be tested.

What's nice about this manifold is that each of the lines has its own valve that can be turned on or off.  So Jim can basically test each individual line to make sure there are no leaks.  He first tested just the manifold - it held pressure.  Next he tested the hot water line into the kitchen - same thing; holding 60 pounds of pressure!  A great first step - once he gets everything tested himself, he can call the building inspector out.

 

High 82/Low 67

 

6.22.2017

Jim worked a bit inside this morning and then before lunch we got busy working on siding.

Marking off the next rows...

Putting up the siding...

Making good progress!

At this point, it was time to move the scaffolding platform up higher and start marking again for the final rows.

Jim brought out the trim board to see how everything was going to fit...

The next two rows have to be cut down in order to fit so Jim got started on those.

 

A little tweaking to the trim board and some more lawn mowing ended the day!

 

High 78/Low 63

 

6.21.2017

 

This was definitely a detail day.  Jim worked in the apartment this morning - he has all the box rafters made and installed all the way up the valley rafter on the other side of the kitchen.  He'll have to make a trip to get more ceiling baffles - he's all out.

 





But the big project of the day was the tubing for the water softener if we need one.  Jim struck out trying to find the tubing he wanted; today he decided to just go ahead and use Pex.  We have plenty of this - he used the bigger tubing that we used for the radiant heating in the floors.  However, it was pretty much a nightmare trying to get it through the conduit.  Jim worked for over and hour this morning to get it through and out this far.  He said it was such hard work - he was soaked from sweating!  So he waited until I got there after lunch.  The plan was for me to pull on the outside while he pushed from the inside - good plan, right?  It was still SO hard!  I could get it to move a few inches - Jim wanted it out another 6' or so!  We eventually switched places and that worked slightly better but it was still a lot of work!

The inside view...

The next step was to seal the opening to prevent water from coming in.  Jim used more spray foam to fill up the conduit from the inside...

Once you open a can, you pretty much have to use it all because it gets hard in the tube.  So he went back into the apartment and filled in more holes to use the rest of the can.

Jim wanted to let the foam harden up, so we switched gears and did some driveway repair work.  The last heavy rain we had caused some gravel to wash over into the grass again.  So we scraped that up.

Jim did a little flattening out of the driveway too.  Getting more gravel is on the agenda soon.

Once the foam was hard, Jim switched to the outside.  First step was to use caulk around the edges of the conduit...

Next, he used Zip tape and made a sort of casing around the conduit...

and then squirted more caulk in the casing.

More tape and caulk...

And a final taping of the whole thing and we're good to go!

Another casualty of the last rain was more of the sand washed down, exposing some rocks.  Jim made sure there weren't any rocks over the water lines and put soft dirt back over the area.

He got a bucketful of gravel and started shoveling it in the corner...

and then hand shoveling it to make a good base of gravel around the water lines.  This way, any water will just percolate down through the gravel and not cause any issues around the foundation (not that water not percolating in this soil is a problem!).

All the gravel in place...

We went up to the shed and found our roll of geo-fabric.  Jim put a piece over all the gravel to prevent dirt from clogging up the rocks.

Then he shoveled some softer dirt on top...

Then onto backfilling!

I did rock duty below while Jim shoveled soft dirt close to the house.

More shoveling...

This is absolutely mind-boggling to me...this dirt pile is from when we dug the foundation 3 years ago!  Amazing to think that we are now using it to backfill!  Plus, after sitting untouched for all that time, the soil is as soft and workable as ever.  That would never have happened in Ohio!

End-of-the-day pictures...Jim did more grading and contouring to try and divert water into the woods now.

The hole is getting filled in!

 

 

High 74/Low 52