TGIF

"Our" Mike's carpenters arrived at 7:00 and got after it. The garage framing was completed, the plywood siding was installed and wrapped. They did some preliminary measuring and planning on the sunroom framing, but that will obviously not start until next week. The garage really blocks the view of the back of the house.

Before Work Started on Friday

End of the Day

Lots of Privacy Once The Roof Is Installed

Rob (electrical) did not personally make an appearance, but someone from his shop was here until late morning laying conduit in the trench. Three 1", one 1-1/2" and one 3" conduit. I am a little surprised that he put the conduit in the bottom of the trench along with the water lines. I thought I had been told that there was a code stipulating that the water and electrical lines could not be in the same trench. Hence, they dug the trench with a "shelf" for the electrical conduit. Obviously, I misunderstood. There is a new heavy box in the basement which I assume is the new breaker box.

Some time after he had departed, Drew (solar) showed up. The only thing I can see that he did was to commandeer one of the 1" conduits, anchor it to the garage foundation, penetrating the garage wall for the solar wiring.

Nate told me that the lumber company showed up and took dimensions for the trusses as Mike had predicted. I also noticed that John (one of Frank's [HVAC] crew) was roaming around. I was concerned that perhaps he was going to restart work on the boiler in the basement, despite the fact that we still have a Stop Work Order posted on the front door. I did not speak with John before he disappeared, but Nate told me later that John stopped by to check on the performance of the new domestic water heater.

That's it for this week. We actually got three days of outside work in during the week. A record! Hopefully the weather next week will cooperate. With the holidays coming, we probably have only four or five full work weeks remaining in the year.

Building Walls

While nothing much happened yesterday, the City did come around and repaired the holes in the street made during replacement of the domestic water line. It is a relief to have this accomplished. We been concerned about cyclists being surprised when encountering these holes. In addition, the noise created when errant vehicles would hit these holes, was disconcerting.

This morning is sunny, windy and cool. At 7:00 am this morning, I noticed three trucks sitting out front. Around 7:30, I went down to the basement and unlocked the basement door in anticipation (the carpenters had left some equipment in the basement on Monday). It was almost 8:00 am before one of the carpenters came to the front door asking if I could unlock the basement door. I told him it was already unlocked. The carpenter then asked if they could assume we would have the basement door unlocked at 7:00 am each morning. I told him that I would be happy to have the door unlocked by that time each morning as long as I knew they would be showing up to work.

Monday Afternoon

Thursday Afternoon

Mike and Nate also repaired the broken lateral from the east downspout drains over to the sewer line.

Spliced Lateral Line

Mike says tomorrow should be busy. Not only will they continue with the framing, but also Rob (electrical) will finally make his appearance to begin his work and Drew (solar) should also be here as well. The lumber yard people are expected to take measurements for the garage trusses. Mike predicted we would have the trusses within a week.

Mike also said that he had talked with Mark about the hot water line going to the sunroom. I had previously mentioned to Mike that we were concerned about the length of the water lines and hence the time it will take to realize hot water at the bar. He said Mark thought it might take about 30 seconds to get hot water to the bar. That may not sound like a very long time, but it is very a long time when you are standing at the bar waiting for it. Simple observation shows we could eliminate roughly 28 feet of 3/4" copper piping in the basement on the hot water line going out to the sunroom. I measured the full-flow hot water rate in the kitchen at 2 gpm. Assuming the same rate going to the sunroom, it will take about 15 seconds to displace that 28 feet of piping (which would hold about 1/2 gallon of water). Therefore, Mark may be close, if not a little optimistic, with his estimate of 30 seconds to get hot water to the bar in the sunroom. At a minimum, we need to eliminate this unnecessary piping.

Another Beautiful Autumn Day

As foretasted, it started raining after midnight Monday night and continued until Tuesday afternoon. It was not a heavy rain, but it soaked everything. While the carpenters told me, when they left Monday afternoon, that they would probably be back on Wednesday, I was not surprised when no one showed up today. It was a beautiful autumn day, sunny, dry and cool. However, it was pretty muddy in the back yard. There was a chance of rain tonight, but now that chance is only 10% or less. Should be nice for the last two days of the week. Don't know if "Our" Mike will have anyone show up or not. We are running out of time before the first snow. They were actually saying we have a chance of flurries over the weekend. This week is our three month anniversary of getting the construction permit. That permit expires in three more months. Without a doubt, we had hoped we would have been much farther along than we are now. Most of the needed stuff has not even been ordered yet. Some of those items, like the glass roof over the hot tub, we don't even know what the delivery time will be.

We did, finally, get an email from Betsy (solar) today. It has been a couple of weeks since she said she was communicating with all the appropriate players and would be getting back to us. She attached a electrical drawing, pictures and a change order for approval (finalization of the location of the inverters). There were some other changes included on the change order which I challenged and she subsequently recanted. Sad to say, we will have to watch this company closely.

Let The Carpentry Begin

It is supposed to begin raining after midnight tonight and continue into early tomorrow afternoon. Sunny, dry and cool for the remainder of the week. "Our" Mike and his crew (Nate plus two carpenters) arrived a little after 7:00 am this morning. Daylight Savings Time had been discontinued this past weekend, so there was a little more daylight at that hour. They reviewed the drawings for quite awhile before agreeing on a work plan. Prior to finishing for the day, they had two wall frames built, one of which was raised into position. With the rain forecast for tomorrow, probably won't see much more activity until Wednesday.

Yesterday, I sent Mike an email informing him that, over the weekend, I inspected the trench that "Bobcat" Tom had dug 10 days ago for the utility lines. In doing so, I noticed that Tom had "found" the clay lateral from the east side downspouts over to the sewer line. He not only found it, he dug out a three foot stretch of it. I confirmed this by running water into the downspout hub and, sure enough, it emptied into the trench. In the email, I suggested to Mike that we needed to get this repaired prior to refilling the trench. This morning, I asked Mike if he saw the email. He said he did and they would make the repair. Looks as if they are going to use a piece of the PVC lateral they had to previously remove when installing the garage foundations. Good thing I was lazy and did not throw those remnants away this weekend while cleaning up around the ash tree.