Beautiful Day

Today was warm (if you are coming out of winter) or cool (if you think ahead to summer). It almost got up to 70 today. Sunny and calm. Too bad it is a Saturday or it would be yet another perfect day to get some work done. I went out and sorted through the debris pile that "Our" Mike had assembled this past week. There was a LOT of very good lumber that was, apparently, destined for disposal. It is now securely located in our basement. This material will be very useful for shelving and other purposes. One of our neighbors (one who is still talking to us) stopped by and was amazed as well at what was supposedly intended for disposal.

In today's mail we got a notice from the City of St. Louis Planning and Urban Design Agency Cultural Resources Office stating:

Project Description: INSTALL SOLAR PANELS ON DETACHED GARAGE

Type of Permit: HISTORIC DISTRICT/BUILDING

Decision: APPROVED

This was good news, I guess. I forwarded a scan of this notice to John (solar) congratulating him on obtaining the approval.

Forecast for Monday is rain. I don't believe that should impact Mike's plans to level and rock the garage and sunroom, but I will not hold my breath.

I mentioned yesterday that Mike had announced that Monday "Bobcat" Tom would be back to level and gravel the garage and sunroom. I was mistaken, Mike said that the company who had poured the foundations would be here on Monday to level and gravel the garage and sunroom.

Maybe Next Week

Around 8:30 am yesterday morning, "Our" Mike showed up for a couple of hours and did some sorting and cleanup in the garage. Our assumption is that he is preparing for the eventual grading of the floors. He departed without talking with us before 11:00 am. The debris pile in the garage has grown again.

No roofing this week except on Tuesday. I guess I misunderstood Bret (roofing) when he told me on Tuesday that they would finish the roofing of the main house this week. What he must have actually said was that they were finished roofing on the main house for the week (ha ha). The roofers have done a decent job, but like other crafts working on our project, the job has taken much longer than we were told to expect. I was originally told it would take a couple of days to do the roofing. I found this hard to believe. Once they actually started on Monday 9, I was told they would be finished by Saturday March 14. It is now March 20 and the main house is not complete, half the garage is done and they have not started on the sunroom who's felt is starting to blow off. I do not have a new estimate for completion. Why waste time asking? Assuming they show back up, I expect them to finish early next week.

Mike sent a note yesterday evening saying that he and "Bobcat" Tom will be here Monday to do the grading and graveling.

While touring the neighbor this morning with Spenser, one our neighbors called out to us asking "when are you going to finish that room?". All I could say was, "DON'T GET ME STARTED!".

About 3:30 pm this afternoon, a two dump trucks showed up and deposited a pile of gravel in the alley behind the garage. While the pile is partially in the right-of-way, it appears that you can still drive around it so I don't have to call Mike to complain about that. Previously, it took two truck loads to gravel the alley immediately behind the garage, so I doubt what was delivered today is going to be enough to rock the garage and sunroom plus re-gravel the alley as I asked Mike to do. Perhaps he will have more delivered Monday after they use up this pile.

Main House Almost Roofed

Monday was a beautiful spring-line, if not summer-like day. The temperature got up to 80 with bright clear skies. Unfortunately, no one showed up to take advantage of this great weather. I noticed that at some point during the day, someone did deliver some ridge vents and stored them in the garage area.

While this was good, the quantity delivered was a little disappointing. There were two and one-half packages of 4 foot lengths of ridge. Each package contained 10 lengths for a total of 100 feet. This is about as much as I had expected to be installed on the main house itself. We know the garage will need about 40 feet. The packages stated that the net free area (NFA) was 72 square inches. I knew that this could not be the NFA per foot and since there is 40 feet per package, I decided this was the total NFA for the entire package or 18 sqin/foot. The 18 sqin/foot is on the high end of the ridges I have seen on-line. Doing the math, if they only put 60 feet on the main house, this would give us a total NFA of 1,080 sqin. This is less than I was hoping for, but compared to the NFA we had before with the two roof turbines (226 sqin), would be a marked improvement. Previously, I had asked "Our" Mike about whether or not they were going to install ridge vents on all possible ridges. He indicated he thought so, but also that he was not sure. I also realized that I was not aware that anyone had ever informed Bret (roofing) that we have a 12,000 cfm attic fan. If he did not know this, he might not be as concerned if he did not install the maximum number vents. Seeing another potential failure to communicate that could cost us money and/or lead to a undesirable end result, I decided I needed to ensure Bret knew we needed all the ridge vents the roof configuration would allow. I had an exchange of emails with Mike, during which I attached the satellite survey we had done over a year ago. Subtracting off the 21' ridge on the old garage, the survey estimated that we have 112' of ridges on the main house. Some of these ridges will be occupied by the four finials (I estimate they will occupy 8' to 10' of total ridge line). I am hopeful that we will end up with over 100' of main house vented ridges. This will result in 1,800 sqin of NFA, eight times the area we had with just the two old roof turbines. It will be interesting to see if we can perceive any change in the performance of our attic fan this Spring.

The next morning (Tuesday) I called Bret. He told me that Mike had forwarded to him the email I had sent to Mike with a satellite survey of our roof. Bret explained that they will install vents on all possible ridges, including on the dormers. I thanked Bret and asked him to let me know the final total length of vents installed. He said he would do so. Bret also told me that they will be able to finish the main house this week but will have to wait for more shingles to be delivered in order to finish the sunroom and garage. He said those shingles might not arrive until next Monday.

The roofers showed up around 8:30 am Tuesday morning and worked all day, departing around 6:00 pm. I knew they did not finished on the main house yet because the finials were still not re-installed. They also left a dump truck sitting out front overnight. Wednesday may be the last dry day this week. Forecast is for 50% odds for rain starting Wednesday evening.

Making a tour with Spenser this morning, there is still some shingling to be done under the eaves on the south dormers, but the major shingling is complete. Also the two dormers on the south side do not have the ridge vents installed. It appears as if the vents have been installed on the main north-south and east-west ridges, as well as the east dormer. It looks as if they have used all the ridge vents they brought on Monday. There two 4' sections in the garage (one damaged) and I can see at least one laying in a valley on the roof. If that means they have installed 20+ four foot sections and still have a couple of the dormers to do, then we should up with the ventilation hoped for on the main house.

I wish they had reattached the felt on the sunroom

Yesterday morning, I called Patrick (ME). Patrick is the mechanical engineer that Frank (HAC) referred to us to help with the ventilation questions. I had left Patrick a message last Friday, so since there was no response on Monday, I called again. I was told that Patrick was out and would call me back later. He did call back and we had a nice chat. Patrick stated that he could help and I promised to send him our construction drawings. I included in my message the flyer of the hot tub and the drawings of the glass roof. Patrick said he would look at the information and give me his thoughts. This morning, Patrick acknowledged he had received the information I sent yesterday.