Falling behind again

Wow, has it been that long since I posted?? Well, I'm not that surprised as I'm way behind where I thought I'd be at this point. So let me get you all up to date there is lots to tell.

In August I thought I should spend some time outside and dig a few ditches. I started with digging one for the water supply going into the house. I dug a little using the backhoe and then had to dig about 8 feet by hand. To make matters more fun it was all under the front deck. This meant I was working in a 3+ foot trench under the deck which is about 1-1/2' over the ground. Yea, I hit my head a few times. With the trench dug I then hired a core drilling company to put a 3" hole in the foundation wall. It took him 10 minutes to set up and about 3 minutes to drill the hole. Definitely worth the $250 bill as it would have taken me a week to get that hole.

Next I went down and got my electrical permit. Yep, more money to the govenment. I now have to live in my house for at least a year because I'm doing the work myself and not hiring a licensed electrician. I guess they figure if I screw up and burn the place down I'm out a house and contents not somebody else. Once I got all the paperwork in order I then spent about 3 hours on the backhoe digging 90 feet of ditch for the electrical service. This runs from the SSB (utility box) to the house. I then spent about 16 hours digging the 12 feet or so that I could not do with the backhoe. That was 2 feet on each end and the 8 feet in the middle where I couldn't park the backhoe on the hillside. Of course this was the deepest part of the trench (4+ feet). I think I lost a couple of pound that week (yea, I gained 'em back)! All the digging is also keeping my chiropractor in business. Then it was laying in and gluing up a 2-1/2" conduit and 3 - 1" conduits. The big one I pulled the service lines through and the others are for phone, cable, data. I then called for the inspection and as usual was nervous as to whether I did everything correctly or not. I passed with flying colors and even had the inspector say I do nice work. After that I backfilled the trench.

I did take a little over a week off in the middle of August for my annual trip to Seaside for the volleyball tourneyment. Once again the Organized Chaos crowd took over the Cannon beach campground and had a heck of a party. The Handsome Shrek Sports Bar grew to 2 - 20' long canopy tents. This year I had blacklight pool, foos ball, darts, and new for this year, air hockey. Even with the rain that kept falling it was a great weekend, the volleyball was even fun! Sorry the pictures are so small. I forgot my camera and they are the only ones I could get.

Next I started the interior electrical work. I'm using a lot of recessed can lighting in the house. Each upstairs bedrooms has 3 cans. My master has a total of 7 can lights plus a ceiling fan box. A little over kill but what the heck. Besides I've got a lot of wall art to light. 5 of the cans in the master bedroom are 3" and are set up for wall washing. Each deck also has 3 recessed cans as well as switched recepticals up in eves for Christmas lights.

I'm also doing something a little different with the bathroom fans. All the bathrooms except the master I am using ultra quite high tech fans. The have built in timers so they will continue to run for a set time after you turn them off. They also never completely shut off but will continue to pull about 30 cfm 24 hours a day. I went this way because with the radiant floor heat there is no air exchange happening like you have with a forced air furnace. The master bath fans are remote fans. They sit about 8' away in the attic. This means there should be no fan noise at all and the grills are only about 7" in diameter. I will be putting these on digital timers as well.

I then moved on to the kitchen. Of course the hard part here is that you have to know exactly where your cabinets and what type of appliances you're using so the light and outlets can be place in the correct spots. I'm doing a bit of guessing because I haven't picked some of these things out yet. I do know what sink I'm using though. A couple of years ago I went to an auction and found a large farmhouse style stainless steel sink, brand new in the box. I liked it and thought that if it went for a $100 or so I'd buy it and use it for a laundry sink. I did get it for somewhere around the price I wanted. Well the other day I was looking at it and realized it was really nice and heavy (turns out it weights over 50 lbs). I looked it up on line and found out its worth $2700.00!! No, I didn't put the decimal in the wrong spot, its really that much. Of course the downside is I'll have to spend a small forture on a faucett to do it justice.

I did take another break on the weekend of Sept 13th to do my annual trip to the Reno Air Races. It was some of the best racing I've seen in the 6 years that I've been going. In my group this year there were 6 of us, 3 of whom had never been before. We had a great time looking at airplanes flying very fast (485 mph) very low (50 feet) and stuffing ourselves at too many buffets (you had how many plates)!!! Here is John and Eric getting a little too into it (how many drinks did you guys have).

After comming back I jumped back on the electrical for a bit and then went back to the plumbing. Now that I've mounted the radiant panel I know where I'll be putting the boiler and so I could also place my water heater and run all the piping for that. By the way, my water heater is an "indirect" heater. This means that its basically a big heat exchanger using the 180 degree boiler water to heat the domestic water. Its capacity is only 40 gallons, 34 of which is domestic, the rest is the boiler water. But because it recovers so fast and the way I'm hooking it up (using a mixing valve) I've been told it should act like a 90 gallon electric tank. Lets hope so because it cost about 4 times what an electric tank cost.

Last but not least, last week and this week my sprinkler contractor came in. That's fire sprinklers not yard sprinkler. Because I'm so far from the water main and fire hydrant the Fire Marshal is requiring sprinklers in my house. While I think its a great idea and will save me money on my insurance it is an additional upfront expense. Of course it looks like starting in 2012 all new homes are going to be required to have sprinklers so I'm just ahead of the curve.

So that brings you all up to date. I've got another day or two of plumbing work for the domestic water then I'm jumping back onto electrical. Some where in there I've got to get some more siding up. If anyone wants to come over and check it out let me know, but beware I may give you a roller and brush and put you to work staining siding!!!