Our New House Construction
Country Roads
10-10-10 - Today's date may be a good oman so you might want to play that lottery number. There isn't too much to report in that construction work is going on at a steady pace. Since my last update we have had some heavy rain which proved interesting. We went out to the property and found the plumber, Bill, in his chest high waders. Since we're on a hill top I asked why he had on his waders. He told us there was four feet of water in the basement. I asked about the crawl space and he said it was perfectly dry. The problem: there are four windows and window wells on two walls of the basement area. The window wells had not been installed at that point and thus that part of the foundation had not been fully backfilled. With no gutters and a HUGE roof the water ran right down along the foundation to the drain lines which lead to a sump pump pit in the basement. Second Problem: There is no sump pump in the pit yet so I am sure the water gushing up out of the sump pit must have looked like Old Faithful. Bill, being the good man that he is pumped water out for about 4-5 hours. Oh well, no pun intended, stuff happens but it all ended well. The weather, aside from a little much needed rain, has been cool in the mornings and comfortable during the days and mostly sunny.
This is the front of the house with the living room windows and porch roof.
Frank, Willie and Paul are busy laying brick on the east side of the house along the master bedroom and family room.
This is taken from the loft area looking out the back kitchen and dining room windows.
11/12/10 - I can't believe it has been over a month since I last updated this page. And looking at the above pictures I can't believe how much has been accomplished in the last month. The roof has been completed, all of the porch roofs are in place and they are almost completed. The septic system has been installed and the brick work has been completed. A lot of the outside trim work is done and the decking on the porches has been completed. The electrician and plumber are almost finished and the HVAC should be getting started next week. There is now electrical power to the house. We have skylights installed and solar tubes in place waiting to be placed in their final positions.
We have completed the geothermal design and the well drillers will start next week. They will drill our water well and two 500' deep geothermal wells. We will have two zones for heating and cooling and it will all be provided by geothermal. We will also have a woodstove in our living room which we plan to use. The geothermal will not only provide our heating and cooling it will also assist with our hot water needs.
John, our builder, hopes to have his framing and trades inspection completed by the end of next week so we can get the insulation package put it. We will be using a spray on foam on all of the outside walls. The foam will be 2" thick and then overlaid with R13 fiberglass insulation giving the walls an R26 rating. The vaulted ceilings in the living room and family room will have R38 rating. Above all of the other rooms with flat ceilings they will blow in fiberglass insulation to an R49 rating. Community walls around bedrooms and bathrooms will all be insulated which will help keep those rooms warmer as well as for soundproofing. Once the insulation is in the wallboard will go up. It appears that they will start hanging wallboard the first or second week in December.
I have ordered the wood for the vaulted ceilings and it will arrive on Monday. By mid December I will be ordering the wood floors. We have ordered all of the cabinets for the bathrooms, kitchen & pantry. We have selected all of our appliances and will be ordering them in December. Ceiling fans and outdoor lighting is on hand waiting to be installed. At this point I am revising my move-in estimates from January to February or early March. We'll see...
We have continued to have good weather for construction purposes thus allowing for good progress. John started laying main beams on July 15th and this is where we are in just barely 4 months!
This is the porch roof by the family room
This is the septic line coming out of the house
to the septic tank and then out to the distrubution box
These are the lines out of the distribution box going to the three drain fields
This is the power line from the temporary line going into the house - YEA!
Deck framing along the back of the house
The roof is on for the side porch
Its not an alien - they're solar tubes that will be in the ceiling
Porch area along the east side of the house
Progress continues...
Front door area with date stone
Building date immortalized in stone
