Service wire is in from the house to the pump/power shed. The ditch is dug for the waterline and a spare pipe. Gotta dig the rest of the ditch for the propane line tomorrow.

Called my plumber to see if it was OK to lay in a pipe sleeve for him or if the inspector needs to see the ditch and depth. (The inspector is a giant dick, and I'm betting I have to wait).

SO, tomorrow..... more dirt!

Hail dirt

Taking a break. Went and got the mini-excavator today. It's a Bobcat brand, works pretty well. I've used it a couple times before digging in sewer lines for myself and other folks. That dude is HEAVY behind little Red, but we made it here without incident. I get to put 8 hours on it this weekend before overage costs are applied, so I wrote down the hours from when I started :D.

I didn't get started digging until 10 'cause it takes a while to get rented, loaded, traveled and unloaded. Glad I get two days.....

Thus far? I got the pad site mostly leveled for the pump/power house. I did it by eyeball and then later got out some stakes, string and a string level. It's pretty close. Close enough for me to be happy with it in any case. I can get it finished up with my tractor at my leisure without having to use precious $26.75 hours on a rented machine.

Then I got the ditch dug for the electric. I'm putting the 1/0 triplex underground in 2" schedule 40 PVC because we have moles. That should make it last a whole lot longer, and I'm putting it in at 30" deep. I only need 18" by code if it's in pipe but I like to be a little safer than that.

Just as I was starting to get the electric pipe together the heavens opened up. It hailed for a while, then we had a frog strangler of a rain. Now I'm hangin out while it moves in and out. It was time for a chips & cheese break anyhow. Back to work soon..... I don't like to sit too long.

Passed

Well, it's easy to tell when we're busy and workin because not much gets posted. :D

On Tuesday we passed the electrical rough in inspection on the house. Pretty happy about that. Then we went to work putting up nailiers for the drywall to get attatched to. On Monday Sawyer Brothers will put the spray in foam insulation throughout the entire house, top to bottom and including the crawl space. We hope to have it sealed up really really well that way and save energy there for the rest of our lives. After Brian and his gang get done we'll go back to work if we can stand the smell then take off the next weekend and go to the Crestone Music Fest.

This weekend I'm 97% (Hee hee hee) sure I have a mini-excavator rented. I'll use it to trench for the lines from the house to the pump/power house and propane tank. Probably will put in a spare pipe or two. The construction rule is that you should put in everything you possibly can while you have a ditch open. I try to follow that one.

Now if I can just get the lead outta my ass and get started......

Yeah baby! Ready for inspection...

Finished almost all of the wiring this weekend. Tonight we'll finalize, clean up, and start with nailers. How freakin cool is that?!

Done!!

Getting the HUGE propane tank into the trailer. wow.

Taking the night off

Tonight I'm taking the night off. Picked up some more "stuff" to get the electrical done today and that's a good thing. I keep finding out little tid bits here and there that I need and didn't know about before. It's a little maddening but good to know before I get too much done and have to back track.

Last night Crystal helped me install the bathroom fan vents through the roof and I got the hole drilled through the block for the 2" electrical service pipe. Also found out the rental rates on a mini excavator so I can get the site prepped for the power/pump house.

The roof vents went up between thunder storms. Nothing like being on a metal roof in the rain during a thunder storm. Heck I can only think of one thing better than that.....

Taking my solar shower under the trees while the lightning crashed and the rain threatened. It hurried me up a bit to say the least.

Best part of yesterday? Drying off in the 5th wheel and sitting down to a nice dinner while the rain came down like it was the end of days. There's something good every day if ya look for it.

If this goes any slower

I'm going to blow my brains out.

Called the driller/pump guy today. He'll do some checking and get back to me this week. The plumber says the high end of his estimate will be almost 7K and that doesn't include the heating. Why is it always the plumbing that breaks my back? Craziness.

Still working on the electrical. It's the slow tedious part of that. With any luck we get our inspection next week.

Early to bed tonight. I'm weary.

Step by step

It's that part of the job. The part where it looks like it'll never get done and it'll never and and you just spend day after day doing a bit here and a bit there and it never really looks like you're getting any more done. Today after work I picked away at the electrical some more. I put staples in the stuff in the roof for a good while (until I ran out of staples again, that's three boxes of 100 that I've used up). I measured to see how much pipe I'll be needing to run the service wire outside to what'll be the pump/power house. I put in the boxes and wire for the smoke/fire alarms.

We're gonna try our best to have it ready for the electrical inspection next week.

I gots to get a hold of the well driller and get them to put a pump in. Odd that they're the only people that can legally do it.

Very odd.

Might be going to get a propane tank this weekend too.

I think we need more to do.

Shopping day

Today we went to the sparking hell of Pueblo to get some stuff so that the plumbing could move forward. We got: 2 toilets; 2 vanities; a low 5' tub, posi-temp fixtures for the showers and the guest room tub; a shower base; venting for both fart fans; 100 feet of bell wire; and a laundry sink.

It took all damned day.

We used our Lowes 10% off card at Home Depot where we found almost everything, and had to pay mostly full price at Lowes on the stuff we couldn't really find at Home Depot. Of course we did find a $350 vanity for $89. Actually it was Crys that found it.

We got everything we needed except the master bathroom tub. We want a nice 6 footer and they all have to special order those in.

I am falling asleep in my chair, very tired. Tomorrow we'll get back to the electrical. Then on to the pumphouse. :D

Denman ........ OUT

Better quality - Same video

How it looked before we started...

Here's how it looked to start with... I'll upload a better quality video later.

Plumbing to begin

Met with the plumber this evening. Jan Smith is his name and plumbing is his game, I just like sayin that I know how dumb and cliche' it is :D

He was quite pleased that 10 years ago when I poured the pad for the trailer I installed a 1" water line and a 3" sewer line under the pad at the proper depths. And that I had found and dug them out when I had the floor out. Apparently his jobs aren't usually set up quite that well.

We went all through the place looking at where we've laid out the fixtures and where the walls and drains will go. It would appear that our layout is also satisfactory. I did put most of the walls on top of studs and that means a bit of finagling to get the vent stack in. We discussed boiler options and water heater options. We think we'll go with about a 90% efficiency boiler and an on demand water heater. Those both use piped outside combustion air and I like that better than having to have an open hole to the outside in the boiler/laundry room. That reminds me I have to go and hunt a 130K propane boiler on craigslist as well as a propane tank......

Apparently we have to call a well drilling outfit to get a pump put in our well (the first time). Colorado law. Yet another weird unexplainable law. I keep running across them. Like the faucets for the tubs and stuff have to have posi temp valves. You set them so that no one gets scalded. We'll be changing the one in the master bedroom right after the final inspection.

And tonight the mountain blue birds arrived.

They are

PISSED

that I closed in the house.

Chocolate mint is taking off... I almost killed it at first. Not enough water got to the roots through the peat pot. Now it's happy. I want to look down at it in 10 years and remember planting it this summer.
Today I am a little sad and a lot thankful. Life takes these little twists and turns... It's good though. Better than good. Perfect.

Today at the fest

At the San Luis Valley Folk Art and Fiber Fest today in Monte Vista. Tomorrow too. Yesterday I picked up my panel and breakers. I'll put 'em in Monday evening. That and a couple more little wires will take care of the electrical in side. THen to start on framing in nailers for the drywall ahead of the insulators and start on the pump house. :D

Maybe I need a hobby

Last full day.

Today is the last full day I'll spend on the place for a while. I go back to the day job on Monday. It's sure been nice to have some time to dedicate to getting this project going though. I'm not complaining that's for sure.

Today I'll try to finish up installing the fixture boxes and such, and get the wires all stapled and start dressing them for inspection. I'll get the panel on Friday and wire that later on. It'll be nice to have the electrical done and get on to some other stuff.


***** Added later today ......

Got the outside light and outlet boxes mounted and wire pulled. Then got down in my back and have been just chilling the rest of the day. Shouldn't be too hard to finish the electrical now. Looks like we'll get to it next week. The fest is this weekend, so I'll do a little work tomorrow if I feel better, and then start back on Monday.

We worked like dogs all weekend. All three days. Tired. sore. Lots of the wiring is done and a whole lot of the cleanup is going well. I have a trailer load to dump in the morning and more wire to buy along with some other little bits and pieces of electrical stuff. And the weekend ended with a nice fire and a warm solar shower. :D Some days are pretty good.

Wired

Wired and pretty near ruined I'd say :D

Yesterday Crystal finished up the shit job of tearing off the bits of kibble all around the edge of the walls at the roof. It had to be done to do the insulating and drywall and was a nasty, dirty, crappy, unending task. She kept working at it, foot by foot, dirt raining down on her head, mouse shit bouncing on the floor, pounding a nail bar and slicing old ceiling board off at the edges until she'd worked her way all the way around the house.

All I did was work on the electrical yesterday. Got the 35 recessed fixtures up in the roof/ceiling and got a good bit of the wire pulled. Roger will be out today to give me a pre inspection and some advice before I do stuff I have to undo. :D We're hoping to have the biggest part of the wiring done before I go back to work on the 12th. Then we can get inspected, get the insulators in there and then the plumber. While they're working we'll work on insulating and water proofing the crawl space (from the outside) and getting a start on the perimeter dirt work and pump house location.

Christie showed up again today and "dressed" the electrical I had already pulled in to the boxes. Man are we ever gonna owe her....

And thanks to Pablo we have some temporary storage for the pile of crap we had in a room in the trailer. In his van is now a big group of our stuff.

Just 'cause you can't be working inside the place doesn't mean you can't keep working.

Today? More electrical and a good clean up.

Better get to it.

Too dark to document

Today was a good work day.

Thank you Christie for showing up to help out.

I put down 192 square feet of sub flooring. It looks good. When I got done with that I went to work on electrical. There's still a ways to go on that. But I went through several hundred feet of wire today. Christie helped cleaning up for drywalling . Then she went to work screwing down flooring I put down earlier in the week. Crystal did every thing. She worked her butt off.

There are no pics today because we quit as it was getting dark out.

More tomorrow.

I sleepy

Beautiful flowers coming up all around... And it's raining like crazy tonight so I expect all those wildflower seeds to start sprouting soon. I love how green everything gets after a good downpour. we have a couple drips in the roof... we'll tarp it later to help.

Floors. And Boxes.

Today was another good day. I like good days.

This morning I got all the wall boxes nailed up and ready to take some wire. Also went to South Fork and got another 11 sheets of 3/4 T&G plywood. Then I came back and changed the propane tanks because the fridge was outta gas. Then I did a little more rearranging of the box world in there and started tearing up flooring.

I'm tearing out four 8 X 12 sheets of slightly water damaged particle board. We coulda used the board that's there but it's covered in two nasty lays of vinyl flooring, it's pitted, the two sides of the house don't meet that well.....

You get the idea.

I got all but three feet of the flooring across the 16 foot width. So tomorrow I'll hammer and bar the glue off and then take the grinder to it. Thank goodness I have a spare grinding wheel since I've already gone through one of 'em. Then I'll start laying the tongue and groove alternating so X does not mark the spot (which is always bad). Once that's done and hopefully all done tomorrow I'll mark the joists for a liberal screwing by some help we hope to have this weekend.

hint

Hint

hint


Then this weekend we'll have a wiring party. I got 36 can lights to space out through the place so we can use low wattage lamps and still make it look well lit. About the only electrical part I don't have is the panel and a couple fart fans. :D Oh and those pesky $50 breakers. I think I'll try Home Depot or Lowes for the panel.... they're kinda pricy here.

Only another week before I return to my day job.

I think I'll welcome the rest.