'Twas the week before Christmas . . .

And all through the house, Len was stirring, not at all like a mouse.

Ok, so that is pretty poor poetry, but true enough.

Here is what is up.  #1 the house is warm - 18C on every level.  Of course, it is quite warm outside (nothing much below -8) so that helps.

Len keeps finding the LAST bit of electrical wiring to finish.  He is completely done in the basement and main floor, and only has a little to do in the garage.  (Behind the boxes, of course).

the powder room through-the-wall fan in place

Our excitement was that Len lost his wallet and of course only after  he replaced everything did Tim Hortons call to say it had been found.  So we wasted 1/2 day digging in the boxes in the garage to find his passport to get a new drivers license and another 1/2 day driving around to get things replaced.  Ah well, all's well that ends well.

Pocket doors also got put in

I got all the floor/ceiling boards stained for the loft/office/powder room.  They are tongue and groove fir, and the finished side will be the ceiling of the office, powder room and front entrance.  We'll put flooring over it for the loft.

Dressed to do a messy job

All stained

We also spent some time cleaning up and since Len got the built-in vacuum put in, that helped.  We bought a unit made in Kamloops, all Canadian parts except the Lamb motor.  We put in two outlets on each level.

The built-in vacuum under the stairs

One of the outlets

Len doesn't let a little darkness get in the way of completing the electrical work!

Now we are getting ready to drive to the Sunshine Coast for a wonderful respite of food and family.  Can't wait!  And the house will be here when we get back, ready for more excitement.

Heavy snow on the trees - beautiful

Have a wonderful Christmas everyone!  Hope 2012 is the year we finish this off especially since the world is supposed to end in December 2012 and we would really like to have it finished before then.

The fire will come

Nigel Pearce came over about 9AM and the work started.  We cut the first flue section to accept the damper and the cleanout door. Then some refractory mortar is used to connect the flue to the damper assembly which Cathryn fitted and mortared last night. This is the second time we have set this unit.

setting the first course of bricks

Now the bricks get placed to bring the chimney to the same size as the fireplace. A small space is left for expansion between the flue sections and the blocks. bricks were stacked until it was about seven feet high.

More bricks

Now the chimney is finished as far as the masonry is concerned. A coat of parging to seal it even more till the rocks get placed.

A view from the top

Now I go into town and talk to Jason about the rest of the chimney. This will be complicated as we are going from a square flue to a round stainless chimney.  More on this later.

Two steps forward, one step back

Another week of happenings, some good, some not.
Firstly, we managed to finish putting up all the silver bubble-wrap insulation on the floor heating tubes under the garage loft.  Then we put in fiberglass insulation below that.  Now we are really toasty in the loft.

Putting up the silver bubble wrap

Insulation 

Yes we had to move everything again to do this job!

Speaking of heat, we had a moment of happiness and hope when the geo system was turned on and the light turned green and heat was made.  Unfortunately, something was amiss and we had to shut it down after only a few hours.  So we are back on the electric boiler which seems to be working fine.

The green light is ON!

Manifold into the heat pump

We are almost finished all the vapour barrier.  Today Len is risking life and limb to do the very top of the great room.  He says it is scary up there, reaching out to staple and tape while perched upon a workhorse on top of the scaffold.  When Len says it is scary, you know it really is.

Nice to have a wall to hold onto.  Working in the middle is a different story.

High wire act?

Meanwhile, Len is planning to get started on the masonry fireplace finish.  We have hired a mason to do the brick and rock work as this is not something we want to learn on the job.  It will be the center piece of the great room afterall.

So we hear Christmas is on the way.  This is our only nod to the season so far.  It does feel Christmassy, though, with all the snow sticking around.

A fund raiser for the Goldrush Grannies - a Stephen Lewis Foundation group I belong to

Ok, back to work!   More later, Cath

VP (visual progress)

Having been away for a whole week, I can't say it was immediately evident what Len had been up to.  All that wiring is mostly hidden away in walls.  Len likes VP, as do we all.  So this weekend we did some work that made for quite the feeling of accomplishment.  Could have done more, but we ran out of plastic.

The light at the top of the stairs.  Those who have stumbled up or down would appreciate this.

We started doing the vapour barrier on the bedroom and kitchen.  It went very quickly with two of us.  I was the "driver", pushing the small scaffold from one area to another as Len stapled.

He's under there somewhere!

Easy peasy

The finished product

The handy electric stapler

Then Len got serious on the great room loft.  Sorry, you are on your own up there until there is a floor anyway!

Not quite so easy peasy

The plan is to get more plastic and continue on the hard work in the great room.  Stay tuned!

Cath

Making a hot room a cold room

The heating guys have pretty well completed all they are going to do for plenum work. They have been here and almost got the geo thermal going.  One small pump error and they had to leave.  Of course we are too far away to come here just to correct a small problem so I am waiting again for them to show up.  One drawback to all of the tin work is that the main hot air out and cold air return run right through our "some day" cold room.  It seemed easier to shorten the cold room than try and frame around all of the large ductwork.  So I divided the room in half which will give us a place for skis and cold weather gear.

Much ductwork

A smaller more friendly cold storage room

I have been working on finally completing the wiring. The code book, which I should have read more closely, has pointed out a couple of errors that I am correcting.  The laundry room plugs cannot come from a lighting circuit.  They must be all by themselves and the suggestion is a circuit for each plug, Hoo boy. The other item is the kitchen counter plugs which run on three wire 20 amp breaker circuits.  The problem is , they can't supply two plugs adjacent to each other.  You have to skip over to the next one and the one in the middle is on its own. Tomorrow I will be completely finished except for the shop.
I did finally get to the main panel. I shut off the main power while Cathryn went to town to do laundry. I converted a mess into art

More good news, our roof leak is back.  As soon as the weather warmed up the roof valley by the garage started to drip.  Again, hoo boy.

The big puddle has dried up considerably from what it was

I now have all the parts I need for the fireplace and the okay from the manufacturer to use 12 x 12 flue liners so I can go ahead and cut for the damper and the chimney cleanout.  I got the cleanout shipped Purolator from Burnaby and, due to the lack of packing material received the door damaged.  They sent out another door and now I am ready to go.  I have engaged the help of a mason to get the stove ready for final finish which I hope to tackle myself.  He'll be here tomorrow so we'll see how much I can do.

Len