The Dirt Hill Disappears

We have been waiting for our neighbour to move the dirt pile from by the garage across the fence line to his property.  Finally that happened, starting Thursday evening and completed on Friday.

Len watching Alessandro getting started

The pile moved from beside the garage to close to the fence

Len used the transit to help level the yard

Ross came and did the leveling with his bobcat

Ta da!  A nice open space. 

We have an extra pile of  gravel/sand for filling in where it settles.  The final work will be done next spring - Len has big plans to cut down the bank some more and top it all with some nice washed gravel.  Even as it is, it is a great improvement.

Len was busy for the whole day just supervising and advising.  Once the yard was done, he got back to insulation.  Once I was done work for the day, I helped put insulation in the many little nooks and crannies that we have on the main level.  I will take some pictures today so keep watching.
Cath

First Snow of 2011

Well, it had to happen.  The good news is that it didn't stick for more than a couple of hours.   

Banjo and I saw the snow up close on our walk

Len and Ross were eager to get the trenches filled in before they filled up with water from either rain or snow.

Pipes going into the basement before being covered

Ross and Len filling the trenches - snow still on the ground

We have our driveway back - and as mucky as ever

Len also finished doing the first half of the ceiling insulation by moving the scaffold OVER the stairwell behind the fireplace. It was quite the feat of fearless climbing and working at a height as he had to be up 4 levels to reach the highest point.

Good thing a 2X12 is strong

Len spent yesterday getting ready for our first electrical inspection which went well. We were given the go-ahead to insulate all the walls and ceilings as Bob, the inspector, is happy with how Len is wiring the house. Good thing - this morning the house was -4 and our heaters could only keep our loft at 10. A little chilly. The heating guys will be finishing up most of the ducting and as soon as the equipment arrives we will be hooked up to our geo wells. Can't be too soon.

More muck and Way up high...again

Here is how the day on Saturday went....
Work. Work. More Work.

Here is some of the duct work being done

This is some of the geothermal equipment

 Len had to get 10 holes drilled to connect the manifold inside to the pipes outside.  A noisy job.

Len found rebar is hard to drill through and had to do some hand work

The big hammer drill he rented

Hoses through the concrete

 Meanwhile, outside the Terra Therma drilling fellows, Greg and Steve, were doing all the connections in the trenches.

6 ft under, the well goes down, then piped across to the house

It all ends up here

Down in the trenches

Then we got serious about insulating the ceiling of the great room.

Load ready to go up

From up it is a long way down

getting the load up is one thing....

getting it in the rafters is another

One half done

More hoisting and scary heights performances

Len used rope to bring up the next level of scaffold and then put it together up above his head

We moved the scaffold over the stairwell, behind the fireplace to get the very center

At this point, it is dark and Len is still mucking about with the scaffold.  I am going to make dinner.  Stay tuned..... Cath

A Week of Muck and More

Wow, hard to believe a whole week has passed!  This is what Len was up to while Cath worked.

First, the geothermal holes are all finished!  They managed to muck up the whole upper area north of the house so we are using the basement as an entry.

Muck and slime

Len finished up a couple of "little" projects.

The wall in front of the brick support for the fireplace is complete

He spent a whole day finishing the box around the hot tub pumps

Then we had Ross come with his bobcat and dig the trenches that will allow for the wells to be joined together with pipe.  More muck and lots more dirt in piles everywhere.  The weather gods were with us and we didn't have any huge amounts of rain and no snow.

Len supervising to make sure Ross doesn't cut into our buried lines

Nice neat trenching

Hard to see that this is 6 ft deep

Meanwhile, inside, Len was being his inventive self to help make the process of putting insulation in the ceiling a little more convenient.

Version one of the pulley system

Len up top ready to go

Pulley system delivers the batts

The furnace guys were here 3 days this week and we hope they will be back on Monday to get us hooked up or at least on the road to being heated.

Last night we took a night off to go play music at a local coffee house hosted by our friend, Pat.   We played four songs and did not too badly.  We don't have a bass player so that is quite a bit hole in our sound.  Today the drilling guys are here to do their part of the hook up so watch for more pictures tomorrow.

Two young deer on our dirt piles

Curious but not afraid

Drilling begins

While Cath was in Vancouver, the drillers came and started drilling.  They only had to go  40 ft. before hitting bedrock which is excellent both for drilling progress and heat transfer.  That is the good news.  The bad news is that they are making a slimy mess of our driveway.  Oh well, if they take one day per hole that is only 5 days of muck.  Could be worse.

First hole of 5

This expels goop and muck which then runs down the driveway

A sea of grey

Number 2 bore

The weekend brought cold nights and when we woke up to 4C inside with all four heaters going, we knew we needed help.  So our music friend, Pat, who is also a contractor, lent us a lovely heater.  After running it with our other heaters, we were at 11C this morning - a great improvement.

The great little heater

Our worm composter had to be moved upstairs so they didn't freeze

Tomorrow we are expecting the heating guys to be back to get the heat exchanger, etc. put in.  Apparently they were down with flu last week, thus our freezing conditions.

Being a lovely, sunny Fall day, we went for a hike across the walker valley and explored a lovely path.  Banjo was in his glory!

Fall is evident everywhere

The little golden dog is hard to see with all those leaves

Len has managed to get blocking put in the rafters of the main room.  That means we can start insulating the ceiling.  We also need to finish the garage loft room in preparation for REAL central heating.

one side

and then the other

Another bit of good news, the hot tub is working and is a lovely way to end the day.  Sorry, no pictures of us in it (it was dark) but you can imagine!

The hot tub is set into this end of the deck, you can see the cover

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving weekend and the troops have arrived. I had made a list of jobs for the weekend so no one would feel left out,

Build fireplace

Nail beam

move stuff to garage

garage door plywood

foam doors and windows

Loft floor

remove silly roof part

insulation

dog gate

straps for big windows and patio doors

nails in deck hangers

deck blocking

Septic cleanout cover glued on

House wrap

move garage doors into the garage

glass in shop doors

shop doors stained

Cut upper shop trim piece

move pile of hardie plank

split wood

windows in backhoe and drain

cleanup lumber by master bedroom

trees down

wood chips under deck

deck strapping

We did get a number of them accomplished and then some 

move stuff from shop to garage

dog gate

straps for big windows and patio doors

House wrap

move garage doors into the garage

glass in shop doors

split wood

Build fireplace

Kyla arrived first and we dropped a plumb line to find the center of the chimney on the new concrete pad.

High wire act

Kyla and I placing glass in the shop doors.  

Now the big moment has arrived. Kyla found some refractory cement in Kelowna for the fireplace and that was all we were waiting for.  Chris had arrived by now and Michael and Shannon followed. Kyla and Cath spent a good part of Sunday splitting wood along the driveway.

Leveling the first two pieces took a bit of time

We waited over night for the base to cure before we continued.

Second tier is up

Michael is placing the last piece.

Adding some house wrap under the covered deck

Securing the big window

The geothermal drillers showed up Monday evening.  We helped unload some pipe and tubing.

The compressor and pipe for the drilling.

I think they will be starting on Thursday for drilling.

A great Thanksgiving meal was had by all thanks to our wonderful cook, Cathryn.

Len