leaking

 We woke up this morning to drips down the master bath wall from the vents upstairs.  True to the first class operation that Evinity is, Doug was out momentarily to caulk.

Reading:  Watchlist, Deaver **** a progressive mystery which started as serialized audio book; big names in the International Thriller Writers each wrote a chapter or 2; Chopin Manuscript and Copper Bracelet. Chopin Manuscript has bit in it that wasn't written by Chopin that is a code for world destruction.

Roof work

Colder today with snow flurries instead of rain, so the roofing crew was at work on the front part of the house while our construction crew was busy sheathing the rear half of the roof. The rear roof has only one more course of plywood sheathing at the top to finish it off while all the installed sheathing has the rubber membrane and vapor barrier fabric (blue stuff) in place. A lot of the shingles are now staged on the peak of the roof for installation tomorrow. They used the old HardiePlank pieces as spacers on the fascia. We appreciate using old before buying new.

The first door, our rear entry door, was installed and most of the windows have been foamed between the frame and the panels. The weather is turning colder for the rest of the week--teens to mid-20s, so getting the doors in and windows sealed will help when the crew turns on their electric heater.
We are even more anxious to get the wood stove and the new house geothermal working since we got the Christmas electric bill: over $100. (Global warming, my a$$.) We didn't freeze the kids out this year.
On Sunday evening my computer screen went green and a pop-up warned me that I had better buy a $49 fix right now for the worm that just infected my computer.  Since I noticed 2 spelling errors, Paul jumped on the fishy case quickly and found Internet Security 2010 was a difficult-to-remove trojan horse and malware.  He downloaded the  repair kits for free and we proceeded to disinfect.  It took a while but seems to have worked.  WARNING: don't buy anything from popups unless you know for sure. Once a malware company has a credit card number it is free to charge and spend.
Sunday to Monday we had about 2" rain.  As usual we worried about the driveway.  I have had luck digging small diversion trenches in herringbones to catch some water and push it off the road.  They are only about 2" deep but catch enough water that we had no erosion in the areas served by these herringbones.  However Murch's sand mound has a pool of water behind it that is draining poorly onto our road and caused significant, though drivable, erosion gullies.  That issue is going to be unpleasant to repair.
From the Centre Daily Times,  Jan 26

Between 7 a.m. Sunday and 7 a.m. Monday, 1.73 inches of rain fell in State College, breaking the 1938 record for the date by six-tenths of an inch, said Bill Syrett, manager of the Joel N. Myers Weather Center at Penn State.
The 24-hour period was the second wettest January day on record, behind Jan. 20, 1996, when 1.78 inches of rain fell, Syrett said.
The unseasonable warmth — temperatures in State College topped 50 degrees Monday morning — made that possible, Syrett said.
“You need a combination of warm air, moisture-laden air and proper atmospheric setup” to get this much rain, he said.
The rain tapered off and finally ended early Monday afternoon. By the time the storm ended, two observers reported that about 2 inches of rain had fallen from 1:40 p.m. Sunday to 12:40 p.m. Monday. Centre County and the surrounding region spent most of Monday under a National Weather Service flood warning.

Read more: http://www.centredaily.com/news/local/story/1751632.html#ixzz0dlb8UEkU

Week in review

We saw a lot of progress this week. The cold roof is on the whole front half of he house and the extended soffits are on the rear roof. One course of the plywood sheathing is on the rear as well. The roofers were here on Thursday doing some prep work installing the rubber fabric and the vapor barrier on all the sheathing on the front of the house. Kohl delivered the shingles; they are staged on the fork lift for potential work tomorrow (Saturday).

John and Jonas installed all the second floor windows, including bedroom and loft windows, the four dormer window, and one of the transom windows on the bump out today. Dwayne put in the electrical conduit between the garage and the basement of the house and the backup generator conduit from the side of the garage to the basement too. Tressler and Fedor did all the excavation work for the electrical conduit and they did the hookup to the septic lines too. They did a nice job covering up all the utility trenches, especially the generator conduit that ran across the driveway entrance to the garage—you cannot tell there was a trench across it on Wednesday. The tongue and groove flooring for the loft area was picked up and delivered  and is stacked inside the house in the great room.

On Monday we had Kevin from Whitehill Lighting out; he reviewed the interior lighting plan and didn’t see any major issues. He did mention that we would need some kind of lighting for the basement stairs (probably surface mounted wall sconces) and he pointed out that just inside the master suite there were two boxes in the cross beam and suggested that one of those was probably for a smoke detector. We have talked about some fixtures for the dining room, great room, and the lights for the rear entry, the stairs, and the loft area. We are closing in on those decisions. Dwayne suggested we go with a low voltage monorail system over the kitchen island and that will work as far as Kevin is concerned. Today we went with Bill to visit the Glick cabinetry shop and got them started on working up something for us in hickory. As we get closer to having all the interior walls roughed in over the next week or so, Glick will come out to make some measurements, particularly for the pantry, butler, and linen closet. All the cabinets will be in hickory, similar in style to our current kitchen, with a recessed flat panel style cabinet doors and simple round wood pulls.
Leslie met with Mike at Mike’s Appliances today and got more information on the stove/oven options for the kitchen island. To make the cabinets fit we need to know the dimensions of the appliances. The stove/oven in the island presents a major issue. To keep the space open we don't want to use an overhead vent, so we hope a downdraft style vent will work. There are still some decisions on that, but we are getting close to locking all that down.
Paul put down 4 new bales of hay on Tuesday, but with the excavation work and the fork lift moving over the thawing ground, we had a lot more mud showing, so he put down another 5 bales today. It isn’t covering all the mud, but it is holding it down quite a bit. Leslie found a farmer on Craigslist who is outside of Unionville and offers bales for $2 each. Paul can get 5 loaded up in his pickup with a roundtrip time of about 30 minutes.
We are headed out to Johnstown area tomorrow morning to Salvage Heaven. They say they have 2 small claw foot tubs in good condition so we’ll take the pickup and perhaps bring one back.
All-in-all it was a very productive week, even though short staffed. The crew was working in some pretty nasty conditions the last few days, especially with temperatures in the mid-teens and a heavy frost on Thursday morning, so we are sure they are looking forward to working indoors soon. We do appreciate all they are doing for us.

More trenching, more roof work

Chicken coop trenching:  the girls better lay lots of eggs to pay for their updated coop.
Kohl delivered the shingles and Jonas staged them with the forklift for weekend installation.

Two different efforts were ongoing on the roof.  In the rear our construction crew was extending the soffits and laying down the plywood sheathing of the cold roof.  In front the roofing crew was preparing the cold roof to receive shingles.  That includes putting down the rubber fabric on the edges of the roof for ice dam protection and then putting down the GAF DeckArmor fabric (a technology replacement for roofing tar paper) everywhere else on the roof, also for water protection.  In addition, because of the valleys created by the dormers, there will be a lot of flashing work before the shingles can go on.
With all the dirt moving today Paul's new layer of four hay bales he put down on Tuesday to cover the mud was pretty much obliterated.  He had one bale held in reserve (for the chickens), so tonight he spread it around in front where the main electrical conduit was trenched between the garage and house.  The temperature swings are not helping the mud situation.  This morning it was 16 degrees with a heavy frost and by midday it was up to 39 degrees.  When the soil and frost thaw, the soil gets squishy and the fork lift and the excavator wheels sink into the ground, making muddy ruts.  The cold nights freeze the ruts like concrete and then in the morning the vehicles have a hard time getting traction to move over the ruts.  The joys of winter construction.

The top conduit goes from the mail electrical box in the garage under the dining room to the new house box.  The other conduit is for the generator and goes across the garage apron to the generator on the east side of the carriage house. The trenches are covered over and almost invisible.  My car is in the garage tonight.

Electricity

Most of the work today was on the cold roof over the dormers and the peak over the bump out. Those areas are ready for shingles. The new plywood roof sheathing has faint green lines on it that differentiates it from the oriented strand board of the roof panels. Also the 1 x 2 strapping is visible on the roof panels where the plywood hasn't yet been installed.
Paul spent 30 min this morning spreading hay around so The Crew wouldn't have to tramp around in the mud, but the big machines took care of that quickly.  In the morning the ground is solid, but it doesn't take long in our January thaw to go to soup.

Tressler and Fedor has an excavator digging for plumbing pipes to the septic system and electrical trenches for the generator line. It is cool out at 30 degrees but the articulated power shovel is not having any problem digging down into the ground. They have neatly piled as much driveway rock as they could so it can be reused. I like that. I couldn't park in the garage because of the ditch, a small price to pay.
Electrician Dwayne will get everything fixed up for the coop. He’ll lay our plastic conduit in the trench after Tressler trenches it and then leave out the current electrical cable on the ground to the coop until Friday, when he will fish outdoor electrical cable through the conduit and put in a junction box by the door, metal conduit into the back of the coop, and a 4 x electrical socket box inside the coop.

More roof

Windows all have extra waterproofing materials around them besides the green Guard.  Flexwrap is a self-adhering flashing for window sills and doors that's especially great for protecting the vulnerable bottom corners of sills where water damage is most likely to occur.  Protecto-wrap Window and Door Sealing Tape prevents air and moisture leaks by forming a permanent waterproofing air/vapor seal around doors and windows.

Dwayne pointed out that we will have the wood stove as backup for the heat pump, so he will size the back up electrical generator without the heat pump. He liked the idea of putting the generator on the front side of the garage next to the propane tank after shifting it back a bit to make room. They need to get the size of the generator to tell how much space they will need. It likely has to sit about 18-24 inches from the side of the garage. We will probably need a concrete pad for it to sit on to keep it level and that will help cut back the noise somewhat with at solid platform.

Tarps are placed over the dormers from the main ridge peak of the house to safeguard against the wintery mix or rain, sleet, and snow expected on Sunday.  Some of the 1 x 2 strapping for the cold roof can be seen on the dormer and the peak over the front bump out.  The only windows left for installation are two over the doors in the bump out, one over the kitchen sink, two on the second floor (one in the bedroom and one in the loft) and the two in the dormers.  We'll have two doors at the sides of the bump out. Besides the existing door into the garage there will be three doors in the breezeway (the front entry and a rear exterior doors and an interior door leading to the kitchen), and a rear entry door next to the stairs leading to the loft area.  The front and rear entries will have a timber framed covering the porches--gabled-type roof over the front porch and a shed-type roof over the rear porch.
With the warmer weather this week most of our snow has melted and that makes for a sloppy work site, so Leslie picked up a few bales of hay to spread around the site to help cut down the mud.
The crew was good about saving the excess 0.5 inch wallboard that was cut out for the doors and windows. Leslie Freecycled it. This is a win-win situation, as it reduces our construction waste and the couple who  picked it up will use it to finish off a room that needed more wallboard.
We will be looking into cabinetry and lighting next week.

Roof

It was a (relatively) warm day, upper 40s, at the Barony today so The Crew worked on the cold roof.  This means 1x2" furring strips on the panels to provide a channel of air under the OSB and asphalt shingles. They built the step out on the peak which will provide a little more summer shade to the great room.

All the back windows are in but neither of the doors

Roof panels

Crane made it up the driveway without a problem at 0845.  Let the work begin.  The temps were only about 27, continually cloudy, light snow occasionally, steady light breeze for Jonas, Kyle, Corey, John and Doug plus the crane driver.  We have about 4" of snow on the ground with ice underneath in places where trucks and the forklift have been.  Last Sunday Paul tried to hack away the deeper ruts but made little progress so today he moved driveway rocks with the tractor for about an hour to make  landing pads in front and in back of the house to help the forklift stay steady. That will be a job for the landscapers to repair.

First The Crew did the entire back, then the front except for the dormers. The crane has other work tomorrow so the dormer panels will have to be lifted by forklift. They are smaller so that shouldn't be a problem.
The roof panels are 20' long and 4' wide so each lift covered a lot of exposed roof, but it was still a lot of work. The back roof took 11 panels. They weigh a (figurative) ton, maybe 300-400 lbs.

Each lift required 2 brackets of 2x4s to be screwed into the panels at balanced points near each end. The lifting straps were threaded through and then the crane operator lifted the panel to the exact point the men on the roof needed. They caulked and cranked the locking cams, removed the brackets and were ready to prepare the next one. All the panels were labeled like the rest of the house.
The crew was here from 8:00-5:00. I think they are as anxious as we are to get the house enclosed but for different reasons perhaps.
I finalized the plumbing fixtures with Ted at Crescent this afternoon. I hope that 4.5' bathtub upstairs will be enjoyed because it's the most expensive fixture in the house.

Panels staged, windows and doors delivered

The crew staged the roof and dormer panels so the crane can lift them tomorrow.  Forecast to be low 30s and windy with light snow.  Not great for our Crew.

Also, the Anderson windows (Sandstone color) and doors with screens were delivered and placed near their holes.

Jerry says we have 2 weeks before interior walls are started so we have to make a decision about a small closet and stacked laundry convenient to where the clothes go or something else.  I'm going to be very disappointed if we can't have a first floor laundry.  Have to think of alternatives.

Breezeway

It's covered and the houses are connected.  Since this room had no posts it didn't need to have the drywall installed immediately but the rest of the project took all day.  Two more trusses had to be installed before roof work could be done. Because the breezeway is angled at 75 degrees to the garage, some fancy angle cutting of the roofing sheath was required. The roof boards are covered with Deck Armor, a blue breathable felt-like material. It covers the ridge vent.  Also installed is the rubber strip which will help protect us from ice dams.

This morning was in the low 30s but sunny for a while.  I'm sure The Crew is anxious to get the walls up and get out of the cold.

Reading Protect and Defend Vince Flynn Mitch Rapp always wins but how he finds and kills the terrorists is the trick. **** There's not so much suspense any more; it's almost a formula.