One Step, Two Step, Next step- Canoe Step?

This year we embarked on the task of trying to complete one of our big landscaping feats on the hillside... the stairs down to the pond. Our conservation requirements gave us three years from the time of the original permit -November 2010 - to complete our original mitigation and close it all out.  Early this year, with time flying by and first hand knowledge of the speed of procedures in our town, we realized that we needed to get going on it if we were going to do anything at all.

The first step was drawing up a plan, which Anthony did on top of our original site plan. He ran this by the conservation agent in February and then gave it to the site engineer, who submitted it to the conservation commission in May as an amendment to our original plan. Spring planting season looked like it was turning into summer planting season. 

Wouldn't you know, our meeting date fell in the middle of a week in June when Anthony was bouncing back and forth between conferences in Maine and Rhode Island, and me alone with my big pregnant belly and toddler on a school night was not going to be able to make it. Not that we needed to, after all, we were paying our engineer to do it. At 7:00 that night I sat back grading papers on the couch watching the conservation commission on tv. After some rather contentious cases interspersed with the cons com members checking in on the Bruins game, our case finally came up at 9:41. It was peacefully agreed to by 9:46. While I'm obviously pleased by the lack of drama, I wish it could have happened before my bedtime.

With builder John standing by, we awaited the official word from the committee. And waited. And waited. And waited.  Anthony finally checked in on the progress (or lack there of), only to find that apparently it had been stuck on the admins. desk for a while. Really though, we know what speeds things up for us construction-wise... it's having a baby, right?

Our second child was born (!) and with Anthony's nagging gentle reminders to conservation, we got the word we could build our stairs. Juggling our new life, here's where we're happy we hired someone to build them instead of attempting to do this ourselves. 

It took us a while to get everyone home from Boston, and now our summer planting season has turned into a fall planting season, or more likely, moved back to a spring planting season due to a new state-wide ruling - which we still don't really understand - that we could have an additional three years to complete any work from the original cons com permit.  

Stairs to pond: check. The neighborhood cat already likes to lie out on the upper landing. 

Next up: figuring out the planting (can we just finish this already?), and getting a canoe to hold our family of four. I'd include Zippy, but let's be honest. He would have more fun barking at us from the shore.

-J&A

Six

The railings were added to the front porch last week, along with a temporary step.

We're hoping to be able to get in without having to do the front grading and landscaping right away.

That's on the docket for later in the summer.

Plywood cut, numbered and ready to cover all of our windows if a big storm should hit .

This is a requirement.

Anthony grumbled a bit about giving up this much space for these.

The house was inspected on Tuesday and six things were found to need additional attention. They were things like the height of a railing, an issue with the dryer vent, the thermostats not working, insulation plans that were needed, and the level of grading leading tothe front step. (I know that's only five- I can't remember the last one off the top of my head.)

So six things between us and an occupancy permit.

Add to that our growing punch list of little things we would like to have happen before we move in.

We have deliberately been staying away during working hours so that we aren't in anybody's way. It would all be fine if we would see some solid steady action during the day. I'm sure then all the "to-do's" could be "dones", but the action has been limited and sporadic.

One of my evening tasks this week- painting.

On another note- we are in need of an Energy Star refrigerator- if anyone has one they're not using. We would be happy to trade it for our non-energy-star-but-clean-and-works-fine fridge!

-J

The Beginning of the End

As both of our readers must surely know by now, we've had some issues with our floor. Over the past 4 months these issues have at times prevented us from knowing what types of wood floors could be installed over radiant heating, prevented us from planning the stairs and stair railings, and preventing us, our builder, the stair guy, the floor guy, the other floor guy, and the other floor guy's installer from having an enjoyable time talking about this process. I've not even mentioned the poor girl from Home Depot that we put through the ringer.

So, when a pallet of boxes containing 1400 square feet of lightly-stained, eco-core, engineered tongue and groove hickory arrived at the house yesterday morning and were quickly opened and utilized...it was very exciting.

Thankfully, the flooring installers did a great job: showing up early, leaving late, finishing a floor a day. Below are some pictures of the job in process and finished.

Anthony the Plumber

Putting together manifolds...or voguing

This past week I've been spending a bit of time installing the tubing for the radiant floor heating system. When I say 'a bit' you should know that I'm actually modestly understating the vast amount of time I've sunken into this aspect of our house 'project'. This system was one of the core items we wanted to have in our new house. However we knew that to do it and stay within our budget, sweat equity would be required.

A lot of measuring and a lot of cutting to finish the tube returns.

We were most plumber's worst nightmare: unsatisfied with both the cost of full systems they were quoting us and the energy efficiency of their options, and armed with a neighbor across the street who is a local expert on radiant heating after doing this for his house. It took some time to find a plumber who was willing to cut the job in half: I would handled the tubing and manifold installation (significant labor, low skill) and he'd handle the supply lines from the mani's to the boiler itself (significantly higher skill).

So, with this arrangement I have ended up spending 'a bit' of time planning for the installation, ordering parts, convincing the plumber to do 'research' on the best boiler for our house and explain to me the efficiencies of everything from mixing values to indirect water heaters. Personally, I'm surprised that he hasn't walked away from the job yet. Our first plumber did.

As you may remember, a few weeks ago, we brought in some slave labor to help me install the wood strips used to separate the runs of tubing. Later in the week, while I went to a meeting in Santa Barbara, my mother-in-law continued to work on the system, screwing down some 400 aluminum heat transfer plates (about half of the total amount used). Personally, I'm surprised that she didn't walk away from the job. Our daughter must be really cute.

So, this past week the time came to install the tubing into the tracks, attach everything to the manifolds, and pressurize the system so that we'd know if the tile installers, or someone else punctured a tube while working. I spent Wednesday evening (5pm to 2am) installing the 5 tubes that will heat the top floor (each floor has ~950 ft of tubing on it). Aside from the first one when I was quite nervous about cracking, breaking, bending, or stepping too hard on the tubing, actually laying it went really well and only took ~2 hours. Cleaning the floor beforehand took about 5 hours. The same was true this weekend for the main floor, cleaning 5 hours, tube install 2 hours.

Upstairs tubes in place

Installing and pressurizing the manifolds, what was to be the final step for me task-wise, has become a grey area. We'd like the tubes pressurized before proceeding, but it turns out that I'm a terrible plumber. For the life of me I can't get all the manifold fittings taped and on such that the systems hold a constant pressure overnight.

Upstairs manifold, or "mani" as Jody likes to call it. Once the plumber installs the supply lines, the mani will actually move down and the tubes will fit in their respective slots.

After a night of spraying soapy water on the manifolds, looking for bubbles and tightening and retightening, I'm fairly certain that it is a manifold problem and not a tube problem. But I finally had to give up and call the real plumber in early. I'll try to not ask too many questions this time, and hopefully, he'll spend a bit of time finalizing the installation.

- A

Another Day, Another Delivery

It's cold out...it's snow-rained (much worse than snow, I'd argue) two days this week...the basement 'floor' is a skating rink...but framing continues. Our 'just in time' wood supplier, the Falmouth Lumber Yard, seems to be able crane in the supplies right to where they need it.

I think this is one reason they can move so quickly.

Craning it in...curiously, Zippy doesn't seem to mind the lumber truck any more, after announcing its presence of course. Now if we could just get him to do that with this arch-nemesis, the postman.

For the decking in our house, a band of 2" OSB (oriented strand board) sits on the exterior of the deck, and the joists (20 to 24' engineered I-shaped beams) span across the walls and support the subfloor (also OSB). Some dislike OSB and engineered products because it contains glue, but would you rather cut down a big old tree to source the 20' spans we'd need? I think that 'green' is in the eye of the beholder.

Framing in the 2nd floor decking in action.

Anyways, we ended the week with a snow/rain storm on our 2 story wooden box.

- A