Garage Floors

The garage floors were poured today, so all of our hard work was covered up. It was okay though because the floors looked really nice. You can see in the second picture that the garage slopes out in front of where the garage doors will be. so all the water (or snow in Montana's case) will drain away from the garage. There will probably not be any action at the house for a couple of days. We are not sure when the framer's will be back with Labor Day on Monday. So in the meantime, we sit and wait again. At least we have a lot of progress to show from last week!

So Much Excitement

There was a lot of action going on at the house today. We got out there early and started laying the radiant tubing. We laid over 900 feet of tubing and hooked it all up to the manifold box. We also pressurized the system and crossed our fingers that this test would turn out better than the last one. This time it was much easier to pressurize the system because the contractor's had their generator and air compressor already running. When we left, the contractor's had made a lot of progress, so we felt really good about the morning.

We went back out to the house after Travis got off work. All we had to do was check the pressure to see if the system held and place the manifold box in the ground. The pressure held, so we were very excited. The framers got a lot done and had put in the floor joists on one side of the house. We walked out on the floor and we both immediately said that it felt so tall and the view was awesome! We walked down below and we both also decided that our house finally felt BIG. It was so fun to walk through each room and pretend where all of our furnishings would be. Then the mosquitos came out in full force, so we jumped in the truck and came home.

Tomorrow the concrete floors will be poured in the garage. We are not sure if the framers will be out there, but I think all the accomplishments today that if nothing else happens this weekend, I will still be satisfied.

PROGRESS!!

A lot of the basement got framed today, so I guess the contractor proved me wrong. I don't like being wrong, but I was okay with it this time! We really like looking at all the windows in the house. We swear they look so much bigger in person though.
We already made our first "change order" on the house too. We wanted windows on each wall surrounding the billiards room, so we added the window in the far right of this picture. We think we made the right decision about the window now, but if anyone has seen either of us play pool, those windows will be vunerable to a shank or two.
This one is the guest bedroom...it even has it's own door to go out to the patio.

This morning Travis also laid down all the foam and wire for the radiant heat in the garage. You can also see that the meter box was put up today too.

We went out to the house after Travis got off work with big hopes that we would get most of the tubing laid. The wind was so cold and we couldn't get a hole through the concrete for the header pipe, so we packed up and decided to try again tomorrow. The garage floor is getting poured on Friday, so come hell or high water, we have to get it done tomorrow. It's sort of ironic that when we are ready for stuff to be done, the contractor's are not and when we would like a little more time, the contractor's are raring to go. Oh well. If nothing else, it gave me the excuse to take a vacation day at work, and Travis can maybe finally use his ever so clever stomach flu explanation ;)

Framing has started!

The past couple of days have been a little frustrating and to keep a long story short, I'm just going to say that I can't wait until Travis and I take over the work. The contractors never seem to show up on time or do what they say they are going to do. Travis waited out at the lot for two hours yesterday and no one showed up. On a positive note, the floor joists were delivered during that time. I can't believe how long they are! The contractor did end up getting a little work done yesterday as they snapped some lines.

Today they set the sill plates and poured the gravel in the garage so we can get started laying the radiant tubing in the garage. They also started framing so you can see where the french doors and a couple of windows are going to go.

We were also disappointed to find out the concrete walls that were subbed out by the contractor (because he decided harvesting was more important) were not done very well. There is one spot where the sill plates are overhanging by an inch. So, Travis is going to have a nice talk with the concrete guy. We don't know what can really be done about this situation. It's not going to affect the stability of the house, but that doesn't make it any less frustrating. I'm hoping there will be a lot of progress tomorrow too, but you never know when you are on someone else's schedule. Funny how a few stretches of truth really turns you into a pessimist!

Well Megan has been out of town doing her special investigation. Things have pretty much stayed the same. Sorry for no new posts my laptop went down (guess they dont last forever) We did however get the lot backfilled so the only dirt left on the jobsite is the topsoil. It seems to look a lot more finished than it did before. Good news is that framing will start on Monday!!!!!!

Crawl Space Walls

As promised, here are the pictures of the crawl space walls. I think I took pictures from every angle because the clouds looked so cool. The dirtwork people definitely have some work ahead of them as they need to backfill basically to the height of the crawl space walls.

We are also in the midst of deciding what color we want the exterior of our windows to be. We originally got bids from Andersen and Pella and originally decided on a brown color because we had better luck with the Andersen windows rep. After some thought, we started second guessing the brown color because we've seen houses that have a brick red exterior color. Andersen windows didn't offer red, so we decided to get another quote from Pella. With some discounts, I think Pella will be cheaper and it'll be the color we want. We drove around looking at houses with the red windows, and I think it confirmed our decision to go with Pella. We even found the house that the framers built that is very similar to our plan and they have red windows too. The house was tucked into the trees, so we couldn't get a real good look at it, but it still looked really nice. We also could see how tall our house is going to be. We're thinking our neighbors aren't going to be real happy when they see their view slowly disappear...

In other news, I am heading out of town next week, so Travis will take over the blog and continue to write posts that will keep you on the edge of your seat wanting more! It should be a fun week with the framing getting started, so enjoy:)

Basement Floors

I was so excited today when I went out to the house and saw the basement floors. It's not that big of a change since yesterday, but it just made it feel like so much had happened. Since nothing seems to go perfectly smooth, we had a little nervousness about the pour. Travis came home last night and looked at my pictures and immediately noticed that not all four header pipes were duct taped to the wall anymore. One of them was laying on the ground and he was worried that the concrete people wouldn't notice and they would pour over the top of the pipe. Sometimes with his eagle eye, I wonder if he should be the auditor instead of me...

Just to err on the side of caution, Travis went out there this morning to make sure they didn't bury that pipe. It's a good thing he went out there because they would have poured right over the top of it.

My parents stopped out at the house after I did today and said that there were a couple of guys that were stripping the forms off the crawl space walls, so I'll get those pictures for you tomorrow. Other than that, there probably won't be much action for the rest of the week. Travis talked to the framing foreman today and he said that they will probably snap the lines for the walls on Monday and have a full crew out there on Wednesday. I can't wait for the framers to start. I thought that the basement floors made a big difference, so I can't imagine the difference that having a roof and walls is going to make.

We also got a drawing from the framers that said what our actual ceiling height would be in each of the rooms. This was nice for me because we have a lot of vaulted ceilings and tray ceilings, so it was hard to figure out the actual ceiling heights. The office will be really cool. It's got a tray ceiling, so the ceiling height around the edge of the room is 11' and in the center it goes up another foot.

I know I said that I was going to keep my posts shorter, but I just keep thinking of more and more stuff to say. I'll try my best to keep them short and sweet, but I'm not making any promises:)

Radiant Pictures...FINALLY!

So good news, bad news. Good news...after procrastinating for so long, I was still able to get pictures of all the radiant tubes for the basement. Bad news...since I took the pictures today, that means that the basement floors didn't get poured. Travis went out there this morning expecting to see walls and floors being poured. There was no activity and the contractor wasn't answering his phone. Come to find out, they are harvesting up in Big Sandy. Pretty frustrating. We'll be glad when we can take over all the work, and not have to worry about anyone's schedules, but our own. More bad news...the pictures aren't that great. I was rushed because I was unintentionally getting in the contractor's way, so I took the pictures and drove off. They were probably wondering what the heck I was doing, but people probably wonder that about me even when I am not running around with a camera.

The first picture is the guest bedroom, bathroom, and craft room, which are all on one manifold, which is under the stairs. That makes it easily accessible, but still hidden.
The second picture isn't real close, but it shows how many feet of tubes we ran.

The last picture shows a close up. You can see the manifold box in the middle of the picture (no, not the cardboard box, that's just garbage) and against the far walls are where the header pipes will be connected to the main zone manifold that runs everything. Everything else is run off the manifold in the picture, and this manifold will be hidden in the bar cabinets.

So, now that you've seen the pictures, I can tell you the adventures of actually hooking the pipes and tubes up. When we last left bloody and sweaty, all the tubes were run, but nothing was connected. On Saturday, Travis had to work, so on his lunch break, we went and rented some crimpers so that we could tighten the tubes on the pipes. After he got off work, we took all our supplies out to the house, and were thinking we would be done in an hour. Well, that wasn't the case. We got out there and the crimpers had to open so wide, that we couldn't get to the pipes in the bottom of the manifold. So, our choices were to unscrew the sides of the manifold box (which we didn't have the driver), or get the different crimpers that require a different piece of metal to crimp. You'll have to excuse my terminology, Travis is working, so I am pretty much just making up words! Travis' new kick is trying to only take one trip out to the house, so needless to say he was a little bit frustrated when he found out we would have to go back to town. I fully support his new "kick", but wasn't real found of how far the crimpers were thrown:) So, we headed back to town, and went to rent the other crimpers and buy the new crimps. Well, the rental place only offered the crimps in packs of 100...which cost about $40 and we only needed about 10-20 crimps. Lowe's offers them in packs of 10, so we decided to buy them there as well as the crimper. Good choice by Travis because Lowe's crimps wouldn't have fit the rental place's crimper. An hour later (our original time estimate) we were back out at the lot ready to try out the new crimpers. We were having trouble with one of the pipes because it kept rotating every time we went to crimp. Travis decided that he would hold the pipes, and I should crimp. So, I crimped...just not the right way. I didn't get a good crimp, so the pipe was still loose, but it was tight enough to be almost impossible to get off. After many failed attempts, Travis got the crimp off with the hammer and we were on our way again. We got everything hooked up and attached a few fittings on the end of the header pipe so that we could pressurize the system with air and check back on Sunday for leaks. We bought a little air compressor so that we could pressurize the system and brought out some extenstion cords so that we could use our neighbor's power, since we don't have any yet. Just in case you are worried, we asked the neighbor's first. Travis fired up the compressor and it sounded like it was sick. The amount of power we needed couldn't travel the length of the power cord, so there was strike 3 for the night. Travis had to carry the compressor up to the neighbors house, fill it with air, carry it back down, and fill the air into the pipe. That thing was HEAVY...I know because I "helped" carry it down and could only make it halfway. I really like having our sloped lot, but I sure felt bad for Travis having to carry that thing up and down and up and down. He had to make four trips, which was less than he was thinking it would, but it still didn't make it any easier. So, we got it filled up and my folks took us out for a well deserved drink.

We went out on Sunday to check the system to see if it held pressure. It didn't hold as much pressure as we would have liked, but there were so many variables that we couldn't tell where the leak was. Ultimately we believe that it was in the fittings that we put on at the end. We don't think that the actual tubing has a leak, so we weren't too worried that concrete was going to be poured over that. We still have access to the manifolds and the ends of the header pipe, which are the most probable points for the leaks.

Sorry for such a large update. I will try to update it more often so I don't write a novel and bore you to death. As for upcoming events, the crawl space walls were supposed to be poured this afternoon. I was in such a rush to get out of the way, that I didn't look to see if it was done, but I am pretty sure it was. The basement floors are supposed to be poured tomorrow morning around 7 or 8:00. Hopefully, I do a little better on my picture taking tomorrow.

Blood, Sweat, and Tears

So, I'm back from South Carolina and taking over the blog again. Travis' posts were definitely entertaining, so I apologize that you now have to go back to my dull posts :) The blog title is slightly overstated as there was no tears, but there was a little blood and a lot of sweat. Travis cut his arm (just a little bit) on the wire. We worked a little over 4 hours in the intense heat to lay the remaining radiant tubing. I was so tired and hot that I didn't take any pictures after we finished, so you'll have to use your imagination. Just imagine the pictures from yesterday...with radiant tubing covering the whole basement floor. We layed over 700 feet of the 1/2" tubing today and ran the 3/4" header tubing to the two manifolds. The header is the main water source that provides the water to each of the loops.

We ended up spacing the wire about a foot apart instead of the originally planned 9 inches since the tubing wasn't real flexible. So, instead of having 4 zone manifolds (each controlled by it's own thermostat), we decreased it to 3 zones, one of which is the garage. We still have the radiant heat in the garage to do, but they will have to backfill that area first.

This weekend, we will finish connecting the tubes to the copper manifolds that we made the other day. Then we will do a pressure test to make sure there are no leaks. I've got my fingers crossed that my soldering skills held up and we don't have any leaks. They are set to pour the flatwork on Monday, and I'm guessing that they will also be pouring the walls for the remainder of the house that day too. The framers are starting the middle to end of next week, so that will be really exciting. We'll keep you updated as to the pressure test, and I will try to get out there to take some pictures so that you don't have to imagine anymore!

Tying of The Tubes!!!

Megan was scheduled to get back late afternoon today and I wanted to surprise her. I starting tying the tubes (don't worry parents not those tubes, someday you will get grandkids). I managed to get down around 900 feet of tubing total. If you look in the picture the tubing is spaced about every one foot. For those of you that are not familiar with radiant heat hot water is distributed throughout the floor via the pex tubing. The tubing will in turn heat the concrete which will warm the floors. Radiant heat is supposed to be one of the most efficient types of heat, so hopefully that is the case. If you double-click on the photo you can see the manifold for the main living areas. This manifold will be controlled by a single thermostat allowing us to regulate temperatures in various rooms. From this manifold there are going to be four loops of tubing. Each loop must be around the same length so the water is distributed evenly throughout the floor. If you were to have two 200 foot loops, and two 300 foot loops, the 200 foot loops would steal the water from the 300 foot loops, therefore causing the floor to heat uneven. (water takes the path of least resistance). When Megs arrived home she wanted to see the house, and the slave driver that she is, she wanted to go work. Megs thought that the floor looked good so at least I got the bosses approval. She also managed to put down a extra 200 feet of tubing which she really enjoyed and is now very proficient. Tomorrow we plan to put the rest of the tubing down and install two more manifolds, stay tuned for the next update.

Foam and Metal Lathe

Today I started putting down the foam and lathe. Got out to the jobsite around 9:00 (not as early as planned, need to get to bed before 12:30) Worked about 2.5 hours before I decided that I had enough. I am not used to working out in the elements, but am sure that I will get accustomed to it. I did get some pictures of the progress made. The places that do not have foam in them are bearing footings (minus the part that is not finished). I believe that I will just leave them that way, did some research and the thermal mass of the concrete and the ground will create a heat sink. Will post more pictures tomorrow of the progress made, hopefully I will start laying some tubing down.

Vapor barrier and Gravel

Just got back from the building site, today has been a pretty productive day. Arose out of bed around 6:00 this morning and headed to Lowes. Picked up all the visquine that was needed, or so I thought and headed out to the job site. Spent about two hours trying to unfold the visquine and cover all the floors of the basement. Around 9:00 the gravel truck arrived and began spreading gravel throughout the basement. Right about then I realized that I was going to be short about 50 feet of visquine so I headed back to Lowes.(Always improving!!! one less trip than yesterday) Picked up visquine and headed back out to the job site, where they were waiting for another load of gravel. Thought that it would be a great time for some pictures but realized that I was so focused on the job at hand I had forgot the camera at home. With gas at $4.00 a gallon I couldn't justify another trip in to town so sorry for no new pics. I spoke with the concrete finisher today and the plan is to pour the flat work next Monday. That gives me around a week for the radiant tubing to be laid which works out better. I am not rushed at the job site and Lowes gets my great customer service for the five or six customers that feel the need to shop at 10:00pm. Will keep you updated on the progress, should be laying Styrofoam sheeting, and metal lathe tomorrow.

Crawlspace walls, and Radiant Materials

Megs is gone for the week so it is my duty to update the blog. Went out to the job site this morning with intentions of getting the moisture barrier laid on top of the radon system, that didn't happen! It was a little to windy and I didn't think that the neighbors would like visquine spread throughout the neighborhood. There we two concrete guys setting forms today at the house. We are running in to our first change order of the building process. Our plans were set up for having a four foot tall crawlspace wall, but due to the layout of our house and the slope of the lot things have changed. We are now going to have a variety of 8', 6', and 4'crawlspace walls. Not a huge change in plans but had to be done to get a strong foundation. Megan if you are reading this I did manage to be somewhat productive today. I did make three trips to Lowes (Burning through 1/2 tank of gas) today to stockpile all the foam and metal lathe for the radiant system. The plan is to have all the radiant tubing down and pressure tested by Wednesday night. This would allow us to pour concrete in the basement on Friday. For that to happen the next couple of days are going to be pretty crazy. I will have to lay all the tubing by myself, not that their isn't help available (Thanks for the offer Mom and Dad) but I believe I can get it done. The problem is that I am scheduled to work evenings Tuesday and Wednesday night. That means that I will have some early mornings coming up. Worst case scenario I come down with food poisoning on Wednesday and cant make it to work, but will somehow miraculously make it to the job site. That is what dedication is all about. Well I better get going my stomach it telling me its dinner time! Looks like for my worst case scenario to occur a little planning is needed. Dinner at Thriftway Convience Store!!! (two for one hot dogs and day old nachos)

Radon Mitigation System

We put the pipes in today for the radon mitigation system and tomorrow Travis will have to put the vapor barrier on top. The rebar was also tied together for the new footings that were poured. The forms are ready to be put up, so I imagine that will be done on Monday, and the pour will be Tuesday.