We have Electricity

I'll start off by showing some overdue pictures.

I didn't get a picture of the septic cleanout we installed before it was backfilled. But this here is the PVC pipe that is hooked up to it. Someday, when we pour the sidewalk area in front of the porch here, that pipe will be trimmed to the right height and capped for future access to the cleanout.

This next picture shows what we did inside. The one on the left shows the cleanout as it was when it was installed inside. Then we cut it off and moved it to the outside. It turned out better this way, since now the drain pipe inside the house can installed a lot closer to the wall as you can see on the right.


Here are some more pictures of the grading of the front.












The next one is a composite picture of the east side.











And now, to the next milestone reached in our project. We actually now have electricity in the house. Two outlets! And on their own breakers!

The electricians came out on Monday of last week to get started. But due to an emergency, the master electrician had to go to another project, so it was just the crew working on it.

On Tuesday, they finished the installation, and I happened to be home with a flu bug. So I came out to take a look at their work. Because we are doing electric heat, the Co-op has a special electric rate during the winter, as long as you meter it separate from the house electricity. So we have basically two services going into the house and need two meters, two lines, two disconnect panels, and two breaker panels in the house. For now, we only had the electrician install one panel, as you can see in this picture. It is a huge panel, and should be able to accommodate all of our electric needs. You can see the double outlet right under the panel, too.

This picture shows our meter panels on the pole. One is for the house, one is for the HVAC equipment. When I came to look at them after the electrician was done, I noticed that one panel was hooked up, the other one wasn't. I asked the electrician if he happend to hook up both service lines to one meter, and he said yes. Uhm, well, it was supposed to be one service hooked up to each meter individually. Ooops.
Also, that double outlet in the utility room was supposed to be ground-fault circuit interrupter type (GFCI). Those are the ones you will see nowadays in bathrooms (and unfinished locations) that have the buttons to reset them. They didn't install GFCI outlets. I also asked if they had the ground rods in, and he had not installed those either.

So they left and said they would come back Thursday to fix it.

Here is a picture of the disconnect panels that are supposedly required by code. I think this is just the way the inspector is interpreting the code, and we actually don't need them. It would have saved us $800 to not put those in, but unfortunately the code says that ultimately the Authority Having Jurisdiction has the last word. And the AHJ said they want them, we can't say no. To us, this is really stupid because there is a disconnect at the meter already. Shut that off, and there's no electricity going to the house, and these two are useless basically. Their argument was for safety so the fire department ever needed to disconnect the power. My friend knows the local fire chief in town, and he says that they don't have time to bother looking for disconnects, and simply pull the meter off the socket. No meter, no power, no problem. I better stop now before I get an apoplexy here.

So I guess the electrician helper got into trouble for not doing the job right, and had to come back and fix it all, and will not get paid for that extra time to fix the work. We felt sorry for the guy. Our setup is not typical, so easy to make mistakes. But as long as it doesn't cost us anything to fix it right. Anyway, he came back and got the meter panels hooked up right, put in GFCI outlets in the house, and installed a ground rod. Only one? Well, my understanding was that it needs to be 2 ground rods (I asked the state inspector). Well, he would talk to the master electrician because he told him only to put one. So I called the state inspector, and he said we need two. So I called the electrician and told him call the state inspector because he says we need two. Haven't heard back from them what the final word is.

Despite the mistakes, I'm impressed with the quality of the work. Everything was neat, clean, and looks very nice and professional, and they didn't leave a mess. And now that things are fixed (except the ground rod issue), it looks right. We'll see what the electrical inspector says once he comes out to approve the work.

Then on the weekend, my in-laws came out to help us yet again. Shawn and his dad worked on finishing the caulking on that double door on the back, and finishing the siding up to the soffit.
Once done, they tore the scaffolding down and put it away for the winter. You can see in this picture the siding and the electrical mount block.
That gable will have to wait until next year to do siding and soffit. At least the soffit is not really open on the gable, so that should help to not let snow in during the winter.

After they got the scaffolding down, the guys decided to work inside the garage to level the rock. This was definitely a two person job, so Shawn wanted to take advantage of his dad's help. This picture shows a before look inside the garage. Shawn had previously marked on the wall the level of the rock, so the guys started at the back and worked they way around. They would scoop out gravel to get it roughly level and spread it around with a rake, then with a 2x4 and a level, they would drag that around while on their knees to get it nice and smooth. And they also used a hand tamper to tamp it down a bit.
Here's a picture after they were done.

It looks really nice in the garage now, and we should be able to store a few things in there and park the cars in the winter as well.

My mother-in-law, Pam, helped me do a few things in the old house, and watched Evan for a bit, while I tried to sort through baby stuff stored upstairs from Evan so I can re-use it with the new baby. In the afternoon, she came out to help the guys, and Shawn put her on the lawn tractor dragging a home-made version of a grader. So she dragged that around the yard all afternoon to smooth out the grading. Here's a picture of her, hard at work.

We really should get some grass seed down so that next spring the weeds won't take over again. Also, to help keep the ground from eroding as well since we don't have gutters yet.

After the guys were done with the garage, they worked on making a small roof to cap the chimney (with shingles and all). It was too dark by the time they got done with it. They did haul it up the ladder onto the roof, since it was time for Derald and Pam to go, and there's no way Shawn would have been able to take up there by himself.

So, on Sunday afternoon, with that nice wind, Shawn put the little roof cap on the chimney to replace the piece of plywood that was there. Hopefully this will do a better job of keeping snow and water from getting in there, since it will be a while before a fireplace is installed. Shawn added some more tyvek paper to seal it better.

So it's back to soffit and fascia for Shawn until the weather keeps him from working outside. He did do a lot of soffit last week, and the whole East side of the house is pretty much covered in soffit (except for one little piece in the corner where the garage joins the house). You can see where he needs to finish up the the fascia, and that side should be done all the way to the north side of the garage! Here's a picture of the north side of the garage.

If possible, he will then move onto the west side of the house. The goal is for him to do the whole west side and make it to the front on that side and do the front of the garage. Leaving only the porch and front bedroom gable for next year, since that's going to be a bit more complicated.

Then it's inside to work on plumbing. Shawn's been designing the pipe routes, and looking into plumbing layout already. Also, we heard from the coop that the electric water heaters are going to go up in price after the first of the year. They sell the Marathon electric water heater. It is made of polymer, and contains no steel parts. It is warranted as long as we own the house, and it is the highest efficiency electric water heater out there. Right now the coop has the heaters for sale for about 20% of the retail price for the larger model. So we'll be purchasing a water heater probably next week, and have to go pick it up at the Boone warehouse.

I also learned from the coop that they are coming up with a bunch of rebates for next year for things like insulation, energy star appliances, and drain water heat recovery units. If you don't know what they are, check this website for some info http://www.renewability.com/video.html

I'd like to install one of these, and the payback can be as little as 3 years for putting one of these on the main drain line of the house. Basically, it recovers the heat from the water that goes down the drain from showering, laundry, baths, etc. The cold water supply goes through a pipe that is wrapped around the drain pipe exchanging the heat and warming up the incoming cold water. You pipe that to your water heater, and it will save you some energy. Now the water heater doesn't have to work so hard to warm up cool water. A Canadian study showed that incoming street water at 50º can be heated up to 75º during a 15 minute shower. That can turn into a lot of savings. But they are not cheap, so depending on the rebate from the coop, it might be worth the investment.

Until next week!