Slloowww Progress

Well, the weather has continued to present challenges. Snow, ice, mud. That has been the state of the ground since the beginning of December. Between that, and a project at work that has been requiring a lot of attention, progress has been limited.

This last weekend, my dad and I got up, and headed to the property, before the storm got bad. As it turns out, it never got very bad, but we had some snow while we were out there.

In December I had found that I had a leak in the roof, around the roof box. So that needs to be fixed before things like drywall, and other materials can be installed. Well, with almost continually wet conditions on the roof, it has not been possible to fix the leak. I decided that to mitigate the amount of water that came in, I would put a tarp over the area that I thought was causing water to back up the roof and cause a problem. That seems to have helped some. I was still having some water come in, and so my dad came up with a way to hopefully catch most of what comes in. Put a funnel under where it is dripping and drain it over to the clothes washer drain. This last weekend we went out and put that in place.

Up in the joists is a plastic bottle with the bottom cut off to serve as a drip catcher. Then we cut pieces of PVC that will eventually be getting used for the radon vent, and just press fit them together. Then we used bungee cords, a piece of wood, and some wire ties to hold it together. Hopefully this will direct most of what leaks in, down to the septic tank. The garbage bag and the bucket had served to catch quite a bit of what leaked in in the past.

We have been working on getting the one door going into the garage installed. The one with the wrong way door. We needed to extend the floor out from the hallway a bit so the bottom of the door frame could be placed properly. We found a piece of Trex that had been cut and trimmed already. We found that it was pretty close to exactly what we needed. We notched the ends of the furring we were adding to the studs so that it fit well with the Trex. We glued the Trex to the concrete, and then needed to hold it in place while the glue set over the next day. Hmmm, how do you put a clamp over a corner and have it hold the board in place against the concrete? You don't, you need to put a brace in place between something that it can push against, and the board you want to hold in place. We found some long boards, and some shorter boards, and using a couple clamps, we wedged the boards in between the garage wall opposite the place where we needed to hold the Trex board in place, and the Trex board.

We added a second "clamp" and a board at each end to spread out the force.

While we have not been able to do that much out at the house, we have been doing a lot of planning, and fabricating in dad's garage. For supporting the electrical and plumbing runs up in the joist space, we needed to fabricate something that would hold wires and pex tubing in place, but be easy to put into place in the joist space. We came up with designs for a couple different holders, dependent upon if the wire and tubing were running parallel to or across the joists. We started manufacturing the supports to hold wires and tube running across the joists.

Each board that will hold the wire and tubes, needs blocks attached that will hold it in the space in the bars of the joist.

I don't know yet how many I will need, but I will need more than this. This is just a start.

After we had the blocks on, then we needed to put holes in the board where wires could be run though.

We made good use of the drill press again when we bored the holes in all the boards.

Another item that we have been working out the design on, is the columns that will hold lights and outlets on the outside walls. I did not want to cut into the insulating foam, and so I have places where we need to bring wire down the wall to an outlet or light. To do this, with a little more style and class than a chunk of metal conduit, we are making hollow columns. They will house the outlets, and wiring for the outlets, lights, and in the family room they will have speakers mounted on them as well. Dad and I had worked on a few different designs for the columns, and we had finally arrived at a design that looked good. We got pieces cut, and dad got most of the structure of the first one done. Then this weekend we put together the structure for the second one, and got the electrical boxes attached for the lights. We still need to attach the other electrical boxes, and fabricate the materials that will go on the outside of the column.

Dad attaching the back to the blocks.

The first column standing up. It still needs the other electrical boxes attached, and an outside shell. The columns are eight feet tall.

As for the plan for this week? I don't know, a lot depends on what the weather decides to do. That is as predictable as ever!