Racing against time

We continue to work away as hard as we can to beat winter. There is just so much that has to go in the walls before drywall can go up, and we need drywall on the ceiling before we can finish insulating there.

Plus we were waiting on plumbing before getting the septic system, water tank, and fuel tanks installed. We now got enough of that in for the dirt crew to come in, which should happen by the end of this week.

We are making progress though. Wiring, including thermostat and HRV control wire is complete, walls are fully insulated with a one layer of fiberglass and one layer of foam. Caroline Haggard, friend of my Dad from Big Lake helped with that, among other things this weekend.

We also ran most of the HRV ducts, only leaving out one or two that go in after plumbing drains. An HRV is a heat recovery ventilator. It exhausts air from the kitchen and bathrooms while bringing fresh air into the bedrooms from outside, but it keeps the heat from the old air. These are needed on modern construction which is so tight the house doesn't breath and would have stale air.

I cut holes for the ducts with a Rotozip, which is a terrible tool. It's loud enough to hurt your ears even with earplugs, and it sprays sawdust into your eyes even with safety goggles. And it doesn't work very well.
My dad, up for the third time to offer even more help, had an equally bad job of cutting the ductwork. Marcy assembled duct pieces and taped them, because she does that sort of thing better than any of us guys.

Dale Haggard, Master plumber, was also up from Big Lake. He put together a superb heating system for us, and requested payment only in Crown Royal. We couldn't be more grateful for all this help. Thanks everyone!









Dale working his magic

Pike as big as a whale, you say, extraordinary!

So in the interim between blog posts I thought I'd post a picture. Pike have been introduced into the lakes around the Matanuska Valley where my parents live. They are both avid fisher persons and haven't ever caught one in the lakes here in Alaska before, until now. My Dad is now on a one man mission to catch as many pike as possible and eradicate them from Alaskan waters.

GO DAD GO!

We're Back in business!

Stay tuned...

Andrew: "So... We're out of money."

Marcy: "Yeah...."

Toasty Toes

Our house will have in floor radiant heat, which is exceptionally comfortable and exceptionally efficient. The colder it is outside, the toastier your feet get.

First we laid the tubing. It took about a day. There are six 200 feet runs. Some people would have done four 300 foot runs, but this setup allows more than double the water flow, which results in evener heat, a faster heating floor, and a better load on the boiler.


The tubing was very unwieldy. Marcy handled the 1000 foot roll of it, and ended up bruised on her arms. I operated the stapler, which looked like a big bike pump, except using it it reminded me of catching a fast pitch softball. There were 500 staples. All the tubes terminate in the utility room.





Today the gypcrete crew poured the floor on top of the tubes. Here's three of the crew, loading sand, emptying bags of gypcrete, and operating the mixer. Our truck is in the background. We borrowed a 325 gallon tank which saved us the expense of a water truck.


Here is the fourth crewmember beginning the pour. It comes out fairly liquid from a hose and is mostly self-leveling.


About halfway done. We had 1.5" thick poured. It weights about 12,000 pounds. Don't worry, our floor was engineered to support 18,000 pounds of concrete, but then we added 50% more joists just to be safe.


All the gypcrete has been poured and is being screeded to a final finish. The whole opperation only took about 2 hours, half of which was setup and teardown.

To the window.... To the wall!

We've been busy since the last post. Well, we're always busy. But here it is:

We did the last few details of rough framing, like closets and finally the stairs.

We couldn't get a good picture of the stairs yet because there is a bathtub temporarily in the way. These construction temporary treads will be replaces with hardwood which will cantilever to the left about 12".

Our windows finally came in, so we rented some suction cups and a nifty material lift and installed them over labor day weekend. The five sided center window weights near 300 pounds and was extremely scary to install. I gave us about a 50% chance of dropping it, but we ended up successful.

One reason the windows are so heavy is they are triple pane for energy efficiency. In fact, even with all those windows, that big wall will loose less heat than a standard insulated wall with no windows at all.

This window is 6 feet wide and almost 8 feet tall. Here are the finished "wall of windows" which readers helped choose.



More window (and sliding door) photos




Inside view of front window wall, loft, and bedroom windows

Meanwhile, my dad was up again and he wired the whole place, down to the service entrance. The inspector signed off his inside work and GVEA signed off his outside work. Thanks again dad!

Service entrance. We went with 200 amps. Just in case we need to run the hot tub, an air compressor, and a welder at the same time, you know.

Main breaker panel and all the wires coming in to it.

As much as I want to be done with tree clearing, I had to clear a path to the power line.

Ode to the Crowbar

So I thought I'd post some musings of mine since so far it's been all business when it comes to our posts. This house has been a crazy experience. I don't think I've loved an inanimate object this much in my entire life. Except for our crowbar. The crowbar is my new best friend. I remember a time at the beginning of the summer when Craig was cursing the fact that Andrew and I had no crowbar to offer him (he was trying to lift a wall with physics). After said moment we acquired a blue crowbar. I'll never again be without one. It is my favorite tool in the entire universe. I can lift myself with it, remove nails from any surface with practically no effort, use it to remove sticky stuff, or maybe you need something pried apart? Anything you ask of it the crowbar can achieve with ease. Plus, after reading some of "A Zombie Survival Guide" by Max Brooks it seems the crowbar is also a premium zombie fighting weapon. Who knew?

So what has building this house done for me? Aside from all the obvious benefits of financial gain and not having to rent? Confidence. That's right boys and girls after you learn to wield every kind of power tool imaginable you can do anything. If you add exhaustion into the mix it just makes everything in the world seem so much simpler. Having difficulties at work? No problem. I'm up until 10pm every night working on a house so anything else is just not a worry. You become a person who can say, whatever happens just move on to the next thing.

Sure Andrew and I have our emotional roller coaster moments. Sometimes, we both lay awake at night running through all the things that have to be done the next day and see no end in sight. But Andrew and I have become closer then ever through this experience of building a domicile. It takes a lot of trust and respect for your partner to take on such a huge project. I'm really happy that Andrew could trust me enough to even suggest that we do such a thing. When Andrew and I decide to do big things like going on the Appalachian trail or building a house people tend to say things like, "This experience will make or break your relationship." Well it seems that it is making our relationship. I sure do love that boy! Would this be considered to much PDA (public display of affection)?

Regardless we would not be able to do a lot of the things that we do without the love and support of our friends and family members. So thank you everybody who help us keep our sanity.

Also the installation of the fan was a crowning moment for Andrew and I. Whenever anyone comes to the house we plug it in for them and ask them to marvel at it's splendor. Although, by the looks on their faces they don't seem to realize why we're so excited. "See, do you see the fan spin and the lights turn on...isn't it GLORIOUS!"

The Deck!!!

Wide open spaces

click to enlarge

This weekend we were very excited to remove the scaffolding over the open living room to expose the tall ceiling and open design. It looks awesome! We had to finish the ceiling over that part first, and even install the ceiling fan even though we don't have anything else finished or electricity for that matter. That didn't stop me from temporarily wiring a plug onto the fan lead so we could see it run and even use it as a work light.

We also finished the last of the fiberglass insulation, which is a relief. It is a rather miserable experience to handle that stuff. We installed almost all the vapor barrier, some of the next layer of insulation, which is polyisocyanurate foam, and some of the 2x4 furring strips which go over that to create channels for wiring.


This photo shows various stages: Fiberglass with vapor barrier on the left, then the staple holes and seams taped in the bottom, and the foam insulation on the top. Note the black chimney support which shows the location of the wood stove.


Fully operational ceiling fan!

Overdue Update

Since the last update, we've made a lot of progress thanks to all the wonderful help we've had. We made the framing for the soffit details, put up tyvek (the Fairbanks siding of choice), stained all the tongue-and-groove for the ceiling, wired the ceiling, installed much of the vapor barrier on the ceiling, installed a chimney support, put up a lot of the stained tongue and groove, blew in some of the cellulose insulation, burned off some cellulite while doing that, did some long overdue site cleanup and tool organization, fixed the muffler on the truck,

What's next? Check our calendar lower on the page. A few highlights: Several pieces of work we're contracting out happen. August first the roofers come, a week after the plumbing is roughed-in, then we finish insulating, then do wiring, then the drywallers come, and with luck by mid-september we'll have the radiant floor poured and get heat installed.


Mom hauled 1800 pounds of 2x4s. Twice. Then she carried 200 pieces of tongue and groove.


First several courses of wood ceiling tongue and groove.


Early winter? No, I'm covered in cellulose insulation.


Ciao Italia!

Thank you

We have been so busy and tired that we forget sometimes to stop and thank all those who have offered help, advice, support, and more. So, Thank you so very much, we appreciate everything!

We are still making progress and we will post photos when we get a little break.