New Year's Eve Mud Party

Spent the last day of the year getting the runoff from the newly-installed gutters under control. Started at the new drywell "access port" and worked my way counter-clockwise around the house.

Have we mentioned that we have lots of clay in our soil? This is what it's like when you dig this stuff when it's wet... You stick the shovel in the ground - it slides in real smoothly because wet clay is slippery (unless maybe you hit a rock). Then you have to work to pry your shovel-full loose from the rest of the ground, because wet clay is very sticky. You get it loose and lift it, but it's real heavy, because, of course, it's waterlogged. Then you dump your shovel-full off to the side, but it's sticky, so it doesn't just fall off - you have to shake it off - and remember how heavy it is. So, you shake it, but not all of it comes off - some if it sticks to the shovel. You stick the shovel in the ground to get the next shovel-full, but you don't get as much, because you already had a bunch stuck to the shovel. You try to shake that off, but more of it just sticks to the shovel. After a while, you're getting smaller-and-smaller amounts of wet clay from the trench and shaking a heavier-and-heavier shovel. Meanwhile, your boots are sticking to the ground, too. Whenever you move your foot, you get this odd "sucking" sound and your feet seem to get heavier and heavier with each step. Before you start this exercise, you think you're going to make a nice deep trench, but you're really pleased just to get any trench at all.

And while you're digging this waterlogged clay, you're thinking about how this stuff is going to be hard as a rock next summer when you get around to having some time to do some landscaping.

(I can't help but to think that all this clay is good for something - pots, sculpture, cob houses, earth ovens, etc - but this is another story.)

By the end of the day, I had 3 of 4 downspouts running into the drywell. I also had this cramp in my left arm, so I had an interesting time trying to dry off after my shower (can't tell you how good that shower felt ... I even took my pants in with me to wash off the wet, sticky clay ... oh, forgot to mention - washing off muddy stuff in the shower is perfectly normal when you have an outdoor shower as we do).

cabinets being built

If Dale can't make something with it, then it's not wood...

When we were planning the house, we got to the kitchen cabinets and Dale asked us what we wanted. All we told him was that we wanted him to build something that would go with the house. He and Les built the house and now, here he is in his shop building our cabinets. He also does boats, tree houses ... basically, everything (well, maybe not timber-frame bridges ... correction: yes, actually, he has built a timber-frame bridge! - at some park in Pt. Townsend).



This is Betty's "access from both sides" cabinet:








That guy has got to cut back on the caffeine! (but not before he finishes our house)


Looks unpretentious on the outside...


These cabinets are beautiful - you'd have to see them up close to appreciate them fully. We'll get some pictures after they're installed in the house.

sheetrock hung

The sheetrock has been hung and is now being "taped".

This huge pile of odd pieces in the middle of the room is now gone.


The big hole in the floor is where the masonry stove will go (after the sheetrock is all done).

drywell (dry foundation footer!)

It's painfully obvious now that we should have put the drywell in back in the dry season (but somehow it didn't seem all that necessary then). The only positive thing about putting it in now - after a lot of recent rain - is that the water that cascaded out of the drain tile around the foundation footer made it easy to tell that the drain tube to the drywell was sloped properly.

The crawl space has always been a little damp - from rain before the roof was on, rain coming in through the window framing (before the windows were put in), from snow blowing in the window framing, and yes - even from a very heavy week-long fog that condensed like rain inside the house. So, last week, now that we have the exterior windows and doors, we decided to get a de-humidifier and put it in the crawl space to help it dry out. It was working great - pulling about 5 gallons of water out of the crawl space air every day. As long as I emptied the de-humidifier a couple times per day, it would eventually dry it all out. But that was before (1) we got some heavy rain and (2) we starting "fixing" the gutter drainage. (We just got the gutters on a couple weeks ago, but hadn't actually routed the water away from the house yet.)

Saturday (the day before Christmas), Morgan (Kelly's friend) and I did a little work on the gutter drain system. Christmas morning, I went down to the crawl space to empty the de-humidifier reservoir and found huge puddles (never saw any puddles down there before) in the crawl space. It was extremely dis-heartening. I could see the water trickling in thru the foundation wall thru the conduit for the water supply (no, it wasn't a leak in the water supply). Apparently, the drain around the foundation footer was filling up and, since it did not have a drywell to go to, it emptied into the crawl space.

We rigged up a siphon and sucked as much water out of the footer drain as we could. That at least stopped any more water from coming into the crawl space. Later that day (Christmas), Betty and I did a 2-person bucket brigade thing ... I scooped up water into buckets and handed them to her to take outside and empty (not near the house!).

Yesterday, I called Diamond Construction to see if they could put in a drywell. I really lucked out - they said they would probably be able to do it within the next few days. In fact, they did it today.

pictures...

This picture from last summer is the partially completed "drain tile" - it's a 4-inch perforated, ribbed tube covered with rock (then covered with landscaping cloth - not shown - which lets only water thru). The drain tile goes at the base of the footer all the way around the foundation.



So, here's the perf tube from the drain tile after "un-burying" it with the backhoe.


This is the view from the house (from upstream) of the trench which will transport water in non-perforated tubes from the footer drain as well as the gutters. Note the free flow of water from the just-unburied drain tube!

The non-perf tubes (one for the footer drain and one for the gutters) are going into the trench. By this time, the water has pretty much all drained from the footer. The hole into which this stuff drains is over 10 cubic yards (1 dumptruck load) starting from below the level of the footer drain (if it wasn't below the footer drain, then gutter water would flow back into the footer - which would be less than good). Also, the hole is deep enough to run into a sandy layer of soil beneath our heavy clay soil - this will really help the drywell function well.


Both tubes are laid in the bottom of the drywell. These non-perforated tubes are slit near the ends so that water can drain better (i.e. so that water doesn't have to go all the way to the end of the non-perforated tube before it can enter the drywell).


Drain rock being dumped.
Besides the 10 cubic yards of drain rock that was trucked in, we had about another yard in a pile, so we put most of that in the drywell, too. So, that makes the drywell capacity about 11 yards or so - plenty of margin over the 9.9 yards required in the building permit.


A liner goes on top of the drain rock to keep soil above the rock from filling the space between the rocks.


The "yard" is a little more of a mess today, but I've never seen a mess that I appreciate more than this one! (You can tell how happy I am to have this drywell, since I've included so many photos with this posting.)

This evening, I went down into the crawl space to empty the de-humidifier again. While I was down there, I noticed a frog in one of the holes that I had been scooping water out of. I have no idea how he got there, but maybe I'll leave him there so he can eat bugs. Maybe he'll just move out after it gets too dry.

you know the end is near when...

...when they take the dumpster away

sheetrock

Sheetrock delivered (very heavy stuff - real glad I didn't have to move it!), windows and doors masked, floor covered. The big hole next to the sheetrock is where the masonry stove will go.

gutters are up

The gutters were installed today (Sunday, no less) - just in time, since it's supposed to start raining in about a day.

While the gutter installer was working, I was working on our water supply system ... the worst of it was the splice in the 1-1/2" poly-pipe ... that stuff defies watertight connections of any kind, but don't get me started on that!  (I gave up when it got too dark to work ... but I was making progress ... had the leak slowed way down.  For the night, I've turned off the pressure tank, but it still had about 40 psi of pressure ... we'll see how much pressure it has left in the morning.)

Sheetrock starts tomorrow.

the new den

Betty is introducing the pack to their new den ... from the left: Indy, Bear, Sadie & Max

insulation done

The yellow insulation with no facing is on the interior walls and is only for muffling sound. The insulation on the exterior walls is faced with a vapor barrier of sorts (keeps warm, moist air from the living space from condensing in the walls when it's cold outside).

spotted skunk

Saw one of these on our deck last night - a western spotted skunk. It's been unusually cold (for this region) lately - he must have come around looking for any food the dogs might have missed. He had to be pretty hungry to get that close to our four dogs - especially Bear. (We didn't take this picture - I snarfed it from the link above.)

Yesterday, we ran 1-1/2 inch poly pipe from inside the house crawl space most of the way to the existing "T" it will tap into. Today, I'll hook it up, then do a pressure test on the water supply plumbing before it gets covered with sheetrock.

It's Sunday, but the gutters are supposed to be installed today.

water & power trenches

John (of John's Trenching) came this morning and dug our water and power trenches. The water trench stops at the driveway because there is already conduit from that point to the house and thru the foundation into the crawl space. Both trenches are about 2 feet deep - well below the freeze depth for water in this climate and, for the power, about 6" deeper than it really has to be for wire in conduit.

west gable window going in

Yesterday, Les put in the window in the west gable ... note the firm footing for the scaffold. The upper, curved part of the window frame is lighter color, because it has not been oiled yet.

(I'll post another picture after the scaffold has been removed and the septic tanks have been covered.)

plumbing/framing & insulation

made some big progress today ... yesterday, we called to schedule a plumbing/framing re-inspection for today ... we just passed those and also passed the insulation inspection!

the next inspection will be for the reinforcement in the footer for the masonry stove

view from the crawl space

Most of the work I've done (wiring and plumbing) is down in the crawl space, so I thought I would treat you all to some of the scenery from down there.

wiring

here's the power panel (i.e. "fuse box") and the wire right under the panel where it comes thru the floor from the crawl space where most of the wire for the house is run

the wires which carry power to the panel are not yet in place (yet another thing waiting on me - I need to dig a trench, put in conduit, pull the wire thru and hook it up)

plumbing/framing inspection yesterday

I finally finished the plumbing over the weekend and yesterday we had the plumbing/framing inspection.  I had to add some cleanout ports for the branch drains, since they are over 5 feet long (nothing I read gave me any such clues).  So, we're ready for the re-inspection.  Meanwhile, Dale and Les are working on insulating the exterior walls.  The sheet rock will go up next week provided that we pass the plumbing/framing re-inspection and the insulation inspection.

busy day yesterday

Yesterday was a pretty eventful day...

First, the Temp-Cast masonry stove core kit arrived. It was shipped from Toronto to a local masonry dealer (they could not deliver it directly here because we have no equipment to unload it from the truck). The local dealer brought it here and put it on the ground on a pallet with everything shrink-wrapped.

Then, the wiring inspector arrived to follow up on the initial inspection which resulted in a few things that I had to correct. He signed off on the rough-in wiring, so as far as the electrical guys are concerned, we're ok to cover the walls (which will conceal the wiring).

Finally, the windows and patio doors arrived and were installed (see previous posting).

Now that we've passed the wiring inspection, we have to get the plumbing inspected. I actually did the plumbing before the wiring, but the wiring inspection is apparently supposed to be done first. After the plumbing is checked off, we can put in the insulation in the exterior walls, get that inspected and then put up the sheet rock.

After the sheet rock is up, the mason can build the stove. Until we have sheet rock, all he can do is build the foundation for it.

windows are in

The windows and patio doors arrived yesterday and were all installed - except for the west end gable window which would be very difficult to install right now with the slippery snow and mud and the uncovered septic plumbing hole right where a scaffold would need to go.

first snow

Between working on the house and working at our day jobs, we've been extremely busy - too busy even to update this blog.

Meanwhile, the season hasn't exactly waited for us. A few days ago, we got our first snow (a few days before the windows were due to arrive).