Wintry Work

Nice to have our excavators back and working away at the snow and backyard today. Just in time too. The drywall was delivered, and as you can see having a back door on the second floor was quite handy. The siding folks were hard at work as well. Fun to see some of the shutters finally up. Next up is drywalling and that necessitates getting the insulation done too. Oh, and that means the plumbers need to have their work done lickety-split.

Workaday Holiday

We were very happy to have some work going on at the house today despite wintery weather. We had Questar Gas digging the trench for our natural gas, which as explained previously is the "next big key". We also had Qwest lay down their cable for phone service, and the plumbers worked away at getting the sewer pipe tied in. That very nearly brings their work to a close. In fact, they passed inspection today despite needing to finish a few things inside (mostly for the
HVAC side). Our siding contractor is away for the rest of the Christmas holiday, so no work was done there. Our lumber was delivered for the framing of the back decks, but alas will slumber beneath a thick blanket of snow.

Retrenchment

Having found the termination of our sewer stub the day before, our excavator completed the trench from the house out to the stub. We're looking forward to having the phone and cable lines laid down as well. The siding guys put up some more shingles and soffit. Grandpa and Grandma H kindly contributed by placing tarps over the garage doors. Today the blue-stakes locators gave the go-ahead for placement of the gas line. Now we're really just waiting on this. Gas is good. Gas means heat. Heat means insulation can be placed and dried. Then dry-wall, then finish carpentry and cultured marble, then painting, then floors and cabinets and then... an end?

Eureka!

Stephanie's winter twilight pictures nicely illustrate the golden find beneath: our sewer pipe. Our excavator was able to find it very near its termination just behind our lot in our (very obliging) neighbor's lot. Without too much trouble now we'll be able to actually run a line out to it. Eventually all the big holes will be filled in and there will be joy in Mudville again. The excavator also took the time to spread out the dirt piles in front of the house and all now looks like it was (gasp!) designed to look that way. Nice to see our vision again coming to fruition. Our siding guy was also here and wrapped the garage side doors. And our HVAC/plumbers also did some work around the house - it was just hard to tell exactly what. Finally, we had a successful walkthrough with our low voltage guy and all the lines seem to be in place. Can't wait to see what tomorrow brings.

Bigfoot Deep in the Snow

Where the sewer line lies nobody knows. Today our siding contractor spent the better part of his time trying  to get his lift up the slippery hill. It took the help of our  excavator to finally get it up and out. Meanwhile the plumber/HVAC crew worked away trying to get their work finished. The excavator
after extricating the siding lift went to work trying to find our sewer stub to no avail. But we do have a big hole and a bit of a cave excavated at the northwest corner of the lot. We'll need to get the
city utility supersleuth up here with his fiberoptic camera and locator to tell us where it really is.

Winter Slowdown

You can see some wiring for the telephone/data etc in place, and apparently some of the HVAC work went ahead today, but it's been snowy and cold. Hopefully (if slowly) things will keep moving forward. We had to push back the insulation placement due to the delays - hopefully we'll be insulated soon since that would certainly help make it any easier place to work...

Upsizing to Code

A funny thing happened on the way to the plumbing inspection. Turns out we've been reclassified as a mini-motel. Though I can't promise that your bed will be turned down each night if you come to stay, today we did what we had to to ensure that you have plenty of water in your shower. Another hundred buck to the city, and more work for our plumbers and we now have a larger water main line into the house. This will run to our big water heater (same absolute number of gallons that we'd planned on before but in one more expensive package), and from there we get one bigger line to the first split off. Though it's a pain for the plumbers due to the excess work, and to our pocket book we hope that any of our lodgers in the future will appreciate the efforts.

On a side note (forgive the pun) the west side of the house has siding, soffit and fascia. Cool! Unfortunately with the nice lines up you can now see that the sheathing is very wavy and it's wavering will have to be reigned in by our framers this next week.

Inside Outside

More siding went up on the west side today, the bay roof window is finished (looks much nicer now that it's finished off), and the vents are all in place and kit'ed out to be ready for the fireplace flues. The best thing was the provisional "okay" from the electrical inspector. There are a couple of issues still to be rectified, but that should be taken care of tomorrow, and then we're "good to go".

More of the Same

More siding, more plumbing and electrical. That was the theme for today. The major progress was made via Dad/Grandpa H's help with getting us set up to tap into the water main. As you can see from the picture the fire hydrant is sitting a foot higher, and the water meter is now in place. Next we need sewer and gas. Rough in electrical work is nearly done, and we're just waiting for the inspection. We'll soon be getting the sheetrock lined up, and look forward to having that in place so we can get some garage doors on and heat up the place someday soon!

Water, Shingles and Lines

Pictures today are from the exterior, but plenty was going on inside too. More gas lines were run, and finally the vents placed for the fireplaces (with the exception of the downstairs fireplace). Beyond that Pinhigh Siding was back and did nice work on the southwest corner of the house. The excavator moved the dirt down in the driveway and then proceeded to make a big pile in almost exactly the same place while trying to find a water line. Unfortunately, with Dad/Grandpa H's good help we found that there is no line. Fortunately we'll be able to tap off the line going to the fire hydrant, but this will take some doing tomorrow. We've more trenching/excavating and moving of dirt to look forward to, as well as the hopeful deck construction on the horizon.

Keep moving forward!

Spigots, fans and wires

Our old standbys were around today. The electricians worked on getting some fans in and the lines run to the kitchen. The plumbers ran our "carwash" spigot to the garage, as well as lines elsewhere. The HVAC/nat gas guys pulled some more lines. They also delivered the vents for the fireplaces. (They're not in place, but at least they're there). No siding guys today, but with a couple of inches of new snow on the ground this morning we didn't hold out much hope. Our retaining wall were unveiled however.

Walls Retained and Beautified

Today was another fun day at the house with lots of visible progress. You'll see above that the forms were taken of the retaining walls. It'll be a couple of weeks before they're backfilled, but at least it's done (and no snow on the ground)! The plumbers (nat gas mostly) and HVAC crews were hard at work. We've got what amounts to a breaker box for the gas lines, which is very nice. The electricians finished up most of their work with the exception of some wiring for the kitchen. Hopefully that'll take place next week and then they'll officially be done. Last but certainly not least we enjoyed immensely the shingles going up every where along the front along with the soffit beneath the porch. Take a little look at the shot of the porch and you'll see it.

Putting some clothes on

One of the best lines lately from Stephanie was in reference to getting the siding on the house. She said, "it'll be so nice to see it with some clothes on". Yeah, we've been looking at the long underwear for much to long. But the reward is seeing the shingles and trim go up, and it looks _so_good_! We also had folks working on getting all the forms up for the retaining wall, but nothing was poured. The HVAC, plumbers and electricians were working as well. So plenty of activity - and progress. Our appliances are going to be delivered to the local Sears this next week, but I guess we're not quite ready for them yet... Ah well - things are moving along, with perhaps a bit less stress each day.