Thursday, December 24, 2009

Interior Glass

I forgot to mention in my last posting that Tony Sommer from Sommer Glass came by yesterday with the five interior glass panels. He installed those over the three doors in the hallways, the door into the guest bathroom, and the door into the master closet. Andreas and I were working on installing the kitchen cabinets in their exact location and leveling the cabinets. We also had to build a bulkhead off the back of the island since Aaron told Tom (from Creager Electrical) where to bring electrical wire through the floor - but Aaron apparently had the location wrong by several inches. So we are adjusting in the field again. Another Cornerstone mistake we encountered, was that the fan control for the fireplace was installed incorrectly, so the automatic shut-off feature couldn't activate. We quickly found out it was installed wrong after we started a fire and turned the fan on. Andreas diagnosed the problem and fixed that this morning so our fireplace fan control will work properly from now on.

Back to the interior glass -- Tony did a nice job with the glass, and he even used an environmentally-friendly glass cleaner to clean the salt spray from the roads off the glass before installing it. I'll take some pictures and post those with the deck photos next week. Tony will be back in a couple of weeks (after we install the master bathroom shower tile) to measure and then install the white laminated frameless shower glass wall for us.


One Step Closer to Toasty Warm

For several days I had intended to take a picture of the radiant system in the basement. We previously posted pics of the pex tubing that's in the floor, which are the veins of the system. but the heart of the system is quite impressive. And it's mostly installed. We purchased the system from Radiantec and they did a fantastic job answering any and all of our questions as we worked with Bernie from Clarke County Plumbing to connect the system. Speaking of Bernie, he claims he's still snowed in, so he didn't show up at all this week to work on our house. Andreas pleaded with him yesterday to come next week - and plan to spend the whole week there.

While the system itself is connected and pressure tested, Bernie hasn't fully installed/connected the Polaris gas water heater. He was supposed to connect the gas line on a previous day, but he deferred that to a future day, and hasn't been back. He also needs to install the expansion tank, a heat trap (as required by Earthcraft for certification) and connect the overflow to the drain pan or sump pump. Today, Washington Gas came to install the meter outside, so as soon as Bernie shows up again, we'll be ready to fire it up and test it out.

Then the other piece that needs to be connected for the radiant system to be operational, is the thermostat controls. Andreas installed all of the thermostats on the walls and now we need Tom the electrician from Creager Electrical to show up to connect the temperature control system (the brain) to the heart so we can control the temperature in each of the five zones.

It will be really wonderful to have heat in the house, since we still have some work to do inside. But I suspect most of our inside work will be complete before Bernie and Tom are able to finish their work.


The outside of the house has been a better situation. Jeff Gunther from Grove Construction and his sidekick Andrew did a wonderful job on the deck, which they finished yesterday afternoon. I'll take some pictures of the final product and post those early next week. Jeff and Andrew need to come back to clean up their work site (which has been in the neighbor's back yard) and Jeff will finish installing the cedar siding that Aaron Holmes's crew never completed. That's scheduled for Saturday, January 2nd since Jeff is taking some well-deserved time off around the holidays. I think the house will look much better from the street once the cedar siding is visible on the Western side of the house.