More Good News

Each day seems to bring some more good news. Bernie from Clarke County Plumbing and Tom from Creager Electrical both were on-site this week and have worked on the final details. For Bernie's part, he's been attaching the bathroom fixtures (hanging the toilets on the wall, attaching the bath and shower faucets, etc.). Tom's been completing the circuits for a host of indoor and outdoor lighting and electrical connections. If all goes well, Bernie will finish the plumbing on Thursday, and have a final inspection on Friday. Tom will finish early next week and have a final inspection then. Jeff Gunther from Grove Construction was back on-site today to finish installing the beautiful cedar siding on the West side of the house, and the final trim piece on the East side of the house. Andreas snapped this picture of Jeff before the sun went down, just before Jeff installed the last few pieces.

Jeff installing cedar on the West side of the house.

Meanwhile, Andreas and I have been busy with some tasks of our own. I joined the two pieces of the kitchen counter by the range, using a new Dewalt plate joiner toy (er, I mean tool), and Andreas sanded it and put two coats of Safecoat sealant on it, which we purchased from Amicus Green Building Center. Faceplates have been installed on most of the remaining outlets. The pipes around the hot water heater and the radiant floor system have been insulated. I still have to grout the master shower floor, and seal all of the grout in each of the bathrooms.

North side LED step lights and front door light.

South side LED step lights.

LED step lights into the basement.

Fuzzy picture (low light) of insulated water heater pipes.

Fuzzy picture (low light) of insulated radiant system pipes.

More ELFA in the master closet.

It's Starting to Feel Like a Real House

I've had this warm feeling while working on the house the last few days/evenings. Oh, that would be the radiant floor heating that's fully functional, at last! Tom, the electrician, slipped on some ice and wasn't able to come to work this past week. Given the DC area weather forecast, and temperatures projected in the teens, we felt it was mandatory that we hire another electrician to connect power to the hot water heater and connect the radiant system. Our contractor friend, Jeff Hopp, suggested we call a sub he has used with great success. Andreas called him (I'll get his name from Andreas and update this posting with that info) and he came the next day. Not only is he a licensed electrician, but he's a plumber and an HVAC guy too. So he was the right man for the radiant floor job. After the electrical connections were complete, and it was confirmed that the water heater was properly functioning, Andreas filled the radiant tubes with water and the system went live. Within a few hours, the temps went from the 40s into the 50s. By the next morning, it was very warm inside, in the low 60s. By Friday night, each room was at least 65 degrees. We thought it would take two full days to heat up all of the concrete thermal mass, but it took about a day. Working at the house today, with the sun out, I observed air temperatures in the 70s in all rooms that have southern exposure, and the living room thermostat showed a temperature of 78.3 degrees. What amazingly warm feeling to have radiant heat - at long last! Combined with the passive solar attributes, our house was toasty today.

The heat's not the only thing that's been accomplished in the last 10 days. Craig Smith has been working diligently and skillfully on the finish carpentry. The current project is to install Ipe thresholds. If you're not familiar with Ipe, it's an extremely hard wood that's exceptionally durable, suitable for wet and hot and dry locations, and is often used for decks. It was on sale at TW Perry, and we thought it would be ideal for the door thresholds, since that can be a harsh environment for wood.

TW Perry delivered the interior doors on Friday, so we'll work on sealing those with the Safecoat product we bought at Amicus Green Building Center. Andreas and I will install those ourselves, which should be a fun project. Craig Smith will install the three "normal" (hinged) doors early next week. Two of those go in the basement and the third is for the entry to the stairs into the basement. We're using pocket doors in as many places as possible, to save space and ensure a clean/modern look.

The Container Store is holding their annual ELFA shelving system sale this month, so we had an ELFA design for our master closet prepared, and I picked up the ELFA system for that closet last week. Today, I spent a couple of hours in the closet installing the system. I think it looks great, and it's a wonderfully functional closet organizing system. We have it in the condo, and really like it. Act soon to get 30% off ELFA at the Container Store.

Also today, I unpacked the Bosch dryer and the Samsung refrigerator from their crates. The Bosch dryer goes with the Bosch washing machine. Since it's a stackable system, I had to install an attachment to the washer, that the dryer is then affixed to. The end result looks really good.

The final work item today was to use my new toy...er, I mean tool...to join the two sections of the wheatboard countertop behind the range. I used my shiny new Dewalt plate joiner (sometimes called a biscuit joiner), inserted the biscuit and glue, then clamped the two pieces together. Tomorrow I'll take the clamp off, sand the seam, lightly sand the rest of the wheatboard, clean it with a barely damp cloth to get the dust off, and then apply the first coat of Safecoat no VOC sealant to it. I will do a light sanding and second coat tomorrow night, after we meet with our landscape architect, Erika, who will be reviewing our final draft landscape plan with us.

Countertop seam

It's always fun when friends stop by to visit while we're there working. Today, our friends Mike, Helen, Jeff, John, Helen, and Jeff stopped by. The first Helen brought delicious sandwiches from the Italian Store in Arlington. Yummy! It was great to have a lunch break and good conversation. But then it was back to work!

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.