Long overdue update…procrastination is bad :-(

Well, the last post was Nov. 27, 2016. That’s right, last year and almost 4 months ago with a note about a first snow of the year.

Some people build an entire house in 4 months, not us, but we have had progression….and a lot of snow!

The snow was really deep this year according to neighbors and much more than the last few years.

Before the snow came too hard it starting getting really cold, negative degrees during the night, so the radiant company got the heat on about the second week of December. Before that we were able to keep the house from freezing with the gas fireplace.

During my blog hiatus, I was able to run the hot and cold water plumbing, and install the HRV (Heat Recovery Ventilator) ducting, as well as the low voltage wiring for internet, television and security cameras. The electricians also ran the rough electrical. A crew installed the fire sprinkler system which did not go ideally.

The mechanical room may look messy but it is quite well organized.

Hot and cold water plumbing manifold.

View of the ceiling of the mechanical room.

Mechanical room with boiler at right, indirect water heater for potable water that is heated by the boiler and also heats the radiant tubes in the floors of the house, (center), Water softener (left), and hot and cold water manifold at far left.

Once the heat was on, we had one giant hole in the house where the garage door needed to go. It was boarded up for a while, but ultimately we decided this was a better solution.

The garage door put in to help keep the house warm after we got the heat on.

Garage door.

It was not all work and no play during this period of interwebs vacancy. Cooper and I made time to take advantage of the of the snow, the sunshine, and someone got some much needed rest (someone = the dog 🙂

Cooper enjoying the snow.

Cooper enjoying the VERY deep snow during a work break at Wasatch Mountain State Park

With the warm weather, I put a temporary fence around part of the deck so Cooper could go in and out the sliding door on his own and not leave to visit the neighbor’s dogs or the deer that come by the house.

It’s hard to find good help.

Cooper is resting in his den that is under the lowest part of the stairs.

NOW FOR THE MESSY PART!!!

I mentioned the heat was on, so now the insulation went in by a crew of installers and some by L and myself to help keep that heat inside the house. A combination of damp spray cellulose in the walls, netted cellulose in the ceilings and some bat insulation as needed. It is an amazingly dusty mess, but not as bad as drywall, which we’ll get to in a moment.

Insulation contractors blowing damp spray cellulose into the walls of the house. What a dusty mess!

L helping put insulation in the ceiling of the garage.

Most of the doors in the house are pocket doors with Johnson hardware. We wanted to put the doors in before drywall and get the trim around the doors so the drywall would dive into the trim like the wood windows. We also installed the 4 interior windows that are set high on the wall between the great room and the private areas of the house.

Pocket doors in place before the drywall goes in.

The drywall went in without much trouble, other than the horrible mess. Delivery is by a boom truck to load the sheets, as long as 14 feet, into the house. Then 2 crews of a total of 11 men came and installed the entire house in 7 hours! Two days later another crew of 3 worked on the tape and mud. Soon enough, walla! it was done and there was one hell of a mess of drywall mud and dust covering every inch of the floors. Fortunately we covered the floors with vinyl wallpaper from the Habitat from Humanity Restore, and saved a time of work cleaning the finished concrete floors afterward.

Drywall delivery was on a beautiful day.

The drywall job made such an awful mess on the floors. This shows the concrete floors were saved by the vinyl wallpaper we put down to protect them.

great room windows with drywall installed.

Now that drywall is in, we are busy priming and painting all the walls of the house. It’s going much slower than I anticipated, but it is 8,000 square feet of drywall so I guess it won’t happen overnight. Next on the agenda is the exterior cement board install and the interior tongue and groove ceiling installation.

Walls covered with drywall and primed.

That’s about it. Hopefully I will update more often than every 4 months from here on out.

First snow :-)

We had our first snow at the house on November 25th, and there is more expected this week so I imagine that it is the beginning of winter for us. The 10 day forecast shows a low of 3 degrees for Friday and we don’t have heat in the house yet. We expect the gas meter installed by the end of the week, and then we can fire up the 50,000 BTU fireplace to get some heat in the house.  With the garage door going in by the end of the week, we should be closed in and warm enough for the cold spell.

Our dog Cooper has been spending the days with us up there since we closed the house in with a wall of OSB over the garage door opening while waiting for the door to arrive and be installed.

The pocket door framing is finally done and the fire suppression system goes in this week. Rough electrical goes in next week. All the wood windows are stained so they are sealed from any warping thanks to L working diligently on them.

Cooper loves looking out all the floor level windows at the deer that come down each evening.

A little bit of snow…probably melted by day’s end.

View from the great room of the valley enshrouded in fog and the mountains covered in snow.

Progress moving slowly…

Not a lot of exciting things have been happening. Just some mechanical items such as duct work for the HRV system, gas lines, and I finished installing the fascia material so the roof drip edge could be finished up.

I have visitors every few days stopping by to see the house, they just pull right up in the driveway and are very complimentary on the design, and many say they either were “going to buy the lot” or “were going to build one like this”, either way, it’s nice that people appreciate the design.

Just follow the photos and captions to see what’s been happening.

The gas line installers showed up in this truck. I’m not really sure what else to say on this…..

We worked to re-route the trail across the property after finding Utah has a provision to protect land owners from liability where a trail crosses private land. This allows continuity through the trail.

We picked up two kayaks to enjoy the nearby water of the Provo River, Deer Creek, and Jordanelle Reservoir.

I installed some lights in the garage to be able to work later since it gets dark so early with daylight saving time.

The UPS driver, amongst many others, feel our Honey Bucket is a public restroom.

Roofers finishing up the drip edge and gutter. The cement board fascia complete, should not have to be painted ever.

Ducting for the HRV (Heat Recovery Ventilator) system that exchanges stale air for fresh air throughout the house.

Address marker on a plate steel bar that will eventually rust and sit about 4 feet out of the ground near the street. The silver numbers should stand out nicely once it rusts.

 

Fascia board.

Spent part of today putting the fascia board on the back side of the house. Not too bad installing from a ladder, but the front side with the big overhang over the driveway will be more challenging. I’ll be doing it from a rented man lift. This is the through colored cement board that does not need painting….hopefully ever!

Fascia board and firring strips on north and east side of house.

Cement board fascia with exposed fasteners detail.

 

Windows, and all dried in!

We finally got the windows in and had a carpenter hang the front and back door. The windows and front and back door frames are Sierra Pacific brand, aluminum clad wood windows. We chose to hang wood doors on the SP window frames for a specific look we like, as well as to not have so much “see-thru” into the house from the front door. There is a side light to the doors where one could see in.

We still need to get the garage door and man door next to the garage hung, so we are completely closed in and can get the house to warm up a bit for working on the inside during the winter.

Here are some photos…

First window (sliding glass door) going in.

great room windows at deck level.

House wrapped in black house wrap ready for window installation.

Solid slab wood front door hung on aluminum clad wood frames that match the windows.

Master bedroom windows in afternoon light.

Readying for windows

Not too much has happened since it’s hard to work when it’s butt cold out, windy with sideways rain,  and 87% humidity.

The gas fireplace in the great room was installed I am working toward getting the fascia ready for the finish material so we can get the fascia boards on and then the roof finished up with drip edge and the top of the chimney weather proofed.

I spent time lying on my stomach leaning over the edge of the roof putting furring strips on for the fascia cement board. The cement board needs air flow on both sides, so therefore requires the furring strips.

The masons put the stone on the chimney last week and E and I finished getting the rest of the exterior foam on the walls today and will put the remainder of the house wrap on tomorrow so windows can be installed on Monday and Tuesday.

The stone work on the chimney above the roof. The somae will be on the patio and inside the house int he great room.

The view while lying on my stomach over the edge of the roof attaching furring stips to the fascia.

The chimney framed before the stone went on .

E cutting more exterior foam out of windows on the house.

Fireplace in the great room installed.

After too much rain, wind and cold, this was the view while driving home.

Exterior foam and housewrap

Finally we are installing the exterior foam and house wrap to get ready for the windows to be delivered on Oct. 10th and installed that week. The foam is 2″ of polyisocyanurate Or Polyiso for short. The house will be wrapped with Vaproshield Reveal shield house wrap for the open rain screen design of the fiber cement panels. This stuff is like a goretex fabric on the house.  As I install the foam, the housewrap needs to be put on right after to keep any rain off of the foam, as we are expecting some rain this week.

I had E’s help again for the day which saves me a lot of time. We installed the 2 basement windows today as well.

E. cutting out the windows with a reciprocating saw after covering them with exterior Polyiso foam.

Back part of the home covered with Polyiso exterior foam.

Back part of the house partially covered with the Vaproshield house wrap.

A new helper.

I also had a new helper, freshly back from a journey through Eastern Europe. E was a fantastic help with some framing, and some air sealing the foundation to framing joint. Oh, she’ll be back to help more! Smart, and a hard worker!

E cutting on the miter saw

E grabs the nail gun and continues framing while I was busy with the mason, who cam to check out the chimney job.

We have a roof and Oh, siding material, what a long journey you have made, please come inside!

The roof insulation dried out enough that the roofers could put the Sika Sarnafil PVC membrane roof on, just in time for a lot of rain predicted in the next two days.

Today the siding arrived. It has made a long journey from Switzerland to our home, and I had the pleasure of offloading it with a forklift (of which I have only driven once before in my life) very carefully. This is really great cement board that has an integrated color all the way through. No painting, no re-painting, EVER! It will be used as the siding for the front area of the home, and a different color for the roof fascia. I got it safely in the garage, where it will wait for install.

Lastly, after the rain that soaked the house, and somewhat messed up the (finished) concrete floors last week, I threw some OSB plywood over the windows to keep the wind driven rain from the oncoming storm out of the house.

Next we put the 2″ of exterior foam insulation on the house, covered by Vaproshield house wrap, and get the windows installed about October 12.

The roof finish material installed, no rain can get through now!

Kind of a selfie loading the siding material into the garage.

SwissPearl siding material in the garage.

House boarded up from rain, as if it was abandon.

 

A visitor to the house.

Not much has happened this week. Finished framing the interior upstairs walls, and while L and I were cleaning up lumber around the house, we found this little bat between sheets of OSB plywood leaning against the house under the patio roof. He stayed there all day, so we left he plywood so as not to disturb him/her.

We will get the Sika Sarnafil membrane roof installed on Monday. Then we’ll start on the exterior insulation at the main floor level, getting ready for windows in a couple weeks or so.

After windows go in, we are officially “dried in”.

Our bat visitor hiding between sheets of OSB leaning against the house.