Week of Sept 14th

Fairly productive week.  My confidence is never high when there's plumbing involved,  but I moved into doing the parts of the plumbing -- namely the supply system-- that I will do on my own.  The electrician also came at the end of the week,  so that part of what will soon be hidden is coming along.  

Not to sound like a broken record,  but it doesn't lend itself to photos.  Really little of what's going on now does,  but here are a few pics of highlights.  These guys are checking out the roof for the solar hot water unit that they would later bring up to the roof.  

Better them than me is all I can say.  I'd like as few additional trips up onto the now slick roof as possible, for the rest of my life!  

The solar panel feeds a tank in the basement.   It has only one electrical element,  up top.  If the solar is bringing the water fully to temperature,  the element doesn't kick in.  In the rare  =;- 0  instance that skys are cloudy , the element does its work to bring the temp up.  I like the name -- very kinky:  

(It says "Solar Servant") . Installation of the tank (in the basement)  and the pipes that go through the roof and down to the tank was all part of the contract with Solar Assist. How lovely to have them just get the whole thing done!  

As scheduled,  I got the radiant floor control panels all connected,  and after a full weekend under test they are holding 70 PSI of air pressure steady without any loss,  so I'd say we are leak free! Very exciting.   Here's a picture of the panel and the mini boiler to the left.   It's all we'll need to heat the water that will go through the floors.  I didn't build that control board -- a company in Maine that designed my system built it and shipped it to me.  I just had to bring all the red and orange pipes from the various loops in the floor into the panel and connect them in proper sequence.  And that was enough.

With any luck,  all the rest of the in-th-wall (& ceiling) work will be finished next week and I'll we awaiting the sheetrockers -- another part of the job that I am happy NOT to take care of myself.

Summer's over

OK,  I didn't finish  catching up before the vacation break,  so I'll try and get you up to date tonight.   Systems,  systems, systems.  There you have it in a word.  I'm blogging if you're interested,  but it ain't pitcha-esk,  if you folla .   

Before the interior walls and ceilings  can get closed in,  there are lots of things that need to get threaded through the walls and ceilings.  

Above are some heat tubes in the basement ceiling (to feed the first floor's system) and electrical wiring too. 

Then there are light fixtures.  They seem and look simple,  but deciding where they go and spacing them in light of other immovable objects,  like trusses and joists and such takes some head scratching.  Soon the electrician will wire these up.

Even though the radiant heat tubes are in the floor  they  pass  to the second floor through the first floor's ceiling,  and the manifolds and thermostats and controls and such are all in the walls.  So that system also needs to get finished before I can close the walls. 

Getting those aluminum plates down and the tubes threaded into their channels was the pre-vacation goal,  and we did finish it.  In fact,  I don't have too many pictures since time was short and we got protective covering down over those tubes right away (to prevent -- I hope -- any chance of a puncture before the finish floor goes down over them).    THe plates look like this,  if you can see through the chaos.    

And when the tubes go in,  it looks something like this. 

The tubes  are ornery to thread around,  and it is critical not to kink them,  so again there's more to it than one expects.   (See the bathtub in the back,  that's in now too, along with plumbing for the sink in there.) 

 At first they are a confusing mess.  

But this past week I began to tame them into their neat manifolds.

 Plumbing is really my least favorite thing to do,  and I fake it really poorly compared to the rest of the trades,  but I am muddling through the heat parts.  The waste plumbing is another story.  I had a real live licenced plumber put these pipes in.  

Then there is ventilation.  Because this house should end up being pretty tight -- meaning that it is highly insulated and also well sealed,  so there should not be a lot of air infiltration -- we need to bring in fresh air through a small and simple system -- but it is a central one.  

Here you see the exhaust unit that's now hanging in the basement: 

And the trunk line that leads to various smaller ducts that go upstairs into the kitchen, bathrooms, etc. 

There are smaller ducts that will get built into chases etc in the near future,  such as this one in the guest bathroom: 

Last but not at all least,  the drainwater heat recovery unit arrived and has been installed.  I'm very excited about this.  It's going to be connected the master bathroom's shower and essentially it uses the heat from the water going down the shower drain to preheat the water that is coming into the shower valve,  so that you use less of the (solar heated) hot water to get a hot shower.  Here's a picture of the unit pre- installation.    You see the copper pipe snaking all around?  It makes contact with the copper of the drain pipe, and the thing is engineered  so that the outflowing hot drain water films the wall of the drain pipe (rather than dropping down the middle) and thus heats the water tha is passing up through that snaking pipe.  Pretty hot huh! 

Below is a picture of the unit installed in it's present rats nest of a plumbing chase.  

So,  the coming week will be more plumbing,  computer wires,  phone wires,  thermostat wires,  and who knows what else.  I'll let you know!