More late night work. "I will sleep when I am dead"

October 20th, 2014 Interesting day yesterday.

I started working on house items in the morning. Dad and Uncle Larry were there to help. Dad is still getting all of the electrical setup and sorted out. Uncle Larry was there to help in whatever capacity he could.
There was an emergency at work today. It was caused by a change I had sent through over the weekend. I had to go into work for about 4 hours to get it resolved. I had tested the change but had missed 1 thing. Dang, lesson learned. testing, testing and then more testing to validate any changes.

We got all of the new molding and trim work primed. I then got all of the baseboard sprayed with the final paint. Mom, aunt Cleo did a bunch of cleaning and grout work. Brescia and Lisa did some of that also.
Todd showed up and we decided it was important to get the roof done as much as possible. There are thunderstorms forecast for today. Once it got dark and Todd had to leave I hauled a work light up onto the roof. I kept working at it until I got it all put up. "Nothing more fun than roofing after 1".

I finished the last bit of it just after 3am. I am not too worried about rain now. I will need to get back up there and finish installing some of the enclosures and what not. Feels good to have this task at 95% complete.

Painting day

Painting blitz today. I finished all of the white ceilings. With much help we completed the kitchen and pantry. 90% complete in the family room, mud room and great hall. We also installed more roof panels and mostly sheeted the last two rooms. A huge thank you to Kami Ashton,David Ashton, the Mason family and Todd Eppley and Lisa Eppley. We are ready for kitchen cabinets on Wednesday. Tomorrow we paint the bathrooms so we can start tile the next day.

2 Weeks

The bank has given us a deadline of the end of October to complete our project. We told them up front that it would take 6 to 9 months. We then have had several significant delays.
1. Finding out that the foundation went only to ground level. This meant removing all of the interior brick walls and building new stick walls. +1.5 months.
2. Truss plant behind schedule. This delayed the roof trusses by 1 month. We did everything we could without a roof. We also had to vacuum gallons of water every time it rained.
3. Windows. Delayed by 2 weeks. The state historical society required us to go with a more expensive and longer to make windows.

We spent the weekend prepping and priming all of walls and ceilings. We also got more of the roof panels installed. Last Thursday I worked until 4 am. Friday I was busy until 5:30 am. Saturday everyone was tired and so we quit early at 2am.

There is so much yet to be done. Many of the items are contingent on completing other tasks. We have to paint before the kitchen cabinets get her Wednesday. We have to paint before we can tile the bathrooms or put down the wood floor.

SO Much Too do.

Consuming my life

I just thought I would give a quick update and explain the work currently involved with the project.

On Monday Sept. 15th it was our 25th wedding anniversary. It was also the anniversary luncheon for Nuskin. So for our anniversary we just had a nice lunch provided by work. For me it was my 25th year at Nuskin and for Lara it celebrated her 10 year.

That afternoon we received information that the insulation crew would be there on Wednesday. This meant that everything in all of the walls had to be completed before then.

I left work at 15:30. I have been going in early this last few weeks to support the implementation of the new order fulfillment system.

I got home and changed and was working by 16:00. there were just a bunch of detail things that still needed to be completed before the insulation. I worked on those things and the gas line. Todd and I had installed it a week or so ago. For some reason It just had a lot of leaks. The way we had to rout it meant that there were many direction changes and thus connections. The line is 1 1/2 inch from the meter. This continues through the mechanical room where it finally necks to 1 inch and then goes to 3/4 for the shop line and finally a 1/2 inch line to the kitchen range. So a quick count of connections.
Elbows = 9 - 1 1/2", 2 - 1", 5 - 1/2"
T = 4
Unions = 2 - 1 1/2", 1 - 1", 1 - 3/4", 1 - 1/2"
Reducers - 3

Here are a few example photos.

This is Todd working in the West end of the hole

 This line has to serve 2 furnaces and 2 water heaters in the mechanical room. It also serves the gas dryer then the line to the shop furnace and a gas range in the kitchen.

 This is where the line exist the mechanical room.

I struggled and struggled with this thing. I disassembled and re-assembled sections of the line 4 to 6 times. It wasn't until Friday evening the 19th that I finally sealed everything and got the gas line to hold 15# for over 72 hours.

So my "house" work time for that week was the following.
Monday  -16:00 to 04:00 = 12 hours
Tuesday - 06:30 to 04:00 = 22 hours
Wednesday - 06:00 to 23:00 = 17 hours
Thursday - 16:00 to 01:00 = 8 hours
Friday - 16:00 to 23:00 = 7 hours
Saturday - 07:00 to 01:00 = 18 hours

That is 84 hours of "house" work time in 1 week. This is besides my real work on Monday, Thursday, and Friday, and a little time to sleep.

Note: the insulation crew did not show up on Wednesday. They finally got there on Friday. This meant another delay. The inspection was pushed off until Monday and the sheet rock that was supposed to start on Tuesday now wont start until Thursday. Grrrrrrrr.

Plumbing, etc.

     Part of the 4 way inspection is the plumbing. I did the drain lines for the basement. That was very difficult. The whole slope and venting requirements were very difficult to get correct. It also had to be absolutely  correct because it would all be under the basement concrete slab.

So for the main floor I hired out the drain system part. The plumbing drains and HV/AC were very challenging in the old part of the house.

     I decided that I could tackle the plumbing supply lines. We used PEX for its ease of use. Less connections and easier to get through holes and around corners.

Supply line from the city service. The city did install a new meter and base.

New meter with showing only the usage of filling the line to the house.

Since I had some old extra 3" plastic conduit I decided to run the main line from the meter into the house through this conduit. It was easy to push the pex through and it will be easy if I ever need to repair or replace this part of the line.

This is where it enters the house under the footing for the new master bath.

This is on the inside, down in the "hole".

Main line coming out of the "hole".

Part of the home run for the kitchen area.

     For the hot water we created a loop system. In the old house the water heater was in the opposite side of the house. It would take minutes to get hot water to the bathroom. The new loop system will have a circulation pump so that there is always hot water available in any part of the house.
     Here is one of out first schematics of the loop.

   
     There is a loop of 1 inch line all around the house. I then branch off with 1/2 to the faucet, tub, etc, for the last couple of feet. This way there will be plenty of volume and then high pressure also.

     For the cold water lines we ran 1" home runs to pretty much each room. It then reduces down to 1/2 right close to the point of use. I want to make sure that you can take a shower and the washing machine can run at the same time and there will be no change in water temp.
     We built a manifold system for the cold supply lines. this will enable us to turn off only the room/area that we need to.

It will need a little clean up and organizing after inspection.

     Some of the funnest plumbing to do was in the "hole". This is the crawl space under the new master bath. It measures about 15' x 8' x 30". It is a fairly confined space. The access into it is a 20" diameter hole through 40 " of concrete.

Here is the bit used and a picture of the process to create the access passage.

They estimated 2.5 hours to do this. It took them over 7!

Here are a couple of pictures of Anne going through the hole.

Notice that the hole is no longer round. I spent a few hours cutting and grinding to make the keyhole shape. I had to increase the access space once the heater duct went in.

This is what you look like covered in dust after cutting and grinding concrete for hours.

Anne in the "hole".

Last night Todd and I got the new main gas supply line run down into, through and out of the "hole". It needed to be 1.5 inch to supply enough volume for the 2 furnaces, 2 water heaters, Gas stove, and then on out to the furnace for the shop.

Todd working on the gas line at the west end of the "hole".

Things passing through the 8" hole at the west end of the "hole".
1. plumbing drain line.
2. a line of 2/12 wiring.
3. a line of 10g wire for the radiant floor heating.
4. 1" insulated pex for the main water in line.
5. 1" insulated pex for the cold home run for the master bath
6. 3/4" insulated pex for the hot supply for the master bath
7. the 1.5 inch gas supply line.
Needless to say, it is stuffed.


Me working on the main gas line at the east end of the "hole".



Notice the fan in the foreground of the picture? We were using brake cleaner to make sure the threads were clean to ensure a good clean gas tight connection. I think I am still a little hungover from all of the fumes in that confined space.


Tonight I just need to finish the line on in to the mechanical room and installing all of the "t"s to supply all of the gas appliances.

The Pumpkin Pi House

No, that's not a typo in the title--you'll see why in a minute :-)

In the summer of 1999 we decided to repaint the exterior.  Tired of the drab gray, black, and white scheme, we wanted to change the color.  We wished that the house had not been painted, and that the original bricks were still visible.  After doing some research, we found that painting the brick had likely damaged it, and that if we removed the paint, the bricks would likely dissolve.  There was a chance that we could seal the brick, but we decided that the cost and effort involved were not worth it.  We still wanted the house to be similar to the brick color, however, so we tested several colors, until we found one that seemed the closest to the color of the few exposed bricks we could see.  We got all of the paint for the exterior mixed, rented a sprayer, and began painting the house.  Since brick is a natural substance, however, and has variations in color, we quickly found that the color we had chosen was VERY ORANGE!  Since we'd already bought all of the paint for the house, we decided to just go with it.  We rented a sprayer, so we were able to spray the entire exterior in 1 day.  Since it was done by hand, the trim took several weeks to complete!

Here's Lara in the photo below, scraping loose paint in preparation:

The south side of the house, partially done:

Curtis' father, Charles came to help us paint, which was very much appreciated, and the kids enjoyed climbing the scaffolding--with an adult close by for supervision :-)

We had seen an old house in Provo that had a similar color of brick, with a dark green trim, so we decided to paint ours similarly.  Many homes in the Victorian era had were unique and colorful.  Because of this, we chose to add some colorful details to the trim, which also helped draw attention to the beautiful details.  We had admired the paint scheme which had been used on the historic building which was updated for a Pier 49 Pizza restaurant down the street, so we decided to borrow the red, blue, and gold as the accent colors on the exterior trim.  That was a lot of precise detail to add with small brushes!

A few years later, in 2002, we decided that it was time for a new roof.  We liked the look and durability of the metal roofs we saw around town, and determined that the dark green would look best with the house and trim colors.  We learned a lot of things during that project, like the fact that a metal roof is fast and easy on a basic straight roof, but on a roof with lots of gables and valleys, it's a nightmare!  What would have taken a weekend on a normal "ranch"-style house, or in asphalt shingles on any house, took the entire summer of Curtis working nearly every day.  In October, he was racing against the expected snow to finish the last few sections.  We were again grateful for Charles' help, as he put in many hours assisting, (even if his perfectionist nature hindered progress at times) .  He and Curtis nearly fell of the roof a few times, thanks to the slick metal.  One day Charles slipped down between the rafters, cracking a rib and coming within a few inches of putting his behind through the ceiling into the living room!  Thankfully, he caught himself and eventually recovered from the cracked rib, though it did take a few weeks to heal.  While the roof was off, Curtis also braved a severe thunderstorm, darkness, and a very slippery wet roof, to try to cover the open parts where the water was pouring in and beginning to damage the plaster on the ceilings.  It was tense, but gratefully, he was successful and was not injured in the process, though he was soaked through!

So, now we had an orange house, with a green roof and trim.  Sound like any squash you know?  Perhaps a pumpkin?!!  We began referring affectionately to our house as "The Pumpkin House" after that, especially when we were trying to explain to someone where we lived.  It was something people remembered, and considering that we hosted many Halloween parties, seemed fitting.

Sometime later we hosted a Pi(e) Day party on March 14, 3/14, where several families each brought a pie and we all shared them.  We realized that our house number is 314.  If you insert a decimal point between the 3 and 1, you have the well-known rounded version of Pi: 3.14!  We're a family of geeks, and most of the members of our family LOVE pumpkin pie, so with a simple switch of one word, Pumpkin Pie, becomes Pumpkin Pi, and that's how our house became the Pumpkin Pi House!

Sewer line, chimneys, and front sidewalk

Since this is such a major renovation/rebuild, we replaced the main sewer line as part of the project.

The trench.


The pipe headed out under the sidewalk.At least this part is cast iron..




This was the drain pipe system for the whole house. All cast iron except the part I had replaced with ABS.






Drain pipe remnants after removal.




Most of the main line from the house to the side walk was "orangeberg" pipe. This is basically tar paper wrapped around a steel rod to make it into pipe. In the 30s and 40s it was the new thing to use instead of cast. Well as you can see it does not hold up very well. Mush of our line had holes or was collapsed. This would explain why we had drainage problems in the past.


The 4 inch cast iron drain. It was very "thin" wall when we removed it.


Looking through the foundation wall to where the drain pipe had broken. Don't know how long it was broken. Could have been years.



The new pipe connecting into the old cast iron. We found this clean-out right next to the sidewalk. we never knew it was there.








When they turned the old pantry into a bathroom and added the sewer line they removed some of the rock foundation. These are pictures of the "support" that they put in place to hold up the floor.

Bathroom support? No wonder the floor had a 3 inch drop in it.








Under the concrete base of the fireplace there was galvanized sheet metal. Not sure this was available in 1885?


The base under the front of the fireplace in the parlor.


This is what was under the tile in front of the fireplace in the North West bedroom, a concrete base.



The fireplace base came out in one piece



You can just see the chicken wire that they used to strengthen it.







After a 1:16 half marathon this morning I spent the rest of the day digging, preparing, and forming 52 feet of sidewalk. That's it for the day. See you tomorrow .Lara Roundy Eppley, and Dexter Eppley helped some also. A big thanks to Scoot Flannery for keeping me correct.





Once we poured the concrete for the front walk I added a stencil of our name into the concrete. I think it turned out OK.