At Home In The Woods

   / At Home In The Woods #1,001  
Obed;

Thanks for including us so well on this great home project. I think all of us have picked up a tip or two...it really is moving along nicely and an absolutely beautiful home and homesite.
And, congrats on hitting 100 pages and 1000 posts!
 
   / At Home In The Woods
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#1,004  
Obed;
Thanks for including us so well on this great home project. I think all of us have picked up a tip or two
I believe I've benefited the most by having so many people on this site looking out for us and providing great suggestions. Thanks everybody!

...it really is moving along nicely and an absolutely beautiful home and homesite.
Thank you. Yesterday we met the new contractor's wife. She said we had a beautiful house. I told her was it wasn't very beautiful until her husband started working on it.

And, congrats on hitting 100 pages and 1000 posts!
I've been a little surprised at the interest people have shown in this project. I certainly wouldn't have predicted it.
 
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   / At Home In The Woods
  • Thread Starter
#1,005  
The windows and exterior doors have been installed.
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There are still 2 windows that haven't been installed. One of the windows was not what we ordered and had to be returned. Unfortunately, we can't begin the brick work until we receive the right window and it may take 3 more weeks to get it. In addition, we added another window in the attic so we had to order that window. The attic window we added is in a gable end of the garage on a portion of the wall with vinyl siding. Adding the additional window would not have delayed the brick installation.

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Notice how the house wrap on top of the window overlaps the tape running along the top of the window. The installers (the framing crew) seemed to make an effort to read the manufacturer's installation instructions and follow them. You may recall during one of my earlier posts that I was very concerned about getting the windows installed correctly. The framer really liked the window tape that we purchased.

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Unfortunately, all these windows face the north side of the house. We have made some efforts to build a somewhat energy efficient house. Ideally, we would have lots of windows on the south side of the house to catch the winter sun and would not have lots of windows on the north side.
However, other considerations drove our decision to have the front of the house face south. The front porch is on the south side of the house and will shade the porch windows during the winter (not a great energy efficient choice). Since the best view is to the north, we opted for lots of windows on the north side (not a great energy efficient choice either). We are installing a high efficiency fireplace located close to the center of the house. With 30 acres of woods, I doubt I'll have trouble finding firewood.

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Better those guys on those ladders than me!
 

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   / At Home In The Woods #1,006  
Its really coming along well. I have read each and every post and could not be happier for you, your wife, and that new little one. Just think, you will have that fireplace to sit near next Thanksgiving.

Chris
 
   / At Home In The Woods
  • Thread Starter
#1,007  
Mystery solved
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Yesterday the gas company and phone company each came out and marked their lines using their tracing equipment. I made a map.

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If you look carefully, you can see the orange paint (phone line and electric line) and yellow paint (gas line). My memory regarding how the lines had been run 10 months ago was incorrect. The electric line and phone line are in one trench. The electric line is 4 feet deep and the phone line is 2 feet deep. The gas line is in its own trench.

After discussing our options, the wife told me (I mean suggested) that I will finish digging the electric line between the transformer/pedestal and the house.

Unfortunately, we can't place the gas meter where we intended to put it because it would be under a window. So the gas meter will have to be put in a more conspicuous location on the front side of the garage. We'll have to put a bush in front of the meter to hide its ugliness.
 

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   / At Home In The Woods #1,008  
"We" love a good construction project.
The house is looking great, and I'm also glad it wasn't me on that ladder. Course, with the proper ladder, it isn't that bad.
My parents gas meter is nowhere near their house, way down in the woods where their line comes off the gas main. Maybe you could put your meter further away?
 
   / At Home In The Woods
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#1,009  
The trusses that got installed in the wrong place by the previous CM got moved today in order to accommodate the basement and main floor fireplaces.

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This picture shows the workers in the basement moving the main floor truss above them. Notice the wide spacing between the trusses over the workers' heads. This space will allow room for the fireplaces and chimney. The two trusses close together will support the artificial stone for the main floor fireplace. We preferred real stone (stacked stone) but real stone weighs much more than the artificial stone and would have required extra foundation work and a load bearing wall in the basement. So we went with the artificial stone fireplace for simplicity.

I found it interesting how they built their temporary scaffold.

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The workers are now on the main floor moving two attic floor trusses.

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   / At Home In The Woods #1,010  
I've been a little surprised at the interest people have shown in this project. I certainly wouldn't have predicted it.

:) It was like watching a car crash in slow speed for a while there -- we were all yelling at the driver to stop, but we weren't sure he was listening!

Looking good now though :thumbsup:
 
 
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