At Home In The Woods

[Obed]

Looks like you're really getting close. Do you think there's any chance you might be able to have Christmas in the house? Or is 4 days just too short to get the CO?

Can you tell I'm getting excited for you?

Cyril,
Tomorrow is the inspection for the certificate of occupancy. Believe it or not, it appears we can get the CO before our final state electrical inspection. The electrical inspection is supposed to happen Thursday if the electrician finishes his work.

The H&A guy had hooked up our gas line from the house to the gas meter. Then the county inspector told us she needed to see the gas line on "test". So the H&A guy came back and disconnected the gas line from the meter and put a pressure meter on the gas line and pressurized it to 15 psi. After the CO inspection, the H&A guy will reconnect the gas line to the meter. Then the gas company will unlock our meter. Then the H&A guy will fire up the furnace and water heater. Hopefully all the gas stuff will be finished Thursday but I'm not holding my breath. I really want the gas furnace running before Christmas instead of just the heat pump.

After we get our CO and a passing electrical inspection, our concerns about getting our power turned off will be in the past.

The manufacturer of the finish states it takes 2 weeks for the finish to completely cure. Our hw installer said we could move in earlier than 2 weeks but we risk scuffing the floors. So we do not plan on moving in the house until the hardwood floor finish has cured for 2 weeks.

It looks like moving in time will be January.

Obed

 

[Obed]

So consider getting a spare of the exterior locks units and the interior units (both locked for baths and "normal" non locks) so if something breaks in 5-10 years, you have a replacement. Also think about getting/putting door handles for your unfinished upstairs and/or basement doors where you could harvest a spare for 1st floor in a pinch.

In a similar vein, hope you got some spare pieces of flooring wood in case some gets damaged and you need to fix it.

Pete

Pete,
Based on suggestions made in this thread, we purchased a spare for each type of door handle and deadbolt.

And we have extra hardwood flooring. We bought the flooring ourselves and hired the installer so all the extra flooring is ours.

Obed

 

[Obed]

Obed,

I'm sure you're aware of the Schlage Electronic Keypad Locks with lever handles (e.g., FE595VCAM619ACC) that run ~$125 at Lowe's, HD, and Amazon. I and my 84-year-old mom have found just one of these on a single, less used, exterior door extremely convenient. ...

You might consider keeping all but one of your standard lever-handled exterior locksets and replacing that one with a keyed-alike, keypad lock. Of the many electronic gadget available for the home and competing for your dollars, the Schlage Keypad Lock desires consideration. Just some thoughts ...
- LogChain

We only had one door with a lever handle, the door to the back porch. That happens to be the door for which we would like a keypad lock. We didn't buy the keypad lock up front because we wanted time to research them. Thanks for the suggestion.

Getting locked out is just one of the negatives about the "emergency exit" door knobs. The other issue for me is it are hard to determine if they are locked when you go around locking up the house for the night or before leaving the house. Yes, you can try to remember which orientation the lock lever sits in the locked position; however you need the lights on to do so. I just want to be able to verify that the door is locked by attempting to turn the door knob. So I'd rather have a normal round door knob than a lever "emergency exit" door knob.

There are manufacturers other than Schlage that provide normal lever door knobs but the issue is that door would use a key that won't fit the rest of the doors. Maybe I could live with the Schlage keypad lever lockset since getting locked out would not be a problem. I'd still miss being able to tell if the door is locked by attempting to turn the lever.

Something I'd like in a keypad lock is two different programmable unlock codes so that I could give the second code to guests without giving out our normal code.

Obed

 

[dcyrilc]

We only had one door with a lever handle, the door to the back porch. That happens to be the door for which we would like a keypad lock. We didn't buy the keypad lock up front because we wanted time to research them. Thanks for the suggestion.

Getting locked out is just one of the negatives about the "emergency exit" door knobs. The other issue for me is it are hard to determine if they are locked when you go around locking up the house for the night or before leaving the house. Yes, you can try to remember which orientation the lock lever sits in the locked position; however you need the lights on to do so. I just want to be able to verify that the door is locked by attempting to turn the door knob. So I'd rather have a normal round door knob than a lever "emergency exit" door knob.

There are manufacturers other than Schlage that provide normal lever door knobs but the issue is that door would use a key that won't fit the rest of the doors. Maybe I could live with the Schlage keypad lever lockset since getting locked out would not be a problem. I'd still miss being able to tell if the door is locked by attempting to turn the lever.

Something I'd like in a keypad lock is two different programmable unlock codes so that I could give the second code to guests without giving out our normal code.

Obed

It's been several years since I looked at the Schlage, but if I remember correctly, it had at least two combonations.

http://consumer.schlage.com/Products/pages/ProductDetails.aspx?ModelNumber=FE575 PLY 619 FLA

Looked it up and it does have two programable combonations.:thumbsup:

 

[buckeyefarmer]

I bought the more expensive Schlage combo lock with the z-wave option, although I don't have a zwave system yet. It allows any number of combinations. We each have our own combo. When I have someone come over while we're gone, I just give them a combo to get it, then I remove it afterwards. Don't have to give a key out. I got the aged bronze color, not bright brass. You don't need the whole zwave kit one, just the add on lock. I got mine at Lowes, but is lower cost at amazon. you can push the lock button on the inside to confirm it is locked.

Amazon.com: Schlage LiNK Wireless Keypad Entry Lever Add-on Lock, Aged Bronze: Home Improvement

 

[Obed]

5500 Pounds of Frozen Trash

Today my wife and I hauled our trailer heaping full of construction debris to the dump. We unloaded by hand 5500 pounds of trash piece by piece. Our county allows residents to unload one large load of trash per year without charging. Otherwise, if the trash load is greater than a certain weight, you have to pay by the pound. Earlier this year we took a few loads to the dump but made sure they were light enough to avoid the charge. When it came time to deal with sheetrock debris, we filled the trailer completely full so we could maximize the use of our once-a-year big load. Overall we saved about $1000 handling the trash ourselves over hiring a dumpster. Doing it ourselves was a significant hassle but I'm glad we did it.

I had a pile of dirt I needed to remove before we could hitch the truck up to the trailer. While I moved the dirt to a path in the woods, my wife covered the trailer with a tarp and hooked up straps to keep the debris from flying out of the trailer while driving on the road.

Maneuvering the trailer in front of the house with my long pickup truck is tricky. Plus, it rained last night making conditions muddy. I was afraid the truck might get stuck so I hooked up the tractor's FEL to the tongue of the trailer with chains thinking I could get the trailer out of the tight muddy spot using the tractor. However, the tractor could not lift the tongue of the trailer. So I hooked the truck up to the trailer in front of the house. We threw some OSB scraps in front of the rear tires for traction and had no problems pulling the trailer out of the front yard. I could tell there was some weight on the trailer by the way it was riding.

While driving down the steep hill on our street I went very slowly and kept my left hand on the electric trailer brake controller. Going down that steep hill pulling the heavy trailer made me nervous. I drove to the dump at a snail's pace. I have to admit that I started the trip with my stomach in knots. My truck is 16 years old. Fortunately we didn't have any mechanical difficulties.

When we started unloading the trailer at the dump, we ran into something we hadn't expected. The trash in the trailer was frozen together. The only thing I had to help break up the frozen pieces was a square shovel. The unloading was slow going at first. The top layers of debris were frozen. Once we broke through the top layers, the debris removal got a little easier. However, not only were we bending over an picking up wet heavy sheetrock debris, we were having to lift up with force on the frozen pieces to try to dislodge them. Often, when pulling on a frozen piece of sheetrock, just a 6" piece would break off. I offered a to pay a couple guys unloading a pickup truck beside to help us unload our trailer. They declined saying they didn't have enough time for the job.

The day was cold and wet. It misted and drizzled and was mostly a miserable day to be outside. However, it was a wonderful day because we got that big load of debris off our property.

 

[Obed]

Here are pictures of the hardwood floors after the first coat of polyurethane was applied.

The polyurethane brings out the color of the red oak flooring. I'm surprised at how differently the floors look now compared to how they looked after the coat of sealer was applied. We decided we liked the semi-gloss finish and will go with semi-gloss for the final coat.

Today the final coat of polyurethane was applied. Now the finish on the floors needs 2 weeks to cure before we move into the house.

 

[Kyle_in_Tex]

Friday, every sub we have except the painter showed up. It was a three-ring-circus.

They all need a payday for Christmas...

1 more vote for Malwarebytes....Thanks Russ for telling us how to get it to work off a thumbdrive!

 

[charlz]

Have you guys started picking out furniture yet?

 

[scoutcub]

Obed -

I'd say you had quite a load there with the looks of the trailer tires and the sagging rear of the F350!

Great pics of the house interior/floor, the red oak looks awesome!