Around the roof in three days...

We're working hard to get ready for the roofers who arrive on Monday. Our current focus is to double up the facia boards and then staple diamond lath to them. First we put a little blue skin (rubber membrane) over the edge of the roof and down onto the facia. It will prevent any wayward moisture from delaminating the plywood should it somehow get behind the facia. We start stapling  the mesh to the facia by lining it up with the top edge and then wrap it around the bottom and up the back side. There is a little more than 400 feet of facia in total but thankfully the air-powered staplers can pound a lot of staples in a short time. It will take our crew three days in total (nine person days) to go around the edge of the roof.

We are going through a ton of diamond lath on the outside of the house, more than 300 sheets so far. It's hard to estimate but I suspect we'll go through 7-800 sheets in total.

While we are up working on the roof today we took the time to admire the spectacular view on our morning coffee break.

The soffit boards are now all painted in preparation for the next tep. Once the soffits are up our crew can begin applying the fiberglass-reinforced-concrete to the walls. The house will quickly begin to look as we dreamed from the start.

-grampa dan

Roof sheeting on!

After two days of bouncing around in a Bobcat we moved and placed another 228 cubic yards of sand and gravel in the patio area of the house. Each time I go to the back of the house now I take great delight in simply stepping out the doorway instead of climbing down the ladder as we've been used to. The delay in doing the job was the wet ground and soil. The heavy Bobcat would have simply gotten stuck in the mud previously. With more than a week of sunshine and warm temps that worry was gone at last. Filling the back area changed the look of the house in a big way! The whole crew celebrated the new deck area this afternoon with a coffee break picnic. I swear the home made chocolate chip cookies tasted extra good there! I'll have to keep my eye open now for a shiney new gas fired barbeque that will live here soon!

Harold's crew finished the sheeting of the roof today. The front gable looks spectacular with the plywood cut back and the facia boards installed! Thanks guys for a great job on a very large and difficult project!!

-grampa dan 

HEAT!

As we build our new house we are selecting the best possible trades. Our builder, Harold Esau, of Harold's Contracting is known for the quality homes he constructs. With more than thirty years of experience he knows and regularly works with some of the best subtrades in the business. 

For our infloor, radiant, hot water system we turned to the contrator Harold recommended because of the quality work he does. Richard Visser of Richard's Plumbing and Heating is installing the radiant heat in our house. Richard insisted we go through the plans carefully and tell him how we would use each room. The prurpose was to allow him to install the best possible heating system layout that suited our lifestyle perfectly. Richard is well known for fussing over small details such as extra loops of infloor heat in the bathrooms so a trip there in the middle of the night does not mean cold feet when you get back in bed. He also insists on heating pipes in the shower floor. This makes the floor there nice and warm (a nice touch) but also means the shower dries faster after we use it and prevents mildew in the grout lines. He had many such suggestions throughout the house that will undoubtably make it extra comfortable for the long term. We appreciate his extra work and attention to detail.

Richard and his helpers were busy through the day carefully tying the colorful pipes to the grid of the floor mesh and hooking them up to the distribution manifolds.

By the end of the day half the house floor was covered with pipes. On Monday they will finish installing the heating lines. Tuesday they will do a pressure check before the engineer and building inspector take a look.

Wednesday it will all be hidden inside the concrete floor. It is exciting to see it all come together!

-grampa dan