odds and ends

Working on the soffits, sealing them up for the winter.

One of my ideas about heating the house and cooling the house, is the air inside the truss is a good thermal barrier in itself, in winter we will close the soffits so the air that is warming up from the sun beating down on the roof will help keep the cold from the outside air from entering into the attic space as much as it would if they were open and flowing with air.

In the summer the soffits will be opened so the air can vent out and the reflective insulation will help keep the heat between the trusses and the roof deck.


Mary's Christmas gift from last year, we finally got it out of storage and hooked up. it is an Induction Stove, with an extra large Convection Oven and warming drawer.


The tub is still in its crate, but in time it will go in this corner.


The drywall in the bathroom is all hung, we still need a door, I'll have to go out to the greenhouse and pick one out, find its woodwork, and hang it.


The windows and doors are all sealed tight, insulated, and swinging beautifully. I doo still need to work on two lock sets to make them smoother operating, but they are all lockable and we love the code locks, no more fumbling for keeys, just touch the buttons, and the door unlocks.....nice.


The main entry door, Mary has done a wonderful job sealing them all.


Diningroom windows.


Kitchen windows, and our motion sensor porch light.

HEAT !!!

We are playing catch-up once again.


Beating the cold weather, Mary took a few days off from work, to get the most out of the last few days of warm weather, to finish weather-proofing by sealing up the doors and windows. This stuff is much better than the previous stuff we used, it is "Seal Tite" brand, very sticky, and easier to work with. Mary uses the heat gun to get it to stick better.


D'Artagnon helping to keep the place organised, by boxing up the loose strands of wire. Keeping them in one place so I can more easily sort through them finding the right size needed.


The boiler unit. I had to remove the burner, and replace it with an LP conversion kit. Rather easy if you dont rely exactly on the written instructions... somethings just don't translate well, and I really don't know what the original language was... But I did follow the picture instructions, and all went smoothly.

This is a dual boiler, it has separate boiler lines, one for the closed loop radient floor system, and the other line is for usable hot water.


Here are some corner cabinets, not sure if we are keeping them or not, we designed the house so we didnt have wasted corner space... so they and the lazy susan corner cabinets are for sale.


We bought a whole kitchen set, that we will use until we are ready to buy, and permanently set the cabinets we really want


Kitchen sink base. we are building up the height of the counter, and cabinets, so us tall folk don't destroy our backs bending over to do dishes. we are removong the black kick board as well, and will put in a 7" high drawer on rollers under the cabinets. called a kick drawer, you hook your toes under the bottom ledge and pull the drawer out that way. seen the idea in some high end cabnetry booklets.


Water distribution network, we were building it out of sweat fitted copper, but PEX works so much better. of all the connections on the water lines, I have not had even a single leak useing PEX, But I have had problems with the teflon tape connections.

Blue is for the indoor cold water, the red pipes are the indoor hot water.

I also ran the Black Pipe for the LP gas lines as well. The boiler and the dryer are both gas. Had it tested, and came out no problems.


Heree is the radiant heat system, kinda neat how its all together, just had to connect the two panels, and run the pipes to the manifolds around back of the unit.


The only problems we have had with the Radiant system is with the manifolds... Menards is slow in ordering what is needed, waiting on parts... come to find out also that sometimes the instructions mention parts Menards and the United States don't get, for example: there is an actuator that when the power goes out, the valves all open rather than seal closed... we can only get it from Canada or Ecuador.

But we needed heat, we were haveing 20 degree nights, and heavy frosts, so I had to spaghetti rig the whole system through two pumps, since we didn't have all the parts neccessary for the other two manifolds. once they com in, and i can smuggle in from Canada the right actuators, then the mess should mostly go away.


The water is flowing nd all is good, one leak up top from a brass fitting, but the place is warm... perfect.


The whole North side is sealed and all the doors and windows are uncovered. 8 foot doors, 6 foot windows.




Looks like Noahs Ark.