September 25th: I've been working hard enough to lose track of time.
I thought it had been a month since my last post here...
Plumbing and electrical rough-ins are done and inspected, the
masonry stove has been built and fired up a few times (filling
the house with smoke twice) and now the big push toward insulation
is full speed ahead.
The masonry stove build was pretty amazing. I helped move the many
parts of the stove into the house. We had to spread them
out so we didn't load down the floor too much in any one spot.
Altogether it weighs 3938 pounds. That's more than my car
weighs. So the two installers built up the stove layer by layer,
setting pieces in mortar and locking them together with thin
metal splines that slip into grooves in the soapstone.
After the stove cured for a couple of days, we broke it in. The idea
is to have a very small fire, then a medium-sized fire, and
finally a normal load of wood. This drives the moisture out of the
mortar without stressing it. So the small fire went fine, can't
go wrong with a load that is all kindling. But the medium fire got
interesting. I'm used to a good metal wood stove, with a short
smoke stack. You throw in some kindling, light a piece of paper
under it and close the door: voila, heat. That's a really good way
to fill a room with smoke if you're lighting a masonry stove. It
took us a few tries to figure out that you really have to have the
fire going well before closing the door. The smoke weaves all the
way around inside the stove before it goes up the chimney. By
the time it pops out above the roof there just isn't much heat left
in it. If the draft isn't well established, the smoke is cold enough
to sink right back down the chimney. It took three tries to figure
out how much to let the fire burn full bore with the door open
so it would keep drawing with the door closed.
So we had a good burn, all the wood burned up, and we closed the
dampers. Half an hour later, the stove got warm. It takes that
long for the heat that warmed up the inside of the stove to travel
through to the outside. Then it stayed warm for hours afterwards.
This is not your typical metal box wood stove.
All the windows are in (thanks to Steve P.). We had seven very large
windows on the south side, high above the half-
walkout. What could be more fun than wrestling heavy windows into
place from scaffolding almost two floors up? It took
Steve and me outside and Leah inside to get each window installed.
But the difference in the living room is astounding. It
feels almost like you're outside now (instead of in a wooden cave).
So now we have a really good view of the leaves starting
to change color as we put up the ceiling drywall and do the prep
work for insulation. Motivation!
July 13th: Progress on all fronts! Interior walls are up, at least
the bones of them. The stairs have had feet pounding up and down
them for a couple of weeks now. Half of our windows are delivered
and (mostly) installed. And the two west retaining walls are
in place. A few days more work should have us ready to call in the
plumber, and also ready to start hanging ceiling drywall. We
still have two smaller retaining walls to build on the east before
calling the excavator for the septic. When he finishes the septic
system, he'll also do the final grading - a few minutes work with a
giant machine beats the heck out of moving tons of dirt into
place behind a retaining wall with a wheelbarrow.
The first picture below is looking toward the pantry (west) from
right beside the wall between the bedrooms. Building the pantry
was a little odd. It's sort of an island in the middle of the house,
no attachment to the exterior walls. And because roof trusses
are prone to lifting in the winter, you can't just nail the walls to
the ceiling. You have to use funny little 'L' brackets that are
nailed to the top of the wall, and then put a nail through a
vertical slot into the truss. The truss is free to move up and down,
but
the wall is still held in place (sort of). So the first wall to go
up didn't feel good. Walls aren't supposed to wiggle. But as other
wall sections went up and were held by brackets in different
directions, it firmed up to be rock solid.
The second picture is looking at the kitchen and basement windows
from the south, with a fine view of the retaining walls. The
porch will go in a few feet behind the upper retaining wall. Not
sure if we'll put on the exterior first, or build the screen porch
so we can sit outside without bug attacks. It's a difficult choice.
:)
