Getting Warmer......

We FINALLY got more insulation! We hired Hillside Construction (of Homer) to install 4 inches of closed cell spray foam insulation on the first floor. It has taken us a while to save up the $2,500 to have this done.

Once we had saved it up, we contacted a different local contractor who was unwilling to do the job until the summer because the expensive equipment in their long trailer had nearly been lost before on roads much better than ours. So, they didn't want to take that risk.

Before

During

So, we contacted a couple of other contractors, including Hillside and only heard back from them. I have no idea why people didn't want the work. Regardless, Mike Basargin and his co-worker Ivan came up on Tuesday around Noon and worked until about 9PM. This was the first time that we hired anyone to do work on our house. It was hard to be patient and stay out of the way as they worked.

Scraping the studs

As soon as we heard the generator stop, we leapt from the loveseat in the cabin and helped them clean up as they scraped the extra insluation off the studs.

Cleaning Up

The Finished Product

The woodstove has been put back in place and the plastic sheathing has been removed from the doors and windows.

The next step is to begin sheetrocking. The "lid" and the entryway walls are the first priority for that project.

We decided that insulating the first floor fully would allow us to then move forward and take the next steps and make it more of a home. We had contemplated applying 2" of spray foam throughout the house (because that was what we could afford) but realized that we wouldn't really be able to do much after that except wait until we had the money to get more insulation.

So, as of March 3rd, that is where we are. :)

Planning and saving

During this cold winter, we are still saving to apply spray foam insulation in the house. At R-7, just one inch of it will bring us to the insulation level of our 12x16 cabin! We will be filling the wall cavities in one way or another but I think that the comparison gives a little perspective...

Jane is thinking about trying to do some more chainsaw milling; perhaps to make some siding out of the logs which were previusly going to be used as sill logs. Gotta get the saw prepped and ready though. Here, Jane is cleaning the air filter in a Ziploc baggie with dish soap and warm water. This is by far the easiest and least messy way to clean these things.

It's Electrictrifying!

During the last week of September, Eli toiled in the frigid air, sawing stumps, clearing debris and digging a 120ft long trench from our shed to the new house.

After covereing the wire with a little dirt, a strip of flagging was laid over it, so that if someone should dig in the wrong place in the future, they would hit the flagging first and know that something is up.

Main panel wired up and ready to go. Sub panel, in the house, ready to go.

THE FIRST LIGHT SWITCH!

And.....IT WORKS!!!!!

It's official. We now have electricity!

A little bit of mud, a little bit of tape

We got some tape on the seams on the bedroom and stairwell. :-)

Sheetrocking upstairs lid

Hey there,

The days are shortening and there is starting to be a chill in the morn. In order to to stop the heat from the woodstove going straight to the peak we have sheetrocked the upstairs lid. We stapled up 6 mil vapor barrier first and then put acoustical sealent around the perimeter.

On Sunday we got the bedroom lid hung. And today on labor day we hung the stairwell.

Other additions of note

This summer, we have been doing various things to the house, none of which are as monumental as what we did last sumer but are none-the-less important. A lot of our energy has been put towards the bottom of the house where we've been working on better drainage and structural support. We had Lance from Bobcat Services up to look at the foundation. He had poured the 5ft deep concrete piers about 6 years ago and when we peeled the cardboard from the sonotubes we noticed there was rebar showing. He came up to discuss whether this was going to be a problem and calmed our nerves sufficiently. He also praised us on our "very professional" work. Its nice to hear that, especially from someone who has been in the business as long as he has.

We still want to tie in a few of the posts together near the ground on the highest side of the house and we still plan to fully skirt the house in with plywood. We haven't yet decided how we're going to run skirting right down to the gound. Whatever is touching the ground needs to be vertically mobile as we have a great deal of heaving here.

We have also been doing a lot of wiring. We do not yet have power TO the house but we have fully developed the scematics for the whole house including the crawl space and have most of the wiring done at this point. Its kind of fun actually planning these things out as its beginning to feel more like the aesthetics of a home and not just carpentry.

Also, I have been learning more about the plants here on our land and have discovered scads of blueberry bushes. The are small and tart but are wonderful in smoothies.

-Jane

Up on the roof one last time....hopefully...

We have had all the stovepipe up for a while now. Well; all of it except one large chunk with the cap and roof supports. We had done most of it from 4 tiers of scaffolding and then even had a ladder on the top of the scaffolding. But, we had to do this last piece in a different way.

So, Eli put the stovepipe and support arms in his big backpack and climbed out the upstairs window onto the pump jacks from where he climbed onto the roof; floppy backpack, toolbelt and all.

This is the knot that did a great job of preserving Eli's life.

In the photo below, you see the backpack with stovepipe in it, hanging from a rope on the roof while Eli has gone inside to get some more things.

After some scary hairy moments, the stovepipe was put into place. But something was wrong. It wasn't sliding into place like it was supposed to. Eli put the support arms on and temporarily secured it so that he could come down and reasses. From the large sliding glass door upstairs, this is what was seen. Everything looked perfect from there.

However, using binoculars from the ground (seen below), I could see that there was a rivet on the lower section of stovepipe that was holding the new section up and keeping it from where it needed to be. So, this time, Eli was armed with a screwdriver to pry the stovepipe out a touch and then he was able to jiggle it into place and then twist it to lock it it.

PHEW!!!!