July 02, 2004

The HDC crew was delayed last week working in Tennessee.  The job there was rained out several times.  They were back on the job site Monday morning, June 28.  Prior to their return, I worked on getting the electrical switch and receptacles boxes in place.  I was also busy in getting quotes on the sound, security and central vacuum.  The plumbers and HVAC crews have also come in and have started their work. All of the doors for the house except the main entrance arrived last week. The pictures below will show some of the work accomplished.

 This shows the French doors from the game room in the basement to the outside.  Only the two center doors are hinged.

The kitchen window was moved down twelve inches.  It was so high that you could not see out of it standing at the sink.  There was a booboo made in ordering the window.  The plans called for a 4’ 6” window plus the transom.  A 4’ 4 1/2” window including the transom was ordered.  To correct this, a new transom has been ordered that will be twelve inches high and without glass.  We will have a stained glass insert made to complement this window.  The new transom will match the other transom in look, just with the stained glass.

This shows the transom installed in the master closet (left side, first floor), the two windows in the basement and the French doors from the outside.  You can also see the kitchen window at the far right of the picture and see how much it has been lowered.

This shows the chimney cap to keep the rain out of the house.  Remember, this is false chimney.  The bottom is solid copper with a copper screened vent in the center.  The base of the cap is about 32” wide by ten feet long.  The screen portion is 2 feet wide by 4 feet long and is raised about two inches so water cannot puddle in the middle and run back in the vent.  The location of the vent gives 3 feet of space from the end of the cap to the vent. The opening of the cap is north/south, so the bad weather will come in against the closed side.  All of the plumbing and other vents in the house will come out through this cap, so there will not be any penetrations through the roof.  The bottom picture shows the cap from the front of the house. 




 

The picture below shows the electrical panels for the house.  These are located in the equipment room in the basement.  There will be two 200 Amp panels.  One will feed from the power company full time and the other from a generator when it gets installed.  The receptacles and lighting of the house plus some other critical loads will be fed from the generator panel so we will be able to have power during an outage.  The other panel will have the heavy loads such as HVAC, ovens, ranges, washer and dryer.  The other cable was pulled in after this picture was taken.

The picture at the right shows a four gang box that can be screwed between two studs.  The boxes can then be added where and as many as needed.  There is another kind as seen on the right side of the four gang box.  It is made to screw to one stud and has two straps that bend out behind the box for 2”, 3 ½”, or 4” studs.  When the sheetrock is applied to the side of the wall behind the box, then it supports it from the back.  This application uses 4” boxes with 5/8” plaster rings.  The wall above is for a 3 ½” stud.  This gives plenty of room in the boxes to make up connections.

When the wall is thicker than 3 ½”, I made a block of wood to screw to the straps and space it so the distance fills up the distance to the back of the wall behind.  The picture to the left is an 8” outside wall.  The lower picture is for a 6” stud.

 

This picture shows two switch boxes back to back.  The wood to the left of the boxes is a 2x4 added to the metal stud to attach door casing to.  All window and doors are wrapped in wood for ease of putting on the trim.

Most of the lighting in the rooms will be recessed lighting with dimmer switches.  The [fixture, or] “can” is normally put in place between two rafters and the straps nailed into the rafter.  With no rafters, this becomes a problem.  The top picture shows a jig I built [using furring strips] to assemble [a box around the] “can” to put in the ceiling.  The cross furring strip [in the jig], is to hold the other two pieces in place during assembly.  Notice the [wood sides of the box] running front to back, they are what the fixture rests on, when in the ceiling.  The second picture down shows a completed unit ready to install.  Note there are two cross pieces placed on top of the box to maintain the spacing between the two sides.  The bottom picture is one of the units in place in the house.  A screw through the furring will secure it in place.

The first of the HVAC work started this week.  The main trunk lines are installed.  These run back about eight to ten feet off of the front and rear outside walls.  This will make for a short run to the lateral vent into the room.  Each lateral will have a butterfly damper on it so the system can be balanced when it is put into service.  The cold air returns are near the center of the house to facilitate air movement across each room.  The entire duct is insulated metal pipe with no flex duct planned on being used at this time.  If any flex is used, the maximum length will be limited to six feet.



 

The whirlpool tub and shower was set this week.  The tub centers on the window.  The woodwork at the back of the shower pan is for a bench that will be built in with the shower.  After the sheetrock is up, they will come back and make templates of the walls to cast the coverings.  With the templates, there is almost a perfect fit with all of the walls and between the various parts.

Murray Hughes, owner of HDC, is a journeyman electrician and a member of the IBEW.  Another one his workers is also a journeyman electrician and they have helped me tremendously in pulling the main feeders from the shop to the house and the wiring in the house.  They have gone home for the fourth holiday and will be back next week to help me with the final connections and pulling the rest of the wire.