July 29, 2004

And there they go!

 

The HDC Construction crew that is.  The have finished up all that they can do for me and are heading home.  Their last visit has been for 16 days and I will walk you through what we have done in this report.
 

All of the electrical has been completed.  This area was where I made my biggest mistake on the project.  I was planning on doing all of the internal wiring by myself.  BIG MISTAKE!!!  I was able to get up about 85% of the boxes for the receptacles and switches.  They put up the rest of the boxes and then pulled all of the wire for power, telephone, data and video.  They were good and they were fast.  As I have mentioned before Murray Hughes, the owner of HDC, and one of his workers are IBEW Journeyman Electricians.  They have worked large jobs including nuclear plants during their career.  They have also wired many steel frame homes and know all of the secrets.  They kept me busy just keeping them material. 

The picture below is the two incoming lighting panels. The panel to the left is all of the lighting and receptacles and the downstairs HVAC unit that hopefully one day will be fed from a standby generator when the power is interrupted.  The automatic transfer switch is all ready in place.  The panel to the right has all of the cook tops, ovens, and ranges, dryer and other circuits that can be interrupted.

 The picture below shows how they dressed the wire in going from one box to another. Note how the wiring is taken through grommets in the studs, secured to the studs and then shaped when bends are necessary.  They installed about 10,000 feet of power cable for feeders, lights, receptacles and appliances, 4,000 feet of Cat 5 cable for telephone and data and 2000 feet of video cable.  This does not count the security wiring and sound system.

The brick could not be placed until the frieze board, soffits and fascia were installed.  HDC did that work also.  The picture below shows across the front of the house including the front porch. All of the frieze board and fascia is vinyl covered aluminum and the soffits material is ventilated PVC.  A beam had to be built down from the ceiling on both of the porches to tie the frieze boards into the porch area.  The steel columns on the porch will be encased in 16 inch square columns.  Another column will be to the left and right of the steel covered columns to give four columns across the front of the porch.  In the picture, note the porch foundation comes out past the front of the column so that a brick planter may be placed for decoration.  Also note, that the corners are mitered at a 45 to really dress out the soffits

The picture below shows the transfer from the three foot overhang to the seven foot overhang on the back of the house.  This picture also shows a good picture of the frieze board.  For those who do not know what it is, this is a good place to discuss it.  The frieze board runs [horizontally under the soffit, and is placed] about 4 ¼” away from the wall.  A string was placed in each inside and outside corner of the frieze board.  The masons will then use a plumb-bob to locate the place of the footers to start the brick work for each corner.  Using this line to build up the wall, they will then meet under the frieze board.  The last course above the window height will be a “soldier course” of bricks used to top out the wall.  It is called a “soldier course” because all of the bricks are standing up on end.  This makes it easier for the mason to place them [behind the frieze board].

The front door was received while they were here and they placed it yesterday.  Below is a picture of it in place. Brick work will have to be done to bring the porch floor up the proper level.  The finished porch floor will be about the height of the lower edge of the aluminum tape sealing the door.  The upper boxes on the wall are for light sconces and the lower two boxes are for electrical outlets.

The plumbing should be finished up today.  The insulators have been notified that they can start on Monday for their work.  I need to put in some blocking for pictures, drapery rods, toilet paper holders, handicap bars, etc. before the sheetrock can be placed.  I will be working on that now through next week and hopefully I will be ready as soon as the insulation is complete.