Rough-In inspection passed, wells are plumbed, deck goes on, facia and soffit complete

Yep, it's been another very busy week this week.  The framers worked on Saturday to finish installing the hardi-board and hardi-panels on the facia, soffit, clerestory, and garage.  The look of the house changed significantly with that addition.  They also worked on the pocket door to the living room but they second guessed their work and changed it from the double (as it was supposed to be) to a single 2'6" pocket door.  Needless to say that looked like a dungeon even without drywall.  When the framers came on Monday to finish more of the punch list, they successfully made the double pocket door as intended, which looks much better.

Tuesday brought another day of rainfall so little took place on site that day other than a few odd jobs and creating a good punch list for the carpenters.  DeeDee spent quite a bit of time using house-wrap to seal off the tops of the windows where the 2x4s were standing away from the insulation in the walls.  This was done mostly to prevent the "misting" effect of the spray-foam from getting on the windows and vinyl frames which would make a lot of extra clean-up work.

 On Wednesday morning when I arrived at the site there was water on the floor in the kitchen/hall and dining room.  When all was said and done, we agreed this was again perfect timing for the rains to come; had we sprayed the foam and then had the leaks, we would have a bigger challenge by either not knowing about the wet foam or having to remove it and start over.  Given that we were not initially sure where the came from we called off the spray-foam installation scheduled for that day - we simply didn't want to risk getting the Icynene wet.  Climbing on the roof I found some suspect areas where the guys working on the roof have scuffed the joint-tape on the Zip roof system.  Shortly after that it started raining again and we were able to pinpoint the spot in the dining room where the tape had been 'breached' and allowed water in.  Since the rain continued for the majority of the day on Wednesday we had to wait until Thursday to fix that section of tape.  Kevin did the tape repairs and we're now scheduled for spray-foam on Tuesday next week.

Thursday we had 7 framers on site working on the window trim boards (hardi board) as well as framing the deck.  They divided into two teams - one working on the window trim and the other working on the deck.  They ran out of material for the window trim as well as some of the necessary boards for the deck so today they spent the morning finishing that off.  We had them skip installing the trim boards on the main entry door, the French door and the back deck door because they have lower thresholds that meant the hardi wouldn't fit.  We're working to get metal thresholds for those doors that will be attractive as well as functional.

 The team working on the deck managed to finish off the framing save installing four 8' joists that we still need to get.  We won't install the decking until we have the footings poured and the support posts installed.  For the footings we'll have to dig down to "virgin" soil which will mean anywhere from 2' to 6' of digging due to the slope of the land and the grading that was done.

 On Thursday we were surprised by the Aqua Drill guys showing up to install the geothermal loop (two 610 foot pieces of pipe that were joined by a u-connector at the bottom) and the well pump, pipe and electrical connections.  The 610 foot long loop extended up the driveway and down the road another 300' - to install it they attached a couple of fence posts to add weight to the bottom, installed it until the air caused it to float.  Once at that level they pumped water into the loop to add weight and then three guys wrestled to push the remaining pipe into the well.

Today the Aqua Drill team installed the pump/line/electrical into the water well and then trenched from both wells to the house.  They then punched 3 holes into the concrete wall below ground level to get the geothermal loop and water supply into the mechanical room.  they caulked those holes heavily and also installed a pressure storage tank to prevent the well pump from cycling on/off too frequently.

One other visitor to the site on Thursday was the County Health Department inspector - we had asked for clarification on the septic field placement since there was a bit of confusion between the copy of the permit they provided us recently and the surveyors marked septic field.  The permit appeared to only show the upper half of the field which is the repair area while the surveyor had marked off both the main area and the repair area.  The inspector confirmed that the intent was to use the field as marked by the surveyor with the "lower" half being the main and the upper half being the repair area.  We are now scheduled to get the septic installed around 3 November.

We placed the deposit for the standing seam roof this week and it was ordered yesterday. There's a 7-10 day lead time for delivery so we're now schedule to get the roofing installed the week of 3 November.  That will definitely make this a completely gray house so we're anxious to get paint on the house.  We did test a few samples for the body of the house, the facia, and the trim.  The house and facia colors seemed about right which the trim color was a shade or two too light.

DeeDee and I spent the afternoon today doing some site cleanup and caulking some of the remaining panel joints - we're down to about 4 sections that are about 10' each.  Once the caulking is complete and we have the fire door installed the house will officially be sealed off. We'll blow the cellulose in shortly after that - don't want risk any water infiltrating that cellulose!

Driveway view - again.  This is before any window trim installed. 

View from the front of the garage.

Garage and roof of over the deck-to-be

The space where the deck will be (see below pictures with the deck installed)

Rodrigo's crew working on the window trim.

If you count the ladders I think there are 7 here - this is the crew working on the window/door trim installation 

Ledger board is up for the deck

This is the geothermal well in the process of grouting.  The two pipes to the left are the ground source heatpump loops while the pipe to the left is the grout machine pumping in the thermal grout (cement).  

That's the ground machine behind that tree.  it's essentially a concrete pump that mixes the concrete as it pumps it into the well. the spool of pipe is pulled out 20' at a time as the grout is poured into the well. Water is forced out the top of the well as the grout goes in.

Here's the water coming out of the "dry" well as it's being grouted.

More of the water.

And yet more...

Here's the deck as it stood at the end of the day on Thursday.

The initial choices for house color and trim color.  That trim color isn't what we hoped it would be so we're trying to figure out what is next.

Here's the single pocket door that should be a double - and the header should be open for the transom (stained glass) that will go above the door.  It's now properly constructed and we'll post a picture when we get one that's sufficient.

At the well head and ready to push 600 feet of heat-pump loop into the hole.

The two pipes making up the loop stretched up the driveway, around the corner and another300 feet down the street.

Here's the special geothermal blend of grout.  Billy's estimate was 22 bags to fill the well and when all was said and done they used, you guessed it, 22 bags.

Punching holes in the side of the wall to get the water and heat-pmup lines into  the mechanical room.  He was about 1" too far to the right on the first hole and caught not only the rib (7" of concrete vice 4") but a stud.  

Some of the limited "red dirt" on our property - this is the stuff they look for when boring for the septic system but this is in the wrong place for that.

First trench is to the right - the two trenches will later meet up at the right side of this picture. 

That's the pressure tank and water pipe in the background and more of the red dirt in the foreground.