Hi all,

We are in a somewhat frustrating period of little happening while we wait for the inspection of the corrected items on the framing.  We were figuring on inspection Monday morning, but that is Presidents' Day, and the city departments are closed.

Sunday, Feb. 16
I got to thinking that the natural gas stub has not been installed in the RV garage for a future space heater.  This is a line item on our contract, and needs to be done prior to the drywall.  I have made Tom aware of it and he will tell Steve.  I am also supposed to make sure Steve knows about it tomorrow morning.

Scotty was supposed to be installing the doors and windows today, but never showed up.

I realized that although I installed an outlet high in the back corner of the RV garage for this heater, I did not make any provision for a thermostat.  I need to do that while things are still open.  I ran to Home Depot and got another roll of thermostat wire.  This is the same wire I have been using for the garage door opener controls.  The piece I have left is not long enough for this run.  I also bought a good wire stripper for use when I install all the outlets, switches, and lights.
 

Monday, Feb. 17
Today Keith and Virgilee Scholl are coming to Prescott to see us and the Wilkisons.  We need to be at the Wilkisons' by 10:30, so today is guaranteed to be a short workday.  I installed the thermostat wire with a box at each end.  Hopefully, when the gas stub is installed, this will be all we need for the furnace, except for the vent flue which we will add when the furnace is installed.

We had a good time visiting with our friends today.  After lunch we headed out to the house.  There were all 3 members of the framing team installing doors and windows.  They were nearly finished installing the rear dual doors in the RV garage.  We still have no windows for the west side of the RV garage.  These were not special ordered as they are "stock" items.  Unfortunately, they are out of stock.  While we were there, I looked at the main power panel; there was an electric meter installed!  I quickly borrowed an electric drill from Scotty, plugged it into the contractor's socket and tried it.  Nothing.  I then opened the panel and turned on the main breaker and the branch breaker feeding the outlet.  Nothing.  I then reset the GFCI outlet and the drill ran!  WE HAVE POWER!

Tuesday, Feb. 18
I talked to Tom early this morning.  He said that The Plumbing Store will install the gas piping tomorrow.  They will use iron pipe throughout instead of flexible plastic pipe.

Shortly after reaching the house, the building inspector showed up.  He looked over the framing quite thoroughly, requested some blocking be added at the end of the shop (on the honor system), and signed off the inspection.  After he left, I made a minor change in the wiring.  I pulled the two garage door openers off the general outlet circuits and placed them on a circuit of their own.  We are now ready to start the drywall installation.  We need to avoid the places where the gas pipe will go, but there is plenty of other wall and ceiling.  

Wednesday, Feb. 19
Today was a busy day!

I met Steve at the house quite early and discussed the location of the wall along the west edge of the RV driveway.  Steve was digging the footings.  While he was doing that, Ernesto got set up with his block laying equipment and started closing in the foundation wall at the rear corner of the deck.  The wall had tapered down to a single course at this point.  The concrete truck is due at 10 this morning.  There is a lot to do between now and then!

About this time Mike, from The Plumbing Store arrived to install the gas line.  He had decided to use mostly gas-flex.  This looks like electrical flexible conduit which is covered with a bright yellow plastic skin.  It is certified for gas use anywhere that black iron pipe is.  The only limitation is that it may not be used underground.

Mike and I started working as a team.  While we were working, the concrete truck finished its first two stops in the tract and came here.  It poured the footings then filled Steve's skip loader bucket several times as they used it for another small job.

Mike and I then strung a length of the gas-flex along the length of the RV garage.  Mike tested out my cat-walk (called a rat-run by the inspector yesterday) by crawling the length of it pulling the pipe with him.  This saved moving and climbing the ladder a number of times.  He drilled a hole through the header right next to one of my conduit runs, and fed the gas-flex through it.  His plan is to run the flex the length of the garage, use black iron through the header near the front, then back to flex the width of the car garage and down through the house roof (under the garage roof) into the water heater compartment.  Here he will transition to black iron again and penetrate the floor with it.  Under the house it is back to flex to the entry point for the gas feed.  Here he is placing an elbow which feeds his new line and the house from the input from the meter.

In two trips to the house today, he accomplished all this except for the iron drop through the floor of the water heater compartment and the flex to the input of the gas under the house.  The elbow and all the fittings are in place at this point.  Tomorrow he will finish the plumbing and do a pressure test of the new plumbing and the house.  

Mid-afternoon the "before noon" delivery of drywall sheets and mud arrived.  The truck had a fork lift truck suspended from the rear of the truck.  The driver fired it up, lowered it to the ground and started to unload the truck.  He was disappointed that he could not drive the lift into the RV garage, due to the about 6 inch step up at the front.  I brought over an armload of dual 2 x 6 (two pieces nailed together) about 2 feet long.  By placing these lengthwise it formed a decent ramp.  He was able to drive right into the garage with his pallet of drywall mud and with 4 large stacks of 4 x 12 foot drywall.  The only disappointment was that he did not have the needed windows.

About the time he had the fork lift back on the truck and was about ready to leave, a man drove up in a small Home Depot truck with our missing windows.  The local store had sent him to Flagstaff to pick them up!

I got a call from Betty that our locksets were in and re-keyed at Foxworth Galbraith.  I headed over there, picked up the box of 6 full locksets and 5 deadbolt locks, paid the balance and headed out to the truck.  There I opened one of the boxes and realized I had a lever on the inside and a knob on the outside.  The whole point of this exercise was to get all levers!  I took them back in and Jenny, with whom we had been dealing did some checking.  She discovered she had ordered the wrong part number, and the one we need is not stocked by their supplier.  Through them, there is a 42 day lead time!  She is checking for other sources that may be faster.  Meanwhile, I have the deadbolts.

I installed one of my new 2 pole 100 A. breakers in the main power box and connected the feed wires for the house sub-panel to it.  I was now ready to send power to the house.  I turned on the new 100 A breaker, then the master breaker in the house box.  Then one by one I turned on all the branch breakers.  All turned on with no problems.  Steve had gotten a box of light bulbs to populate the fixtures throughout the house.  I went in and installed them in all the sockets.  All worked as designed.  I am still missing the fluorescent tubes for the kitchen lights, and I have not tested any of the outlets yet.

Thursday, Feb. 20
I removed the screw which held the rear door of the RV garage shut, and installed the deadbolt lock.  I now have a way to hold the door closed without the missing lockset, yet still be able to open it.  I will do the same thing with the side door to the shop - after they install it!  All the doors and windows are now in except that side door, and of course the front doors to the garages.

Drywall installation is supposed to start today.  Ralph came by this morning and said he needs to go to Phoenix "to pay a bill" and would start tomorrow.

Mike came back and finished the gas pipe installation.  After getting it all hooked up, he plumbed in a test valve and gauge.  It leaked!  He went around with a soap solution and found a joint at the ceiling level of the RV garage which blew bubbles.  He pulled it apart and re-made the joint.  It still leaked, but somewhat slower.

I left Mike and headed to Home Depot.  Steve had said he would buy my remaining electrical supplies with his 10% contractor's discount, then charge me his cost.  I met him there.  That was really neat:  I filled my basket with the supplies I need to finish the wiring job then he took my basket and checked out.  I need to make a habit of that!  Hopefully, the only items I still need to finish the job are the 15 eight foot fluorescent fixtures and the 30 tubes to populate them.

When I returned, Mike was gone and the gauge read 11 psi.  He had been testing at 15.  Half an hour later when I left again it was at 10!

Friday, Feb. 21
When I got out to the house, Ernesto was working on our new wall and Mike was at the top of a ladder in the RV garage.  He decided to remove the special fitting that crimp connects  the gas-flex and extend it out with a short iron nipple.  Now he could get at it much better and even get a wrench properly on it!  Before he was working in a very limited space between the top plate and the roof.  Using a brand new crimp fitting he put it back together.  It looks like he got it this time.

After a short while Don and Greg showed up.  They are the drywallers Ralph hired to help him.  He doesn't like hanging the drywall and prefers the taping and finishing operations.  On a job as large as this one, he made sure to have help during the hanging stage.  They started by putting up the sheetrock in my shop.  That really closes things in!  By the end of the day, the shop was about 90% done, and the garage insulation was complete ready for drywall.  The wall was complete to 5 courses high.  I think they are doing 1 more course.

Saturday, Feb. 22
I got to the house a little after 8 this morning and Ralph was already there!  He and a helper,Ron, started walling the ceiling of the garage.  About that time Don and Greg arrived and went to work finishing the shop.

I went into the house and changed out the two toilets.  We made arrangements with Vinny that he would take the toilets and credit us for them.  They were going to swap them out and make a riser for the master bath one, but I decided to install them both myself, in the standard configuration, letting Betty use her raised toilet seat on it temporarily.  After we are in the house and I have all my tools, I will build the riser and install it in the master bath.

When I came out, Ralph and Ron had almost finished installing the garage ceiling, and Don and Greg had finished the shop, and were working on garage walls.  It is obvious that they will be working in the RV garage today.  It is all insulated except for the ceiling and part of the east wall.  Unfortunately, they insulated the wrong part of this wall.  The inside wall between my shop and the RV garage is about 70% insulated, the upper 5 feet, above the shop roof is not insulated at all.  I have pointed this out to several people, but nothing has happened yet.  I got a handy extension ladder and started pulling down the lower bats, cutting them to fit, and installing them in the upper areas.  It took me about 2 hours to complete it, but I removed all the lower and installed all the upper.  When I finished, they had already paneled the lower 4 feet of this wall.  They can now finish the RV garage up to the strip just below the ceiling.  As soon as Steve arrives with more insulation they can start the ceiling.  They plan to put up a row of panels across the width then roll the insulation up over the edge to fill in the two truss spaces, then repeat the process for the next row.  It is their normal way of doing it.

Ralph asked if anyone wanted to work tomorrow.  The crew all agreed to come in after church, so we should get quite a bit done.

Ernesto finished the wall today.

Sunday, Feb.23
I headed over to the house around 10 this morning.  All 4 of the crew were there and the first 8 foot width of the ceiling was installed along the west of the RV garage.  Ralph was in the attic on my catwalk installing insulation over the section that was just installed.  When they finished that, the crew installed the 8 feet along the east side.  Ralph again did the crawling and insulation installation.  They then cut 3 foot lengths of insulation and did the narrow strip in the middle that had not been done yet.  The RV garage was now complete except for a narrow strip of ceiling down the center and about 4 feet at the top of the back wall, and 2 small panels where the gas plumbing still needs to be looked at by the plumber.  As I left before they did, I don't know how much more got done today.

While there, I did some cleanup of my mess from installing the toilets yesterday then I wired the shop electrical panel.  I installed all the breakers and routed the wires to the proper ones (I hope) and connected them.  That's about all the electrical work I can do until Ralph starts the taping and mudding (is that a word?) process.  I plan to follow him installing switches and outlets once each area is done.

I talked to the roofer the other day about installing the solar tubes.  He said maybe Monday or Tuesday would be good.  I hope it is Monday (tomorrow) as we are expecting another storm to hit Tuesday through Thursday.

Monday, Feb. 24
Gene came over this morning and the two of us checked out the house circuit breaker assignments.  As Gene tried switching different breakers, I went around the house with a couple of outlet testers.  Between them and the light fixtures in the house we identified all the circuits in about an hour.  The only ones left are a couple I omitted from my list (like the smoke detectors), and the non-installed fixtures, like the ceiling fans.

The drywallers finished installing and anchoring (with nails and screws) all the panels.  It is now ready for inspection.

The gas line still "seeps".  It takes several hours to leak down a few psi., but that is too much!  The plumber is sure the problem is in his connections under the house.  I hope he is right, as the other connections are now inside drywalled walls!

Tuesday, Feb. 25
It rained most of the night, but let up this morning.

At the house, the drywallers were busy taping joints and patching nail and screw heads.  The inspector had come earlier this morning and bought off the drywall nailing.

Steve and crew shot in the elevations of the RV driveway, then he graded it.  They then brought in a truckload of AB soil, which was spread and power tamped in place.  This now establishes the base for the driveway.

I buzzed out all the remaining circuits except the ceiling fans, then left.  

It rained most of the afternoon, turning to snow this afternoon.  By evening we had 2 inches.

This storm is forecast to last through Thursday, with Friday clear.  Saturday is shown to be rainy again, so I don't know how much progress will be made on the driveways.

That is enough for this report.
 

I have posted photos on-line at:

http://members.isp01.net/rmason/statusreports.html

Till next time,

Dick