Mike and Jeff's New House

Jeff's brother was here a couple of weeks ago...He put in the door from the house into the garage and measured for the other interior doors....Including all the closet doors we somehow have 31 doors...They will be one of the last items to install...

The boxes shown below are now mounted on our garage walls. One is an inverter that processes the DC power that our photovoltaic modules generate. (The small box is a disconnect switch.) The direct current generated by the sun goes through this box and is converted into alternating current that can be used in our house or fed back into the grid and sold to our electric utility... What's that? You want more info about solar electricity and how it really works? Have no fear my child, click here: http://www.fronius.com/solar.electronics/focus.pv/pv_pv.htm#ig

The sheetrock in our house has been taped, two coats of compound have been applied, MANY days of drying have taken place and today the guys were over there sanding the rough edges down....We should be ready to start painting in a few days...now, if we could only find a painter... This shot is from near the front door and looks across the dining room and into the kitchen..

The second coat of stucco is drying nicely....If the rain lets up this week they will start the third and final coat of color on Thursday.... What color you might be wondering? Check out an approximation here: http://www.lahabrastucco.com/color_chips.htm The color we are aiming for is `Southern Moss'.

For the first time in memory, we do not have a Christmas tree set up in our house. The view below will give you an idea of why.....We're up to our teeth in boxes of stuff for the new house....We know it will all be worth it, hopefully within a few weeks we will be able to start moving these boxes next door and start installing things.

Jeff has installed the solar screens on the exterior of the skylights. These geo-fabric modules roll up into a box at the top of the window and are controlled via a hand held remote control. They will be deployed on extra hot days to minimize solar heat gain on the third floor.

We are now making electricity on our roof..The entire south facing roof is covered with panels like the one shown below...The photovoltaic modules were installed two weeks ago....Although they are not yet hooked up to the grid, we hope to get our electricity hooked up within a week or two.

After 4 weekends of pulling wire to all edges of the house, it is finally done. The wires coming out of the left orange box are the speakers and volume control wires. The wires coming out of the right orange box are the security system wires. The Wires in the steel box are the telecommunications (Coaxial and Cat5E) wires.)

Here is what the guest bath looks like now that the sheetrock is done. At the last minute we decided to add under tile heating to the 3 bathrooms on the upper two floors. (The 1rst floor bathroom has radiant heat in the concrete.)

The sheet rockers started on Monday of this week, they finished on Friday....The guys below are finishing up the very last piece.

The aluminum struts for the solar panels are now installed. They will put the P. V. panels in place once our electricity is hooked up and the disconnect switch is in place.

We put in insulated steel doors in garage this week...All the entrances to the house are now secured....The interior doors were ordered this week as well...Including the closet doors we have 30 interior doors.....They won't go in until the very end....

We found some beautiful cast stone sill pieces at Napa Valley Cast Stone in Napa. We also found a gifted mason to install them...They look great....

This pic shows all three of the steps in applying cellulose insulation. The guy on the right is blowing it into the walls, the guy on the left has a large vacumn hose and he is sucking up the material that did not stick, the guy in the middle is running the trimming machine that runs along the top of the studs and trims off all the excess material..

Here is the answer to the question `What do they DO with recycled newspapers?'

We passed our Framing Inspection this past week...It's the big one and we're glad to have it over. Our roofers were back this week (twice) to fix some issues with roof flashing..... Our electrician was here to finish up some final issues before sheet rocking... Our stucco guys have been wrapping the house in wire this week.....We hope they finish up on Monday so we can get a lath inspection before Thanksgiving. Speaking of Thanksgiving, take your turkeys out of the freezer on Monday and start defrosting!

This picture shows all 3 types of insulation in our house. The ceilings are a plastic-like expanding foam. The walls are cellulose (recycled paper) that is treated with Borate to help keep termites away and to help retard fires. The windows (and doors) are all surrounded by a tight layer of `Good Stuff' brand window and door sealant, it worked great. We tried to use a similar product by DAP, it was not so good and would barely come out of the can.

We had Five Star Insulation put in our ceiling and wall insulation. They did an EXCELLENT job and we highly recommend them. How can you not like a company that puts pictures of soybeans on their trailers. (The insulation in our ceiling has some soybean oil in it. It's probably less than 5%, but it feels good to think it has lots.) Five Star also installed the cellulose insulation in the walls...It was SO quiet in the house after they were done. The difference is striking. Cellulose is so dense that it stops the flow of air and sound.

This is the newly installed grate in our 2nd to 3rd floor stair landing. The grates will let natural light into the 1rst to 2nd floor staircase. Thanks to Steve Davis at Affordable Welding for making the mounting brackets...

The end of the tunnel is within sight....We hope to start sheet rocking on Tuesday of this week...It was a very productive and busy weekend...Doing what?? Well, to give you a taste, this was Sunday's punch list.... Sunday - Nov 20th Punch List Jeff 1. Bathroom Wiring Adjustments 2. Vacumn Cleaner Wiring Loop 3. Thermostat Wiring 4. Blocking in all 4 Bathrooms for towel bars 5. Attach the control panel frame to the wall. 6. Blocking in Living Room for Drapes 7. Blocking in Bathrooms for shower curtains 8. Blocking in Kitchen for hood 9. Install Dryer Vent 10. Install low voltage wire in Kitchen and Laundry 11. Pipe Insulation on 3rd Floor 12. Run 2 conductor wire from hot water solar panel to garage. Mike 1. Run speaker wires to Mike's Office 2. Run volume control to Mike's Office 3. Confirm all smoke detector and motion detector wires are in. 4. Install 3 sets of speaker Rings 5. install Sirius Sat. wire run to attic 6. Install smurf tube to attic for Satellite wire runs 7....