At Home In The Woods

[brin]

Obed, You may have already considered this but when we built our house with a daylight basement we found very quickly that we needed a dehumidifier...We bought an LG dehumidifier and have had no problems since but without it we were starting to see small specs of mold on sheetrock and wood after a month or so...and we have a garage door , people door and window down there but still had the problem since it is not served by the Heat Pump.

 

[bdeboer]

In addition, my wife asked the building commisisoner if we had to have garage doors installed for the OC and he said yes. I can't see why garage doors have to be installed. What if we didn't want garage doors at all? So what? How is that a safety issue or anything else that matters? We just found out that our 10 foot wide garage door will have to be ordered; it's not in stock locally so we may have a delay getting the OC because of it.

Obed

If you have a deadbolt type lock on the entry door from the gararge to the house, ask if that is sufficient.

 

[Obed]

Obed,

Where we live in NW Georgia we have a lot of sediment in our water. For several years we used a sediment filter with pretty large cartridges. I finally got tired of changing them and we had a self back flushing sediment filter in. It is maintenance free and it does a great job. It basically uses a water softener tank and head but instead of the resin beads it has several layers of decreasing size aggregate in it. It back flushes about 80 to 100 gallons every 4th day. If you go that route I suggest you do not flush it through the septic.

Russ

Russ,
That sounds interesting. Can you give me a MFG and model of your filter equipment?
Thanks for the idea,
Obed

 

[Obed]

Obed, You may have already considered this but when we built our house with a daylight basement we found very quickly that we needed a dehumidifier...We bought an LG dehumidifier and have had no problems since but without it we were starting to see small specs of mold on sheetrock and wood after a month or so...and we have a garage door , people door and window down there but still had the problem since it is not served by the Heat Pump.

Bob,
Yes, we have plans for a dehumidifier. We have an electrical outlet and a floor drain at the spot where the dehumidifier will go. We just haven't gotten around to buying one. There seems to be lots of choices and we don't really know what we should get.

Obed

 

[uzi9mm]

nice job....looks great.

 

[Obed]

Today the H&A guy came and did some work. He raised the pipe that runs through the wall and will connect to the gas meter for about $150. That was much better than the 6 hours he muttered earlier.

Here's the newly raised gas pipe in the wall.

We now have plenty of room to raise the grade.

 

[Obed]

Here's my slop sink in the basement. The countertop, faucet, and sink were free. The countertop people had some used countertops and sinks sitting around from remodeling jobs they had done.

I wish we had better planned the drain for this sink. Unfortunately this sink drains to the septic tank. We put 3 floor drains in the basement for the basement laundry, H&A system drain, water heater drain, and dehumidifier drain. The floor drains do not drain to the septic but instead drain down the hill behind the house. I really wish my slop sink drained to the floor drains and not the septic. I could imagine cleaning stuff in that sink that I don't want to end up in the septic tank.

I might end up running a drain pipe above the concrete and out the exterior wall shown in the picture and run a drain pipe down the hill specifically for this sink. I'll have to get the wife to ok this though because the pipe would exit the house above ground and be visible from the outside (i.e. ugly). That wouldn't bother me; this end of the house would not be visible to most visitors.

 

[Obed]

Here's a late change the wife made. If you look up in ceiling trusses, you can see the duct for the range hood that vents to the outside. Originally, it was planned that the vertical portion of the duct that runs from the range vent to the ceiling trusses would pass through the cabinets over the range hood. Well, the wife decided she wanted to reclaim for kitchen storage use the cabinet space above the range hood. So instead of running through the cabinets, the vertical portion of the duct will run through this newly framed duct space in the garage. This picture shows the same area from the kitchen side of the wall.

The drywall guy finished covering the kitchen hood ductwork that runs up to the ceiling in the garage area.

 

[Obed]

Painting work continued today. All the doors have been taken off the hinges and will be painted while they are not hung in the door frames. All the edges of the doors must be painted in order not void the manufacturer's warrantee. I assume that leaving any of the edges unpainted could all moisture inside the door that could lead to warping.

Here are the doors after they were painted.

 

[Obed]

Countertops

 

[Obed]

The wall behind the hall vanity bowed outward toward the vanity a little in the middle. The countertop installers installed the backspash so that one end was flush to the wall which meant the other end of the backspash was very far from the wall due to the wall's bowing in the middle. They should have made both ends the same distance from the wall. My wife pulled the backsplash off the wall before the silicon caulk dried. She had the countertop people come back out and reinstall the backspash in a more reasonable manner.

 

[Obed]

Here's the office/dining room after the new painters painted. They did a much better job than the painter we let go. The new painters made the trim guy's work look great. This painting crew was recommended to us by the trim guy.

 

[Obed]

We are in the middle of a cold snap. It is colder than it normally is this time of year. Tonight it is forecast to get down to the mid to low teens. A couple days ago I plugged in the heating pad that we have set up below our camper's black/sewage tank. I also turned on the drop light that is below the black tank's dump valve to keep it from freezing shut. Here's a description of the cold challenges we faced last January.

I had hoped we would be able to move into the house before the cold weather reached us this year but we didn't make it. I'm hoping we don't have to do the chamber pot routine again.

 

[dstig1]

Very nice! You are getting pretty close to that CO!!

 

[scoutcub]

Here's the office/dining room after the new painters painted. They did a much better job than the painter we let go. The new painters made the trim guy's work look great. This painting crew was recommended to us by the trim guy.

Obed -

I absolutely love the upper and lower moldings, and chair rail....it makes such a huge difference from a normal wall. Some very good looking windows as well....and paint....and fixtures.....OK, I love it all.

Kudos to you for taking the time to document with such detail every step of building....not only will you have a permanent record of your efforts, but poor slobs like me that haven't built yet can reference your thread and get all kinds of assistance!

Fantastic job, keep it up!


PS.....Any plans for the pole barn when the house is done??:laughing:

Frank

 

[Obed]

Smoke Detectors

This morning at 6:45 AM the smoke detectors went off. I went out to the house and couldn't find anything wrong. All the detectors were sounding alarms so I could not tell which detector sensed a problem. I think I've heard the alarms going off before but am not sure. There is fine construction dust in the air. Could the dust cause the alarms to sound? We are going to talk to the electrician abot this.

Also, is there a way we can prevent all 7 detectors from alarming? I' like only the alarm that senses a problem to sound the alarm so that we can quickly find the problem without having to wander all over the house.

Thanks in advance for your comments,
Obed

 

[srs]

Smoke Detectors
Could the dust cause the alarms to sound?

Also, is there a way we can prevent all 7 detectors from alarming?
Obed

Obed, when I had my house built the plastic bag the smoke detectors came in were kept on the whole time the house was under construction because of all the dust. There was no need to vacuum them. If you still have the plastic bags I'd recommend you put them back on or cover them up with some other material.

 

[medicshawn]

I would guess the alarms were set off by the heating system. Dust settles on the heating strips in your heat pump and it gets cold the heating strips come on and burn that dust off. Usually happens the first cold snap then it's not a problem the rest of the season. All the smoke detectors are tied together as a safety. Some brands of detectors will have LED lights and the detector that is alarming will show a different color light, may be flashing or solid.

 

[ruralruss]

Russ,
That sounds interesting. Can you give me a MFG and model of your filter equipment?
Thanks for the idea,
Obed

Obed,

I will look at it but may not be able to get the information back to you until next week. Heading north for Christmas with the family. I am not sure the information will help you because it is just a standard 2 piece water softener with out the salt tank and instead of resin pellets in the cylinder he put in around 8 layers of specific shaped, decreasing size aggregate. If sediment is a problem in your area you can probably find one from a local water softener company. Just give them the description above, they should recognize it if they sell them.

Check these out

Aqua Clear Water Systems | Knoxville Water Softeners | Kinetico Water Filter | Drinking Water Systems | Water Coolers | Knoxville Water Treatment | Knoxville Culligan | Kinetico | Pure Water | Water Purification | Water Filters | Water Filter | Water

in Lenoir City

There is also a place in Morristown called Alpha Water Softeners

and google show a Culligan in Knoxville. Culligan is usually higher in price from my experience.

By the way have you had your water tested, if not you may have other filtering needs.

Russ

 

[dodge man]

I just wanted to comment on your progress. I think your house is going to be great when its all done. The progress and photos are good to see.

About your water. Have you had the water tested? You can buy kits that will tell you how hard the water is. We have a water softner and filter. Our filter looks about like yours but maybe a little bigger, and it works well. Our softner is the traditional kind that uses salt and it works well also. You don't get salt in your water, that is all backwashed down the drain when it recharges.