New Home Begins

[Dr Dave]

I like your cabinets, and that is a great looking front door! :thumbsup:

 

[tkappeler]

Lots of pictures tomorrow but we have been too busy getting it wrapped up.

1) electric service trench, 2.5" conduit, three 250 MCM lines with a 130' pull all complete, inspected and approved. I am waiting on the utility to now come put the meter in and cut it in.

2) All rooms except for the great room are painted. Two coats of drywall primer and two of color. We need to decide on the color for the great room.

3) Most electric outlets are installed and recessed trims complete.

4) Ceiling fans are installed.

5) Front door stained and three coats of spar varnish.

6) Tile floor done in the laundry room. Grout will be finished tomorrow morning.

7) Tile pattern laid out for the bathrooms and that will begin this coming week.

8) Had to install silt fence along the neighbor as all this **** rain is causing some runoff to him. I need to get the trim up so the gutters can go up and dig trench to bury the 6" pipe to the stream/swale.

9) Well pump has been installed and we will have water as soon as we have #1 above.

10) garage doors were supposed to be installed today but the low headroom track would not work with the superior walls clearance on the sides. Fortunately, after re-measuring after the garage floor was poured, we have 2" more to work with and no longer need the low headroom. Unfortunately, they did not have that track with them. They will be back out on Wednesday.


Sorry for the lack of updates.

 

[tkappeler]

Lots of pictures tomorrow but we have been too busy getting it wrapped up.

1) electric service trench, 2.5" conduit, three 250 MCM lines with a 130' pull all complete, inspected and approved. I am waiting on the utility to now come put the meter in and cut it in.

2) All rooms except for the great room are painted. Two coats of drywall primer and two of color. We need to decide on the color for the great room.

3) Most electric outlets are installed and recessed trims complete.

4) Ceiling fans are installed.

5) Front door stained and three coats of spar varnish.

6) Tile floor done in the laundry room. Grout will be finished tomorrow morning.

7) Tile pattern laid out for the bathrooms and that will begin this coming week.

8) Had to install silt fence along the neighbor as all this **** rain is causing some runoff to him. I need to get the trim up so the gutters can go up and dig trench to bury the 6" pipe to the stream/swale.

9) Well pump has been installed and we will have water as soon as we have #1 above.

10) garage doors were supposed to be installed today but the low headroom track would not work with the superior walls clearance on the sides. Fortunately, after re-measuring after the garage floor was poured, we have 2" more to work with and no longer need the low headroom. Unfortunately, they did not have that track with them. They will be back out on Wednesday.


Sorry for the lack of updates.

 

[OrangeRidge]

Watching this build is terrific . Thanks for taking the trouble to show us over the months :thumbsup: We're looking into replacing a combination of carpets and wood floor ( wood in the kitchen-diner ) with 8" oak premium grade
throughout ( 3000 feet excluding stairs and bathrooms/laundry/storage etc ) , but it's very expensive at USD45k all-up . I thought the oak looked better than the maple , but it is softer . This stuff is some sort of rosewood
laminate pre-cut lengths and fades badly .

 

[tkappeler]

Here are some pictures of the work I mentioned.

Tile for the laundry room. I will have to drill for the washer overflow but I picked up a 1 3/8" lennox diamond hole saw that goes through tile like butter.



Front door, inside and out. We do not like the color in the great room and it is now a green.



The electric service ready for the utility to connect it. I called them yesterday and they are going to connect next week. 250MCM, the biggest I have worked with.



Miscellaneous rooms

 

[OrangeRidge]

That is one seriously heavyweight power cable :-0 How many kilowatts do you think you'll ever get the need for ?

 

[tkappeler]

That is one seriously heavyweight power cable :-0 How many kilowatts do you think you'll ever get the need for ?

It's not the kilowatts. I had to upgrade from 4/0 due to the 160' distance from the utility connection. They required I upgrade due to voltage drop beyond the typical 3%. I asked the inspector why I had to use 250 MCM and the 125' utility lead from the transformer was about a 2/0. He said that the utility uses steel, not aluminum, and does not incur the losses like aluminum.

 

[dstig1]

It's not the kilowatts. I had to upgrade from 4/0 due to the 160' distance from the utility connection. They required I upgrade due to voltage drop beyond the typical 3%. I asked the inspector why I had to use 250 MCM and the 125' utility lead from the transformer was about a 2/0. He said that the utility uses steel, not aluminum, and does not incur the losses like aluminum.

:laughing:That is about the funniest thing I have ever heard. Steel is a far worse conductor than aluminum. I have never heard of steel being used for electrical wire. If that is what he actually said, he is either clueless or making stuff up. Now the utilities will use cables with names like ACSR (aluminum conductor/steel reinforcement) to handle the stresses of long spans on poles, but note the name indicating that alum is the conductor...

I believe the reality is simply that the utility gets to operate under a different section of the code up to the meter, so they can get away with things you cannot on the house side of the meter... I also don't think you really needed to upsize for 160' run. I've been all through the calculations for my house, and I will be going with 250MCM for my run , but it is another 100' longer than yours. I just ran the calc for 160' and it gives a 5.44 V drop for 200A at 240V on Alum 250MCM (2.3%) and a 6.4V drop for 4/0 Alum (2.7%). Both are under the 3% recommendation. So your inspector appears to be full of it, but then that really doesn't matter in the end as you can't fight city hall...and it's too late now.

 

[tkappeler]

:laughing:That is about the funniest thing I have ever heard. Steel is a far worse conductor than aluminum. I have never heard of steel being used for electrical wire. If that is what he actually said, he is either clueless or making stuff up. Now the utilities will use cables with names like ACSR (aluminum conductor/steel reinforcement) to handle the stresses of long spans on poles, but note the name indicating that alum is the conductor...

I believe the reality is simply that the utility gets to operate under a different section of the code up to the meter, so they can get away with things you cannot on the house side of the meter... I also don't think you really needed to upsize for 160' run. I've been all through the calculations for my house, and I will be going with 250MCM for my run , but it is another 100' longer than yours. I just ran the calc for 160' and it gives a 5.44 V drop for 200A at 240V on Alum 250MCM (2.3%) and a 6.4V drop for 4/0 Alum (2.7%). Both are under the 3% recommendation. So your inspector appears to be full of it, but then that really doesn't matter in the end as you can't fight city hall...and it's too late now.

Yeah, it did not sound right to me either but you are right, you can't fight city hall. The inspector was not the one requiring it. It was the utility. It added $0.15 per foot to the cost. 170' (to be sure I was not short) * 3 conductors.

 

[J F]

Lookin' good Tom, that front door is beautiful. :thumbsup: What size are those tiles in your laundry room, 16"?

 

[tkappeler]

Lookin' good Tom, that front door is beautiful. :thumbsup: What size are those tiles in your laundry room, 16"?

Thanks. My wife did a great job on the stain and finishing! The laundry room tiles are indeed 16". Made for a fast install.

 

[J F]

You guys are doing a real nice job, looking forward to the rest of your progress.

 

[tkappeler]

What a way to spend a vacation. Marathon mode style.

Over the past five days we have:

1) cut, bent and installed all aluminum trim on the house. Of course I had to do this during the east coast heat wave. My wife worked the brake and I gave her dimensions and install them.

2) Completely tiled the main bathroom.

3) Completely painted the great room. All painting is complete.

4) Tiled the master bath tub surround. We still need to do the floor and grouting.

5) Go the garage doors installed.

6) Ordered the flooring that will be delivered next week. 1800 sq ft of hardwood.

7) Hooked up some electric. As a bonus ... the utility came out today and hooked up the electric. It is so nice to not have to run a generator.

Hope you all had a relaxing fourth of july.

 

[tkappeler]

We have been very busy. The electric is finally hooked up. No more generator!! :cool2: And that means AC and lighting and fans! We have been putting up the lighting and turning circuits on as we go.



Now that we have electric, we also have water for tile work and clean up. Still too much chlorine in the well to drink but that will be soon.

The septic went in over the past few days:



I finished the exterior trim work during the last heat wave.



And we have started on the flooring installation.



edit: fixed bad attachment link

 

[J F]

Wow, things are really coming along nicely Tom, looks great.

 

[Dr Dave]

Things are looking great, the septic system is unique, what type of system is it?

Dave

 

[tkappeler]

Things are looking great, the septic system is unique, what type of system is it?

Dave

It is a sand mound. 1000 gallon tank leading to a 22' x 49' field. The field is comprised of 6 rows of accumulators. Something like this picture (not ours). It just so happens that we had to have so much fill brought in that they were able to keep the "mound" pretty level with the rest of the ground.



Sorry, I do not have any pictures of the "during" process as I was at work.

 

[ljnelson109]

It is a sand mound. 1000 gallon tank leading to a 22' x 49' field. The field is comprised of 6 rows of accumulators. Something like this picture (not ours). It just so happens that we had to have so much fill brought in that they were able to keep the "mound" pretty level with the rest of the ground.

View attachment 327936

Sorry, I do not have any pictures of the "during" process as I was at work.

I was wondering about that. I saw the sand, but no mound. I have never seen one where it did not look like a submarine was buried in the yard. I have always wondered why they don't allow the removal of a large area of original soil and replacing it with sand. That type of system has become very popular in our area. The standards to meet the perc tests have gotten so restrictive that it is often the only way to get a system. It also happens in our area when it is time to replace an existing system. There are people have been in their house for 40 years and suddenly end up with the unsightly mound in their front yard. Do you have any idea how much more that system costs than a conventional drain field? We have had pumped fields at the last 2 houses so that the system can exist in the highest and driest part of the yard. I wondered if the premium (short and long term) of the pumped system is the same or higher than the sand mound. I think our pumped system cost us a $5500 premium!

Lee

 

[jinman]

Tom, don't put anything at the entrance to your great room that people can stumble over. I can tell you from experience that when folks enter that room, they will be lookin' up and not where they are walkin'. That's a beautiful loft ceiling.:thumbsup:

 

[Dr Dave]

They use that type of drainage tunnels around here, in single trenches.

Are you required to have a filter before the drain feild?

Dave