Don't ask me why, but for some strange reason we didn't take pictures of the 1 inch of ice that had frozen in the poly overnight. I guess the shivering hands had something to do with not wanting to take off your gloves and reach into your pocket for the camera...
Anyway, yesterday went pretty smooth, we were able to do 4 more circuits and ready the next manifold, which was exactly the same progress as today... So, 4 more circuits to go, and we will have the tubing down.
In the middle of the day today, we ran into some trouble, however. The concrete guys had come out to tidy things up and make sure everything was ready for the inspector, also scheduled for today. Within minutes of the inspector showing up....problems. Turns out that they had misread the foundation plan and had some of the cables at the top of the foundation rather than the bottom. Well, these "strands" as they have been coined, just so happen to be ones we had tied hundreds of zip ties with tubing... So, about a 1.5 hour fix on that, as everything had to be released and restrung. Two of these cables had me actually have to restring an entire manifold, as well as pull the entire supply and return lines for the "island heat" to the kitchen. In the end, this ended up not being as bad as we originally had thought. I certainly would rather have to deal with it now, and certainly the cables being in the wrong place would put the entire structure into question...
In exchange for my trouble, the slab guys helped me tie up some tubing in places where there was nothing to tie to. Basically, they made rebar stakes and then tied the tubing to that with wire. An acceptable solution for everyone. I certainly appreciated their help. They have been super.
The rest of this week is going to be WAY too cold to pour concrete. So for now we have scheduled the "pour" for next tuesday. They are predicting somewhere between 320 and 350 cubic yards of concrete. I guess the way this works is that they all show up at 0700, make final preparations to the slab, and then they have the concrete start at 0930. They are predicting to be on site well into the night. With the colder weather, the concrete doesn't want to set very fast, so it will take a long time to work it.
I think I need to let the neighbors know about this. There is no way around it, but there will certainly be some noise well into the night. I think they are renting some light stands in advance...
By then I need to have all of the tubing in place, sealed into the copper manifolds with pressure gages, and pressurized (I am leaning towards 80 PSI).
I also need to finish all the future electrical stubs that I have planned. I was able to finish two large ones tonight as the sun went down. They aren't that bad.
My wife continues to be awesome. This is certainly not an easy task for her, and she also continues to have to keep everybody in lunches, homework, etc. She worked all day out there and it was cold. She is handling the tubing ahead of me coming off of the rolls, and it has a mind of it's own as it is freed from the coil at these temperatures.
OK, you Yanks can stop laughing at us now. I know it is much colder up there where you are, and I am sorry. But trust me when I say it is cold for us...
OH, also hired an electrical contractor finally. Long story, but in the end I got a guy that is experienced with lighting control and lots of low voltage stuff. Even though I am doing the low voltage myself, it will be handy to have him step in and help if I need it. He hasn't done a Centralite system, but lots of other systems. I was looking for a guy too that would be able to keep all the wiring mess organized, and he assures me that he can... He is scheduled to come out Friday and place the 8 floor boxes and island power feeds. He will also bring a temporary power pole so that we can finally get power to the lot. In the meantime, I will probably have to rent a generator to run the compressor to pressurize everything.
Also talked to the ICF contractor and they are placing the order for the next step... The ICF walls. I will be much more "hands off" on this that I have so far. It is much more fun to be a spectator. I need to come up with a list of things that need to penetrate the ICF so we can conduit all that in advance (hose bibs, electrical, geothermal lines, desuperheater lines, etc). Another measuring job...
OK, off to sleep...
No comments:
Post a Comment