Critters and Liars

Thought I would show you a quick pic I snapped of my buddy's horse barn going up.  It's looking really good, and I especially like the horse stall hardware...  He is hiring the barn done, but like myself, has an endless supply of other jobs to go with it all, and completely getting his property ready for horses and other critters, which will include a horse arena... Very cool...

In addition to the Boracare, which is a termite treatment, I also sprayed for various bugs.  If the chemical police find me out, they will accuse me of not using the product according to the label...  Uh, yes, that's because I am actually trying to kill some pretty mean critters....

Here is a scorpion that bounced down about 3 feet in front of me.  He was in the process of not being too happy about his new chemical environment.  I expedited his death...  He is about 3 inches long.  Super creepy, but scorpions have something like 8 eyeballs.... eh???

Next critter.  Never seen one before, but my buddy with the horse barn above told me there was a Black Widow living in his water meter box.  I found this one hanging out on our nice iron front door.  Tried to take a decent picture, but that didn't happen...  Oh, you'll never believe this...  Ready....  I took a flashlight to my meter box tonight to shut the water off for a few days (the lines have plenty of pressurized air in them, so no reason risking a deer or something stepping on the PVC lines that are above ground into the house... I digress).   So, back to the valve box, at night, which the other night in the dark I reached in there and was feeling around for the shutoff valve when I couldn't get a wrench on it...  Well, tonight, there was a great big BLACK WIDOW spider in there...  Damn....

And what the heck is this thing... Scared me half to death.  Some kind of bug I have never seen.  About 4 inches long, looked like a cross between a frog and a grasshopper.  He was a FREAK.... Can anybody tell me what this critter is???

So, story for the day... Nail in my right front pickup tire... Slow leak.  Take it to (name of major tire people to be not released) and by the way, can you rotate the fronts to the rear... Sure.  So, I come back an hour later to find they have sheared off a lug.  So, they ask who did the work previously and who would tighten up the lug that tight.... The Toyota factory, I reply, never had a wheel off yet.  So, can I see the lug.  Yes, it sheared off when we attempted to remove it...  I'm checking this thing out, trying to remember some metallurgy classes from long ago, a twisted shear fracture...  Going to be 100 dollars to take off my wheel and hub (disk brakes) and get some new parts...  I'm not happy. 

OK, short story long, I get this thing home and chuck it into the vice so I can attempt to remove the broken stud from the nut...  Big pipe wrench... guess what... it comes off with my fingers.  I am P_SS_D off huge.  They lied to me, because if it was loose, they were attempting to put the thing on, not remove it.  Further study of the twisted shear, and sure enough, sheared in the clockwise direction. 

After a nice little 5 minute one way phone conversation, the shop will be repairing my wheel with absolutely no charge...and they will be happy to do it...  GGGGGGGRRRRRRR....

OK, enough of my rant.  Finished (yes, actually finished something) the central vac low voltage wiring, got everything all covered up and ready...  Also got the solar lines into the garage last night and today, so that is ready to go.

Also sorted more wires in the attic tonight, and also flashed the front door where the now dead black widow used to hang out. 

Another thing about bugs...  Scorpions and Spiders do not clean themselves, so they are very hard to kill...who knew?  Other bugs clean themselves and in the process, ingest the poison very quickly and die promptly.  I saw some spiders still alive tonight, but only dead scorpions...  Even the wasps and mud dabbers were mostly dead.  Hornets dead too. 

Next week.... Spray foam insulation...  I'll have to do some video for that....

Have a great weekend...

Getting close to sheetrock...

Yes, it's the "Tour Eiffel" 

Snapped this with my iPhone the other day on the way out of the hotel.  You can't really believe how big this thing is until you have stood underneath it.  Built for the Worlds Fair way back when there was no CAD, nothing is straight on it... so putting it together had to be a challenge. 

Paris is one of the most beautiful cities in the world, hands down.  The French are growing on me too, with some of the latest things in the news, they are doing some good things over there... I won't get into details.

Makes my little project seem pretty dinky... Never the less, it's happening.  I am really happy with the electricians, who came back and wired up the relay panels....  Took them hours, and it was HOT up there.  This is the non dimming high voltage relay panel.  The relays look like automotive relays, but they are rated at 30 amps each, so they are a little bigger.  For you non electricians out there.  Wires are actually pretty neat.  Black is the hot wire, white is neutral, and bare copper is the ground.  Hot is easy to understand, neutral wire is kind of like a plumbing drain, the electrons head out that way once they have lost their potential through the device, and the ground is really a backup to the neutral, but more importantly, the ground always ensures there is a better path to ground than you when you accidentally come into contact with hot wires.

Really nice job on the dimming panels... 

Finally, a shot of "The Bridge".  The transporter room is off to the right ;-)  Someday I'll take my better camera out there so you can get some better perspective shots...  I covered the panels all up with giant shrink wrap and house wrap so they don't get residual foam dust on them.  Next week is the insulator.  So this is probably the last time you will ever see those rafters. 

I have a couple of plumbing leaks.  Once I tended to today and fixed... an outdoor faucet which needed some tweaking.  Unfortunately, the plumbers screwed up two of the manifolds while replacing bad lines when they pressurized the system the other day, so I had to order new ones.  It's a long story, but you can't use a utility knife to remove the pex lines, if you scratch the propex fitting, it will leak, which they did.  The good news is that one of them is plastic (EP for the reverse osmosis water) and it is only like 15 dollars, and the brass one is the smallest manifold in the system, a 6 valve manifold, but still cost me close to 200 dollars with the appropriate installation parts.  I just can't trust that manifold behind the wall, though.  Not worth the risk...

Thought I would throw in a pic of some stucco we like.  This is a product from Dryvit that is basically a stucco with a faux washed finish on top.  We want the "old world" look, and this helps tremendously.  Look at the color difference between this picture and the next.  Same sample....  Different light.  We need to get it more into the yellow and brown tones and away from the pinkish tones in the second pic...

This is the stone we like.  It is called "Moss Rock" because it is quarried on top of the ground, and the stone has moss growing on it.   Mas Moss, as my wife says.  The selections are not completely official, and the stucco color still has some tweaking before we get it just right...  I am probably in trouble for leaking info about this, because I think my wife was holding off on this...  but I have been in trouble before...

This week I have some days off and trying to get everything tweaked as much as I can so they insulators can do their thing next week.  Tonight I actually pressurized the radiant floor with REAL WATER.  Some things probably excite me a lot more than you, eh...  I kind of freaked out when I couldn't get any water to go through the system, and had visions of hanging the whole project up, then remembered a not on the manifold box...  The manifolds were shipped with the flow control valves closed.  phew...  So, after opening those, and running a couple hundred gallons of water through the system to eliminate air, and then tightening several places up that were leaking, I finally left tonight at 11 PM with the system holding at 60.5 psi...  That number is for me, so when I got out there in the morning it better not be too much lower (the system will only operate at about 15 psi once it's online)  If there is a leak, I hope it's easy to find the problem. 

I was elated more than you can possibly imagine last night when I ran my last wire.  All the wires are finally in where they are supposed to be...with of course some exceptions.  I need to run a thermostat wire for the radiant floor computer's thermistor (under the garage eve).  Also need to put in place some HDMI cables, but I thought I would wait until the insulators and everyone else was done walking around on things up in the attic.  Just needs to be done before sheet rock...

Other projects this week...

Borocare spray for termites (basically a boric acid treatment for the wood).

Spray for bugs (way too many scorpions, spiders, etc.)

Tidy up wires in the attic.

Repair some framing here and there.

Start cutting the baseboard backers.

Run the lines from the solar collector on out to the garage.

OH, you may think I'm crazy, (of course those who really know me, that's not news), anyway, I'm going to use my airless sprayer for spraying for bugs.  Mix everything up in a 5 gallon bucket, and spray the crap out of everything.  Getting it all over the place.  I hate bugs.

OH, almost forgot.  Passed my structural and mechanical inspection the other day.  Inspector had some questions about a lot of the "different" things they don't see often, but the questions were more aimed out of curiosity and interest, so we had a nice chat. 

Off to the shower, eat dinner (at 1 AM), and then catch a snooze...

Have a great week...

Ok, since I am already in HOT WATER with wife, I will leak another picture out... Check out the cantera stone here.  The color is kind of a brownish grey, called Cafe II (this column may be something else??), and the columns inside won't have the square part you see on top of this capital.  Outside columns WILL have the square part of the capital and base, though...reason... TOE STUBBERS...

Opposing Thumb

All I could think about today was the fact that humans have an "opposing thumb." 

I was using mine, when I wasn't trying to drill a hole through them by accident.

In the back of my mind, I was hoping I had actually ordered too much wire, and would have to try to figure out what to do with what was left over....nope.... surprisingly, I have used up almost all of it, and could use some more in places. 

I have 3 rooms completely done (meaning completely trimmed out, wires secure and hidden, labeled, counted, and recounted).  One of them was the 14 foot tall master bath which required an extension ladder and lots of burning out foam to make channels (time consuming).  So the rest of the house should now be done in about 2 more days. 

Today was even hotter than ever, 98 degrees, 80 percent humidity, no air moving... at one point I spent 90 minutes straight in the attic sorting wires and moving things around.  When I got down, I drank 5 glasses of cold water, and then completely changed my clothes, which were drenched.  It was easily 140 degrees up there, and the roof deck is even hotter, so it is radiating it's heat more and more the closer you get to it...

I whine, but HVAC, plumbers, electricians, and the other trades have been doing this same kind of work forever, summer after summer...  they should make a Bud Lite commercial for those guys...

Here is some pictures of wires.......  First pic here is the storage area in the attic.  I didn't count them, but now they all need to be sorted by type and destination (matrix switch, ethernet/phone, audio, video, etc).  This is just over the equipment room and they will be dropped down after we sheet rock. 

Picture of my sexy legs as I head up and over.  This was a crappy place to crawl...  A hornets nest about 3 feet from my head.  Hornets all dead now ;-)

There was no good path from the kiddos rooms and rec room to the other side of the house, so I made one.  Twenty or so 2x4's and I boxed a rafter and just started pulling wires (the water lines are radiant supply and return for the north side of the house, and all of this will get encased in foam).  The service entrance is also on that side, and I ran two RG6 quads, and two CAT 5e...  I am pondering a conduit from the service entrance in case the world ever gets on board with fiber... 

These are the wires coming from the east side of the house, meeting lighting control wires (orange) heading in the opposite direction.  I found these cool metal low voltage rings to help keep things somewhat tidy.  My main concern is keeping people from stepping on them.  It's funny to read on the internet about how you are supposed to keep low voltage wires away from high voltage...  OK, so I have now 46,000 feet of wire in a 5000 square foot space??  You do the math...   OH, and it lighting strikes, I am either really safe, or really screwed...

That's it for me... Goodnight...

Low Voltage Progress

Hello all (probably like 10 of you max...)

Thought I would update things a bit.  Came home early tonight (10 PM) after being over there all day running more wires.

Lots of progress lately.  Yesterday we (my favorite wife and I) got kind of a late start, but we were able to talk to the cabinet people and show them around.  Seems a world away to me still that we will ever be that far...

Anyway, after that we ran some wires.  The security, intercom, and lighting control wires were in, but we had to run all the wires for audio/video.  I am probably going a little overboard in this department, but it's not tremendously harder to run extra wires.  Here is how we did it...

First, you identify all the wires you need to a particular room, or even a particular area.  Then we labeled the boxes and wires to match each other (because later when you come back to cut them, you have no idea what is what). 

Here is an example of a run I did to the master bedroom...

2 RG6 wires to the TV location (these are probably overkill, but allows a dual SAT box I would never use)
2 CAT5e wires to the TV location (HDMI over baluns or Infrared control)
4 CAT5e data wires (these can be switched in the equipment room on demand from ethernet to phone)
1 Four conductor speaker wire (this is the audio side of the Russound Compoint intercom system)
1 Five conductor mini RGBHV video feed (this allows for component HD signals from the matrix)
1 Siamese RG6 and 18/2 cable (feeds a surveillance camera on the corner of the house)
Several CAT 5e Data runs to the adjacent study (I think I had 8 of them)

Anyway, this is quite a bundle of wire....  I added more after I took the picture...

And the problem is that you have tension on each wire, and every curve you go around adds to the friction.  Here is a shot of some of the boxes all feeding cable.  I don't show the ones that are on spools, which are being pulled from a different location to save moving them around all the time. 

In this process I learned something about wire.  If you ever purchase it, it turns out that a "pull box" is much easier to pull from that wire off a spool.  They are wound inside the box in such a manner that they just come right out (assuming you don't get an occasion kink, very rare).  Anyway, the wires that come on spools have to be handled differently, put on an axle, elevated, and they pull hard.  When you get the spool going it wants to keep going, and then too much wire comes off and gets wrapped around the axle.  The worst cable I have is a spool in a box.  It is some Cat5 I bought, but it pulls VERY hard. 

The idea here is to group all your cables together that are going to the same destination, in this case, my equipment room, and then separate your wires at both ends to match their exact destination... usually some box in the room, and some piece of equipment back in the equipment room.

So, each room gets basically the wiring program stated above.  The only thing that changes is how much data I pull to each location.  The funny part about the data lines is that they have essentially been replaced by cordless phones and wireless routers.  In the computer world these days, about the only reason you need an ethernet connection is for transferring files, which is quicker with a wire, but otherwise, wireless routers and wireless phones have come a long ways. 

By the time my kids get much older, I would imagine they will have cell phones, laptops, and some pretty cool handheld devices... BUT, I am running their study stations full of wire.  Each kid will have 8 data wires.  Certainly not that they will hook into 8 things at once, but it gives us flexibility in how to set the whole apparatus up...  I think there is a good chance that NONE of those wires will get used.  But, wouldn't you think it's pretty stupid not to run the wires anyway....

  In the planning stages, I was going to have a lot more in the equipment room, but thankfully a lot of that all got moved upstairs to the attic, which wouldn't be possible without it's Air Conditioned status up there.  Check out what the electricians were up to today...

This is how it started....  6 hours later, they have added a CB panel and have everything all organized and ready for hookup...  Every one of these wires is tagged with a numerical ID and they know exactly where they go (I hope anyway...).

I promised early on to not mention names, but I have really grown to like my electrical contractor.  The best part about them is that they are not just electricians, but very well versed in the low voltage side of things.  Even though I am doing my own low voltage, it's great to have them always taking into account what has to happen on my end.  I am quite certain I have challenged them in addition to the norm...

The roofers also came out today.  They tidied up some stuff on the roof, as well as measured the chimney for the metal flashing that has to go in the bottom of the chimney where the pipe comes out.  They also laid down felt paper where the stucco guys will be working, so the roof underlayment doesnt' get trashed.  There are pathways for the stucco guys to work so they don't have to step on tiles.  I was also able to finally get the pipes stuck through the roof to the solar collector while they were here...  That enables a whole new project...

Oh, the insulation contractor came out to day to check on things.  I like this guy because I tend to get overwhelmed with all the details, and he puts me at ease that everything will happen just as it should...

So, perhaps next week we can get some inspections, and then we can foam away... After that, drywall can begin, then cabinets, trim, tile, floors, and then all the electrical and plumbing trimout inside.  Outside can begin almost anytime now...  Electrical boxes are set so they can work.  The stucco guys have been busy making sample boards to get the finish texture and colors just right... 

So... you can see it was a busy day. 

PS, the temperature was 98 degrees today, and very humid.  I drank almost 2 gallons of water just myself...

Low Voltage

Don't have any pictures, but here is an update of what happened this week so far.

The security system was a PAIN in the arse.  Why, because every sensor (47 of them) needed to be run into nearly impossible recessed windows, that are all encased in foam and concrete.  Most of them I had to drill from the ICF window buck out the top of the top plate, then snake the sensors and wire back behind the window frame.  I used foam peanuts in some cases to hold the wires back there, but I am worried the drywall and trim guys will hit a wire...  So, the security system took the better part of 3 days, and I thought I could bang in out in 1 day.  Oh, the iron door was a special pain in the arse.  Turns out you can't use a normal sensor because the steel of the door interferes with the magnet, so I had to bore a 3/4 inch hole in the iron door and jamb, then use a 6 foot bit to drill through wood and foam to get over the top of the entryway groin ceiling, then crawl out there in the rafters (about 120 degrees and full of mud dobbers, hornets, and wasps, and about 16 inches tall) and pull all the wire up.  While I was there, I ran the wires to the lighting panel, security system, intercom (inside and out).  Secured everything with staples, and routed it all where it needed to go. 

I think you get the picture of why this wasn't fun. 

Oh, the sensor for the iron door is bigger so they can have a strong magnet in the center that isn't surrounded by metal so the thing will work.  I checked it when we got done with my ohm meter and it worked perfectly, but I was sweating it a bit....  literally.

Nothing really new for me to underestimate the amount of time or work something will take...

So, tonight my wife got a babysitter and she came out and helped me with the lighting control wires.  I have a map of each keypad, which panel it connects to, how many Cat5e wires to run, what color, how many buttons, and even which switch addresses will be used.  She helped me run the first few, but I stayed out there late (as usual) and finished off all the wires for panel number 1.  But, the wires aren't terminated on either end, so I have to route all the wires correctly to each switch panel still.

The good news is that this went MUCH faster than the security system.  So, as long as I can find a good place for routing the wires, hopefully I can bang the rest of panel 2 and 3 out tomorrow...  Probably the majority of the intercom stations too, and may even get to some camera wires...  Maybe I am reaching there...

OH, also, the geo guys came out, covered up the trenches, fixed the leak, welded everything back together, and they are completely done.  Without saying names, these guys were absolutely fantastically nice, and their attitude is that they wouldn't do anything for you unless they would want it that way for themselves.  I was sad to see them go...

OK, must sleep more than the 3 hours I got last night....  work 18, sleep 3, Work 21, sleep 5...  hmmmm..

goodnight...

Geo Loop Connections

As usual I just worked 15 hours straight at the house, and didn't get as far as I liked or needed.  I have been installing the security system, which has been tedious, because I decided to go a little overboard on things so I can monitor them in the future with the automation.  Even though my windows are often just little awning windows below bigger fixed windows, I want the security system to tell me they are open before we leave to go somewhere.  Anyway, it takes time, and everything has to be run through the foam, soldered, and then run to the panel, and tested. 

The geo guys were back and installed the manifold and hooked up all the connections to the loops from the house.  This is a shot of dirt covering that manifold,  but it's basically 1 1/4 inch pipe that necks down to eventually  3/4 inch.  To get the resistance in each loop right, they switch the positions of in and out so that each loop is balanced.  This is about 4 feet under the surface, and the loops are guaranteed for 50 years.  The pipe is fusion welded, which is a pretty cool process I got to see today inside the house as they hooked up the pumps.

This is the pipe on it's way into (or under) the garage.  It goes into the 6 inch pvc conduit, and then travels over to the pumping station.  The red tape is actually electrically conductive, and you can hook up an electrical current to it and locate the pipes later on if you are digging for treasures...  The geo driller swears by using a copper rod bent in his hands for finding electric and pipes.  He has been drilling for years and years, and has been super patient.  Today, after they got everything all hooked up, he found a leak in a brass fitting, but he has to cut the PE pipe so he can turn the fitting.  Then, his backhoe blew a hydraulic hose fitting and they had to quit for the day.

Actually, the picture above is from last week, but it rained and filled the trenches up with water...  yucky nasty water that my kids wanted to jump into... ah, no!

This is a picture of them fusing the pipe to the fitting at the pump station.  They heat the two pieces to 500 degrees for about 15 seconds, and then slide the two together.  The result is that the two basically melt together as one.  The joint will never come apart.  Incidently, the fitting on the right is what caused the problem and needs to be tighted more, but you can't turn the fitting once it's connected to the pipe...which is kind of silly, but very common problem in plumbing...  The two pumps are shown, one pushes the return water, and one pushes to the loops.  Together they make about 18 gallons per minute, and the higher flow translates to more effeciency in the unit.  The purge station hooks to the sides of the pump station, and there are two valves that allow them to direct the flow of water in any direction they want when they are hooked up to the purge cart...

Speaking of the purge cart... Here it is.  It pumps water through the system at a massive high flow rate to remove air, and filter out any dirt or gunk that may have gotten in there.  They took some temperature readings and we are basically at 72 degrees...exactly what I suspected based on underground temperature map data.  Without the cart in place, the water comes in through the garage floor, up and over down into the pump station, and then through the wall to the unit just on the other side of that staircase. 

Here is a picture looking down into that 6 inch conduit.  It was subsequently filled with foam and then capped.  Never to be seen again... hopefully.  They insulated the return line to keep it from swapping energy with the outgoing loop pipe.  Good idea...

Central Vac.  Can't remember if I told you about that, but these were the fittings that mostly got used up during the install.  I probably saved about 1500 dollars in two days by doing this myself.

I was up on the roof at dusk the other night measuring the cupola, and the light was good.  Took some shots of the tile from up there.  Yes, kind of stupid to even be on the roof, let alone at night. 

Till next time...

Electrical Update

It's late, of course, but I will try to update really quick....

I made a map of the house electrical system.  It's different from the original lighting plan in that I removed all (or most) of the switches so I could track things differently...  Each bank of lights or singular light has a number associated with it...  For example...

111  means panel 1, module 1, light 1 -- Courtyard Sconce Lights

254  means panel 2, module 5, light 4 -- Bedroom 2 Can Lights

1-1 means RELAY panel 1, relay number 1 -- Master Bedroom Ceiling Fan Motor
2-16 means relay panel 2, relay number 16 -- Outside Master Bath Eve/Ground Christmas Lights

The electricians have to keep track of every wire as they pull them back to the panel, so they can hook them into the right position.  Once they got the hang of my system, they were on board and are getting faster.  They started in the back of the house and are working towards the garage. 

One of the challenges is that the newer version of the NEC (National Electric Code) requires Arc Fault breakers, which trip when they sense an arc, and not just a fault to ground, such as a Ground Fault Interrupter (GFI's are still required in water locations, outdoors, and in the garage).  Anyway, an example of a problem is when you have a ceiling fan, with a relay to the motor, but a dimmer to the light.  These wires are coming from different panels, but share the common (white) wire in the fan itself.  So, to keep the Arc Fault from tripping, the source of power has to be from the same breaker and share the same common.  So, to get around this, the power has to be split to both panels from the same breaker before the panel. 

This is just one example of the challenge, but the good news is that they have it figured out and are moving ahead. 

There is also a lot of wire to run.  For example, we have flood lights at the corners of the house, 6 in total, 3 on the front, and 3 on the back.  That alone takes nearly 350 feet of wire, because you can't go in a straight line from light to light, you have to stay inside the house. 

Ok, blah blah blah, I know you want to see a picture.  This is the general scene of things, looking through a wall into the study.  Foam everywhere, wires here and there.  Keep in mind that the lights and things on relays are just a small part of the entire package.  All the outlets require power, and there are lots...  That all is coming from a separate panel in the garage, while the power that feeds the panels is a sub panel in the attic.

A little of my handy work.  A double low voltage bracket at the nightstand, gives me 8 buttons to control things on the wall, with status lights.  Then the conduit runs down to a single bracket, so that the wires can continue out to the actual wired remote sitting on the nightstand, which will give me and my wife a total of 12 buttons each at that location.  Here are some examples off the top of my head... 

Mine (reading light on my side),

Yours (reading light on other side so yes, if somebody falls asleep while reading, you can shut down their light from your side)

Path (lights your way dimly from here to bathroom and kitchen)

Fan (on/off)

Sconce

Good Morning

Goodnight

Sleep (puts the entire house in a night mode, taking care of anything left turned on by accident)

Fire (lights up the entire house inside and out, outside porch and garage lights flash to help fire dept find us, signals security panel to dial Fire and Rescue)

Panic (Similar, but all bedroom lights go full dark, common area lights go full bright or flash, while I sit patiently with my gun waiting for someone to cross my sights)

These are just examples...

You can see where the wires cut through the foam to get to the nearest stud wall.  The conduit allows me to change the relationship of the wall panel to the wired remote at a future date.

From further away...  Yes, messy.  I should add that we are putting the majority of our outlets in the baseboards, rather than up on the walls.  We had a house in Seattle that had this feature and loved it.  No cords hanging down the walls before they littered the floor.  The baseboards in that house were also mounted a little higher, so you could stuff your cord under the baseboard on it's way to the light.  

This is creating some challenges, though, because where there is ICF, there is nothing to attach the box to, so they are setting them loose, and will attach them to the baseboard itself after it is installed.  They then have to use a trim ring inside the box to keep anything from touching the screws that hold the box in position.  By the way, it is a misconception that the NEC doesn't allow outlets at this height, not true.  There is a maximum height, however, in the range of 50 inches, to be considered a "convenience outlet."  You will have to read up on those rules somewhere else, too much to explain. 

Cable chase to get from where the panels are located, to the other side of the catwalk, without making a mess of things.  This is now full of wires.... But my electrician is really cool because he is keeping all the wires nice and tidy.  Not running them anywhere you could trip on them or step on them, which is a huge fire hazard and common practice by others...  Oh, the one wire in this picture is the one I ran for lights, it is temporary...

This is the framing I put in for the remainder of the "smart" boxes.  This will house the Centralite Brain (Master Control Panel), Security, Automation, and Intercom Hubs.  When you walk onto the "Bridge", as my wife is now calling it, you first pass all the water pumps and tanks outside over the garage, and then in the attic, across some distance to the bridge, you find the water distribution manifolds on your left, lighting control front and center, and the control boxes on the right... Note the mounting height is carefully positioned at chair height, with fans blowing on the occupant...  I fear many hours of sitting here with my laptop connected to said device programming things...

Front and center...  Relay boxes, and lighting control.  The map is affixed to a foam board which makes it easier for the electricians to use it, and not lose it

OK, off to bed for me.  In the works is the security system, central vacuum, closed circuit security, hard wired ethernet and phone, and all the audio/video you can imagine.  I have taken far too much on, so I am feeling pretty stressed about holding things up. 

Some other news, we have selected the stucco, which will be a washed version (fauxed, basically) as well as the rock for outside and inside (moss rock boulders).  Hope to have all the cantera ordered very soon as well.  Once we get everything behind the walls that needs to be there, it's just a matter of drywall, trim and doors, cabinets, cantera installation, painting, flooring, plumbing trimout, hardware, and electrical trimout.  Yikes...  Don't even ask me when we will be done, but we are going as fast as we can, and Nov 20th is the drop dead date... 

Goodnight!

PS...  The 5 GEO holes are drilled, and have the pipe installed and backfilled.  Later this week the driller will be back to trench and install the feeder lines to these holes, as well as install the pumps that feed them.  The pipes are exposed right now above ground, with a casing around them and down into the ground some to protect the lines during the trenching process.  One last pic...  Yes, drilling is messy.

Geo Drilling in progress

I'll try to keep this quick, but I need to go to bed....

Have been super duper busy this week.  Wired the house for lights (been working more at night, because the daytime heat index has been well north of 100).  I put in 2 giant fluorescent fixtures mounted in the attic that light the decked area and also wash down into the house, as well as 4 other locations with just a simple bulb that have CFL floodlights in them.  Also put some outlets here and there on that circuit so I can plug in some fans without them being connected to whatever cords I am using...  You get the picture.  The house during the day is very hot.  The air just doesn't move in there, and the humidity is just awful right now.

Mainly I have been getting ready for the electricians to come.  What that means is setting boxes.  Like everything else I do, it turns out I am really super picky about where all the boxes for outlets and switches go.  I have set probably 70 boxes of various sorts...  Ordered several online and all the stock from my local big box stores...most of them for low voltage stuff.  Any given wall may have a cabinet, for instance, that is a different height than standard, with outlets in a drawer, low voltage (data or phone), plus intercom stations, lighting control panels, and security panels.  All this gets pretty complex really quick, so instead of the electricians dictating where things go by setting electric themselves, and then having to either move them or work around them, I just bought the boxes and put them where I wanted them...  Lots of moving some studs and fireblock around, which is time consuming, but mainly the decisions require a lot of thought on how you will use the space.  Our outlets, by the way, will mostly be set into the baseboards, which adds another level of complexity (and also requires the electrician to practically lay down in order to wire them up).

Also framed in a box that will allow the electric feeds to come from the breaker box in the garage and NOT have to penetrate the top plate.  Lots of times, this location has so many holes in it there is nothing left for structure, so I framed a box so the wires can detour around the top plate... and I'm not a good framer.  I will try to take a picture of that sometime so I can share, but I think it's a good idea with regards to structure.

Today I also ran about half or more of the 2 inch flex conduit for some of the tricky locations that can't be reached later behind TVs.  I used my 2 & 9/16 inch bit in a 1/2 inch angle drill, which is a very serious tool.  At one point, going through a triple top plate, the whole thing got bound up and about knocked me right off the ladder.  I think from now on I will only drill with the thing braced to the wall.  Again, these flex lines being in place will keep the electricans from getting in my way later.  Here is a picture of my first attempt to remove the ICF for the flex pipe.  I watched the plumbers do this... they took a recip saw at an angle and cut the foam all the way down to the concrete (high speed on the saw, you can hear the tip of the blade touching the concrete when you have the depth right, otherwise the saw will either break or fly out of your hand), the same width as the pipe.  Then, they simply took the claw of a hammer and started pulling out the foam until they had their trench.  Thanks plumbers for the lesson!  You can see I just curved the foam right around the window and headed down until I got to my destination...  I had been afraid of this task for a long time, because it looked hard, but it turned out to be easy peasy.  Hardest part was keeping the flex in place while I tacked it down...

Today I even played around with my router.  I had a place where I needed to mount an intercom and light control panel, but they had framed solid right over that spot...  So, a router with a spiral cutter, and a lot of sawdust later...perfect hole for mounting my low voltage bracket.  Again, maybe a picture if I remember

OK, so I know you all just want the GEO pictures, so here goes...  GEO drillers showed up.  2 guy operation, maybe a 3rd guy at some point.  It is hard work.  They have their smaller rig because they didn't think they could set up the bigger rig boom through the trees (fine by me).  What that means is one 250 foot hole per day.  They have to then install the pipe and backfill the hole, and also then trench the whole thing together and fuze all the pipe apparatus (manifolds to holes, manifold to pumping station, pumping station to unit).  Everything will be buried 4 feet under the ground. 

Here is the little bit, they used this one for dirt and clay, but it slowed down a lot when they hit a layer of rock about 150 feet down, so they had to pull everything out and switch to a rock bit, which has little gear looking things on it, and goes right through rock like butter.  The hole is 4 inches in diameter.  After the bit was in the hole for a while, it was not rusty anymore...

Each of these pipes are premeasured and 510 feet long, fuzed at the end with a U coupler, so they stick out of the ground a few feet while they are waiting to get hooked up to the manifold.  This is 3/4 inch high density polyethylene (virgin, not recycled material) pipe, thicker wall that what I have ever seen.  The wells come with either a 40 year or 50 year warranty, depending on the installer certification and the brand of pipe he uses...  I have seen debate over using other kinds of pipe for GEO units.... Pex is great pipe, but this pipe is certified and tested.

So, here is the vat (tub, bathtub, tank) of mud...  Drillers mud.  They have different things they add to the mud to make themselves happy... Gel, which changes the ph, and bentonite, which helps lubricate all the machinery.  The "mud", which looks like a slurry of dirty water, is pumped down the hole, and washes up to the top with the material that is ground away at the bottom.  The mud then goes through different stages in this little bathtub and deposits first the heavy, then subsequently lighter material, before they pump the clean mud out the back and send it down the hole again.  To get this whole thing going, they have to set everything up, then they drill a hole for a casing, which protects the top of the hole and connects the bathtub to the hole so  the water is forced out into the tank rather than leaking out onto the ground. 

Still on the picture above this...  They also have some pumps and pipes that help eliminate the sand from the water, which is bad for the equipment.  The hopper is where they can add the chemicals, the big hose at this end is a suction hose.

Now for a picture of the drilling rig.  There is an engine that runs the mud pump and some other stuff, but the truck engine is powering all the hydrulics, which is everything else.  There are 20+ hydraulic valves to control things on the back where the operator stands. 

Here is a shot of the pipe.  Thanks to someone in Hastings, NE for making this pipe.  Picured is the U that returns the water in the other direction.  Sitting at 250 feet down, this will be under great water pressure. 

 

Here is a different bit yet.  This one is attached to a reamer, which helps keep the hole clean and straight.  The driller is using 10 foot sections, which doesn't last very long, but he likes to use a 20 footer on the first pipe as he says it keeps the hole straight. 

So, one last note.  Everyone had been teasing me that we would hit OIL...this is Texas, of course.   Well, close...  Lignite, about 8 feet of it somewhere around 100 feet.  Litnite is simply coal still in the ground.  They call it coal after it is mined.  In our case, the chunks and bits of coal he handed me to show were greasy and oily as you can imagine.  It was interesting to see his log he kept as they drilled.  Mostly clay, blue clay, sandy versions of clay, lignite, rock, etc.  He claims the next hole will go faster now that he has a better clue about what is down there. 

Oh, forgot to mention... Drillers had to shut down because it rained 9 inches in two days.  Everything is muddy now, and they didn't like standing next to a 30 foot lighting rod during a thunderstorm.  I think they will be back at it again soon...

That's it for tonight.  Have a great weekend!