Cold

It's a bad sign when the temperature reaches 35 degrees outside and you have to open all the doors in the house to warm it up inside...

Continued wiring this week in a very cold house.  Nearing the end of the regular 15 and 20 amp circuits.  Now all the 30 and 50 amp equipment circuits (stove, oven, dryer, water heater, geo units, back up heaters, sewer pump).  Steve came by to help me figure out a lot of the wiring issues I'm having.  He also confirmed that the mason did a shoddy job, so now I get to try to hunt him down this week.  Fun.

A benefit of all the cold weather: cute pictures of the kids playing in the snow.

Nothing to do with the house, but it was too cute not to include it.

Geothermal well drilling rig in place and ready to go.  It was dropped off Friday right in front of the dumpster that was being picked up on Friday.  I had to spend an hour with the dumpster truck driver figuring out how to extract the full dumpster from the back yard.

Question: How do you keep the blue water from freezing?

 

Answer: Drop a chunk of rock salt in the urinal and let people pee on it.

  Great chemistry lesson.

Paintbrushsicle.

In retrospect, maybe I was over-confident when I said,  "No problem.  I'm doing the electrical.  I'll provide power to the geothermal units."

Electricity and Automobiles

Since Thanksgiving I have been focused on electrical work.  It's a slow process since there are so many decisions to be made: where to put fixtures?, how many?, what type?, where to put the switch?, 3-way or single pole?, bathroom fan locations?, with nightlight feature or without?, how many outlets?, which fixtures to put on which circuits?, how to get power to the circuit?, how to power each fixture?, 15A or 20A?, GFIC or Arcfault?.  And I haven't even gotten to doorbells, internet, telephone, cable, speakers.....  Thankfully, I have Steve to answer all my questions and lend me his tools.  Tearing through multiple studs with a 2 foot auger on his right angle drill never gets old.

In the meantime, my car turned into a trash pit.  I finally cleaned it all out- just in time to tear my tire open on a curb and need to access the spare.  So am I unlucky that I got a flat, or lucky that I was able to get to the spare? 

I also set up a thermometer inside the house this week just out of curiosity.  Maintained low 30's for the weekend.

Pictures of wires running through walls aren't very exciting, so I mixed in some others:

Just in case I break down in a blizzard I keep a few extra jackets and sweatshirts, and boots...

3 weeks worth of school clothes.

Multifunctional passenger seats serves as a file cabinet, hamper, gym locker, trash bin, and breakfast table.  Unfortunately, it can't hold actual passengers.  You know it's time to clean out the car when your wife tells you she's seen things like this on "Hoarders."

Mmmmmmmmmm.... donuts.

Photograph taken by Annika!

Photograph taken by Ella!

Action shot taken by Ella.

The LVL beams seamed like an easy solution to structural issues until I had to try to get wires around them and all the switch boxes just happened to be in that wall.

I never thought I'd have to use a 32' extension ladder indoors.