In the pink...

Now that the wiring has been completed, it's time for the drywall to be installed. Before the drywall goes up, we added another layer of R-7 insulation to the concrete basement walls, and a double layer of R-19 around the rim joist. We then added sound insulation in the walls throughout the house, and a layer of R-19 under the decking between the basement and the main floor. This was a task that Susan found that she was able to do, so with the help of her visiting sister, she installed the majority of the insulation without any help from me. I must say, she did a fantastic job!


The drywall arrived Friday morning. After seeing the size of the 254-sheet load, I congratulated myself for deciding to contract out that part of the construction.


The driver and his helper spent the better part of the day unloading the sheet rock - all eleven and a quarter tons of it - two sheets at a time. Each double sheet weighed in at 184 lb. After calculating how many sheets it would take to do each room, they distributed the sheets accordingly. Again, I gave myself an attaboy for not attempting to do it myself.


Carrying the drywall down the stairs to the basement level was impossible, so the loaded forklift was driven around the house to the basement door. The only tricky part was coming from the driveway onto the dirt. By lowering the load of sheet rock as low as possible, the center of gravity was lowered enough to avoid tipping the forklift over.
The sheetrockers are scheduled to begin on Monday.

Tags- we're it!

The Snow season is slowly turning into the Mud season, and we are moving ahead nicely on the house. I should explain that while most places experience the traditional four seasons of the year - Winter Spring, Summer and Fall, here in Ola we observe only three (if you don't count deer season and elk season) - Snow, Mud, and Dust.



The issues that got us the red tag on the HVAC installation were quickly resolved resulting in a green tag from the inspector. This allowed us to enclose the exposed ductwork in the basement in preparation for the sheet rock. After eyeballing the new ceiling contour in the basement, we decided to move the fan and light boxes so they would be centered in the narrower, higher part of the ceiling. This has been one of the distinct benefits of building the house ourselves, as we can make changes as we go and not run up a lot of charges from the builder. Any builder will tell you that this can add up to a considerable amount.


For the past month, we have concentrated on finishing the wiring. We finally finished the rough-in last week, and called for an inspection. The state inspector arrived yesterday, and with only a couple of minor corrections, gave us our yellow rough-in approval tag. To top off an already great day, the county building inspector came up and signed off on the framing inspection as well. The next major step will be the sheet rock installation. After figuring that it would take over 250 sheets of 12'x 4.5' drywall to do the job, I wisely decided to contract it out. The contractor will begin in about two weeks. In the meantime, we will seal all the wire and pipe holes in the floor plates and top plates, install sound insulation in the walls of the bedrooms and more insulation in the foundation walls in the basement.