The bay window framing

While I was in the states last weekend I looked at doors and windows.  This is the door I'm looking at but does it come in red?  What do you guys think?

I've been procrastinating on the bay window for a few months but its starting to get in the way.  I'm been spending a putting in some time over the past week on making the cuts.  There are so many angles and odd measurements that are making it a slow process.  I used my brother's band was to make the long vertical cuts which took about 4 hours to setup and run through.  With those out of the way I can make the rest of them on my chop saw.

On Tuesday I cut groves for the threaded rod

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 On Wednesday I framed and erected the front wall.

Today I finished framing the two side walls.  I placed them just in time to watch as beautiful sunset.  I might put a desk here but I also want to make it a seating area.  Later problems :)

Now I can finish wiring the walls.

Expenses to date: $12,169

Putting holes in the walls

I've been busy putting up the wall insulation and I'm about 3/4 done.  Just a few thin strips next to the interior wall, a couple of spots in the loft and between the door and the bay window.  I'll be putting vapour barrier up over the covered areas tomorrow.  The rest has to wait for the bay window.

 It looks so nice and even :)

 Putting holes in the north wall, nervous and exciting.  Furnace on the left and water heater on the right.

Water heater hole

I also wired up the electrical box the rear exterior plug.


There are two things that are really holding me up, the lack of bay window walls and I have to make the brackets for the 8" roof extensions.  These will allow the roof to be 9' 10" wide when parked.  I'm going to tackle the brackets first.  Once those are done then i can insulate the roof.

There is a total of 40 that I have to make.  That is whole lot of welding and cutting.

Expenses to date $12,028

Finishing in wall wiring and starting insulation

It's been a productive week.


Drilled 2 1/4" hole and installed the AC in connector.  I wanted to put in the void next to the wheel well but that didn't work out, this was the next best area.  I temporally wired it in with a 12 gauge interior wire until I can find a RV cord to use.  On the inside I connected up 3 plugs so I don't have to used the extension cords as much.

Ran through the 500ft box of network cable that I brought up from the states.  It was going to be $90 for another 500ft from Home Depot.  Luckily I managed to find 721ft for $60 on our local classified site.  I decided to run a DC line to the bay window area, I might end up using it for lighting or to run the computer and accessories directly.

There are around 20 network lines, 4 AC lines and 5 DC wires that feed into this area.  It looks like a mess be it will all be organized once the interior wall goes in.

Started installing the insulation on Saturday.  The bottom pieces are taking about 10 to 15 minutes each because I have to measure the locations of all the wires and rods so I can cut a slot in the insulation for them to slide into.

I even have some of the loft done

But it's still a mess :)

Expenses to date: $11,654

More wiring

I dropped down to the states to pick up the connections so I can plug the house it.  While I was down there I picked up a box of network cable.  I'll be using it connect sensors throughout the house and in the doors and windows.  Did I mention I plan on doing a little home automation?  More on that in the coming months.

On Sunday I ran the network cable and started wiring up the wall outlets, soon I'll be able to get rid of all the extension cords.

This is the point that all the wires will pass through the vapour barrier into the interior wall.  It looks like a mess but they are all labelled.  The yellow wire is a 20 amp line for a electric heater.  The three white wires are for the room plugs/exterior plugs/upstairs plugs.  The black wires are DC lines from the solar panels.  The thin grey wires and blue wire are data and low power DC for the home automation.

All of the in wall wiring is done so I can move onto insulation now :-D

Expenses to date: $11,367

Wiring and doing things the hard way

The past week has been spent on getting the electrical figured out.

I had originally run all the 15amp AC wiring but I've had to pull it all because it would have exceeded the capacity of the electrical boxes.  You can use a box fill calculator to determine the maximum number of wires/devices/clamps that an electrical box can hold.  Unfortunately the 14/3 wire means I'll be about 4 cu in over what the boxes can hold.  There are two ways to fix this, either use 14/2 and I lose the extra wire, or go with a bigger box.  I want to use 3 x 2 x 2.5 boxes so I have 1 1/2" behind the box for insulation so that leaves me with only one option, pulling all the 14/3 out and replacing it with 14/2.

I've also run the wires for solar panels.  I was going with a roof mounted panels but now I'm thinking a ground mount might be better.  To play it safe I ran wires to both locations.

I'm only running the wires for the exterior walls right now, once the insulation and interior wall is in I'll be finishing up the electrical.

In places where wires might rub against the threaded rod I wrapped rubber tape around the rod.

I've purchased the connections for hooking up to external power and I'll have to do a run down to the states to pick those up.  While I'm down there I'll pick up network cable so I can run that and I'll order the Grace Ice and Water Shield for the roof.

I welded the two 1/2" threaded rod that I added in the front corner.  Nice to finally cross that off the list.

To finish up the day I attached the four pieces of blocking that the ceiling will be nailed at the gable ends.  These should have been put before the roof sheathing was put on but I forgot.  It would have been impossible to do without my brother's palm nailer.

Expenses to date: $ 10,981

Flooring

I picked up the flooring for the house today.  It is engineered flooring that was pulled out of a house that was being redone.  It should just need a good sand and it will look great.  I have 250sq ft so there should be plenty to pick and choose the pieces that I want.

Expenses to date: $10,762

Collar ties and almost done the roof sheating

With a help from my friend I had productive Saturday.  We had a beautiful, warm sunny day so we decided to tackle the rest of the roof.  The first then I did was cut the notches out for the last two outriggers for where the loft roof hangs out over the main roof.  I should have done it before putting them up.  It is no fun trying to hold a circular saw sideways in a tight area.

Moving on to the sheathing.  It took a while to figure out the layout so I could cover it with the four sheets that I had left. Well it turns out that I didn't do the math right and I'm just a 2'x3' shy of finishing it.

The last thing we finished up was putting the collar ties up for the main roof.  We put up the first and last one and then used a string between the two so the rest lined up even if the height/level was wrong.