Washer/Dryer

We bought our Kenmore washer/dryer in St. Jean during Sears days. They are now installed and doing our wash. No more trips to the laundromat. They are here temporarily until we finish Project II. This is the view from the bedroom. If you keep all the doors open, you'll be able to get undressed and do an underarm softball pitch to load the washer; everything on one floor!

The well tank is on the top right and keeps the water supply pressurized. The lighting fixture on the top of the image lights the hallway between the living area and the bathroom. Eventually, there will be a door to cover the utility room.

Installing Electricity

We had the temporary power supply for the workers installed on Tuesday. As soon as the house is enclosed, we're taking this puppy inside into the utility room once the house is enclosed. We still haven't decided whether to take the main power line (seen snaking into the panel at left) into the house through the frame wall or to drill a hole into the foundation wall (seen at right). Decisions, decisions. The piles of 1/2" clear, crushed stone in the background were delivered today
and will eventually fill the foundation and act as a bed for the hydronic slab.

The electrician actually had to come back on Wednesday to install our new address on the private pole shown here. Had to call town hall at Frelighsburg to find out what it was; they gave me all the permits, but not the adress! If you look carefully at the top of the pole you will see it.

The excavator and electrician cooperated very nicely to install the hydro pole. A few tense moment ensued when we found rock ledge a foot under the ground where the pole was supposed to go. Had to move it about 12 feet away from the drive (it was supposed to be inline with the oak tree shown at right). Fortunately, the electric line reached the pole.

Installing the drains

Martin (the plumber)of Plomberie Gilbert and his helper Ben arrived from Knowlton today on short notice (Alex told me this morning that he was coming to install the interior drains). Much to his relief, our foundation was not yet filled with crushed stone, making the work much easier.

The first order of business was to install the coil for the solar heat dump. The solar heat dump keeps the tank and solar collectors from overheating in the summertime when the need for heat is low and the supply of sun abundant. Martin pulled it out into a boingy slinky shape to help dissipate the heat even more. I'll be adding insulation above the coil to assure that the heat goes into the ground instead of to the slab, and to isolate .

Bill Northey and the technicians at Radiant Floor Heating Company customized the coil by adding two elbows and 42'' tubes to bring the cooling fluid from the ledge to the slab. He recommended burying in sand (instead of crushed stone) to maximize the thermal contact with the ground. The heat dump itself is pictured in the second image at lower right. We used it to measure out the position of the coil relative to the other plumbing.

Also shown here are the sewage drains under construction and, in the third image, completed. The main sewage drain runs out the hole in the foundation wall at back. You can actually see the top of the septic tank too. The floor drains runs out int he corner at left. The cruched stone supports the toilet drain. The whole foundation will eventually be filled with the stuff.

Great work by Martin and Ben.

Electric line and septic tank

Another busy, grey day on he house site. I got up early to cut down a few trees that were in the way of the power line.

Today, we installed the electrical line. This runs from a private poll installed by Normand (the excavator) and Camille the electrician. Bell contractors came along to install the public pole (in Frelighsburg, it's Bell and not Hydro that installs the poll). The private poll holds the meter and is where the line runs into the ground. It then goes across the driveway and up the hill along with the phone line and the line between the septic tank and tile bed.

Normand also trucked in generous amounts of sand to bury the septic tank, to make a bed for the French drains, bury the power line (need 2 feet of sand around power line), and just clean up the site. It covers up a lot of the mud.

The electrician also set up a temporary electric panel for the builders. Hopefully, it will be switched on by Hydro by the end of the month. I had orignally wanted the power cable to enter through the foundation, but the electrician figured it would be better to go through the wall above ground. A vistit from Alex the builder/carpenter changed that. He preferred the foundation option. I'm now considering renting a drill to bore through the foundation.

House lot and exterior utilities

House is located on solid impermeable rock with less than 1'' of soil. Utilities all end in utility room

• Powerline: 45m above ground; 65 m below ground (yellow)
• Tile bed: 10m x 60m. Percolation test done in area of tile bed. Show's about 4 feet deep of gravel on slight downward slope.
• Septic tank 30 ft from house and 90 ft from well.
  
• Overflow line from septic goes 30 m downslope of house site to tile bed; approximate drop of about 10 ft; to share a trench with power line
  
• Driveway: already exists, but grass needs to be scraped off and more gravel added around house
• Well and water line: slightly upslope of house site.