The MacDeskBlog

insulation & speaker wire

But anyway, this is a post about insulation. Since the inspector put the kibosh on electricity until we’re ready for final, I figured we need to get to final more quickly. I took Wednesday and Thursday off from work and used them to run the speaker wires through the walls (sticking out of the orange boxes pictured) for seven speakers, mount the networking panel, and take care of some odds and ends inside the walls. I also burned most of a day trying unsuccessfully to feed power from the temporary pole to the main panel, but all I got were tripped breakers because the main panel is grounded.

I ordered insulation which arrived Saturday morning. I spent a long day Saturday installing it all. Well, installing all that arrived anyway. The ceiling insulation downstairs did not arrive at all (backorder), and the ceiling insulation upstairs was short a bag. I’m pleased though. I should be able to get the rest early this week and install it after work.

exterior fire sheetrock

I dropped by the house last weekend on the way home from Lake Tahoe to check on work after the rough inspection. The guys finished installed the exterior sheetrock for fire protection on the south wall. The inspector came by this past Tuesday and signed it off, allowing us to put up siding, which proceeded apace for the past week.

Kitchen window

We shrank the kitchen window so that it does not cut below the counter line anymore, and are moving the sink to be beneath the window. This should really improve the kitchen layout and functionality. I’m really looking forward to the new kitchen.

south wall with siding

What a difference a week makes. The siding is up on the entire house now, except for a few small pieces next to the garage door. Actually, I bet those are up now too. Steve is working on putting up the trim around the windows and on the corners of house as well.

service panel

I spent Saturday running back and forth between the house and Home Depot, buying the wrong items or forgetting to buy items and feeling like I got nowhere. Feeling extremely frustrated, I regrouped at the end of the day. After sitting and thinking methodically about what I needed, I made a decent shopping list and made one last Home Depot stop on my way to work for a late night. Sunday was far more productive. I got an earlier start and arrived with supplies in hand. I wired up the new service panel, which still required a couple of supply runs in the afternoon, and finished up on a long ladder, running the EMT conduit and 1/0 supply wires up for PG&E. That was a precarious and nerve wracking ordeal, I must say. I’m really not sure what the best way to do that is, but I’m pretty sure that the way I did it was the best. After completing wiring of the service panel, I mounted a 10′ length of EMT onto the top of the panel. Then I assembled the masthead, consisting of a 2′ length, a corner, a 2.5′ length and the service entrance thingy whose name escapes me at the moment. Through those, I ran the three strands of 1/0 stranded copper. Lifting the assembly by the long ends of the cables, I fed the cable down into the top of the 10′ EMT conduit previously mentioned. Each time I pushed the cable down into the EMT, my ladder would inch away from the top of the conduit. By the time I had fed about 8-9′ down and finally had the conduit L in my hand, I saw nervous and trapped. As I tried to lift the beast over my head and turn it point toward the front of the house, its mass was pulling me off the ladder and the resistance in the cables still pushed the ladder away from the conduit. Fortunately, Reuben came out of his apartment to play with his nephew, and I was able to enlist his help in holding the ladder and pulling down on the cables once they peeked into the top of the service panel. Without his help at that crucial point, I would have been stuck up on the ladder all night. I was exhausted after that ordeal and called it a night. I wanted to accomplish a bit more this past weekend. However, I am thrilled with what I did complete. I just need to tie the water and gas lines onto the ground and I’ll be ready for PG&E to hook up the power.

Furnace

The new furnace has been installed in an alcove in the garage.

Family Room Soffit

Some of the ducting needed to go through the family room, so Steve framed in a soffit for it.

Bedroom Soffit

Similarly, the ducting to heat the upstairs had to run into the bedroom slightly, so it needed to be soffited in as well. Some of the unfilled space will turn into a shelf at either end of the wall.

Chase

The ducting from downstairs passes up through the kitchen into the attic and then feeds the ceilings vents in each room. With furnace and ducting in, we were finally ready for rough inspections of the electrical, plumbing, mechanical (i.e. furnace), framing and shear wall on Wednesday. I took the day off from work to be there for the inspection, since the electrical and water lines were my work. It turned out to be just the right thing to do. The inspector pointed out a few things which he wanted corrected, but signed off all of the rough inspections except for insulation, which we are now cleared to finish installing.

Family Room Windows

The crew finished installing the fire rated exterior sheet rock on the south wall today, which means we’re ready for the last exterior inspection. All that will remain after that are the insulation and final inspections, though we have quite a bit of work to do before we’ll be ready for finals.