Some Assembly Required

Parts is parts.

After what seems like an eternity of small signs of progress, our plumber stormed into our little project with a vengeance this week.  You can see by this photos, there are quite a few parts that go into the rough plumbing.

We met Tom Stebbins on Saturday after he had been on-site for a few days, sort of off and on.  In general, all of the contractors that we have met seem to be genuinely nice guys.  No sexism here ladies, so far everyone involved with the project has been male, although I know the excavator had his daughter with him one early morning.  I'm not sure what this says about the trades in general and especially since the crash of 08.

The thing that I have heard fairly consistently from sub-contractors is that it is impossible to find help these days.  Time and again, anyone involved in the trades has told me that if you know which end of the hammer to hold, you're probably working more than you want to.

Tom told us the same story.  He has at least three other projects that he is trying to juggle, and he just cannot beg, borrow or steal help, even on a part-time basis.  I suspect that has a lot to do with the slow progress over the last month.

HRV

So any-who, we're back on line now and things are moving ahead.  Tom and his crew started by mounting the Zehnder Heat Recovery Ventilator (HRV) on the basement wall and then moved on to running the drain lines.  Here's a picture of our HRV, waiting for his next assignment.

You can't see the geo-thermal loop in this picture, but it enters and exits the foundation wall just to the left of the HRV.  It will be connected to flanges on the right side of the right hand unit, and constantly temper the air with pre-heated and cooled 50 degree temperatures all year long.  The outside air will blow across a radiator of sorts in the box on the right.  In the box on the left, the stale air from the house will mingle briefly with the recently pre-heated (or cooled) air from the geo-thermal transfer unit to suck all the heat out that it can.  The stale air is then removed and the fresh air is distributed throughout the house.

Air ducts

These giant white coils you see here (there are four more on site) will eventually be the air ducts.  They're smooth on the inside so the air flow is not restricted, and no dust will collect inside the system.  The air handling is separate from the actual heating and cooling which is provided by two heat pumps.  These will be installed just below ceiling level on the first and second floors.  The HRV will circulate this air 24-7 all year long, so the inside temperature should be constant, wherever you are in the house.


I'll have a bit more on the heat pumps next time.

I am your father, Luke...

And then there is this monster in the basement.  This is an 80 gallon electric hybrid hot water heater.  The ceiling joists are set at 7 feet 10 inches down there, so you can get an idea how tall this dude is.  Tom tells us a higher capacity water heater is more efficient, so an 80 gallon tank should end up costing less to run than a 50 gallon tank.  The wife will like that as she has this big soaking tub to fill!!

So I'm liking the project again.  Our windows are close by, but not yet on-site.  Three of them were damaged somewhere between the factory and here, so these will be replaced this week.  We hope to see Kevin and his crew back on Thursday to install them.  Meanwhile, we plan to perseverate over siding colors.

So long ...

Snorkel not included.