New Heat Zones

The kids rooms had always been in the same heat zone loop as the living room. Since the living room is usually pretty warm from the windows or the wood stove, their rooms would get pretty cool.  When I remodeled their rooms, I pulled thermostat wire back to the boiler, and recently I finished splitting them out on their own zones.

First I added new zone valves so I could leave most of the heat on while I tied them in, which turned out to be a good idea since it took a couple days to get parts in the middle of the job.

The heat was originally run with a mix of copper and PEX.  Unfortunately we used 5/8 PEX in order to make it easier to pull (the house was largely finished when we put the heat in because we originally heated it with wood and a TOYO stove, but decided to go with baseboard once they ran gas to the neighborhood).  What was unfortunate was that 5/8 turns out to be an odd size. It took me a day to round up the only remaining 5/8 PEX to 3/4 Cu fittings in the Mat-Su valley, lol.  After, of course, I had already bought all 3/4 stuff since I was SURE that's what we'd run...

So I bought all the fittings I could find and saved some spares by the boiler.

This cut took Jake's room out of the loop.

This jumpered past the kids rooms to complete the living room circuit, 5/8 (blue) to 3/4 Cu to new 3/4 PEX (red).

The Cu is the new supply to Hanna's room and the red is the new living room return..

 Adding the first kid room loop...

Lots of copper on the ceiling :-)

Stack of completed zones...

At the end, the dielectric fitting was leaking at the boiler, which completely failed when I tightened it. It was worse than it looks...  Good thing there's a drain in the boiler room :-)

Another trip to Big Lake, arrived just under the 5 o'clock wire and I got a new one installed that night.  The whole black pipe portion needs improving - I'll pull it apart next summer and put a union in to make it all easier.

 One of the happy customers :-)

Jake the Digger

We had a lot of dirt left over from the wall repair excavation (ongoing). We're going to backfill with rock to help keep pressure off the wall, so Jake is using the left over dirt to smooth and slope the ground around the playground...

Foundation Repair Two

We're still working on repairing the broken foundation. I was going to just shore up the wall around the steps to the daylight basement, but the wall turned out to be in a lot worse shape than I thought. Taking it out will give me better access to the footer and allow us to enlarge the entry a bit anyway. It's not going to get done before winter so pretty soon I'm going to insulate and let it ride until Spring.

Here is the demo crew. Hanna didn't have too much fun. She doesn't like picking up garbage or handing out tools - she only wants to run the power tools she isn't big enough to even pick up, lol


Pulled the first bit of the wall off by impact hammering through it with my Dewalt SDS Max hammer drill. I think it hits with 8 lbs of force - works pretty good but there is a lot of dust. I used my supplied air respirator. It will drill a 5/8 hole through the wall in 15 seconds - it took 5 MINUTES with my 1/2" Milwaukee hammer drill. Which is why I went and bought almost the biggest hammer drill I could find :-)


The next wall had separated from the footer so bad that Jake and I shoved it over by hand.


I had to break it up a bit because it was too heavy to yank away.


The first piece was little too heavy but I planned on dragging it a bit. The rest I was able to drag without picking up.

Unfortunately I found the load limit, lol.


Hanna was giving me a standing ovation, :-)


It was easy to tip back up.



I've been dumping scraps in a ditch about 6 feet deep so I can build a road to access the South lot.

Foundation Repair One

The inside wall has always been bowed, but I'd always thought the form had blown out on whoever poured it. In fact I put in an extended window sill (like a shelf) to hide the curvature.

This winter though, we had a cold snap and the sheetrock began to crack quite a bit. Our housesitter told me that the wall downstairs was cracked... so I told her not to worry - it had always been like that. But, when I got home it was pretty bad. The window glass was flexed and so stressed that I glued insulation to it and double layered plastic over it inside and out in preparation for it shattering (which it didn't). It looks like it's moved in about 3 inches so I began to realize that the wall had failed.

The pour is a piece of shit - there is very little steel and ribbons of unmixed aggregate run though it. Either they did it in a couple pours or, more likely, they didn't agitate it well.

This is the major fault where the footer is broken.


This part is not structural so I'm not very worried about it, although it LOOKS pretty bad.

Big hole for a little loader...





It took quite a while to dig out, not least because I had to fix the loader a couple times... Either 2 hoses were leaking simultaneously or I changed the wrong hose the first time. I think the second hose was the leaker but had jetted through the casing on the other hose - making it look like it leaked. It's hard to troubleshoot because of the pressure, sticking your hand in there to see where the fluid is coming from is not such a hot idea. In the past I've had to section the hydraulic compartment off with absorbent, run it and repeat a couple times to narrow down the leak location. Of course, you've got to open it up and put it back together on each try - very time consuming.


The repair plan is to epoxy rebar into the existing wall and pour a new one outside of the failed one. Then, I'll cut the framed wall loose from the existing concrete wall, bang it back out to where it's supposed to be, Hilti it down again and then fair out the wall inside (which will still be bent). I'll have to custom rip each stud or maybe I'll just come out far enough to build a proper wall, but that would make the window and door openings about 10 inches thick. I'll have to see what looks good.

I'll also improve the drainage somehow. The ground has a lot more clay that I expected. I know it's glacial moraine down there somewhere and had always thought it was gravel just a few feet down, but this is pretty solid stuff so far. I had planned to just backfill with gravel, but I think I'll need to excavate (with a backhoe this time) for a french drain.

Da Floor, Da Floor!

I finally got all the bamboo flooring down... well not the living room steps or the trim but all the floor surfaces!

I got the flooring at Costco. I had to buy the trim pieces and the stair tread at a local place. The trim and tread cost as much as the rest of the flooring. The local flooring place where I got the trim told me I wouldn't be happy with the Costco flooring (compared to theirs which cost over twice as much) because it was harvested too soon and would not be stable. That hasn't been the case - I've had the dining room down for over a year and it's just fine - a few small gaps but nothing bad at all.

Out with the old...


The little hall by the kids' rooms..

Steps downstairs


I had to move everything from one side of the living room to the other... first to get the carpet out and then to put the flooring down... 1/3 at a time, yuk.

Phase 1

Phase 2


Of course most of Phase 2 had to be pulled back up when I badly damaged a few infield boards moving that heavy, heavy, heavy elliptical. A 2 day setback.... :-(

But finally, Viola!

Sculptures

Here are some sculptures I made last week at my wife's request after she came home with a bunch of junk from the feed store. The cast gears stick welded OK with my AC welder, which surprised me - I thought they'd crack.

Concrete Countertop

We poured our concrete kitchen countertop in place and colored it with acid stain. My friend and craftsman Tyson checked it out and took it a step further by pouring his in forms with colored aggregate, fossils, etc., and polishing them so they look like rare stone.

Ours looks like concrete ... the concrete guy I helped pour it wanted to fill some of the edge porosity and grind off some roughness, but I wanted it to look like concrete. I figured why try to fake it? With the stain it looks a lot like old stone and reminds me of some old and constantly wetted concrete I saw in the Carribean. I still run my hand on it and marvel at the variations in the surface colors and texture.

We used a gravel roof drip edge to form the front overhang and poured the little backsplash riser in place. I wouldn't pour the backsplash in place again as the concrete kept slumping out of the form. It does make for a good seal to the countertop though.

It's about 44 linear feet and 1-5/8 thick in-field ( looks like 2-1/2 in thick because the edges are thicker) .... it was a lot of concrete (hand mixed onsite in buckets) and an unbelievable mess!


The sink is not actually underhung - it's a 'normal' sink we poured concrete around the edges of. If it ever has to come out..... I shudder to think.


The fossil detail was a last second idea created by putting a silk leaf in the form.

The island has a drop down vent that comes up from behind the burners. A ceiling vent would be better ... this one pulls heat from the burners. I had the Stainless top made from my plywood template and it came out real well - it overhangs in the back and we use it with tall barstools.