Chilly day but outlets done.

Today was rather frigid.  Two days ago I had my air conditioner running, today I had to make a run home for pants and a sweatshirt.  After failing at the post office (I didn't realize it was shipped USPS, so I had the underbelly covering sent to my apartment, where the USPS refuses to deliver), I headed up to work on more wiring.  By the time I got there, it was down in the 40s, raining and windy.  I also forgot my lunch, so I shortly thereafter ran home and upgraded my clothing.

The first thing I did was check everything.  This is the first rain since the roof and windows were completed.  Even though I left the windows open, no rain got in (which actually kind of surprised me given the lack of overhang that I have).

The roof was bone dry (I also climbed up and looked under the panels).


All of the wrap was dry, which means nothing got behind the siding.


None of the windows leaked either.


Since it was cold, I closed the windows and discovered something interesting.  They don't seal on the edges.  This is true on all the windows.  The directions said not to shim the middle (it would bend the frame) but I might do just that to tighten it up.  Good thing I haven't siliconed the insides yet.


I also finished the outlets today.  Even the 10awg wiring, which I will never use again.  It would have been much easier to just run a second circuit instead of making a 30A circuit for the utility room.


I even ran a bunch of wire that is currently just chilling underneath the trailer for the heat tapes.


The heat pump is wired in, which I needed to run the wire for.  Unfortunately I made a derp and now have an extra set of holes in my studs...  The wire for the heat pump wasn't long enough to run underneath everything, so I had to run it above.  I will have to get a dowel and fill the spare holes.


But it is all done and the cord reaches just fine.


I also checked, and a second 100' extension reaches all the way to the slab.  I really didn't think that the slab was 200 feet from the pole.  I will have to see if everything runs off it, 200 feet is a lot of extension cord.  Thankfully I went with the larger wire, since even with this I am looking at almost a 10V drop just from the extension cord.  I will have to measure the voltage at the plug at some point, the pole is 120V and the generator is only 110V, so it should still be fine, but it is an abnormally long run for an extension cord, and some of my saws draw considerable amperage (the miter saw draws 15A).  We shall see.

The four wheeler was sold before I got there, so I didn't get a chance to look at that.  I will have to pounce on the next one.  I hope to finish the light switches tomorrow, since they are the last part holding up the electric task on the checklist.  It won't complete them (there is still an interior wall missing), but there is a separate task to complete it.  I also picked up some attic vents that I might do next before I start the plumbing since the underbelly keeps getting delayed.

Good thing I am not an electrician.

It is a good thing I am not an electrician because the wiring of the house is going painfully slowly.  I didn't get the earliest of starts today, but it seemed like it was taking half an hour per outlet.  That being said, most of  the outlets are done at this point.

The kitchen GFCI was a real pain in the neck.  All the wires had to be the perfect length to fit in the box correctly, and it had both a load going to another outlet and was spliced on the line side to go to the other kitchen outlets on the other side (I didn't want them protected by this GFCI, they have their own).  It was a lot of wires for a single gang box, and might technically be more than you are supposed to put in (I don't know the rules for box volume).  This outlet alone took an hour to get right.

I also put the clip for it too close to the box, which made backfeeding wire painful.  

I also found out that wire nuts that are good for 4x12awg are not good for 3x10awg.  So this is still waiting on a wire nut.  10awg wire is near impossible to work with.  

The grass side of the kitchen is done.  It was kind of a pain since the wire running across the wall was too short.  The outlet near the floor is the one for the dishwasher.

The living room is done.  I hadn't finished running all the wires for it but they are all in place now.  

I did most of the bedroom circuit, but ran out of wire.  It is still missing the part that goes underneath the house for the heat tapes.

I also completed the dining room outlets (not the switches though) and brought the run going up to stud to code by running them side by side.

I should finish all the outlets tomorrow, but at the rate it is going I don't think I will finish the rough electric tomorrow.  I am also hoping to look at a 4-wheeler tomorrow with a plow on it.  No movement on the checklist.  The underbelly material was supposed to arrive today, but it isn't sitting on my porch yet.  

Blustery day.

The wind was howling all day, blowing in the cooler air.  It appears that we got even more wind today than we did when Harvey went through and took down trees.  This is what I came up to.


Unfortunately, this looks pretty fatal.  At least I was done with that one.


I managed to get the heat pump sealed in, and the annoying piece of siding.




The silicone naturally beads on the metal a whole lot better.


Apparently my driveway is a lot longer than I thought.  My 100ft extension cord barely made it halfway to the slab...  This is where it ended.  I am glad I got the 12 gauge now (I debated going 14) since I will need another one.


I continued working on the electric.  I now have an outlet wired in.  12AWG wire is a real pain in the neck to wire in.


I am off for a while (until October 9th) so I hope to get the electric and plumbing in place before I go back.  The underbelly covering is on its way, hopefully it gets here soon.  The adhesive and tape is already here.  The completion of the heat pump knocks another item off the checklist.

1. Square up the corners
2. Attach ceiling beams
3. Secure rafters and beams with hurricane ties
4. Attach the subflooring to the trailer frame.
5. Sheathe the roof
6. Install tar paper to make the roof watertight.
7. Install windows and AC.
8. Tyvek wrap.
9. Install roof.  Including the drip edge.
10. Install siding.
11. Install attic vent and AAV (AAV = air access valve for the plumbing).
12. Run the rough plumbing. (includes gas line for stove)
13. Run the rough electric.
14. Install rodent barrier.
15. *Finish the exterior.  Do Skirting.  *14
16. *Install insulation. *14
17. *Install flooring.  *16
18. *Install ceiling and attic insulation. *13
19. *Install light fixtures.  *18
20. *Install paneling  *13, 16
21. *Complete electrical and plumbing.  *20
22. *Install final flooring (carpet/linoleum).  *17, 20
23. Install interior fixtures.  When I get here, I will likely create a new list for the interior work.

I feel like a dope.

I went up to the property during lunch today with Barry, and we were poking around in my electric box on the panel, and it turns out that when I went up and tried to fix the outlets on the panel back in the spring, I actually wired everything correctly. After clearing the mice out of the box (again) I was showing Barry what I did, and it turns out the whole time that the only issue I had was that I never reset the GFCI on the outlets themselves.  It is an abnormally deep reset button (I do remember trying it) but apparently I never reset it properly.  So I went out and bought a generator, and have been feeding it all summer because I am a noob.  To make sure the outlets themselves still worked fine, I used it tonight to cut the siding for the air conditioner repair.  Worked great.  Doh!  I went out and bought a beefy extension cord to run up to the slab.


We also put the heat pump in.  The box held, it slid right in.


I went up after work and sealed it in.  I had to "modify" the foam can to make it spray again.  It was only the nozzle that clogged up.  They say it is only a single use per can, but I squeaked another one out of it.


I also got the new piece of T1-11 installed.


It is now foamed in.




I also stopped at Home Depot and picked up the rest of the boxes I need (except I am missing a dual ganged box), but I forgot the stacked staples.  I might stop in tomorrow to get them on my lunch break or something, so I can use them tomorrow.

I also brought home some homework: making pig tails.  While not required by code, most people seem to think they are a very good idea.  It truly parallelizes the circuits.  If an outlet burns out, there is no chance that it will take out the rest of the outlets on the circuit.  I am not sure I buy that (the clamps on an outlet failing are one of the least common failure modes of an outlet), but for a couple of the boxes, I need to do it because I have one input going to multiple places, so I figured I might as well.  Basically I just need to cut up and strip a bunch of 6" pieces.

When I finish with the silicone tomorrow it will cross off an item on the checklist, but until then, no movement.

Lazy power day.

Today was my last day off and it was another hot day, though not as bad as the last couple, only mid-80s today, so I took it a little easy.  I ran some errands in the morning, got a haircut, made a Home Depot run, and so on, and spent pretty much the rest of the day working on running electric.  It would be going much faster if I had a floor, but the underlay hasn't shown up yet to switch over to plumbing.

We have also had an exceedingly long period of dry weather (and heat) so I went and checked on everything.  The creek is down to a trickle.  It never dried up this year, this is as close as it has gotten.  Despite the dry wave, this has been a very wet year.


The leaves that foolishly thought fall was here have wilted badly in the heat.  Almost all of the standing water in the back yard is dried up too.  I will likely have to mow again, everything started growing again.


I got a bit done.


In case you can't tell from that picture what I got done, all the outlet circuits are done in this half of the house.  I have done the routing through the walls.  I will need to double check code to make sure they can be stacked like that.  I don't think it meets code (the wires will throw off EMI and heat that will interfere with one another), especially with the staples I am using (the insulation doesn't cover both wires).  I think they make stacking staples, I just need to find some.  The actual code requirements are very vague.


I also put in most of the missing outlets.  I am still a couple of boxes short.


The picture is kind of dark, but the wires dangling are the outlets and the wiring going to the switches for a wall that isn't there yet.


Most of them are coming out pretty nice once I get everything done.  This is the fridge circuit.  The windows are convenient for hanging the drill on too.


I haven't completed the light circuits, since I need a bit more in place to do so.


I will have to keep an eye on my materials.  I am almost out of wire again.  This was a brand new 100ft spool.  I apparently underestimated how much I would need.


I got the 10awg pretty much spot on though.  This is what I have left.


I got the rest of the boxes I had picked up installed.  I haven't decided if I want to play any games with the heat pump circuit, or just run it through the wall under the window from the other side.  The corner is blocked by a california corner so that I have some place to install the paneling.


I also came across another problem that throws a monkey wrench into my plans.  I had intended to make my walls 2x2, really thin to maximize floor space.  The bathroom and the kitchen outlets (which would also be in that wall) have to be GFCI to meet code though.  A GFCI outlet however is as thick as a piece of lumber though...  I might have no choice but to make the wall a full 2x4 interior wall.  Another annoying loss of floor space.  The inches are starting to add up.


I haven't completed anything, so no movement on the checklist.  I return to work tomorrow and will try to gather up a few guys to help me install the heat pump to get that completed tomorrow.

Another irritating roasting day.

It was another roaster today, approaching 90 even in Sullivan.  The first thing I did was go up and talk to the well guy, and he said the quote is still valid, so I can get the loan.

After that, I headed up to the property and did another round of sealing foam and went through and sprayed down all the studs that had black stuff on them.  It used every last drop of the mold and mildew killer I had, but it managed to complete the job.  Hopefully I don't need more.


While the fumes were leaving, I built the support framing for the AC unit.  There was only one problem, I never measured the wall to make sure it would fit when I upped first the window size and then the unit size.  Oops.  It did fit, but only if I built it non-conventionally.


And this is what it looked like when I installed it.




When I opened up the unit, I noticed the plastic was a little bent.  Otherwise the unit looked fine though.


As is seemingly becoming a theme, the instructions for this were even less useful than the door or the windows.  They pretty much just said install the box and then put the unit in.  So I went to put the box in, and guess what happened:


Turns out that gap is the exact size of a 2x4, meaning their rough opening size was wrong.  It also means I could have built it properly.  Grrrrrrrr.  So I installed a 2x4 and the box is mounted.  No idea if I did it correctly, all I know is that the unit is tipped as it should be.  The screws they give you are kinda wimpy too.


This is another thing that irritates me about this whole process.  I now have to cut a small patch pieces and silicone the piss out of it and put it in.


It was early afternoon at that point and while the foam was set, the windows were still in the sun, so I decided to do some electric work inside.  I installed all the boxes that I had and outlets and switches.  Nothing is wired up yet though.


I am short a few sets of outlets...  And a couple of boxes too it turns out.


I also realized that several of the switches I bought were the wrong color as well.  Today was full of irritants.  These are light almond, everything else I bought was white.  They came out of the white box on the shelf though.


By then the sun had moved behind the trees so I finished caulking the windows in.




I also filled in a couple of nails I had to push out when installing the framing for the heat pump.


Since it was in a dissected state, I covered the heat pump.  I don't like Amana stuff, but I don't want to hurt it.  It was expensive.


I noticed when I broke for lunch that I had an audience.


I will need help to install the heat pump, it is too heavy to safely lift by myself, and I also want someone on the outside in case the screws holding the box in don't hold.  I have no idea if I used the right ones in the right locations because the instructions didn't say.  So that will be continued probably on Wednesday when I can snag a few people to help me put it in.  Because of that, technically no movement on the checklist.