My poor blog..

It's been so neglected :\

A quick recap of the past week.
Thursday. The electrical inspector arrived for my rough-in. He looked around a bit, then shockingly noted I didn't make any splices in my boxes. I told him I didn't know I needed to. Live and learn.

He also noted at my aerial service entrance, the weatherhead was at 10ft from grade, which would cause the driploop to hang below that elevation, which is a code violation. He recommended I add a upward bend at the end of the conduit, to bring the weatherhead up about a foot, to place it in front of the soffit box.


Friday-Sunday. I purchased some necessary tools for making the box splices. I went through the house, each circuit at a time, splicing up neutral/ground/hot pigtails. It went a little slow at first, but near the end I'm now a pro splicer :P

The best tools to use I found were a pair of wire cutters to cut the romex to length, a pair of sheath strippers to quickly remove the romex sheath - and make sure they're bent nosed, or you won't be able to strip it inside the box, a pair of stripmasters to strip the individual THHN conductors, and a screwdriver with a hole at the end of the handle designed to turn wingnuts. Wingnuts are a brand of wirenuts with little wings on 'em, they're easier to turn, and the screwdriver really saves your fingers after putting on a ton of 'em. I also ordered an adapter which chucks into your drill to turn the wingnuts, but it still hasn't arrived yet - I'll try it on the next house!

Monday. I borrowed a large pipe cutter from Ed and cut off the existing weatherhead. I glued on a 90-sweep and then glued the head back on there. This was a real pain, with the conductors in place, it was difficult pulling the head and ell onto the existing conduit. Ah well, now the inspector can be satisfied that my drip loop won't hang a few inches below the magic ten foot line. I then scheduled another inspection.

Tuesday. Inspector eventually showed up, glanced at my splices, and left within 90 seconds of arrival. Before leaving, he told me I still get another inspection for free before they charge for additional inspections! He said I could use that for my final inspection. Mmm hmm. I'm sure, as an employee of a profit-oriented enterprise, he won't find anything that will need to be corrected at the final inspection. I then called the city to have the aerial line switched to the house.

Wednesday. A worker showed up early in the bitter cold to make the swap. We BSed a bit while he was working, and I made sure to tell him where the 10ft line was, and that the inspector was nitpicking and the bottom of the loop needed to be above that line. Of course, the neutral loop still ended up just at that line. It's a grounded conductor, so really there is no danger, but if the inspector wanted he could pitch a fit.

Once the power was switched, I jumped for joy. I was going to install a receptacle for power for my tools, but I realized all I had was a box of the old receptacles, which aren't Tamper Resistant. A few months ago, I had to apply for another electrical permit from the county, since my original permit from my temp pole install was over a year old. In that time the state adopted the newer version of the code, which requires all receptacles to be TR. It also requires additional AFCI breakers. All this crap costs money. I think I spent an additional $100 or so on this junk.

Thursday-Friday. I installed some receptacles, switches. Wired up a few circuits to the main panel. Now I have lights in the crawl and attic, and all the exterior lights wired up. I installed a few receptacles in the crawl and outside, and one in the laundry closet for my tools.

Now I'm going to finish plumbing, but I also want to get the HVAC system running. Those blowers can still give me some heat before I add the ductwork. It's all wired up, just needs to have the refigerant lines attached and pressurized. I have the copper and flaring tools.. Just need to run the lines, and then pull a vacuum on a nice, warm day. I'm also looking into getting a tank of nitrogen to run a nitrogen leak test, this would be a smart thing to do if not expensive. Otherwise, if there is a leak and I release the refrigerant into the lines, that will be a very expensive mistake to fix..

beams, boxes, stops and flanges

yesterday, i had a true 'holy shit' moment.. that was jacking up the girder just a hair to trim a shim beneath it, as there's a slight hump in the living room floor above it.

i brought my car jack into the crawlspace, set a 4x4 post between it and the girder, ensured it was perfectly plumb and very slowly and slightly lifted the beam.. just enough so the existing shim would slide out. i heard little creaks scattered around the floor joists.. and once the shim was removed, i thought, "holy shit, the living room is being held up by a car jack" hehe

so i trimmed about 1/8" from the shim and afterward the floor still has a slight hump. further examination revealed there is a floor joist that is slightly wider than the others right there.. about 1/8" wider. i can't correct that without removing the floor sheathing and planing/replacing the joist.. which is alot of work. so the hump is seemingly small, i'm going to see if i can get by with it. if it's a problem during flooring installation, i'll deal with it then (plane it, that is.)

the past few days i've been buying little things i need for the electrical and plumbing. i've nailed up the electrical boxes for switches. the boxes have little nubs on the side to space the front of the box for drywall. turns out the nubs are 3/8", and the drywall will be 1/2". this is fine by code, though i wonder if that 1/8" will make it difficult for the cover plate to seat around the outlet device (switch/receptacle) properly. i held each box spaced at about 1/2" against the stud while nailing, so we'll find out eventually..

i bought most of the supply stops for under the sinks & toilet from home depot, as they had nice looking & priced units meeting my connection needs. however they didn't have a dual outlet piece i want for the dishwasher to connect under the kitchen sink, so i found one at lowes, albeit with a slightly different shutoff knob. i got a matching single outlet for the cold supply under the sink. i'm still deciding if i'll bring those supplies through the wall or the floor under the kitchen sink, as that's the only spot against an exterior insulated wall. if i come through the floor i'll need to find a nice sleeve for each supply line between the floor and the stop.

i've purchased the water closet flanges but haven't drilled the holes through the floor yet. i spent some time looking at the options available, attempting to determine which connection configuration would be optimal in both performance and ease & practicality of installation. the drain lines are all 3", and i certainly didn't want any reduction of the inside of the pipe less than 3". there's a flange that connects inside of a 4" pipe, then you'd use a reducer below from 4 to 3 inch (the only drain reduction allowed by code is 4 to 3 at a water closet connection.)

however, i can't help thinking the point of reduction there is a possible, most likely point of constriction and clog. i'd rather if there's any possible point of constriction or clog that must be present, have it right at the flange for ease of cleaning/clearing by a plumber. i want to check if there's a flange that allows a 3" pipe to connect directly without any inside diameter reduction.. that is, the flange has a 3" hub on its underside. i believe i saw some previously but discounted them, as i didn't like having a reverse-direction hub on the closet connection.. thing is, the reverse-direction hub is going to occur all over the drain line.. so it's silly to try & avoid it at one of the easiest places in the drain system to access.

so i'll have to double check that flange! also, i'm using stainless-steel flanges, as stainless won't rust and metal won't crack so easily as all-pvc can when the toilet is tightened down, either during initial installation or in the future.

mm enough rambling for now, i could go on for hours.. no, really i could.. so many details..

soffits

on thursday, i spent the day changing wiring for the soffit lights. the lights will be controlled by a motion sensor, or can be forced on with a switch by the side door. the sensor and switch are located at opposite ends, with three soffit lights between them.

i ran two 12-2 cables, both starting at the switch. one hops between the soffit lights and lands at the motion sensor. between lights, hot and neutral are distributed on black & white wires. at the last light, only neutral is carried to the sensor. the other cable runs from the switch straight to the sensor. this carries hot on black, and carries switched hot on white (connected to the sensor's red wire.)

the wall switch will either connect the black wire of the lights directly to hot when switched on, or it will connect black to the red wire of the sensor. this way i can keep hot & neutral fed to the sensor at all times, and only switch the red line to the lights. the sensor automatically starts in a test mode when power is restored to its hot & neutral.



anyhow..

friday, katie & i visited ed. at the end of the day, i stopped at the lot and put up some soffit panels.

on saturday, i installed the rest of the soffit panels and window trim for the south wall. the recessed lights i used are of the type with two mounting bars and a housing that slides along the bars. i mounted them such that they can be slid along the direction of the wall. as the soffit panels went up, i moved the light so that its corresponding hole would only be within one panel. i nailed up the piece, then used a roto-zip type tool to cut out the hole. this produced tons of tiny shards of pvc showering over me and covering every inch of me. definitely requires goggles.

i stuck around until dusk and powered the lights to see how bright they are. they did a good job of illuminating the entry and walkway, however the yellow bug lights i installed have a strange, neon-ish color to them. maybe it will grow on me..