Drilling of the well for our geo-thermal heating system has begun today. The well is targeted to be drilled to a depth of about 1,500 ft. However, after 60 ft of drilling we encountered an abandoned sewer pipe that was not recorded in any plans, so we had to move the entire drilling rig 4 ft and restart the drilling process all over again.
It is expected that drilling will continue for 5-6 days before we reach the target depth of 1,500 ft.
More windows are being installed this week on the basement level and first floor of the SW facing side of the main house. Here you can see some of the windows that are already installed in the basement corner and the copper flashing being installed one floor above to the left:
And here is a photo of the remaining double-hung window being installed in the basement:
The foundation for the stairs behind the house has been poured and we are now setting up for forming the retaining walls on top of that foundation:
Concrete is being poured for the footing of the stairs behind the house today. We got the forms ready last week, but it was simply too cold to pour on Friday.
We also plan to start the drilling for the geo-thermal well sometime this week, so stay tuned for some more photos and updates soon.
Sometimes it feels like our construction project is this gigantic puzzle set and we have to figure out how all the pieces eventually will fit together. Fortunately we have great help from our architect and from our builder. But we still get to the point every now and then where we are all scratching our heads trying to figure out one issue or the other.
As the windows installation process continues, we have more and more rooms now that have their windows installed. This is a look at the new restored window bay at the future master bathroom.
At the same time the electric installation process is beginning and there are now plenty of pipes running through the basement and especially under the future slab.
Talking of which, here is a stock pile of insulation materials that will go underneath the slab to fulfill our LEED requirements for under-slab insulation.
The other challenging piece of the puzzle is the construction of the various site walls that is happening at the same time. Here is a view of the foundation of the stairs behind the house – or to be more precisely between the house and the seawall.
Here is a photo taken from the backyard atop the seawall today. We’ve now completed the curved upper retaining wall, which you can see on the left side of the photo. The siding on the 2nd floor and on the porch are already covered in Typar and the ballroom windows were installed today.
In addition to all the photos I’ve been taking myself over the past year, we are very lucky to have Joel Tedford in our construction crew. He’s been bringing his camera to work almost every day and has been taking awesome photos of the construction site and of various details that show the craftsmanship and dedication of the entire crew.
Joel has been sharing his photos with the team and also gave me permission to include them on the blog, so here is a selection of some of his photos from the past couple of weeks.
We are continuing to make great progress on the installation of the windows. You will also see Typar house wrap going up at the same time and we hope to have the 2nd floor completed next week as we work our way from top to bottom.
The upper seawall retaining wall also was built last week – this is right behind the porch and supports the stones at the highest point of the revetment. The wall will eventually get a nice stone veneer, but it fulfills a structural as well as an aesthetic purpose, as you can see from the thickness of the wall and foundation.
The inside framing continues as well, and we have just recently begun reinstalling several elements that we saved during the demo phase, such as this archway.
Yesterday was a perfect day for an afternoon beach walk and I took this panorama photo from the rocks just before sunset. Can’t wait to enjoy these sunsets from a rocking chair on our porch…
I’ve been taking several 3D photos of the construction site this past year using the Fuji W1 digital 3D camera, but was thus far only able to view them at home on my computer, which is equipped with an nVidia 3D vision display system. Fortunately I learned about a new website today called Start 3D, which allows the display of 3D images on regular web pages without requiring the web site visitor to have any special equipment.
So for the first time I can now share some of the awesome 3D construction site photos on this blog with you – I hope you like them. The first photo is during a site meeting in October when we were discussing details of the attic and roof construction:
This next photo was taken during out topping-out ceremony in December when we all stood on the finished roof and celebrated out progress up to that point:
Next we have a view from Swanee’s future room during the construction of the new roof. The scaffolding outside the window runs all around the perimeter of the 2nd floor:
Last, but not least, we have a 3D photo of Nora and Calvin on the balcony of the carriage house:
I hope you’ve enjoyed these photos. If you’d like to see more 3D images of our construction site as well as some 3D family photos, those can be found on this 3D image gallery…
The windows are now being installed and we expect most of the dormer windows in the main house and carriage house to be done by the end of this week. The windows on the other floor will follow…
Here is a view from the inside in Nora’s future quilting studio in the attic and also an outside view of the attic window in my office:
The windows are all Energy Star rated LowE windows with impact resistant glass (“hurricane glass”) and excellent energy performance, which is important for our LEED certification.
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