Let there be ... cans! And lose the jacks!

With the framing almost complete, the house is done growing up and must now grow within itself and become integrated into its whole. The first step is electrical wiring. Over the last couple of weeks, Patrick, our master electrician, has been busy putting in outlets, switches and recessed light enclosures, affectionately known as "cans." As important as this is to the chez je ne
sais qui (No, it's not a typo. Yes, I can pun in French when absolutely necessary, but I really hate myself for doing it afterwards) of this structure, visually, it is no match for the massive concrete walls, renegade steel beams, and the magical blue realm.

They may be small and unassuming, but these things are everywhere.



Even next to skylights:



In some places, because of the way the joists have been placed, placing the cans so that the lights are properly aligned and actually shine some light where they are supposed to gets a bit tricky and Patrick has to draw on his many years as Tetris master to squeeze the enclosures into the tight spaces available.



But even the most skilled artisan of electrical enclosure placement, must sometime confront the ultimate question: "What the ... ?"



Another issue is whether we need to light the stairs themselves. Remember that once the elevator is installed, the nice open hole in the middle of the staircase will be walled off and waterfall of light in the middle of the staircase will be dammed off at the top floor causing a drought of light to blight the lower reaches of the staircase. (Ok; so it's not exactly Hemingway. You can't say that I did not warn you.) The problem with putting lights under the stairs is the center support beam makes it impossible to center the light on the stairs. Here we are experimenting with different configurations.




An unrelated item of good news is that the house is finally level and we do not need the two hydraulic jacks that were keeping it propped up any more.




With the jacks in place, the house looked like it was in the middle of a road side assistance call from AAA. It would have been bad enough to have a car on blocks in front of the house, but having the house itself on blocks is beyond tacky.

For those of you still awake at this point, there is more exciting news. We asked the crew to modify this flight of stairs to create a secret storage space under the stairs.



I am told that a certain boy wizard, whom I cannot name for copyright and trademark reasons, has expressed an interest in renting the space as a vacation home. Negotiations are ongoing. I will let you know what happens.

Also, I finally ordered the windows and in 6-8 weeks, most of the holes in the building will be plugged with expensive layers of glass trapping minute quantities of (apparently very very expensive) Argon gas between them. It would be nice to cut down on the draft a bit.

Next week, more wiring, a big battery, and maybe we finally get to the plumbing.

Out with the Blue, in with the Green

It's off with the Blue tarp and no more magical Blue realm.



With the Blue tarp gone, the skylights are actually letting in some light from the sky. They still need to be sealed up, but on a beautiful day like this one, it is easy to see why they are called skylights.



Instead of the Blue tarp, we now have an actual roof sealed with roof sealing stuff. I am glad I missed all the tarring and papering -- that stuff does not look very pleasent to work with. Here's what the sealed roof looks like (the big square holes will eventually become skylights -- at the moment, they are just enourmous leaks in the sealed roof):


before the roof was sealed, these posts had been installed in the roof and they got sealed into the roof:

No sooner had the roof was sealed when these guys showed up:


And they hauled up 18 of these large solar panels to the newly sealed roof:



The panels were then installed on the little posts and wired together:



They panels were then wired into this little box that collects all the power they generate and sends it down to the electrical meter in the garage:


Each of these panels can generate up to 205 watts of electricity, enough to keep a small blender working making Margaritas. Together, they generate 3690 watts, or about enough to run a couple of microwave ovens with enough left over to run an espresso machine. This may not sound like a whole lot of power, but because the power is mostly generated during the day when no one is home and is sold to PG&E hour after hour, it can offset most, if not all of the power we will use at night. At least that's the theory. I would like to hook it up to a tanning lamp so that I can catch some rays without getting out in the sun. It would make a nice addition to my water-powered water pump and my wind-powered fan.

Another exciting development in the house is the completion of the staircase that now goes all the way from the ground floor to the master suite on top of the house. This is the last portion to be completed, the stairs from the ground floor to the first floor. The backup ladder is still available for those who may not trust the newly installed stairs. I went up and down the stairs a few times and it seemed to be holding together just fine.


As if all of this was not enough, the electrical wiring has now been started and the electricians are busy installing outlets, switches, and lights.



With all of this activity, I took a moment to relax with a luxurious (simulated) shower in my future aqua spa. Not much longer before I can do this in the middle of a torrential tropical downpour courtesy of Kohler.

Stairway to Blue haven

We have stairs! What was an open shaft suitable for very short bungee jumps is now an elegantly spiraling staircase rising from the first floor to the top floor.
Here's what it looked like last week, basically a large hole framed in wood into which we threw money (that sounds like the classic definition of a yacht):



But now, we actually have stairs going from the first floor to the top floor without having to perform any circus acts:




Our sharp-eyed readers (both of them) will most likely notice that even after the addition of the stairs, there is still a fairly large opening in the middle of the staircase. This is where the elevator shaft is going to be built and where the elevator will whisk us from floor to floor in comfort and style, like so:



There was some discussion at the house this Friday about we really want to get an elevator or keep the hole in the middle of the stairway for a more dramatic stairway. After due consideration, I concluded that the drama will wear thin the second time we have to haul large palettes of bottled water or other heavy supplies up the stairs to the kitchen. The elevator is in, drama is out.

Borrego Solar, our solar power contractor, used this opportunity to get in and put in the conduit that will connect the solar panels on the roof to the inverter and switches in the equipment room in the Grotto.



In the meantime, the master suite on the top floor remains wrapped in its blue shower cap that bathes the interior in a soft blue light when the sun hits the holes where the windows will be. The blue tarp is temporarily waterproofing the house until the roof is sealed and the windows are installed.







As much as I would like a house that does not leak, I will miss the ethereal blue glow that turns the master suite into a magical underwater realm.

Coming up next week: the roof gets sealed, the plumber starts plumbing, the electrician starts wiring, and the elevator guys start elevating. It's going to be another busy week.

Plumb Crooked

Let's say you are building a house and putting in a lot of steel beams. Let's say that one of the beams you put in is not exactly straight, like for example, this beam:



A closer look at the level shows the bubbles are way to the right, instead of in the middle where they should be.



The beam is leaning. The problem is that this beam is welded to two other beams that are welded and bolted to other beams and so on. What to do? The answer is surprisingly simple: gouge out the welds, take out the beam and weld it back in straight. We missed the gouging bit, but when we got there to check on progress, the welders were in full arc and making quite a ruckus. So first they welded the bottom of the beam,


and then the top of the crooked beam and, some of the other beams as well.



All of this was done under the watchful eye of the special welding inspector and his ultrasound machine to make sure the welds are up to snuff. If welding the posts once makes them strong, welding them a second time should make them even stronger. Basically the same idea as refried beans and twice-cooked potatoes. The second time makes it that much better. After all the welding and grinding and ultrasounding, we end up with a (Drum roll please ....) a perfectly straight beam:



of course, nothing involving this much gouging, grinding and blinding electrical arcs is entirely without pain and stoic as the post may be, it suffers quietly from the pain of bolt relocation.



I hope the welders mixed in a bit of Aspirin with the weld wire.

On the framing front, we have reached the top floor and the roof has gone on, but the waterproofing is not put down yet. The weather gods, perhaps sensing that their opportunity to mess with us is quickly slipping away, sent us a heavy rain shower last night and this morning, making it necessary to put a big blue shower cap on the whole house.



The shower cap helps, but water still gets through and between the constant grinding and welding of metal, the babble of different languages, and the water cascading down inside the building, it feels like I am in a scene from Blade Runner. Better keep an eye out for the replicants or at least make sure they get their cigarette breaks. No one wants cranky replicants on a job site.

All this framing has not extended to the stairwell yet and the 40 foot hole in the middle of the building is still a hole. Here's what it looks like from the top:



and from the bottom:



And this is how we get from floor to floor:





If we had a couple of more floors, we could do some bungee jumping in here, but 40 feet is just not enough to get any serious free fall time before hitting the concrete slab in the basement. The days of the hole appear to be numbered, however, since the stair templates (the large wooden sawtooth looking things on the bottom right side of this picture) herald the coming of the staircase. I am told that on future visits we will probably just walk up the stairs rather than climb wobbly ladders to get to the upper floor. Much more dignified, but where's the fun?



Next week: a sealed roof, posts for solar panels, and few more nips and tucks in the framing. We may also get to the plumbing.

Frame On!

After concrete and steel, comes the most organic part of the structure, the wooden frame. With each passing day, the exterior and interior boundaries of the house begin to take shape. Like a line sketch in three dimensions, we can see the bones of the house that will be in the parallel and intersecting lines of wood, glue and nails.






Even the top floor is starting to look like its own ghost with the wood framing sketching its eventual shape.




The reason why I can only photograph the top floor from the floor below is that in the midst of all this framing, there is fairly large hole right in the middle of the house, where the staircase and elevator will eventually be installed. For now, however, it is just empty space and without a means of levitation, I can only admire it from below.



Besides, I have a much more important question to resolve at the moment: the perfect location for my hot tub. This looks like a good spot:



Next week: a roof, and maybe some indoor plumbing.