Friday, July 30, 2010

Long Overdue Update

Wow, it's been 3 1/2 months since I've written on my blog. I just got worn out from working full-time, taking care of my mom, and trying to finish things up around the house, especially the landscaping. There were just so many things left undone when we moved in.
One of the biggest things holding me up has been the damned cistern. I couldn't fill in the hole over it until I had connected the drain pipes from the south roof. Alex and I dug out trenches for the tubes in early May. Then it rained and rained, and rained so much that the trenches, which were dug in hard-as-a-rock clay, collapsed. I had temporarily set the tubes in the trenches to catch the rainwater, but hadn't glued them together because it started raining when I was ready to do that. Then it rained every weekend for six weeks or so. The picture below shows the trench I dug from the downspout to the cistern. Alex is working on the area where the overflow tube is going to go from the cistern along the south side of the house to the front yard rain garden (one of the last things which will be finished).
Alex got about halfway, working with a pickax before the rains came.


I bought two peach trees from McKay Nursery in Wisconsin. This is called the McKay peach tree and it's meant for zone 4. I had to use a post hole digger to dig holes to put them in, to loosen up the dirt so the roots would be able to spread out. The tree in the foreground never got any green on it, and I think it's dead. The one near the porch is thriving, though.

My goal for the summer of 2010 was to get all my perennials in, both fruit, vegetables, and flowers. I wanted to get the yard landscaped, all the raised beds in, and put a living fence put along the driveway to block out Olson Memorial Highway. I wanted to get walkways put in, especially the one from the front sidewalk to the front door, the porch built, and the patio and pergola done. Oh, and put in the living roof on the main house and the porch roof. And I wanted to be sure to have a full vegetable garden so I could do my canning this year. Also, I scheduled about 7 quite large social events at the house. Did I mention that I work full-time in a demanding job and I take care of my mom, who lives with me?
I got two asparagus beds put in. I planted strawberries along the retaining wall, and they should produce a good crop next year. I did get a garden in, but it hasn't been doing too well because it rains every weekend I have time to work in it. So the weeds totally took over and nearly drowned out everything.
I have four or five rhubarb plants, and quite a few raspberry plants, and a couple blueberry plants, all holding space in the back garden, awaiting transplant to a permanent location. I plan on putting them in some raised beds in the back, if I ever get the cistern hole filled in. I have about six or so grape vines, waiting for the pergola to be put in, so they can climb up it. I have about 8 lilac trees growing in pots, waiting for the front to be landscaped. My friend Jan gave me two great hostas about three months ago, but they are still in pots.
The cistern is still making a mess of the back yard because there's still a hole there messing everything up.

Wednesday, April 14, 2010

Pictures of Inside; back temp ramp completed

Okay, the first picture below shows the living room before, then the third below shows current. The picture below shows the "before" view from the living room to the kitchen. The fifth picture down shows the current view.
Front bedroom/office. My sister was visiting, and we were doing things around the house.
Current view of kitchen from the living room through the dining room.
Mom's setting the table for a family get together.
The back deck at the start of the project. It rained the night before, so it's just mud. We're putting together pipes in the foreground for the railing.
My brother Cliff and sister-in-law Rosa. Cliff is sawing off a piece of cement that was in the way of where the pavers would go. I laid fabric on top of the soil, then we put some rock on top of that.
Then I put more fabric on top, so I could put sand on top of that. The stacks of pavers are VAST pavers, made of recycled tires. They look like bricks, but are very light. You buy them in 1 foot square grids, at $7.99 a square foot. Even though they are made here in Minneapolis, you have to buy them through a dealer like Natural Built Home, which is where I bought mine from. I just laid them down the way they came, but later I'll pull the bricks out of the grid and mix the colors up and lay them in a pattern that I've made up. These are permeable pavers, so my ramp is just temporary as built. I needed to get something in ASAP for my mom. The step off the deck (without a railing) was just not good for her. Later, I'll pick up the brick grids, and dig down 12-18" and put in a proper drainage base with a permanent edging.
Below is the sand on top of the top layer of fabric, ready for the pavers.
Half done! Everyone is taking a break.
Finished with the railing installed. Safe for Mom, and now my friend Teddy can come and visit me.
It only took the three of us five hours to put this in, so it wasn't too bad. It will take a lot longer to dig it out and put the proper base in, though.

Saturday, March 6, 2010

Hot Water Problems

I have a super-duper high efficiency on-demand hot water heater that is a backup to the solar hot water. After it was hooked up, but before we moved in, sometimes the hot water didn't work at all. It turns out there was some problem with the gas line being too short, so gas pressure didn't build up, so it didn't always work. Or something like that. So Steve Carlyle of O.C. Mechanical added a loop in the gas line to make it longer. Then it worked fine. Then, a couple weeks ago, my morning shower was warm, but not hot. That continued, so I emailed Steve, but he was out of town. I talked to him when he got back and he came over to look at it, but couldn't find anything wrong. Then I figured out the luke-warm showers started about the same time I installed a Waterpik Ecoflow Showerhead. I like Waterpiks and always have had one in every place I've lived. I like being able to hold the showerhead and rinse off more easily.
There were two problems with this Ecoflow, though. Number one, the shower spigot was way up near the ceiling, and when I installed it, I could barely reach it standing on my tiptoes. When I complained to Jeffrey (who is like 6'6" or something) that the plumber was an idiot for doing that, he admitted he had marked the spot for the spigot. Well, I've shrunk to 5'51/2" now, and I'd try to put the showerhead back in the holder, and wouldn't quite make it and twice if fell and banged on the tub, and the third time it fell and hit me on the head. The next day I went to Home Depot and bought and extender. I bought it right before I had a dinner party, and put it somewhere to get it out of sight, and then I lost it. But I found it tonight. Oh, the second thing that was wrong with the Ecoflow was that it said on the package it had a "pause" button. I like that, because, being green, I don't like to waste water. So I like to turn off the water while I wash my hair and lather up. If the water's on, it washes everything off while you're trying to lather up. Anyway, the pause button lowered the flow considerably, but didn't shut it off. Pause means stop temporarily to me. When I read the fine print, it never said it stopped the flow. It tapped danced around what the pause button really did. So when I bought the extender, I also bought a real pause button to hook on it. Then I figured out the third thing that was wrong. It was so "lowflow" that it wasn't triggering the water heater to come on. So I was getting the heat from the storage tanks, which has been about 104 degrees early in the morning, but the water heater wasn't kicking in. That's why the showers were warm, but not hot.
So tonight, I took out the Ecoflow, seen here below (see how close it is to the ceiling!)
and put back the Delta lowflow with an extender and the stop button. I'll get a different Waterpik that's not so lowflow. So I have this beautiful Waterpik Ecoflow I can't use. I'll give it to my sister Cathy; I remember the last time I visited her, she had such a lowflow contraption that it took five minutes just to get wet.
Then another problem with the hot water is that I keep the tank capped at 110 degrees. This is lower than even the LEED certification requires (120). But my mom doesn't want the water really hot because she's afraid she'll burn herself, that's why I keep it at 110. When the storage tanks are hotter than 110, though, the hot water heater won't kick on, it just lets the hot water pick up heat from the storage tanks, which are getting up to 160 degrees now in the afternoon, on a sunny day. They'll get even hotter as the sun gets hotter. So that's a problem. I need to let the tanks get hot so the heat lasts all night, which it has been doing. I'll need to talk to IPS and Steve of O.C. Mechanical to see if there is a fix for that.

Sunday, February 28, 2010

Back Again Blogging!

The months of October and November just wore me out and I needed to take a break from house things. Unpacking during the holidays was pretty stressful; it was difficult because this house is actually smaller than the one we moved from and doesn't have nearly the storage space. It's a good excuse to get rid of things we don't need.
I was so exhausted from trying to finish the house enough to move in, the move, and the unpacking that I couldn't work on any of the finishing until recently. I had a large dinner party last weekend, and used that as a motivation to get a few things started again. There is still so much finishing left to do that the thought of it was overwhelming. But in getting ready for the dinner, I was able to get motivated to accomplish a few things that I had been putting off, like getting most of the boxes out of the spare bedroom so it actually looks like a bedroom instead of a storage locker, and finishing the basement steps, which until two weeks ago were still raw wood protected by three layers of construction paper.
I have a few pictures to post, and will take more showing the mostly finished inside of the house. Pictures turn out very well when taken during the daylight hours, but I'm never at home during daylight except on weekends. I was so busy working on things this weekend, I forgot to take some pictures.
Below is my green shed, which can be used as a garage. I could put my Prius inside, as it will easily fit, but I'm using it mostly for storage right now. It doesn't have too much stuff in it anymore, but there are some furniture items I need to take to a charitable organization to get rid of. The garage, from Duramax, only came in green in this size, 12 by 20. Actually, it matches the roof quite well.
View from the front of the house.The porch railing that Jeffrey did. You can also see the cement steps. I'm putting in permeable pavers, VAST Pavers, instead of a cement sidewalk. I just ran out of time before the snow came.
Stuff stacked up in the basement. My mom can't handle clutter, so anything that doesn't have a place upstairs gets dumped in the basement. I'm working on putting in more shelves in the basement where I can to create more storage.
For a while, the main living area in the basement (my living room/kitchenette) and the office area down there were totally filled with furniture and boxes from floor to ceiling, front to back. It's getting better, but it will still be a long haul to getting rid of things to open everything up.
More soon.