On New Years Day, storm clouds gathered while the temperature dropped...
And a very dry snow finds its way into the house.
And that put an end to the progress this week.
It got down to 5 degrees F outside, and 30 degrees F inside our current abode when we were gone overnight and didn't keep a fire going! With a fire fed a couple of times during the night it will stay above 40 inside --- toasty!
I've been doing some work on the place myself for a change: putting in conduit to hold "communications" wiring. It would be simpler to run Category 6 wires (AKA "Ethernet cables" - what you use for computer networks) instead of conduit. But my boss Jim pointed out that the world of computer and home systems electronics is changing so quickly; he wished his house had conduit that would allow him to pull new wires as things evolve. Makes sense to me!
To put my conduit into the downstairs ICF wall, I first use a heat gun (which closely resembles a soldering iron) to melt through the 2.5" thick stryrofoam...
Then I break out the foam to create a channel (that's the grey concrete showing through in the back) ...
Then I embed the conduit into the wall. The stryrofoam has plastic "studs" running vertically under the surface every 8 inches, so I will put sheetrock screws through the orange box's tab to secure it in place. I'll worry about running the wires through this conduit piping when it's time to move in.
Shown below are what the electrical and plumbing cut-in's look like. You can see that where the wire crosses the plastic stud it is protected with a metal plate to avoid having sheetrock screws pierce it later. You can see they use a bit of foam-in-a-can to keep the wires in place.
I think we'll go back and fill all these channels with more foam before sheetrocking in order to restore the insulation value.
