Close Jan and open Feb: get ready to cover things up

These digital cameras a great for a person of Scottish descent. A case in point is the incremental cost of each picture being $0 or close to it. That means that before the insulation and sheetrock go onto the walls, I am freed from my ethno-genetic bonds to document the inner contents of every section of wall and ceiling. And this particular digital camera has settings for B&W with very high resolution and high contrast (all thoroughly documented in a 200 page manual which is a must-have!) Here is an example of the set photos I took; if you click on the picture to get something closer to actual resolution, you can clearly see the location of each electrical line. I think the trick is not so much in taking the pictures as in finding them in 10 or 20 years when I need to get into one of these walls!

The next morning the Icynene crew from Home Energy Partners (insulation contractors) got there. Icynene is an expandable foam ...

that is sprayed on. The spraying dude wears a full face mask that has fresh air being pumped in(through the tube that looks like a tail) from outside.
I have created a couple of automated GIF images if you want to see how the foam expands during the 10 seconds after it is sprayed. You'll also understand better why the guy wears a mask. The automated images are several megabytes so I'm not putting them on this page because they would slow it down. If you have patience and/or a high-speed connection, open these links to view (your browser must have the picture automation option enabled to see the "movie"): http://lh4.google.com/smurfralf/R6fdYsHiTRI/AAAAAAAAAZc/EtWLFbOXxYo/isynene1.gif and http://lh6.google.com/smurfralf/R6fdZMHiTSI/AAAAAAAAAZk/vguQuZ8A6I8/isynene2.gif

After the foam sets up, the second phase is to cut off the excess. Although the foam is not hard this is the task that requires the most exertion.

And here are the resulting trimmed and very well sealed walls:
After it cures it is suprisingly free of odor - not like the polyurethane expanding foam you can get in a can.

Following the insulation we started pouring the concrete upstairs. We decided to mix it on site so that we'd have time to get the slope right for all the floor drains. Eric uses Steve's little mixer to prepare a couple of bags of ready-mix:

while Steve gets this stiff mix into shape. The floor drain is at center left; Steve set up sloping boards so he can screed the concrete to an even drop so water will end up flowing toward the drain. Steve says "Don't try this at home!" Why? Because this is a back-breaking activity.

So we're mixing concrete on site - that requires water. But we don't have water at the new house - or didn't have it until last weekend. Here is the terminus for my new water works:
There is a small spring that is uphill from the house, as long as you've got enough pipe and hose to reach it. Luckily I have enough laying around waiting for the real water works. The little log barn in the background is just beyond our property line.
In addition to the Icynene insulation, we had them put fiberglass in the floor to help the upstairs radient heat floor stay warm.
Before we can sheetrock we've got to tie up all the loose ends. One of the big loose ends is some ducting we need to install. In the image above you can see the silver duct that will supply fresh air from outside. The approach we are taking is called "positive air pressure" because we will have a small fan pushing air into the house all the time. This means that there is constant air circulation and you don't get a build up of either Radon or outgasses from all these building materials. I think its a better approach than ventalating a house with an outgoing fan because that will tend to pull air up out of the floor slab where Radon lurks.

The ceiling of our mechanical room is starting to look very busy. Another loose end was installing this exhaust fan which is thermostatically controlled to deal with the expected high temperature of this room from the solar collectors in summer.

Here is the front door - the weather warmed up and we got some sealer on it. Its darn nice.

Yet another loose end is the kitchen hood vent. This 8" diameter pipe comes in five foot lengths, so although I needed 8 feet to get outside the wall... I suppose that picky designer will make us trim this off:
This morning (Feb 4) the sheetrock got delivered. The sheetrock delivery truck is in another (larger) class from other trucks that have come up here:
It has a remote-controll boom that lifts a stack of rock (that's 36 4x12 sheets being hoisted)...up to the window where it can be pulled into the house and distributed between the rooms:

Getting this puppy turned around was a demonstration of real driving skill. There were two younger guys and one guy around 40 - they all are qualified to drive but when it came to this manuver it was experience that got the driver's seat.
Success and hasta la pasta!

Well, the truck cut some new roadbed on the bank of some of our road's curves, but they were able to get out without incident.

We are looking forward to a scramble to get the concrete finished and other loose ends completed before the sheetrock hangers arrive on Wennesday.