It's time for an update from the Eagle View project site. We have been extremely busy trying to accomplish everything needed in order for us to actually go and live on the Eagle View property. We mainly need utilities - that is electricity, water and sewer. A flat spot to park and a decent road to get in on would also be a bonus. These things have been happening slowly over the last 2 months, and now all of a sudden things seem to be coming together we are happy to report.
We have the water sewer and are getting close on the electric service as we write this update. All of the many trenches that were opened up are now covered over. We can walk right up to the shop again, without jumping trenches! Hooray for minor victories!
It looked like a war zone around the shop for that last couple of weeks with all the open trenches. Below you can see the two ground rods required by the utility company for the electric service meter base. The state requires a separate ground from a ufer rod inside the building to bond the disconnect enclosures. We did all of our own electrical work, it was quite the adventure.... that is not quite over yet!
Gari marks the end of the run with a metal stake, while Troy dumps the fill.
Gari poses in front of the meter base and disconnect that we installed.... for the third time! But wait, there is even more to that story, so buckle up. We were originally told by the State Electrical Inspector that rigid galvanized conduit was required between the meter base and the disconnect enclosures. No problem we can do that, and we did. The little 12" conduit sections added up to over $100 unbelievably enough, but we got them in. Only problem was we forgot to install lock rings on the outside of the enclosures, and only placed lock rings on the inside. Well, the electrical inspector called us on that and insisted that we put lock rings on the outsides as well, meanwhile he also told us that we actually could have used PVC conduit. Oh my, that was upsetting to learn that now, but not a word was said. We drove the 100 mile round trip to purchase the lock rings, and when we returned, we proceeded to disassemble and reinstall the entire system. We were surprised by the horrible way the lock rings threaded onto the galvanized nipples. We could only thread the rings half way over the threads, and we were standing on opposing pipe wrenches to accomplish that. So each enclosure we remounted, we lost an inch of position and by the time we reached the third enclosure we were two inches off from the holes we had already drilled into the building. We admitted defeat, called the electrical inspector, told him the situation, and asked if we could fall back to installing PVC conduit nipples (which we knew we could cut to the lenght we needed to fit our previously drilled holes). The inspector replied that should be fine, so that's what we did. We disassembled the entire set up for the second time if you're still counting, the we reassembled the entire set up with PVC, and this was the third install of this set up. We were hoping that three times would be the charm at this point. The inspector came by within a day or so and gave us our proceed sticker. We were so happy. We called the utility the same day and requested that our secondary conductors be pulled over to the meter from the transformer. We were told Monday would be the day. Going into the weekend we were so happy. Friday on the Shop job site we were happily pulling in branch circuits inside the Shop, when a knock on the door occurred earlty that morning. It was the engineer from the utility company. She said she was in the area and thought she would stop by to check things out since we were scheduled to get our power connected Monday. I happily showed her around and then she noticed it.... the PVC conduit nipples at the meter base. She said Oh No, you have to have rigid galvanized conduit there. We couldn't believe this was happening, we thought everything was fine, we had our state inspection sticker after-all! She told us that the rigid conduit nipples were a utility requirement, not a state requirement. I told her what had happened, and why we ended up with the PVC nipples. She was sympathetic and made a couple calls to management to see if a waiver could be established. No such luck while she was there. She left by 9:30 AM Friday morning and we twisted all day not knowing if we were going to have to remove the entire power service entrance assembly for the third time and reinstall for a fourth time. By 2 PM and no word that day, we couldn't stand not knowing any longer, and we sent a message to the engineer, 'are we going to get a waiver?' we asked. No reply for two more hours.... A reply came as we were packing it in for the day at 4 PM. It was GOOD NEWS! The engineer told us that considering the situation, we were going to be able to keep the PVC conduit in place. We can't tell you how happy we were to hear that answer. Working with those large conductors in such tight spaces is extremely difficult. What a roller coaster ride that was, we sure know we are living now!
We had a slow day one day, and we assembled the new Weber gas grill. It will be so nice to cook on a normal sized grill after cooking on a portable grill for the last 8 years!
Today, Monday, as promised, the electric crew showed up bright and early to install our electric service. I took them all of 40 minutes to make the 100 foot pull and terminate all conductors; just amazing.
With any luck we will be parked on Eagle View on June 1st.... Then we can eat all our meals over there, not just lunch! haha
