Snow Blind

November is in the books and we now make our way into December for the final chapter of 2022.  It seems like we have had a lot of snow already this season, but apparently it is less than last year we are told.  No complaints about that.  The temperatures have been a bit below the norm for this early in the season.  We are already experiencing single digit and even negative overnight temperatures.  So far the water continues to run into the shop.  Hooray!

Our house and shop on the right as we make our way down our snow covered road after a trip in town to Idaho Falls for supplies and appointments.  I think all the rest of the outside shots will be snow scenes for the next three months or so.

From our house window while we took a union break.  I call that one horse Idaho, for his marking.  We understand these are bucking broncs.  They are hearty specimens for sure.

The insulation contractor came and installed R-21 faced fiberglass batts in the walls and 6 mil plastic vapor barrier on the ceilings.  This is the garage and the last area of the day and job.

We came behind the insulators, policed up the rushed job and improved the fit in each stud bay then covered the exterior walls with the same 6 mil plastic vapor barrier.  This is a view of the eat in kitchen.

Below is a view of the sitting room.  We got lucky and have a drywall contractor scheduled for late this week.  WE will see what happens with that.  It is supposed to be a two day hang job and a week or two finishing and texturing.  If all that happens we will start painting immediately.... the kitchen and bathroom cabinets are also supposed to arrive late this week.  Should be an interesting upcoming week.

Captured a shot of the HVAC air handler installed on hangers in the crawlspace.  You can see the EPS or Expanded Polystyrene foam board in the foreground at frame left and in the background at frame right. Our plan is to install two courses on the ground of the crawlspace and then cover with the yellow 10 mil plastic vapor barrier.  We have all of the exterior walls completed.  We are waiting for the plumbing to be completed before we lay the foam and vapor barrier on the ground.  Our plumbing contractor has a call back to correct a joint leak in the kitchen drain they installed.

Dropping down into the valley of the East Fork of the Snake River at Swan Valley.

Mid November

The beginning of winter has arrived in Swan Valley.  Nevertheless, we continue to move forward with house construction.  Below is about the third snow storm, this one brought about 6 inches of snow and drifts of 2 feet or more.

It seems appropriate that we are now pursuing insulating the house since we finally passed our rough electrical and plumbing inspections.  A major victory for us.  We established a contract with an insulation contractor where they would supply R21 kraft faced fiberglass batts for the house and garage ceiling that we would install.  The,, the contractor will install all the R21 insulation batts in the walls of the house and garage, and install 6 mil plastic vapor barrier on the ceilings in the house and garage as well.  Then we will come in again and install the 6 mil plastic vapor barrier on the walls in house and garage.  Once we figure out how to get the drywall installed, then the insulation contractor will come back and blow in an additional R30 or about another 17 inches of insulation in the attic over the house and garage to give us about R51 in the ceilings. 

We started in the big room...there's Gari all suited up in her PPE and up on the ladder.  You can see the snow out the window; it will be good to have the place insulated.  And now that we are about finished with handling insulation batts ourselves, it is very good to get out of those respirators.

The kitchen and great-room ceilings are now insulated below.  You can see the little electric space heater we are using to put a little warmth inside the house.

We used the scaffolding in the garage with the 12 foot ceilings.  Gari surveys the few gaps remaining.

We boxed in a couple ducts that came into the living space out of necessity for drywall installation.  You can just see the range hood duct and box at frame right up high.

Steve is busy cutting in the electric service panel below.

All finished...except for the service entrance cable.  We will install that in the spring when we can pull the cable from the shop and switch the shop over to a 100 Amp service.

We contracted with a local Idaho Falls company to install a propane forced air furnace in the crawlspace with a 3 ton air conditioner.  Below is a shot of the compressor going onto its' pad.  We wanted a Trane system, but apparently because of supply chain issues with Trane it was a 6 month wait for a system and repair parts seemed uncertain.  Therefore, we went with Japanese Diakin system.  It seems very well built with good quality.  We will see how it performs test by Idaho weather.

Below, Jacob the HVAC installer finishes up the AC system with a refrigerant charge, whilst the roofers repair a defect we found in the ridge cap.

Gari prepares the pressure test for the plumbing supply system below.

Steve installs the LED flood light over the garage door.

Just about finished..

Until next post, we will be working to get the inside of the house looking more complete like the outside.

 

 

September Accomplishments

We continue to push the rock up the hill every weekday and Saturdays.  As a result things are getting done.

Our neighbor Mrs #22.  A curious and friendly gal she is.

OK, we did take an afternoon off.  The Hansen Guest Ranch put on an Oktoberfest celebration in cooperation with the Chamber of Commerce in Swan Valley.  The food was excellent, Bratwurst & Sauerkraut, Schnitzel, Spätzle, soft pretzels, and German Chocolate Cake. They had Sam Adams Autumn Ale on tap and even had live music.  This two little gals could really sing.  They sang a couple dozen songs from God Bless America to Sweet Home Alabama, but they customized it to Sweet Home Swan Valley!  They were outstanding entertainers!

We even met up with Casey and his new bride Abby from North Carolina, at the end of the event.  They were touring the USA for their Honeymoon.  They didn't have set plans, just woke up each day and decided what they wanted to do.  We think they would make good RVers!

We worked on spreading all the gravel that Troy hauled in.  Gari had the hard ground work on this deal.

We finished raking and smoothing and compacting just in time for Tom & Cathy's arrival.

Below is the Irwin Rd driveway.  We started lining the edge of the driveway with river rock we plucked out of the yard area.  We stopped because we think we are going to have to push snow off the driveway and the edge rocks will be in the way of that.

Looking north out the Chapel Road driveway.

Looking east out the Irwin Rd driveway.  We straightened the edges of this driveway; better than it was before anyway.

 At the end of the Irwin Rd driveway, we started putting the unwanted river rocks at the driveway apron.

We finished pulling all the wire last month.  We still have to cut in all the boxes so they "are ready for device" in order to schedule our rough electrical inspection.  Also have to cut in all the circuit breakers into the distribution panel.  We learned that in addition to GFCI outlets, we have to install AFCI breakers for all bedroom and smoke alarm circuits.  That was a new one for us.

There's the distribution panel, all the circuits are there.  Now just have to cut 'em in.

The garage door is finally going in.  We made the order in April of this year.  We weren't sure if it was going to snow in the garage before the door was up.  Fortunately we have avoided that.

Last panel to install..

Angel installs the track.

It is official, Eagle View residence is completely closed in and ready for winter season inside work.  Now we can lock all doors and keep our tools and materials in the house without concern of casual theft.

We spread some of the manure (frame left piles), about half of it so far.  Once all that is spread, we can start laying in the last fill layer of top soil (frame right pile) that we saved from the driveway excavation.  We want to get an irrigation header buried before we complete the final grading.  It may be spring when we get to that.

A few shots from inside.  We also took delivery of the shower unit for the master bathroom.  We plumbed the drain in and have requested a rough plumbing inspection for later this week.  Fingers crossed on the inspection results...

Some of the guest bath and laundry plumbing.

This photo below doesn't translate all that well, but what it was, was a sun dog rainbow right in front of Mt Baldy.  We have never seen such a thing so low in the sky.

September Fleeting

Well we didn't even get a blog post up in August.  To say we have been busy is the truth.  We seem to officially be in the phase of the house build project where it seems all progress stops.  The frame, windows, doors, siding and roof all go up so quickly, then the physical plant systems, plumbing, wiring, HVAC, audio, video, etc seem to take forever without much noticeable physical change to the project.  We spent half of August in the crawlspace plumbing the Drain-waste and water supply systems.  We think we are close to rough inspection time, but are currently waiting on the shower unit so we can complete that last drain, then the inspection.  In the meantime we started wiring and that seems a lot easier.  At least we are out of the crawlspace for the most part, but do get to climb all up in the roof trusses.  It will be nice when that is over :-)

The Metal contractor is finishing the last of the roof and walls this mid-August day.

Steve prepares to install the LB joint for the underground electric service cable entrance.

All good.  That's the gray thing on the right.  The cover comes off that LB box so you can more easily pull the service entrance cable through the underground conduit and then bend it into the house.  The black pipe is an RV sewer hook up.  We will cut that down to ground level as soon as we get the gravel up to finished grade height.  We will mount a 50A RV electric hook up near the sewer.

We mounted the electric service panel inside the garage very close to where the service entrance cable comes into the house.  You can see the open 2-1/2" electric conduit to the lower frame left of the panel.

We pulled a temporary 50A electric service over from the shop.  We pulled it through the underground electric conduit so we don't have multiple electric extension cords running across the driveway.  You can see the black cable coming out of the conduit and we ran it up into the attic and across the garage into the house for a load center.

The temporary 50A service comes from the Shop.  You can see we are using one of the RV 50A electric hook ups for the source and just ran the cable down through the electric conduit under the driveway over to the house.  It's the little things...

There's the load center inside the house coat closet.  We just connected a 50A receptacle to the cable then used our RV electric test box to convert to a duplex outlet with 120VAC for tool and light hook up while we work.  This is much better than the extension cord nightmare set up we had a few weeks ago.

Evidence of plumbing progress underneath the house in the crawlspace.  In this late August shot the pipes are not glued just dry fitted for now.

This is the other side, north side of the crawlspace.  All we lack is the shower drain, and we will set that as soon as the shower unit arrives and we know where the drain will be located.  Soon after this picture (a week or so) we glued up all the drain and also installed and glued the supply system.  We still lack the shower drain though, which is holding up the rough plumbing inspection.

First evidence of plumbing above the crawlspace.  We now have the entire vent system plumbed and will have to update the photographic evidence. 

Here's a thing we did; we wrote some of our favorite scriptures around the framing of the house.  This Proverbs passage is written on the window header above the kitchen sink.

This scripture from Matthew is written above our guest bedroom door.  Come visit with us.

The Lord's Prayer is written above the garage door.  We have since sheathed over it, but we know it's there :-)  The Tyvek we stapled up at all the eave bays to hold the insulation inside the house structure and prevent it from spilling out into the soffits and clogging the vents.  We plan to have insulation blown into the attic.  R-40 we are thinking.

A view out the garage door.  That fine looking soil out there is really not soil yet.... it is presently a cow byproduct.

View looking east.  We still don't have an overhead garage door.  We ordered it in April this year.  We are praying it is installed before it starts snowing.

View looking southwest.  We are looking for a black steel Eagle silhouette to hang on the gable end to put our style on "Eagle View".

View looking northwest.

The 40 ft driveway between the Shop (left) and the House (right).  We envision the ability to place two RVs between there.  One hooked to the Shop, the other to the house.  Both with full 50A, water & sewer hook ups.  We are planning to winter over in the Shop this winter and continue working inside the house, hopefully making more good progress.  One nice thing is it is a short commute to work in the mornings.

View looking northeast.

Gari cleans up in the garage.

Plumbing the header for the water softener in the garage with Gari.

Last week we prepared for gravel delivery by outlining the driveway with some of our larger and plentiful river rocks.

First day wiring.  I see AV cable and some branch circuit work in the great-room.

Last week we had the propane tank delivered and buried.  Troy our awesome excavator makes the first cut for the tank hole on the south side of the house.

Shane from LP Propane operates the wireless crane while Troy guides the tank into place.  Gari watches closely to follow up with quality control.  She doesn't miss a thing.

Tank set in place and stubbed out, Troy begins to cover the tank.

Later that same week, Troy starts the gravel delivery.  This is planned to finish our driveways now that most of the heavy equipment building the house is finished.  Below Troy dumps a load in front of the garage.  Soon we will be able to drive and park things inside.  All we need now is the overhead door.

A second and third load are dumped in front of the garage.

Wiring is now in full swing.  Still waiting on the shower.

Woke up one day, went outside and saw this; two light eyes on the side of the house looking back at me.  Reflections from the Shop windows.

Ranchers have been busy cutting and bailing hay over the last few weeks.  We have watched many loads of hay like this go by Eagle View.

We had a bit if excitement a couple of weeks ago.  We were just finishing up dinner when we started to hear more and louder mooing than we normally hear.  We jumped up thinking the rancher neighbors were moving cows, and we wanted to get a few pictures.  We opened the Shop door and we see nearly the entire herd walking across our driveway!

Quick thinking Gari ran towards the gate to close it back up before every last cow escaped.  It appeared that the cows had pushed the gate down and just trampled over it.

The cows, about 60 of them, walked around the neighborhood for a little over an hour, then the moral of the story is that the cows do come home.  The ranchers with a little help from us guided the cows back into their rightful pasture.