7-12-10

Our new boiler and water tank arrived today and our plumber, Gary, came out tonight to help Jeff hang the boiler in the utility room. This is a high-efficiency propane-fired boiler that, inconjunction with our 38-gal. tank, will supply hot water to the radiant tubing. It will also provide hot water for all of our domestic use. Earlier in the day, Jeff was busy staining more of the east wall.

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7-16-10

Because we had to switch from a single tankless heater to a tankless boiler and separate tank, we had to get creative with our limited space. With the boiler hanging in the corner, the best place for the tank was between the boiler and the electric panel. Since our water line was in the way, we decided to see if Bob could come up with a platform. He did a fantastic job. Another local LHBA member, Tom, also joined us and worked with Jeff to cut our west entry door opening.

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7-27-10

Gary and Eddie, our plumbers, connected our boiler with the water tank yesterday. Lydia and LouElla came to stay with us for the week and help out. Bob finished framing the chimney opening and later joined Diane and the rest of us on the wall project.

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8-6-10

Jeff spent most of the day connecting and mounting the 1st floor manifolds. Gone is the spaghetti-looking mess of excess tubing coming down from the ceiling and curling on the floor. Each tube is also clearly labeled on both the send and return ends. Outside, some nearby corn fields were getting sprayed and the cropduster banked right over our house a few times.

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8-7-10

Stephen and Jeff dug our propane gas line trench from the back hedgerow to the house, in preparation for the delivery of our propane tank soon. Tom #1 was back today after a rather long haitus. We kept him busy defuzzing the west wall.

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8-8-10

Today, Jillena took the gas line trench down a bit more to allow for the sloping finished grade of the back yard while Jeff tidied up the manifold wall.

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8-13-10

Pressure-testing one of the 1st floor manifolds. We've been testing them by charging each one with 80 lbs. of air, then watching the gauge. Acceptable results are no more than 5 lbs. drop in 24 hours. The only leaks we've encountered are at the 1" manifold connections. No leaks have been detected in any of the tubing.

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8-18-10

Pressure-testing one of the basement floor manifolds. These two manifolds were tested before we even poured the floor, so we know the tubing has no leaks, but the connections have been adjusted since then. In this picture, we've got the larger manifold charged to 80 lbs. When we checked the next night, it was still holding at 80 lbs.

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8-20-10

The two plastic domestic water manifolds are now hung, and our plumbers have plumbed the stainless steel floor heat manifolds and installed the inline pumps to feed each one. By the afternoon, they had the plastic manifolds plumbed as well. We finished the west roof overhang paneling and installed our basement staircase. Jillena also finished spraying the base coat stain on the west wall.

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8-25-10

Jeff started running and connecting the PEX tubing for the domestic water lines to one of the plastic manifolds tonight. Stephen was a big help, holding the fitting pieces for Daddy until he needed them.

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8-27-10

Our 1,000gal. propane tank arrived today and the gas line laid in the trench and connected at the house. Later, we filled in the trench.

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8-28-10

To better consolidate and organize the domestic manifold connections, Jeff moved them from the lower manifold to the upper one. Earlier in the day, Tom joined us to work on stuffing insulation in the west wall. Jillena also painted more of the west roof overhang paneling and stained the east overdangles.

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9-1-10

Tonight, Jeff piped the exhaust and intake lines from the boiler out through the wall.

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9-10-10

Jeff did a little electrical work on the radiant system in preparation for firing the boiler soon. That's a low pressure cutoff switch he's fiddling with, which will shut the pumps down if it does not detect water in the main send line. Earlier in the day, he and Stephen cut a slab from a wall log in an attempt to fill a large gap near the side door casing.

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9-18-10

Last night the plumbers were back to fire up our boiler and connect the final electrical wiring for the heating system. We now have hot water to run through our radiant tubing. Soon we'll be ready to heat the house.

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Today was another chinking day with Bob, Jillena and Jeff as the crew for the day. By the end of the day, there was only about 1/4 of the wall left to chink.