The builder rented a lift to get some exterior work done. They used it to get us up on the roof for an inspection with the roofer. Its crazy that we signed a contract for the roof in June of this year. Its now December and we’re just doing inspections to cover issues and get the leaks resolved.
On a previous update, I mentioned that the EIFS vendor came out and looked at the house. It turns out that EIFS needs a different type of Tyvek on the house. This new version is “StuccoWrap”. Its actually ribbed with an up and down direction. The design is supposed to help with adhesion and draining of water that gets behind the EIFS. Maybe it turns out it was good to wait on fixing the Tyvek, but it doesn’t make it any less frustrating. Below is the front of the house properly wrapped. It gives a feel for what the house will look like when finished and we’re liking it.
Having an all wheel drive lift doesn’t mean it can go anywhere it wants though. You can see the tracks it made getting down the hill. Later, it was stuck at the bottom for a few days. They had to come early before the ground thawed out to get it out. Even showing up early, they used the boom against the ground for some extra pushing power.
On the inside, some work was done on the kitchen. Large islands are built out of regular kitchen cabinets. If you want to put electric or water in them [we want both], then you need a wall in the middle to put them. They installed a 2×6 wall that the cabinets will mount up to. This will hold the utilities without putting many holes in the cabinets. To my surprise, they cut holes in the floor and affixed them to the floor joists and it is very secure!
We have a camera on the property. Its recording the progress on the house for us to enjoy. If you’ve followed along for any time, you’ll have seen the “weather” videos that pop up for each month. Barring a few technical issues and dying batteries we have video for 712 days of the 814 elapsed since we started recording. This week was the 6th recorded week where workers were at the house Monday through Friday. Our builder averages 1.32 visits per week to our construction site. This is likely why the house is taking a very long time to build. We’ve started calling often to ask the state and get them to notice us. If you’re building a house, I highly recommend recording a time lapse of every day. We’re using a Brinno Time Lapse Camera. You don’t need the construction version which is significantly more expensive. Just the basic one with a 128gb data card, the weather proof case, a 30 second interval, and 4aa batteries. I find the batteries last about 2 months per set. Experiment with it before you set it up for a project. If the batteries die, you loose footage that was being recorded. Plus the time there is no power to record until you replace them. When you access the camera to get the video, take care to end the recording with the power button and not just sliding the switch to turn it off. Those tiny mistakes will cost you lots of video. Just the same, its the most affordable solution I found to record the construction.
Hogan Haake