HOUSE JANUARY 2006 #1
The siding installation begins. It's from Crane "cypress" color (a greenish-gray). We're doing a dutch lap style on the first floor which honors the real dutch lap planks uncovered under the shingles during demolition last spring. Crane makes a high-quality foam backed vinyl which is much more rigid (not flexible when you press on it like most vinyl siding) and adds a few R value points to the insulation. The second floor dormers and gables have a vinyl "cedar shake" from Crane in the same color. Many of the window surrounds and sills are also vinyl from Crane in a complementary "butter" color.
Before the siding goes on, drip edges are fabricated and installed.
The vinyl shakes go on the master bedroom dormer. It's hard to believe that they're not wood.
The dutch lap goes on the west facade and on the new front porch. The butter yellow vinyl trim is
matched by some of the painted pine pieces already painted with a color matched paint.
The plumbing fixtures for the new master bath arrived. They're riding up to the back walk-out balcony on the loader
where they'll be right outside the second floor bathroom. Much easier than carrying them up the stairs.
The Maxx shower system is in place. It's got the all hardware including body sprays, seat, internal features all
built into the molded design. The easy to clean interior and the one-piece floor pan appealed to us.
The Maxx whirlpool tub and its platform go in the new master bathroom.
Work continues on the heating zones. Here some of the PEX tubing is run through the walls to carry the hot water heating up to one of the second floor zones. It's much more like running electrical cable than sweating copper elbow joints which used to be how all the heating and plumbing piping was run. The heat lines are black with a red strip; hot water is red; cold is blue.
At the last minute we opted to give up our 22 year old 80 gallon electric hot water heater. Its dual 5500 watt elements cost about $35 to $50 a month to produce hot water. This oil fired heat exchange plate system with a small holding tank should use about 4 gallons of oil a month to produce the same amount of hot water (or about $12 a month at $3.00 a gallon for oil). The extra $1500 installed cost should pay back in just a few years, even sooner if we assume that an almost quarter century old electric water heater will probably fail in the next few years. A.D. Runyon had the oil heater installed within 36 hours of our decision to go ahead
The siding and trim continues up the east facade.
The siding off the north gable walkout of the master bedroom gets sided by the guys standing on the loader.
The front facade is prepped and ready for its siding to start. The dormer window surrounds are already installed.
The porch veranda off the kitchen is mostly sided. The porch still needs its finish decking and beadboard ceiling.
More east facade siding and trim go up. Gary, Tom and Frank cutting and nailing up. Boxes for the lights
at the doors and floods are installed with the siding.
©2006 Phyllis & Larry Fast