Big ChangeZ

Well, for those big changes, head on over to "Kirklandzoo is Building".

More details to be found there, even though I'm way behind on updates to the web site due to actual "construction work". It all takes time...
And even though house might still look like a "construction site", I'm very, very happy with the outcome so far and the overall style/design change.

DeZign Change

After discussions over the weekend, we did put up the following plan for early Monday morning:
- Get Contractor's input
- Talk to the City
And if both parties OK, proceed to architect and ask him for opinion and when he can have drawings modified.

Since everyone was very accommodating, we had an addtional chat at home and in late afternoon gave the "go ahead" to the architect.

Not bad going from a semi-meltdown on late Friday afternoon, to a revised (and possible better) design three days later.

But once again, there's is never "too many times" when it comes to reviewing drawings.

For more on this story, click here.

Can never review too many timeZ

Wife and I have reveiwed drawings for remodel for well over 18 months. A number of sessions at the architect's office, as well as evenings at home.

But today after excavator had been here and loaded up on concrete and taken off to dump it, she asks "why are we digging that deep?"

Anser is given, "There's where the entrance is supposed to be, at slab level".

"No, it'll look stupid, no one wants to walk into a basement!" And so on...

So, despite having gone over this umpteen times, the three dimensional "feel" was not there and wife really had no idea of the "ingress" part. She still envisoned the entrance to be at the platform level (split-level) as today, just puled out a bit further.

My stomach almost fell to the floor, and sort of quit and went inside to take a shower and prepare for the Crawfish party later tonight. No more of this right now.

I guess we'll have some heavy reviewing to do tomorrow since there is NO perfect design, they all have compromises. I just thought we really had worked them through. Excavator and General Contractor will be here early Monday morning and they need guidance.

Maybe it is time to go back to military days; you explained, you asked if there were any questions, and then you asked the soldiers to repeat what you just had explained. Just to be sure the information actually had been properly received...

In any case, I'm now heading to the Crawfish party...

ConZtruction Blog

Opened up a construction blog (KirklandZoo is Building) for those who like to follow our remodel in more (boring) detail.
Address is simple: http://constructionzoo.blogspot.com

(can also find it in the links below to the right)

Rhododendron haZ gone to Woodinville...

As part of our remodel, the large rhododendron in front of our front steps had to go. It is a large beautiful piece, with abundant red/rose colored flowers. But, it is also in the way and simply too large to be relocated to an unknown spot in our yard.

So, I did what anyone would do these days; I did put out an ad on Craiglist for a "free Rhododendron, just have to dig it up and haul it away". Due to its size, I really did not expect any takers, but to my big surprise, after less than 30 minutes, I had a few replies. Eventually settled on "Doug and Linda" from Woodinville, since they seemed less to be "no shows" (all too common on Craigslist ads). They came around last Thursday and looked at it, decided they wanted it and also had a perfect spot on their 4 acres in Woodinville. The rhodi will be getting a new home!

We decided for Doug to come around on Wednesday morning (yestersday) to dig it out. Well, he really did not show up in the morning, but when he did, we got hard at work. After a few hours, we had most of the root system exposed and cut off. We also did find the old concrete septic tank. Sort of a surprise, but I should have guessed it to be there somewhere, since the house was on a septic system up until in the late 80ies.

Today was followed by more digging, then a couple of attempts to "de-locate" the rhodi by trying to pull it and its rootball out on the driveway. Did not succeed until we went for the heavy machinery; chain and full ton truck. The rhodi was finally loose and now a "movable object".

Over the next three hours, Doug and I fought with the "beast" on the drive way. It was hard enough to get it to where we wanted it, the big plant constantly tipping over or plain just not moving at all. It was even harder to get this monster up the ramps onto the truck bed. But little by little, about 1/2 inch at a time, we finally managed to get it all the way up and secure it on the truck.

It was quite a sight to see Doug pull away with this "monster" on top of his already big truck. According to Linda who called later in the evening to say "all OK", they got constant cheers and thumbs-up driving home.

At the end of the day, the rhodi got a new home, Doug and Linda were happy for their new garden "decoration", we got the construction area cleared out, and maybe most importantly, we did not have to kill a perfectly healthy plant!

Lesson learned; If you're ever in the need to get rid of something that can be useful to others, put it out on Craiglist. It might make someone happy!

BTW, here's a good link for anyone interested in transplanting rhododendrons, or their general care.

Electrical inZpection

Prior to all the work, had called the city to inquire about my expired electrical permit. The lady was nice and asked "are you ready for inspection?". Told her "no, have not even started the work yet, should I pull a new permit?. Did not want to start w/o a current permit." She tells me to "hang on a minute".

She comes back and tells me "go ahead and if you are ready within the next 20 days or so, just call for an inspection, you have the number?. Don't think there will be any extra charges."
This was great news. No need to pay yet another fee...

So yesterday I called the inspection "hot line" and asked them to come out today. When he (most of them are males) showed up, turns out it is the same inspector who signed-off on my furnace installation, more or less exactly a year ago. He remembered me (I did not remember him but didn't tell him...). In an case a good guy.

Took him out to the newly installed ground rods, explained what I'd done, then to the inside and the SE panel. "Looks good, you did a good job, where's the paper so I can sign?". Handed him the old permit, got it signed and he left, after putting a new sticker on the meter box.

Only left now is re-sealing of the meter. PSE is about to come out today or tomworrow.

Electrical GremlingZ...

Part two.

Friday. Mike is coming back to hook up John&Jan's hot tub (across the street). Since he was heading back, I had decided to tackle the BIG wire. Rather get it over and done with. Mike warned me that it would be tricky to pull new wire through all the floor joists. Recommended me to drill up the wholes a bit, something I was not looking forward to. They were hard to get to as they were, but now I had to clean out everyting underneath them as well.
But, Mike left a surprise. He dropped his heavy duty angle drill and a few serious drill bits. The drilling was done in less than 20 minutes. Wow!

Rolled out the cable, made sure there were no kinks or twist, since that'd be inpossible to correct w/o pulling it out again. Calling down the wife, she at least could help me feed this monster while I pull and feed it thorough the new holes. To my surpise, this was easier than pulling Cat5e cable. This "monster" was in location in less than 10 minutes and wife could return to her books.
Now only termination left and house - from this perspective - will have left the 60ies and entered the 21st century...

Electrical GremlingZ...

...is something we have not had many of. When we bought the house I went through the entire electrical system to make sure it was at least properly "connected" (poor connections easily overheat and is a real fire danger). That said, even though it was safe, it was time for an upgrade.

A few years ago I did install a new sub panel, to take care of newly installed circuits in and around the garage. That panel has served us well since we've added circuits and protection along the way. But the feed to the panel has been severely underdimensioned (still safely protected though).

In order for doing the properly, we really needed to replace the service entrance (SE) panel as well. But, I had no intentions on working around a hot meter panel. Pugest Sound Energy wanted over $300 to disconnect me at the transformer, with no guarantee of a re-connect time. Time to find a good electrician!

Thanks to a neighbor (Scott) we did find not a good one, but a great one!. He did the heavy lifting (working on the hot meter panel and connecting beefy 250 kcmil wires to the new panel) and leaving me to do everything else. Perfect. It cost me less to have Mike Morgan to all this, than just to have PSE disconnect me out in the street.

Mike also brought in 90 feet of #4/3+1 so I finally could get a good feed to our sub panel. Should have done this years ago, when he cable was only about a $1/foot, now it is closer to $4/foot. Copper prices have risen sharply in the past year...

Looking at the big (and heavy) spool... Well, I'll do this some other time. Not really up for this one right now. We did put the spool in the garage and left the sub panel on its existing 30A circuit, to be forgotten for now.

This being an older house, one could not be sure that the wall studs were sitting on 16" cc. and of course they were not so a bit of chiselign was needed for the new panel to fit. Also decided to remove the old meter box (hidden inside the wall behind new meter panel). This turned out to be the toughest job of the day, since we did not want to remove the siding, but just cut through this box and "pull it out of the way". These boxes are however designed for protection, and it was a long fight until we finally had it out. I patched up the wall and covered the exposed area with a moisture barrier and a layer of primer.

From here on, it was pretty stright forward. Mike installed a huge elbow and routed new wiring into the new panel. Man, as I glad I did not try to do this part on my own.

By the time Mike left, I was terminating the old circuits into the new SE panel, adding pig tails in cases they were not long enough. Yurgen (neighbor) came over and held the light for a while and also when I placed the meter back in location. Always good to chat for a while in good company!

The only drawback of this, is that I totally forgot about the Steinklinkers meeting this same evening. I had picked the micro brewery (Big Time Brewery in the U district), but had to concede and call in "can't come, need to finish the wiring, else wife will be VERY grouchy".

About 8.30PM that evening, meter was back in its place, house was powered up and all was "just like before". Funny, these small upgrades, so badly needed, but once done, you really do not know they are even there or remember all the hard work.

Drainage lineZ

For some time, we had blockage in the day water drainage. During a heavy rain, we've seen some water seeping up on the concrete slab outside the basement door. In this wonderful summer, what better than to attack this and clean it out once for all.

What started with a little vaccuming down the downspout (and vaccuming through the wall of the concrete pipe), ended up being a three week project.

Once I realized vaccuming would not do it, spade, shovel and pick came out. Dug up the entire corner where the downsput goes into ground, only to find the pipes glogged by perfect "potting soil". Hence, everything that has gone down there has been broken down into this nice mulch.

But why, why was the water not flowing? Pipes were of a good size, a decent slope, and even debris should have floated away. Worked as good as I could with a small snake, only to realize some heavier artillery was needed. Went down to HomeDepot, rented their biggest and meanest snake. Took it home and attacked. Could not oven go through the first section. Spent the rest of the morning cleaning out the pipes I knew were good but gave them a little maintenance "nudge", likely not a bad idea after 40+ years.

Attacked the soil with the shovel again. After a few "tracker holes", I managed to find the pipe further down the yard, but no luck there either. I could not get through. So I tried going downhil towards the street and the city stormdrain. Got a fair distance but got stuck a few times and did not want to break the concrete pipe by being overly aggressive. And, the day was up and time to bring the snake back. No need rent one of these, just to have it sit idle in the back yard.

Next morning I started digging closer to the street. I really had no idea in what direction the pipe would run. Would it angle and run down under Yurgen's (concrete) drive way? Or, would it go straight towards the street? After three new holes, each about four feet deep, I managed to find the pipe. It went fairly straight. And from here? Straight as well?

Now it was time to attack out by the street. Cleared the area, and started digging. Found a lot of "traces" that led me to what I believed would be the correct spot. But only found the city storm drain, no connection to my house. Continued further up, the site now looking like a major sewer project, and bingo! Found where my pipe "connected" to the city's big 12" concrete pipe. Continued from there to dig up towards my yard. After about three feet, I cleared enough to to be able to get the "connecting" pipe out. Turns out this one is filled with rock hard soil and also blocked by another rock were it is entering the city pipe. No wonder we have not had any water flow! Tried to vaccum the pipe clean from below and into my yard. No luck here. I just get more and more soil. Decided to continue digging.

After about another two feet, the concrete pipe just ends... What the f-ck? After some careful poking around, I also found the powerlines up to ur house (thankfully I did not attack this area with a back-hoe as planned...). Time to call for location service (they come out for free and locate all water, sewage, gas, electrical, telco, and cable lines).

When poking around more, I also find the reason why it looks the way it does. When Puget Sound Energy put our utility lines underground (late 80ies?), they must just happily have cut their way through my storm drain line and never even tried to fix it. So with no water flow, it was not surprising that the lines have clogged further up, closer to the house.

Called Puget Sound Energy for an inspection since they really created this mess. I know they'd be angry if I cut their line w/o repairing it. Now I am angry! Jay from PSE came out later that day and took some photos. He recognized the issue and promised to get back to me.

I continued digging another couple of feet, only to now eventually find the other end of my nice concrete pipe. Another run back to HomeDepot for the same snake. This time I work with the snake from below and water from above. A little bit of hydroblasting, or the fine art of hydrologic engineering. In doing this, I am able to clear out the concrete pipe so now I at least know I have a good flow and functioning pipe down towards the street. Likely managed to get about a wheelbarrow's worth of rock and soil out of that pipe. Can now focus more on the messs up by the house.

After careful evaluation, the only resonable way to go is to put an entire new line down, from back of the house, until where the "fresh" section of the concrete pipe starts. But that entail digging a trench under some concrete walkways, and digging down into the now rock hard clay - while staying away from gas and power lines.

I mark the area, do a tracer ditch in the top soil. Bring oput the pick axe and get at it. It is tough stuff. Not much dent done.

John stops by and asks if I want any help. He brings his little roto-tiller over. I seriously thought that we'd just ruing it, but after about 90 minutes of "tillering", a massive cloud of dust over the neighborhood, it is sstarting to look like a proper trench.

Bring out a few beers and thank John for his hard work. Likely saved med 4 hours of digging!

After adjusting the trench, running around town in seach of the correct neoprene bushings, adjusting the slope, and finally connectiing it all together, it is time for a "water test". Will it run the correct way, or will it backflow towards the foundation?

No, looks like everything is working just as "planned". Only work remaining is sealing the connection out in the street with concrete, backfilling the entire trench and then patch the grass and seed dead areas. While the trench was open I also ran a conduit for the coming fiber as well a new cable line up from the street.