July 1

The propane tank arrived at 7:00 AM and was set and hooked up in no time. Now that it’s nice and hot, we’re ready for next winter.  maybe I should have added AC. Barry got a lot of the seeding done today, and the base course for the driveway was put down.  We’re waiting for an OK from the Township engineer to finish putting topsoil on the water storage berm, and then we are about done with the grading.

Then the fun begins… Kerch brought home a truckload of plants last weekend. They are scattered around somewhat but most are on the porch of the garage.

As I was assembling the lift I found a piece missing, so I am clearing out the lower garage to see if it turns up. That needed to be done, but it’s making a mess in the new garage until I can get shelving and storage organized. That’s a slow process, but the 4 tables we picked up at a restaurant auction are helping a lot.

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June 23

Final grading is still underway, but we are getting down to the end.  Grass is growing already where the grading is done behind the building. The floor drains are now hooked up and the retention berm has been extended around the pond.

Barry helped to get the heavy pieces of the lift in place so I won’t have to ask anyone to help with that job. A significant load off of  the folks attending the next party. Now I’ll have to get the hydraulics and cables hooked up. When I pulled the tarps off I found that the geothermal guys let their bentonite flow all over and under the lift pieces.  Another bout of pressure washing, and they don’t seem any worse it, but I’m not sure about the hydraulics. First step is to flush the hydraulic hose and cylinder to make sure none of the stuff got inside. Then, what do I do with all of that bentonite?

The propane tank is supposed to arrive next Tuesday, and we got some tables at auction to pick up this week. In the meantime, speakers are up and working in the shop, and I can turn them up as loud as I want. The office speakers are next, then the lift bay. There is still a lot of trim carpentry to do, which I expect to get to in the next couple of weeks. (Good excuse to buy some new tools.)

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June 10

Some real progress has been made in the last week.  The earthwork is moving along and the floors are done. Now I can get some of the trim work done and start moving things into their proper locations.  The bathroom plumbing is done. (Twice, but that’s another story.)  It has been raining so far this week so Barry hasn’t been back to continue the earthwork and it’s too messy to push the cars outside to move them into the storage bay.

JUNE 3

Stronghold Floors were here for three days to put the epoxy floors in the shop and storage bay. Barry was doing some grading work at the same time. We were concerned about dust with the coatings going on but it wasn’t a problem. I also put the bathroom floor down today.

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JUNE 4

The shop coating was finished and the storage bay first coat went on. I wrapped up the bathroom plumbing, and turned on the water.

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JUNE 5

The second coat went on the storage bay. Now a 4 day wait starts before I can put anything heavy on the coated floors. There was water all over the bathroom floor… the freecycle toilet had a crack in it from all of the moving around over the winter… off to Home Depot again! Kerch picked up a few (49!) plants as a start for the landscaping phase of the project. We’ll have to wait until the topsoil is put down to start on that.

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JUNE 9

Bathroom plumbing is done (again) and tools are starting to move into the wood shop.

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June 2

The weather has been dry enough for Barry to start on the final grading. We were successful in discussions with the county engineer in changing the drainage system from buried infiltration pits ($$$) to an infiltration basin ($).  This consists of a berm along a low spot in the yard. You can see it in the pictures.  There will be a stone swale along the driveway and a pipe under it to collect water and another pipe to collect water from the east end downspout and floor drains, so more earth disturbance is still coming, but a lot of the dirt piles are disappearing and we can start to see what the finished project will look like. Kerch is checking into plants for all of the new slopes and bare areas.

The guys doing the epoxy floors will be here tomorrow, so we had to move everything out of the storage bay and wood shop into the office and lift bay. (The car roof hanging from the ceiling in the storage bay is for the BMW).

I will be very glad when I can put everything into it’s final location instead of moving it back and forth! I’ll pay for all of this effort tomorrow!

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May 24

It’s been a while since I’ve posted anything here, not that we haven’t been working on it, just haven’t been taking as many pictures…

I took a few shots today to show where we are.  The floors in the wood shop and storage (or display) bay will get epoxy coated sometime in the next two weeks. Then I can start organizing the spaces. Everything is still pretty disorganized since the move.  The place is starting to look pretty good as you can see from the pictures. The two new cars came with a lot of parts and they haven’t been sorted out yet.  Barry should be back sometime in the next week or so to get the grading finished. As you can see from the pictures there is still quite a bit to do.

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April 29 – May 6

We haven’t updated in a while…since the last post Jonas and his boys have finished the ceilings and liner panels. Jonas was kind enough to leave his scaffolding here so I could work on the lights and fans and now the electrical work in the lift bay and storage bay is complete.  Shane is still working on the drywall in the office and wood shop, and we have finally (almost) settled on what the floors will look like. Lift bay will be the first done. Work shop and storage bay won’t be done until the first week of June, and I’m not sure about the office and bathroom. With the weather getting nice we might see Barry getting some of the grading done soon.

Bill Kerchner came up with a rolloff truck to move the MGA and Spitfire from Mechanicsburg to their new home yesterday. I didn’t start taking pictures of the move until we were almost done, so most are of the Spitfire. Two trips with the truck plus two carloads of parts for both cars! Plenty to keep me busy for a long time!

There are still a number of things to get done before we can call the project finished, but we are definitely getting close!

PS: Finally figured out how to put captions on the thumbnails…hovering the cursor on the slideshow also shows them, but I haven’t figured out how to get the captions to appear on the slideshow.

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Testing the fans and lights in the lift bay:

April 22

Today Jonas and his crew came with the ceiling and liner panels. So far only 3 panels went up without the need to cut penetrations for heating, lighting, fans, outlets or air.  We moved everything out of the lift bay so they could put the ceiling up and once this bay is done I’ll have to shift everything out of the storage bay so they can put that ceiling up. Work on the garage is limited to rain days now since Jonas has a lot of other outside work. The rest of the liners and ceiling in the storage bay should be done sometime next week.

Drywall is ready for inspection in the office and woodshop. That should happen tomorrow or Thursday so taping and spackling can start on Friday. It’s getting close!

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April 7

Terry and Tom were back today to hang the interior doors and clean up some odds and ends. I went around and poked the wiring through the insulation so we would know where to put the holes in the liner panels. Wallboard for the office and woodshop was delivered today.  Everything is now out of the lift bay to prepare for the ceiling and liner panels.

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April 4

Today insulation started. This went pretty quickly and made a big difference in the look of the interior. The walls are now insulated, ready for wallboard and liner panels. After the ceilings are up they will come back to blow insulation above the ceilings.

We don’t want to discuss geothermal right now.

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April 2

Today was rough-in inspection day. We had a lot of activity, but I didn’t get many pictures running back and forth between the garage and geothermal contractors.  Jonas and his sons stopped in to measure for liner panels and ceilings in the lift and storage bays.  Eric the plumber finished up his work in the garage and basement. Terry was here for the inspection, as well as help Eric.  The geothermal work has a trench across the driveway so everyone had to park below that.  The inspection went well, with no issues on anything except the insulation around the furnace.   We now have water at the garage and can energize the electrical panel!

The geothermal heating system required 3 – 250 ft deep wells and a 5 ft deep trench to connect the wells and the house.  That goes right across the driveway.  Excavating there was as bad as for the garage… all shale and some big rocks.  We found (and mangled) the power feed to the old garage, so that will require some splice kits.  We also found the power feed to the laundry room and family room, but fortunately didn’t cut that!  Tomorrow should see the piping go into the trench and the trench back-filled.  If that happens we will start insulating the garage on Friday!

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April 1

The piping for the compressed air system is in place and tested, ready to insulate and close in the walls. Eric the Plumber was here today to start work on the basement tie-in. Tomorrow is a big day . .  we will have Terry and the plumbers here for the rough-in inspection in the afternoon.  Then I’ll find out if I have any code violations with my wiring.

The geothermal guy was here today to scope out how he will trench across the driveway tomorrow . . . blocking all traffic up to the garage. No problem, everybody just has a little farther to walk!

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March 5

We missed the last snowstorm… it went south of us so we took advantage of the break to get the heating system roughed in. Don’t confuse this with heat though! The guys running the ducts had to warm their ty-wraps in front of a propane heater to keep them from snapping when they bent them!

Electrical rough-in work is almost done. One more fan to wire then on to the bathroom vent hose and compressed air lines.

Another busy day with trucks up here for the garage heat, the house geothermal, and a distribution transformer upgrade from PP&L. FedEx had to back down the driveway!

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February 17

We’ve been snowbound for a month now!

We can’t get a truck up to the garage so the only work proceeding at the moment is taking electrical as far as we can before the rough-in inspection.

Here are a few photos of progress to date:

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The propane furnace is supposed to arrive next Monday, but how will it get to the garage???

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And so you know.. down the hill is only slightly better.

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January 22

Well…it’s been way too long since this site has been updated.  This won’t be a very visual post since most of the current activity isn’t very photogenic.  The interior framing is all in place, the plumbing rough-in is done and electrical work is in progress.  Electrical is being done by yours truly and my two experienced electrical helpers, Tommy and Billy.  We have been snowed in the last couple of days and need supplies to move forward on the electrical front.  We also need to get a heating contractor mobilized to get that roughed in, as well as piping for air outlets in the lift and storage bays.  This all needs to be done before we can have it inspected after which things move back into high gear with the insulation, drywall and liner panels being installed. Then it’s move in time! The remaining earthwork and landscaping needs a spell of warm weather and we haven’t had much of that lately. [nggallery id=45 slideshow=caption template=caption]

December 5

The inside of the building is really starting to take shape with the framing going up. We can get a feel for the interior spaces now. 

Office and wood shop walls and plumbing rough-ins come next. Then things will slow down when the building is turned over for the electrical work (my job).  After that: inspection, insulation and interior finishes.

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Bonus today . .  sneak preview of work going on inside the house.

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December 4

Today was a very busy day . . . Jonas and his crew finished the last section of siding above the office area roof . . . PPL staked out the revised pole guy wires . . . the garage doors arrived, were set up and ready for operation . . . PPL’s contractor installed the electrical service from the pole to the building . . . trim work on the office porch continues and interior framing for the office started.  Barry came by to get some earthwork done, but it was too crowded!  A quote for heating arrived. Soon we can start moving in and taking some of the pressure off of constricted space in the house and old garage.

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November 14

Concrete was placed today! The first two bays were completed with two truckloads of 4000PSI concrete.  One more tomorrow morning and the floor will be in place.

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Something new today: a couple of short video clips. I’m still learning how to do this.

Finishing the concrete: