Monday, March 12, 2012

Electrical Wiring, Exterior Finishing

This week saw more good progress on both the interior and exterior. The electrical wiring is nearly complete. Some exterior finishes, including siding, exterior soffits, and the rear deck all saw work done on them.

For electrical wiring, the interior line voltage work (lights, switches, electrical outlets, and a big, beefy cable for an electric car charger in the garage) is nearly completed. There might still be a few details left, but not much at all. The majority of the data wiring was completed, with Ethernet, cable, phone, and low-voltage for security or home automation run throughout the house, and speaker wire plus a bit of subwoofer coax cable run in the media room. There is still some wire that needs to be run for exterior lighting and electrical outlets, and then a few conduits for future data wiring and media room wiring need to be run. Those should be complete within a few days, and then the electrical inspection can be done.

Main electrical panel in the garage

The fireplace and gas connection on the back deck were installed this last week. The fireplace has been mostly covered up to protect it, but since part of the cardboard was detached, we took the opportunity to get a picture of it.

Fireplace installed

Some ductwork for the HRV unit was added.

Some of the exterior finish work was started last week, too. The HardiePlank and HardiePanel siding was delivered Monday morning. The panels were put up on the stair tower during the week.

Stair tower. Most of the siding is on, but not painted (may also need some finishing in the channels between boards?).

It is not painted, and there may be some other details in the channels between the boards to do, but it is starting to give a feel for what the finished house will look like. The HardiePanel is being used for the lower exterior soffit, and the bit of that was installed. The upper exterior soffit was installed using a knotty cedar.

Upper soffit for the rooftop deck

The flooring of the back deck was laid down on Friday. It isn't fully finished, but looks quite nice already, especially when it gets wet.

Back deck, looking towards the neighbor's property

We finally moved the camera to a position right in front of the house. It should be able to capture all the upcoming work on the entryway, siding installation, along with all the general activity of people moving around during the day.



Next week should see electrical finished, and some inspections done. Once all the rough-in inspections are done, insulation can go in; but we don't expect that to happen this coming week. Siding and/or deck work will probably continue on the exterior. The next big piece outside will be getting the entry foundation backfilled and the driveway filled in for better support. Once you can actually walk in through the front door, the missing panel in the garage will be filled in, and the house can be sealed up and tested for leaks. Then the garage can be cleared out, and the cement slab poured in there, which will allow installation of the hot water heater. We're not quite sure on the timing of all that, though, because a bit of landscape design needs to be done on the north side of our house (south side of the neighbor's), so that all the dirt-moving can be done at once.

No comments:

Post a Comment