The Basement

Well now that we have been in our house for close to 2 years now we have decided it's time to start finishing the basement. We have a lot of work to do though. I had some duct work that needed finishing before I could start working on the framing of walls. Now that duct work is done. I do have a some adjustments that need to be made to the HVC though. Hopefully I will be able to get at those things this next couple of weeks or so.

I'll be posting pictures as we start framing the basement. It will be a big project and a lot of work. It is tough to find the time to even get work done sometimes. I'll have to make sure I set some time each week.

Ground/Sand point well

I have been having some trouble the last couple of months trying to get things right with the well we have. I couldn't find the best height to place the point in order to get the best flow of water. We were having trouble trying to get enough water for showering without losing pressure in the pressure tank.

I did some pounding and moving and hammering and I think I've finally found the right depth. It's a matter of finding the right height to place the point of the well. If it is below the water I and into the clay I was not able to get enough flow. If it was too close to the surface then I would end up sucking more sand then water. Things seem to be working well now though. I had the water tested this spring for bacteria and nitrates and it tested clean. No problems at all. We love the taste of it and it seems to keep the dishes clean and does not cause problems with the laundry. The only concern is that we are gathering a white film on some of the counters around the tapes. I think we may have calcium or something in the water that is causing that. But it is better then having rust in our water in my opinion. It's just a matter of keeping things dry and clean.

I'll have to post some pictures of our water set up sometime so that people can have an idea of how a sandpoint well works. It's really neat to be able to just drive a pipe in our basement and have as much water as we need.

Photo Album

For those of you who would like to view a photo album of the entire house building process I have created a new online album at:

http://picasaweb.google.com/thiessenhouse/TheCharlotte



We have updated pictures from the last few weeks including the process of building our tower for high speed internet.

A new update (finally!!!)

Sorry folks! Things have been crazy... I've been trying to get things finished at the house and we don't phone or internet out there yet. We moved in on February 25. Yahoo! We were blessed with a bunch of help from people from the church.

Our mobile is up for sale if anyone is interested. Brandon Hills Estates.

Here's some of the latest pics!

Painting and Plumbing

We've got all the walls painted and the plumbing is almost done. I've been working on trying to get the trim stained and ready for installation. We have a lot of stuff left to do but things are getting very close. Maybe next week? We'll see.

Drywall

We've had Terry B. doing the mudding and drywall in our house. He's amazing! Talk about speedy. What a great job that he is doing. We are planning on doing our painting this week after he finishes the sanding on Wednesday.

Drywall

We've begun the drywall process. We are in the middle of boarding the entire house. We have finished over half of the house so far. Thanks to help from Steve, Cody, friends and family. This house building is a long process. We have electrical wires coming into the main breaker box now too! Thanks to Hans! What an exciting project. Here's some pictures from today.
Picture of the Schwindt boys

Picture of our office

Picture of Cody

Our main hall

Insulation

Well we have the insulation finished. We have the vapor barrier up and things are ready to be dry-walled. Hopefully Cheryl and I can spend a few days out at the house over the holidays. We'll have to see how things go with everything else that's going on.

Pictures of house

This is how the house looks now. The outside is pretty much sealed up. We're going to do some insulating and vapour barrier tomorrow (work bee). Things are progressing nicely. Don't think we're going to be hanging Christmas decorations up in there this year though. :)

Siding

We're getting the siding up and the tub is in place!

WahoO!

Electical and Plumbing

Well, we've got most of the interior walls completed. There is a hole in the floor where the stairs are supposed to sit. Those have been ordered and should be installed next week sometime. We are now working on electrical and I'm hoping that the plumbing will get started soon as well. Hans is out there today working on getting things going and he is hoping to have the rough electrical done by next week sometime. That means we'll be doing drywall sometime around Nov. 28. Things are looking like they are going to be working out. I have to get things like duct work and furnace details worked out yet but we've ordered a furnace and I'll have to get that out to the house and in place before I can order the ducts, so I can know the measurements. It's exciting and a lot of work at the same time!

Walls inside.

Steve and Cody have started putting up walls on the inside. It's exciting to see some more structure changes. The framing always seems to go so fast because it looks like a lot gets done in a short time.They've done the two small bedrooms and closets on the one side of the house. They are hoping to do the other side and leave room for the tub and shower to go in today.

Windows are in...

We've installed the windows in the house. The only openings that aren't covered are the doors and patio doors. We have one window in the kitchen that is also on back order (it was missing it's brick-mold). The styrofoam is almost all completely on. We've put vapor barrier on all the openings that are not covered because we had a storm warning for tomorrow (although it has been downgraded). We're praying for good weather for the next of the week.

SM Styrofoam

Here's a couple of pictures of how the house is looking with the SM on the outside. We have the basement windows installed now too!

Heating Costs

We're in the process of adding styrofoam insulation to the outside of our house. I've been doing some research and from what I've learned through the Manitoba Hydro web site and others from the states, the R 7.5 SM insulation that we're putting on the house should help reduce heating costs around 30%. We have also installed insulation below the heating pipes in the floor in the basement which will guarantee that the heat from the pipes go into the house instead of into the ground. We should be able to do about 60% of our heating through those pipes using an efficient water heating system that will send hot water through our heating pipes. We will be using a forced air furnace to do the rest of the heating (if it's necessary). According to the quotes that we received from our geothermal estimates (the people who were selling the units and would do the installation) we will be able to heat our house on an average year for about $1,600. This estimate was produced in order to show the savings we would receive by going with their geothermal units instead of a forced air furnace. This amount was based on a house our size, located in an open area with no trees, same amount of windows (double pane), R20 insulation in the walls, and using a low efficient forced air furnace. But since we are surrounded by trees, have installed additional insulation on the outside of the house, using an efficient in floor heating system, and a heat efficient air exchanger we are going to be looking at a lower bill then that. If we use the estimate from Manitoba hydro that we will be saving 30% by using the SM styrofoam on the outside of our house then we are looking at a heating bill of around $1,100 for the year. That's not taking into consideration that we are using a high efficient in floor heating system to do a high percentage of our heating. We have also bought Tri Pane windows in order to keep heat in which will be more efficient then the estimate we received from the Geo Thermal installers. We are also located in an area surrounded by trees and very little wind. This will also be a major help in keeping heat in. I am looking forward to seeing what how efficient our new house is. We would love to install a Geothermal unit next summer. That's what we are planning to do at this time, but we'll see how things look after this winter and what it will cost to install. If you consider that Geothermal costs $15,000 to install and we would be paying 4.6% interest on that money, the cost of geothermal would be:
$500 (operating costs, it was estimated $700 from the quotes we received) + $690 (interest over the year) = $1,190

So we would be paying more to heat with geothermal then with the system we are planning on using now. There is no savings with that and so we can't justify paying an additional $15,000 on a unit that will not save us money which will not pay for itself. If we can install the geothermal system ourselves next year for a much lower cost then it will be worth it because we wouldn't be paying interest on the money used for installing the unit.

Groundpoint (sandpoint) well info...

I had promised a few weeks ago that I'd post some information regarding our well. We are going to use a ground point well that will allow us to get the water from our very high water table. I'm hoping to get it installed soon because I'd like to test the water and make sure that it is safe. If it isn't safe to drink we'll have to bring some drinking water in from another source like bottled water from the CO-OP in Oak Lake or something. I know that there are options for hard water like water softeners and also iron filters and things like that so I think we should be ok as far as that is concerned. I've talked to quite a few people in Oak Lake regarding their ground point wells and many of them have good water. There are a few that have an iron filter and need a softener though. It's nice to know that the water is ready and available though. It would be very a pain to have to haul water for our place with the price of gas etc.

I've done some research online and a bunch of talking with neighbors and friends regarding ground point wells. I'll place a link in the side bar for a great site that I found that provides details on installing the well. We probably will do things a little differently but it gives you an idea of what I'm doing with the pictures and diagrams provided.

Floor Pouring

We poured the basement floor on Saturday. It was a great day.

First thing in the morning the cement truck got stuck. It was a crazy time. We had to get the four wheel drive in order to get it out. It worked out real well in the end.




Thanks to Brett M. for the pictures! He took some great shots that day. I wish I could post them all but it would be a huge page then.

Tin

We're putting tin on the roof. It looks good so far. I wasn't expecting it to be this blue but I think it is going to be a good colour.

Roof Pictures

Here's some pictures of the roof and also the outside of the house after we did some work on Saturday. We have finished sheeting most of the main roof. We just have the one gable over the kitchen to finish. It was such a blessing to have a bunch of guys come and give us a hand again on Saturday. It's amazing how quickly things get done we people all work together and pitch in. The house now has the shape it is going to have once things are completed. It's exciting to see the frame go up. It looks like things are going quickly but I know we have a long ways to go.

In-floor heat

We had a work bee today and had the in floor heat pipes installed. The pipes are made out of kytec. They were a little stiff to work with but we used styrofoam insulation for under the pipes and also some plastic clips that held the pipes in place. In the end the result was quite nice.

Here's a pictures of the guys working on the floor

Here's a picture of the finished product.