Big work weekend planned

Nothing new to post lately, regarding the progress on the cottage, since I have not been to the island in two weeks. Looking forward to a most productive weekend starting mid-day tomorrow. Need to make a stop at Home Depot (North Olmsted) for lumber and such, and then Menards (Sandusky) to pick-up the shower/tubs. This will be interesting to see if I can fit all this onto my truck, a true test of my beloved Silverado's overall utility. See ya soon.

Plumbing inspection

Not much new to post this Monday. I did not make it up to Kelleys for any work. Bonnie spent a "girl's weekend" up on the island instead. Long story, short... we got the plumbing drain inspection approved by the Erie County Board of Health this afternoon! This is EXTREMELY good news as there was an initial complication presented last week (glad to explain face-to-face next time we talk) that thankfully turned out to be a non-issue.

Next steps... hook up some water!

Down in the gutter

Quick trip up to the cottage this weekend, arrived late Friday night and left early evening Saturday night, but none-the-less, still productive. I finished up the wall insulation, doorway cripples, and bathroom fan duct termination to the roof soffits. The big accomplishment this weekend was getting the gutters installed. Tom (from Tom Begala Construction) was great - quick, high-quality and fantastic price. He installed seemless gutters and two downspouts in two hours.

Latest photo of the cottage, gutters done, and water tank in place (far left) 

 Front gutter and downspout

 Back gutter and downspout

Pex manifold - done!

All supply lines labeled, ready and waiting for water

Bathroom fan vent duct terminated into soffit - please read on...

The photo above of the bathroom fan duct work needs some explanation. Although, looking at the photo is super boring, this was a nice little piece of work I was able to put together. Keep in mind that the time frame to complete was about 3-4 weeks due to the wrong material, returning stuff and getting new stuff to and from the island.

Without further ado... typically you would use 4 inch galvanized pipe for your bathroom fan vents. However, due to the size of the space between the ceiling and sub-floor in the attic, I had to use 3 inch. My attempt to hand bend flat 3 inch galvanized steel into the needed 3 inch tubes was completely unsuccessful. The balance between forcing the seem to lock without leaving permanent bends and bumps was impossible. After much frustration, it was time to put down and place in the Home Depot return category. I researched other options online (as usual) and found that you could use beloved pvc. OK now the pvc fits well, but how do you connect to the outside? using the existing soffit vents? I bought some soffit caps from Home Depot (wrong parts) and then tried eBay for a specific under soffit adapter. You can't tell from the photo, but there is absolutely no room to attach any type of 90 deg adapter to the pvc vent due to the pitch of the roof. Spoke to a plumbing guy at Home Depot who said you don't need to install any adapter but just terminate right into the soffit cavity. Done. The last trick was to seal the cavity around the vent pipe so bathroom humidity and exhaust would not get back into the attic. My idea was to use the silver HVAC cardboard (actually called joist panning) I've seen used for cold air returns, funny because Home Depot does not carry this product. I found the stuff at Menard's and used some left over foil tape to complete the job!

OK, so you are asking, "who friggin' cares"? I just wanted to use this as an example to illustrate the type of crap you have to put up with when building a cottage on an island by yourself. 

Labor Day Weekend Re-Cap

Although we did not make it up to Kelleys, we had a really nice family packed Labor Day weekend. Let it be known for the record, this will be the last summer holiday weekend that we will not be on the island! (Unless some unforeseen problem prevents us from having plumbing installed before Memorial Day 2013)

Bonnie and I started the long weekend with the Browns game on Thursday night. Despite it was a meaningless pre-season game, the weather was perfect and Bon and I got to hit some cool downtown spots for cocktails and appetizers. We got to check-out our new season ticket seats! The view is great, but I think we are in what is considered "nose-bleed" upper dawg-pound. To our dismay, we discovered that the Legends bar (directly beneath our seats) is now a private club and not open to the public as it had been for years. Sheez, the ticket sales rep neglected to mention that tidbit of information! More Browns updates to follow as the season unfolds - as usual, I am cautiously optimistic.

Beautiful night at the stadium - view from our new seats

On Saturday, we loaded up the crew and headed to African Safari Wildlife Park in Port Clinton. This place is great and has become an annual family tradition.

 Anna and Sophie riding a camel

Bonnie hand-feeding Scottish highland cattle

After spending the day at Safari Park, we headed to Quaker Steak & Lube at McGarvey's Landing in Vermilion for dinner to watch the sunset and the boats.

Anna and Sophie at McGarvey's Landing Marina

Monday, we went to a family party (for Mom's birthday at the Pyke's) that started out at Clifton Beach so the kids could play.

Neil on the beach doing his thing

The family at Clifton Beach

This upcoming weekend, I will be going up to Kelleys for the gutter installation and other miscellaneous stuff. More to come...

Very hot, very busy

I took a vacation day on Friday, to rock-out as much work as possible during the weekend. The weather was dry (good) but hot (bad) - again. All week long... mid 70s... Fri, Sat, Sun, 85-95 deg! Then comfortably back down to the mid 70s on Monday. Go figure.

I was able to install both the outside lights by the front door and the outside lights by the back door slider.

Exterior lights installed - looking good

The water tank was delivered last week on Wednesday. Saturday morning, I had the pleasure of "cleaning-out" the inside of the tank. This is a creepy job... I had to climb down into an 1850 gallon solid concrete bunker. After it was cleaned, it needed to have the riser set-in-place and cemented down to fill the seal gap.

Setting the riser 

Fresh cement around the riser

Water line and electrical conduit to water tank

After hand-digging a few feet of trench to the foundation, we ran the water lines from the tank into the cottage crawlspace and installed electrical conduit for a future outlet on the water tank. Next, using the Bobcat, we covered the pipes with gravel and back-filled the trench.

Got a lot of other stuff done that I didn't get to capture with photos including:

• 99% of the interior wall insulation
• Attic vent baffles
• Pex plumbing rough-in (pex manifold looks awesome, photos forthcoming)
• 90% of the bath fan vent ducts
• 50% of the doorway cripples

Water storage tank delivered!

Wow, thanks to my neighbor George (who coordinated the whole pain-staking process), the 1850 gallon solid concrete water storage tank was delivered today.

Water storage tank (incorrectly referred to as "cistern" by island locals)

I will be heading back up this weekend to help with some water tank set-up as well as finishing up the pex supply line plumbing, wall insulation, and other miscellaneous tasks. 

Moving along...

Last weekend I installed the coaxial cable runs for the bedrooms and great room, ran about 90% of the pex water supply lines, and 1/2 of the wall insulation. Saturday night I was so caught up in the insulation mess, I worked until 3:00 am Sunday morning. Tim (Hulk Hogan) finished the drain plumbing with the hope to complete the pressure test this week.

R13 kraft faced insulation in the exterior facing walls

Pex manifold and supply lines in progress

Unfortunately, I ran out of blue 1/2 pex tubing or I would have finished the job on Sunday. Working with pex is without question the easiest way to install water supply lines. I was able to finish 90% of the rough-in work in 3-4 hrs with no previous plumbing experience at all! Of course, this is all dry fitting, since I have no water supply to test yet. Hopefully, I can post the photos of the final product (all strapped up) in a few weeks!