Where two attics connect

While wiring the addition I had to cut a small hole that I could crawl through to get from the original attic to the new attic.I don't think that the original attic soffit vents exist so this hole will hopefully help the original attic vent a bit better.

Here I am crawling from the old attic into the new one. Thanks to Ethan for taking this picture.

Here is a look at the new attic space with only one layer of insulation. More to come!

And here is a peak at what the old attic looks like - not many people have seen this and lived to write about it.

Adding the radiant loop

To continue with the plumbing work I needed to connect all the piping from the pex tubing, through another pump and into the heat exchanger.

OK, now we are rockin'. The loop for the pex tubing is installed. The thing with the tag on it is a mixing valve that mixes the cooler water returning from the loop with the hot water coming out of the heat exchanger and that water goes up tat diagonal pipe to heat the pex loop.

Here is the same angle but from a little farther away.

And another from a different angle. Maybe this stuff is boring to some people but how cool are all those pipes!

Plumbing - Tieing into the boiler

Now this is cool stuff! To get hot water into the pex tubing first you have to get hot water from the boiler and force it through a heat exchanger. This heats up the heat exchanger and then there be another loop that feeds through the heat exchanger. First things first: Tapping into the boiler water is the tough part. While I'm working on that we won't have any heat or hot water....so I'll start after the kids go to bed and ... we'll see how long it takes me.

Here you can see the tee in the bottom left hand side of the picture. The red pump in the middle will pump water from left to right. The water will be pumped out of the boiler (on the right), through the tee, and up and through the red pump.

Here you can see the same red pump from a different angle. The water is pumped toward the camera and then into the heat exchanger on the right. It comes out the bottom and then back through the tee on the bottom left and back into the boiler. You can see the two ports on the heat exchanger that will be connected to the pex loop... that's next. Oh, and I finished at 1:30am

Aluminum

Once all the pieces of tubing have been pulled through the joist bays I needed to fasten the tubing to the ceiling. This is done with pieces of aluminum that have been precut and shaped specifically for this task.

These are the pieces of aluminum that I purchased from www.radiantec.com

This is a shot of the aluminum stapled to the first run of tubing.Each piece of aluminum has about 12 staples.

I like this shot - between the joists looking down one of the runs.

And here is a shot of the very necessary staple gun. I bought this one at home depot, but it turned out to not be powerfull enough. I brought it back and got the next size up. I don't think that going through aluminum is tough, but that plywood is tough stuff!

The Pex tubing needs to run up and down each joist bay. The kit I bought had two 300 foot pieces of tubing. I snaked the tubing through the joist bay at the furthest end of the garage and started working backward.

Here is the end of the tubing...the other end is out in the back yard. It was tough keeping the tubing from getting twisted while so much of it is laying in a big pile in the back yard.

Here is a close up of the first joist bay. One of the ends goes all the way back to the basement and the other end needs to go down and back each of the joist bays. Lot of fun!

Here is the tubing going down toward the basement.

And finally. The first section of tubing is finished. Now I will move on to the next section that goes under the bathroom.

Before and after (Inside 1)

Before and After (Inside 2)

Batman and Spiderman on Holloween

The two superheroes set out on there way Halloween night to check on the neighborhood. After making sure everybody was safe the superheroes demanded candy from each homeowner. Batman felt that some of the offerings were unacceptable and refused them. Both had a wonderful night and the neighborhood survived.
 

Living large

Well, we finally can use our new kitchen. You can see in the pictures that we still have to paint the trim, but everything else is pretty much done. Our contractor is comming back on Monday to fix a handful of things we noticed, but overall we are very excited about the kitchen. It's such an amazing change from what we had. When we get the trim painted I'll post before and after pictures.... wait for it!
 
 
 

Drawers

Ok, so I know this is silly so you don't even need to tell me, but I thought it was pretty cool how these drawers close slowly even when you slam them... check it out.

Yard wark starts

John Gaunt, our neighbor, has started fixing up the back yard. We asked him to fill in the old driveway and smooth out the rest of the back yard. Hopefully we still have enough time to plant grass this year. Below you can see the microwave got installed and the plumber hooked up the faucet so we are almost fully functional! There is one thing that has been stressing us out though. Ever since they took the plastic down in between the dining room and kitchen we noticed a big bump in the wall. Our contractor is trying to figure out what to do about it and it may involve tearing down the existing plaster! Just when we thought we were almost done with all the cleanup work!

Family Hike

 
We went on a family hike today and had a great time. Indy provided most of the entertainment while we walked around bear pond in Hard Parker State Park. Here's a picture of Ethan and Lucas on a huge rock that they found.

Appliances and a new view!

The appliances were delivered today! They are not installed yet, but I unpacked them and set them as close to where they will be to get an idea of the space. They all look pretty good - the microwave will be installed over the stove, but it seems HUGE. Note: the dishwasher is not blue. Dave also took down the plastic that was up between the diningroom and livingroom. The archway is huge so it makes the dining room seem smaller. We are thinking that we should have made the archway a bit lower to match the other ones in the house, but we are still getting used to it so we may come to like how tall it is. I don't think you can see it in the pictures, but I can't reach the top of the archway so it's about 7.5 feet tall!

Trim around door and bottom of one cabinet

Not too much to see today except for some more trim was finished and the trim for the bottom of the wall cabinets started going in. The boys were hiding where the dishwasher will go...soon they will be washing the dishes.

Kitchen window is trimmed and lights!

The electrician was here to do most of the lights and all that. It looks like he'll be back to do a couple more outlets. And Dave did a great job with the moulding around the window.

Counters are in.

The counters were put in today and the tile was grouted...almost there!
 
 

Tiled

The kitchen was tiled today. Grout and counter top tomorrow.