We have water!

The heating guy worked all week to get the baseboards in place, and finish off a few last minute heating things. By friday we were ready for the Town of Minturn to come and turn on the water. It was a very exciting day. But as with everything related to the Minturn project, things didn't quite go to plan.

I think all the town workers turned up at the house to help (there were three of them), and they got to work thawing the ground to access the curbside water valves. The first valve they found turned off one of our neighbours water. The second was our other neighbours, eventually they found the correct valve. We eagerly waited for the water to enter the house, but after a few minutes 'sans water' we realised something wasn't quite right. Our excited bubble was burst. Did the orginial plumbers (who we eventually fired because they were so bad) make a mistake with the plumbing? Was there a leak? Were the pipes frozen?

Heating the ground

Turning the water on. Unfortunately no water came into the house. Boo.

We called the local pipe thawers - who quoted $200/hr to come over and thaw the pipes. We hoped it wouldn't take too long, if in fact the pipes were frozen. The alternative scenarios were not ones we wanted to think about. Digging in frozen ground to reach water pipes would have been a fair amount more expensive than thawing pipes, and calling the fired plumbers to find out if they messed up would have been an awkward conversation !! Thankfully within 10 minutes of heating the pipes, we had water pouring out of the taps!!!!!!! Thank goodness. The heating guy had left by the time we got water, so we haven't had any hot water or gas heating over the weekend. That should all happen on Monday. What a luxury!!

WATER

HALLELUJAH

WE HAVE A GAS METER - HALLELUJAH!!!!!

What we've been waiting for since beginning of January!

Note the lack of snow overhanging the roof

The snow fell off the roof shortly after Chris came home tonight - it made a very loud noise!!!!!

 

 

 

Fortunately the gas man wasn't under the roof installing the meter when the roof decided to shed a winters worth of snow and ice!!! Maybe that would have been karma for making us wait so long!! Being in the US of A it probably would have been a liability issue, and they would have sued our ass!!! So I'm thankful no-one was under the roof when the snow fell!!! (kind of!).
 
SO, now we have the gas meter, the heating guys came today and are finishing the installation of the gas heating system, and when we get heat in the basement, we can have water!!!!!!! I'm hopeful we'll have a functioning bathroom and kitchen in time for Chrissy's arrival in Vail (next tuesday!!)

Insulation

The framing was complete. Next step - insulation. We decided on blown insulation because three of our exterior walls were only 2 by 4's - so maximum R value would only have been R-15. Not ideal when temperatures outside get pretty darn cold. With the blown - which is made up of chopped newspaper - we could get an R value of 20. For the ceiling it would be R-50!! Plus we wouldn't have to deal with the itchyness of fiber glass -  it was therefore an easy decision! So yesterday and today our insulation guys got to work, and started making the house nice and toasty!

Firewall done.

Exterior walls and ceiling done

New front windows in and walls insulated!

Blown insulation between studs.

Plastic making a good, level base for the R-50 insulation!

Double toastyness !! Blown insulation and the roaring pellet stove!!