Passed Rough Inspections

Well Kind of. Got passed rough electrical and plumbing inspections. Had to redo a title 24 energy audit because I wasn't using a furnace or air conditioning. Codes are so strict nowadays that even if you switch to something more efficient you need an engineer to re-quantify your entire energy audit. But after some changes to the vent pipe, I've gotten sign off. Turns out I also need an inspection for the insulation. Not just that it's there, but that's installed correctly. Another strict California code check. No gaps around outlets and what not. Hope to have that done over the fourth and get the walls started.

Finished Electrical and Plumbing

Finishing up the drain lines and adding a bathroom vent. A neighbor came up (thanks Steve) to help out and we finally got started taking down the remainder of the old cabin. Not sure when I'll finish up. We got the roof off, but there was another tarred roof underneath it. The inspector on my initial plumbing inspection had me redo several vent pipes because they were using the drain line. Not sure this isn't code, or just the inspector. The changes didn't take too long, but I did have to replace about 50 bucks worth of piping. And the scrap is pretty much unusable. Hoping that's enough to finish the inspection.

Taking Showers

Was able to take a hot shower at the cabin for the first time. Our water heater died on the cabin in the first week. The pilot light got clogged and is so rusted no way to fix it other than replacing the entire box. No chance for that with all the other work. So cold showers or no showers. Now I have the water heater and shower installed. The water heater is an electric tankless. Not the most efficient, but it works damn well. Nearly scalded myself on the initial shower. I was able to turn down the thermostat on the water heater to 120. Much more comfortable.

The shower itself was a four piece swanstone. Was a simple install which is now my highest priority in working on the cabin.

Pex

Pex is a plastic piping for potable water delivery. It is also used in radiant heating systems and has been around for about 40 years. It just last year became legal in California after a long battle with the plumbers union. It took all of an hour to run both a hot and cold water line through five walls, which was about 20feet. With the nature of the round walls, this would have been an enormous undertaking using copper. I ended up plumbing the entire house in about a day.
The picture below shows the whole house water filter and the pex manifold. The manifolds are the key to the pex delivery system.


This is a picture from the kitchen sink. It's also where the on demand hot water tank is located.
The tank is pretty amazing, though I haven't put it through a real test yest. It is rated to provide enough water to the entire house, and since it's electric, there's no need for venting.


A seperate manifold system for the bathroom.
Normally you would run a single hot and cold manifold to the entire house, but I found locating one set in the bath and one in the kitchen was a bit easier, especially with the extra materials I had on hand.

Fire

Part of the winter was spent trying to get all of the trees cleared and the branches and debris burned. Coretta thought I should be burning down the old cabin, but it's much too close to the house. Also burning plywood and painted wood is nasty.

Lights up

Got some exterior lights on as well now. First I put up some motion detector spot lights to get to the trailer at night. With the short winter days, I end up trudging back to the trailer in the dark, now I've got my path lit.

Also put some deck lights up, we decided on fixtures that kind of resemble the roundness of the yurt. I like the style, even if they are a bit nautical. I guess nothing wrong with that.

Winter slowdown and Electric starts

It's been two months of winter here. I've slowed down showing up, as the rain, snow and cold have prevented me from wanting to work. I'm mostly indoors working on the electrical, planning and set up have taken longer than expected, but now that I'm laying lines, it shouldn't be too difficult.

The water heater is a bit ridiculous, takes 2 220 lines with 50amp breakers, that's a lot of juice running so close to the water line.

Deck Railing Up

I've gotten the railing up on the deck, Was a bit of a process as extra posts were involved instead of using the main support posts for the deck. Since this is from a kit I went with the layed out plan, but am not sure the necessity for extra posts. Was a lot of work as most of the center posts ended up butting into the center joist spacing of the deck itself. Still need to put a rail cap on, but will wait till the weather clears up, then I can stain the entire railing at once.
Here are a few pictures of the railing finished.




We also placed a deck stove for the winter, it's getting a bit chilly, not the best implementation, but it keeps the smoke off the deck.

Starting on interior lighting

I'm finally getting to work on the inside of the building. Now that it's cold and dark outside seems like good timing. First off I wanted to set up some interior ambient light to fill the room. I hate canned lighting and I didn't want to set up those cheap looking string lights. I was also thinking that LED lighting is almost ready for prime time. I've been using the flashlights for years, so I was happy to give it a try.
The other thing I've read about is that they are dimmable, wether this is true or not seemed questionable, but after putting them up, the dimmer did work great. Much like Fluorescent lighting, it can only dim to a certain point and then goes dead. Unlike the CFLs though, the lite doesn't flicker beforehand. Here's a picture of the install, lights up the room quite nicely, even when dimmed to half strength. Unfortunately, the image doesn't quite show it off as well as it could.