Well another week has gone by and a pretty decent week it was. I had my Framing, Rough HVAC, and Air Barrier inspections and passed them all with only two minor issues on the framing. Both issues fixed within a 1/2 hour. As well the weather stayed reasonably mild which made working easier. Anyway on with the greatest story ever told, well at least in my mind.

On Sunday I went back to work and finished installing the ceiling insulation that we had started on Saturday. The ceiling is now one complete sheet of 2" thick foam. Here you can see what that looks like.

On Monday I went in and picked up 6 sheets of OSB for the garage ceiling. I wanted to get the ceiling done in front of the garage door as it should be installed I hope fairly soon. These sheets are held up with 4" screws. Finding 4" screws at your local hardware store is not an easy task. We found some but they were not cheap. I wanted some with what are called "Pan" heads to hold the wood to the ceiling. Due to cost we bough enough of these for 4 screws per sheet and then bought regular screws with "bugle" heads to do the rest of the fastening. Here is a shot of the OSB installed awaiting garage door installation. I'll finish the rest of the ceiling when the weather precludes working outdoors. I also spent some time downstairs working on framing out the exterior walls. First picture shows some exterior basement walls and the second picture shows the OSB ceiling. The drywall lift I purchased for 80$ is already proving useful.

On Tuesday I worked on the remainder of the basement walls getting as much done prior to the HVAC people coming. I won't be able to finish all the walls until the ductwork is run but I got as much done as possible. I also installed some plywood in the Utility room so that we have a solid surface to secure my two water manifolds to. I am going with a manifold system where every water run is a separate run of PEX pipe from the manifold to the tap. This is on both Hot and Cold water. I also installed a vent pipe in the exterior wall that will connect to the future bathroom vanity. Since the plumber will not be back until after the insulation is installed I needed to run this vent line now before we sprayed in the insulation. Here are some pictures showing what I did.

On Wednesday I did some more wall work however the majority of the day was working with the HVAC people ensuring we had the heating and return lines in the right spot and making sure all the ducting would work with future work as well. We also rearranged some studding to facilitate the installation of the cold air returns. This evening I went to bed as a 54 year old male.

On Thursday I woke up as a 55 year old male. So what does one do on your birthday. You go to the job site and start cleaning. I decided this would be a good day to clean house. There was no more work to be done in the basement until the HVAC  people are done so cleaned it up. I then cleaned up the main floor as well. I looked out around 10am and noticed we had bright sunshine a  positive temp and almost no wind. So up on the roof and finish that garage roof. At 1253pm the ladder came down for the last time in regards to going on the roof. The roof is done. I also spent some time in the house blocking up the west wall soffit area with pieces of cardboard so when they spray foam it does not go into the soffits. Here is the last shot of working on the roof. The ridge cap which was the last piece to be done is done.

On Friday we worked on some Soffit prep outside installing 2by2's for the soffit to be screwed to. As well in installed the two bathroom fans upstairs and finished my cardboard baffles on the East wall. I also had three inspections today as mentioned above. I had my framing inspection which passed with two minor issues involving blocking between a few joists and blocking in the bathroom for hand bars. The last item is a really new requirement that the majority of the builders are just finding out about. I also had my rough HVAC inspection and my Air Barrier inspection and we passed all three inspections. It took me only 30 min to fix up the two framing issues. The next inspection will be the insulation inspection from the Town. The Hydro people will do the rough electrical inspection once we get the rough wiring in. In the photo below you can see the bathroom exhaust fan and in the soffit area you can see the pink soffit baffles to allow air to migrate into the attic and at the base of this baffle you can see the pieces of cardboard I stapled in to close all the big holes.

An today on Saturday I started working on installing the Soffit and Facia. First thing I did was build a small jig to hold the soffit so that I could cut it to length with a Skilsaw. In the skilsaw I installed a plywood finishing blade backwards. This works really well for cutting the thin aluminium soffits. Here are some photos showing the jig and the installation work outside. I essentially did the entire East wall and almost half of the West wall of the house. I probably finish the West wall tomorrow and then work on the garage.

Well it looks like we should have some decent weather this week so I hope to finish almost all of the Soffits and Facia this week. I still need to decide what to install on the two gable ends of the main house and I still need to decide what siding will be installed on the garage. But the list of exterior work is slowly getting smaller. Well until next week, think sunshine and warm temperatures.

Harold