Starring Contest

After having supper, I got up to get something from the kitchen area of my shack, and to my surprise there was a deer standing on the top of the hill right outside the window of the shack. It kinda caught me by surprise at first. The deer was looking at me as I was very still trying to remember where the camera was. When it started eating some weeds on the hill I made my grab for the camera. We had a bit of a starring contest, but obviously, I won. I am always looking over my shoulder and checking around before going outside from the shack. That could have easily been a bear, which if it was would more than liking run away at the sound of me opening the door, but you never know.

The following pictures are in no particular order, just a bunch of random pics since my last post.

Since my last post I did find some time to build, but I did work at the pay job a fair bit too. I just had a pretty good splurt of work and today was the first day back building for awhile.

I finally got the loft all insulated and the vapour barrier up. I also managed to get a little more drywalling done. Still a bit more drywall hanging to do yet though, but it is getting narrowed down. So far I have purchased 66 panels of drywall. I did'nt think a small house like this one would take that much. I might even have to get a little more yet, but I'm not real sure yet.

All the heavy rainfall that we have been getting has sure been taking it's toll on the creek banks. I've owend this property for probably over ten years and have never seen anything like this. Build a house overlooking the creek and guess what happens. lol. I'm not real concerned at the time, but I do have plans of doing some kind of erosion control for future flooding. If it were to rain like this for a few years straight, I would probably start to worry a bit if I did'nt do something. The water level is'nt overly high in this photo, this is just some of the aftermath.

I have been doing a fair bit of trucking lately. When I snapped this photo, I was kinda stranded out in the middle of no where for a bit. There is four belts on this truck, and for some reason they all blew off. I suspect one broke and caused all the rest to derail. I managed to salvage one belt for each set of pulleys to finish hauling what I had to haul and then get home. Alot of squealing was going on when the fan kicked in. So I managed to finish the day with half the belts anyway.

The insulation in the loft ceiling is R40 value. I thought would take a shot of the space above the insulation which will be the ventilation space. You want to have some ventilation above your insulation. On my house the air flows up through the soffits under the roof over hang and goes out through the vented ridge cap. That's what it is supposed to do anyway.

Just a shot of some of the wetness we've had around here lately.

Before I did my drywall surrounding the tub, I wanted to test it for leaks. My first test actually failed. What a mess downstairs. So I redone the drain and overflow installation, and this time it was good. But, as I was pumping the water out of the tub, I accidentaly bumped the drain plug with my pump, and I made another mess down stairs. I don't have the tub completely connected in the basement yet.

Disclaimer--IMPORTANT


This is a personal blog, mainly for my own use. I am building a house with my own two hands, but I am learning alot of things as I go. I do not claim to know what I am doing, or if anything I do is even close to being done correctly or safely. So please, if you are planning on using any of my ideas or methods for your own use, please get professional advice before actually following through with your actions. I will not be held responsible for any injuries or damages of any kind caused by information or comments from this blog.

Insulating

I had my rough electrical inspection on May 13, and all is good. Except I forgot to wire in the smoke detecters, as I just kinda thought I would be using battery operated ones instead, being off grid and all. But I guess they need to be wired in anyway. I need one on each floor and they all need to be wired together so that if one goes off, they all go off. No problem. I started doing some insulating right after the inspection. I did have a little in basement from before. The basement is pretty much done except for all the smaller pieces that go in the floor joists on top of the basement wall. Most of the main floor is done except for one end wall, as I need to have axcess to it for install the deck headers. The Knee walls in the loft are done except that same end wall for the same purpose. The electrical inspector is also the building inspector, and I mentioned to him about my idea of having a sawed off door to enter the deck off the loft bedroom. It is all a go, he kinda liked my idea, although if I were a contractor building this house for someone else it would have been a different story. Monday will probably be a bit of waste as I am going to go to town for some more supplies.

I finally went and picked up a load of water from town the other evening. Before I unhooked the trailer I thought I would fill up the RV, as I was in major need of a shower after insulating all day, and I sure have no intentions to go all the way to Grande Prairie for just a shower. This way I can just gravity feed the water into the RV instead of hooking up a pump and doing it.

The shower in the RV is pretty tiny, but it works. It was busy day.

Things are sure starting to get dry around here lately, which is kinda hard to believe after seeing all that snow we had this winter. It's pretty smoky around here all day. There are some fires burning in the Whitecourt and/or Slave Lake areas.


Disclaimer--IMPORTANT


This is a personal blog, mainly for my own use. I am building a house with my own two hands, but I am learning alot of things as I go. I do not claim to know what I am doing, or if anything I do is even close to being done correctly or safely. So please, if you are planning on using any of my ideas or methods for your own use, please get professional advice before actually following through with your actions. I will not be held responsible for any injuries or damages of any kind caused by information or comments from this blog.