Starting to Frame the Main Walls.

It started out to be one of those days right from the start this morning. I started out bright and early in the morning really eager to get to town and get some supplies quickly and head for home to build. I never even got out of the yard and the battery light on the old GMC comes on and the charge gauge is reading lower than normal. So get out the meter and test the alternator itself. Sure enough, it's had. So that was'nt a major deal though. Nothing that a little over 300 bucks could'nt cure and a bit of my time to change. Good thing the old Dodge was rested up and eager to go for a cruise. Then stopped at my favorite bulk fuel place for my monthly shower. lol. April fools. It must be at least once every two weeks. April fools again, I am actually a clean kind of a cat.

So I went over to my favorite lumber suppliers old yard to check out my trusses that I had them build for me last fall, thinking that I did'nt want to be waiting on them. lol. I sure hope they are not to badly warped out of shape. They actually looked pretty good concidering they sat out in this yard all winter. I need to have a look at them so I can plan my weekend framing expedition a little bit, as I hav'nt got a clue. I was planning on building my own rafter system, until I found out that it is a no no with the permit people. They have to be manufactured, or stamped by a professional engineer if I remember correctly. My rafters are the only item left in this yard, as they moved shop. I had to sneak in under the gate. Their new shop is'nt real far away, so I guess they should be able to load me up without a problem when the time comes.

I had a bunch of other running around to do in town. I even went for a drive around a couple of new parts of Grande Prairie looking at partially built houses as I drove by. Just to kinda see how different things look at different stages. I bought 25 sheets of OSB for my walls, some groceries and I should be all set for the Easter long weekend. I came home and put that new alternator in the GMC. It was a little over $300 and it has a lifetime warranty. Whatever that means. I think my reciept will probably wear out or get lost before that time comes.

I did manage to get a little bit of building done. It's not much, but it is a good feeling to get started on this up above the basement building. I should be able to get a good start in the morning.

Heck with it.

Heck with work, (for now, I'll go there on the rainy days). Heck with the mud. And heck with using the ladder too. I got me a house to build.

I finally found a use for all that 2x10 lumber that I used for my concrete footing forms. I use them for sidewalks and I also built my ramp up to the main floor out of them. A few years ago, my neighbor from in town and I built a new fence. My neighbor thought I was nuts when I wanted to keep the rotten old fence instead of throwing it in the dump. I'm sure glad I kept it.

In the morning, all this mud should be real nice to walk and drive on, unless it decides not to freeze over night. It is like dry dirt when it is all frozen. Tomorrow morning I'll have to forward some of my lumber over to the house on the frost, then go to town for some more lumber and supplies in town to keep me busy over the long weekend. I am finally getting into the swing of things again. Today I put in a long one, and my poor old knee is feeling it. It stays light pretty late here now. It is after 8 pm before I lose my daylight. I shut it down just before 8. Today I glued and screwed the last sheet of plywood down on my basement floor, and finished caulking it all. I had to leave that one open for awhile so the inspector could have a peek at things. He did pay me a vistit about a week ago or so. He made me add one more ply to my main beam down there, so now I have four 2x10 wide. I still have to phone them for an inspection again before I backfill the basement, but I'm not going to backfill until things dry up around here. But I can build up top while I wait for that to happen, so thats what I'm going to do. I kinda mentioned to them at work that I want no interruptions for about 2 weeks. We'll see how that goes. We are kinda at the end of the winter work season and things really slow down or stop for awhile. I kinda feel like I should be there and working on my truck and all, but, if I don't get a roof on my house soon it just might rot away eventually. It is my top priority right now. Heck with work.

Health Care

I'm not really into politics all that much. I mean, I do listen in a bit on some of the crucial stuff I guess, but I don't have much to do with it. The government generally does what they want and if it affects me, I just somehow try to work my way around it somehow. But one thing that really gets me wondering is this new "health care thing" going on in the USA. I did'nt really research it or anything, so I don't know exactly what it is all about. Maybe it IS a nightmare, but if it is anything like what we have here in Canada (and I don't even know much about that one), I kinda thought that everyone in the States would be happy about it. I THINK that what we have here in Canada is a good thing anyway. I don't pay anything, but yet, when I need to go to the hospital, it costs me nothing. Well, maybe some medication, or crutches, etc. We used to pay, but as of Dec 31 2008, they no longer wanted our money. Well, I can imagine they are getting it from us somehow though. When I was paying, it costed me $132.00 every 3 months when it all came to an end. I kinda wished they were still charging us, because now that they don't, it makes me wonder if I should be buying some insurance or not, but as far as I know we are still covered.
I can remember when I was 16 or 18 when I recieved my first Alberta Health Care bill in the mail. I can't remember how old I was, but I think 18. It was probably my first bill for anything, as I was still living with the folks at that time. If I remember right, that bill was for $86.00 every 3 months and they gradually went up to $132.00. and now 0. That is about a 27 year span. I have broken my right leg twice (each time was about 5 days in the hospital or more) and have had alot of other minor injuries along the way(rodeo and other foolish things). The physio thereapy the second time I broke my leg(knee) was all paid for(until they kicked me out for missing 2 appointements without notice, dumb kid I was). I also periodically go in for a checkup. It has never costed me anything other than some minor little expenses. MY biggest fear, is if they were to someday come along and take that all away, and put us on the same boat that the Americans just came off of. I am really curious to see how things are going to work out with this thing down there. I can see where American people might get a little excited, because it is a real big change, but from way up here and not being affected by this, it looks to me like your government is really trying to help. But then, like I say, I don't really know much about it (the cost, coverage, details, etc), that's just what it looks like to me at this point. Just thought I would throw in my 2 cents. Healthcare is'nt necessarily a bad thing all the time.
I can remember getting pretty excited about it when I got that first bill in the mail. "Who the hell do they think they are, blah, blah, blah". My dad was on their side as he was trying to explain some sense into me. Up here in Canada, for me it was the cheapest and best insurance I ever bought, even if it was forced upon me, and I hope they start charging us a little bit again, as I do feel it is hard to demand good service if you're not paying something for it. But I'll take the free also. So thats how it is in Alberta as far as I know anyway, not sure about the rest of the country.
Does this sound accurate to the rest of Canada? (like alot of Canadians visit this site). lol. Some do, I know.
I hope it all works out real well for everyone down there, and I THINK it will, but I don't know that for sure. It'll take a bit of getting used to probably, but I'll bet in 5 years from now, alot of you will be thinking alot differently about the whole situation. This is just my opinion. But lets check back here in 5 years, shall we.

Me, mud, work and weather.

A self inflicted picture of myself. I'm not sure how to pose for a picture, especially when I'm the one snapping the shot. The squirrel in the tree and my dog was wondering what's goin on. Now everyone else is probably thinkin the same.

It snows, then warms up, then snows, then warms up, then........It's quite a mess around here at times lately.

Inside of the water cistern. 8 foot diameter and about 11.5 feet long. 3500 gallons of water storage. Well it will be a little less once the concrete is poured in the bottom. There is a little water seeping in as things melt around here. I'm sure that will stop eventually in time once everything is saturated and settled. I won't be pouring concrete in here untill a little later in the summer to give things a chance to thaw and settle.

The cistern has been backfilled for awhile now, I just did'tn get around to posting pics until now.

I decided to go with the blueskin water proofing membrane around my basement. I put on a piece of it one day just to get a feel of it. I'm waiting for a nice day to get it all done. I have just about had enough slopping around in the mud trying to get things done on this thing. I'm seriously thinking about just concentrating on the pay job for a bit and let things dry up a bit around here. The peterbilt is due for an inspection at the end of April and if I don't work on that now, I will find myself doing it later on when the weather is nice for building. Also one of the trailers that I am pulling is in real need of some TLC. So, I might as well get all caught up with that stuff working in a shop and getting paid for it, rather than slopping around in the mud. March has been kinda busy for me at work. It is usually our busiest month of the year. All the oil companies are in a big panick to get some last minute things done before spring break. Pretty soon, alot of the bush roads will be closed to heavy traffic. As it is now, we can only go on them at night, when the temperatures are cooler and the mud is frozen. This time of year, I find it really hard to work on my own project even if I am not working all the time. Go out one night and it kinda screws your whole schedule up for a day or two.

Just when I thought things might be starting to dry up we get some more snow to melt. This one was taken this morning. Today I am being a bit of a house plant(shack plant I guess). Sometimes I enjoy doing nothing but hanging out in the old shack and playing around on the computer, like today. The dog likes it too, but the squirrel misses us. Although it is snowing and clouded over, when I check out the power generating situation, I find that I am bringing in a little more power than what I am using right now. Somewhere around Feb 14 2010 is the last time I have used my generator to run my shack. Most of my power used to run power tools etc has also come from my solar setup, but I have used the generator a few times for misc things such as plugging the backhoe in on a cold morning and running power tools at times, on a cloudy day etc. Life is pretty darned good. I'm thinking about doing a little house cleaning today possibly. lol. We'll see.

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I almost forgot to mention that I updated my blogger profile a few days ago. It used to say what I wanted to be doing and how I wanted to be living, but I guess I am now doing all that.

The Corrugated Water Cistern

There's the cistern, standing still open all winter so far. I meant to have it all hooked up and backfilled a long time ago. Last fall when I was busy at work the weather was nice, and about the time I got all done with work the rain came. So I did'nt get around to this task. There is not much space between the trench and the basement trench. I have drove through with the backhoe, but it just fits and it is pretty risky of sliding into the basement and crashing my dreams. lol. So it is time to get this thing backfilled. I took the picture from the main floor of the house. Gives you a bit of an idea how high it is.

The water line here is buried over to the house. I always had it in my mind that I was going to drill a hole in the side of the cistern and hook the water line in via a pitless adapter of some sort. I assumed that one should just drive to town and find the right pitless adapter for a corrugated pipe like this one. I was wrong, it has not been invented yet. So I got phoning around and one guy I talked to who does these things, clued me on how to do this. Just dig the line in underneath the culvert cistern, then pour my concrete around the pipe on the inside. Sounded pretty simple, but man did I ever work myself doing this. That dirt is pretty well frozen. I was a good part of the day yesterday doing this (Feb 27). I was soaked by the time I got it all done. I wanted to dig a little deeper under the cistern wall than I did, but it was just to tough of going. I did bend the lip of the culvert up where the hose goes under, just incase things settle and want to crush or cut the hose. It should be good I think.

I had to cut the line and send it through from the inside of the cistern, otherwise I would have kinked it in alot of different places trying to run it through. I don't really like to have a splice in there, but, what can you do?

I hand shoveled some nice lump free dirt over the hose connection, and packed it a bit. Then I layed a bunch of orange tape over it. If I ever do have to dig that splice up again, I should be able to find it without ripping the whole line out accidentally.

I was in the process of backfilling the cistern, breaking up big chunks of frozen dirt. It was time consuming. Eventually I blew a hydraulic hose on the backhoe. I'll have to get a new hose built in the morning. I did a little more work on the basement for the rest of the day. This backfilling needs to take place in the morning because it has been getting pretty messy out later in the day, but it usually freezes overnight. It is kinda like spring here, and has been like that for quite awhile now. Now with that being said, I can probably expect some -40 stuff soon. lol. I sure hope not. Last year we had alot of that in March if I remember correctly.

Busy February at Work.

I hav'nt found much time for working on the cabin this month. It's hard to believe that the month of February is already done. The weather has been pretty nice for here, and I have been
spending it out in the bush playing in the mud alot of the time hauling equipment. It's almost like we're in the middle of an oil boom or something. The other driver was getting tired and needed some time off, and things did pick up for awhile there. I THINK that things are slowed down again. I hope. I would like to get my basement done and backfilled soon, before things really turn warm and sloppy. Today I just kinda got started working on the house again. Well, actually on my water storage cistern. I need to get it out of the way before I can backfill my basement. I have just a little bit left to do before I can get inspected. This is something that I hoped to have done by the beginning of this month, but I guess I am a tiny bit behind. lol. Below are a few pictures from work. It was actually a nice break for awhile there, but I'm ready to build now.

I had to unload this D9 cat 3 times within 46 kilometers. The ole Peterbilt just would'nt haul it up some of the hills in there. Just too much weight and stupidly steep hills.

Just a bit of an update. I hope to have something to blog about real soon. I plan on finally backfilling my water cistern tomorrow if things go as planned.

Plumbing Boo Boo

I know that I sometimes do things kinda backwards. When things were at this point in the game(above photo) I should have had a plumbing permit and I should have called Mr Permit man for a plumbing inspection. Then he would have told me that I need a vent line on my 2" line (smaller far left line) in between the trap and where it connect to the 3" line. Or that I should have left the trap off the 2" completely. It could have been put on above the floor. But instead of getting the inspection, I was eager to get things done and never really thought about it until the foundation was poured and I had the plumbing all covered with gravel. Then I went in, bought a permit, and told them I was ready for an inspection. He inspected it, but could'nt really tell what was going on with things. So I just kept on building, which was'nt the correct way to go about things, but I was'nt real concerned because it was a plumber who drew a picture for me to follow. He probably did'nt draw a trap on that 2 inch though.

Once I got to this point, (above photo) I start thinking that I would like to be certain that things are going to be good, before I completely close things up. I guess I could still change things if I absolutely had to, although it would be a major pain in the ass. Anyway, so I phoned my permit guy and started asking a bunch of questions. I thought that maybe I should just send him some pictures of the in ground plumbing, I should have done that earlier. So I did. So the 2 inch line that was meant for my laundry drain is'nt going to work for me, but it is not a major thing. I can tie in a new laundry line above ground and hook into the 4 inch main stack. Everything else is good I guess. The morel of the story is: always get things inspected when you are supposed to. lol. It could have been something that needed to be dug up and changed, but thankfully it was'nt. Well I can sleep again anyway. Floor drain construction (above).

The floor drain. All these little things in the floor do take some time. A concrete floor would have been alot quicker to do, but thats ok. I have nothing but time, sometimes.

This last week was actually pretty busy at work. I did'nt have to work today, but it was a pretty lazy day. That seems to happen to me after going to work, it takes awhile to get back into things. Today was spent paying bills and getting caught up on all kinds of paper work trying to keep track of my house building expenses and all.