Recent Events

Sorry the blog has been content-challenged for the past few days.  It takes a certain amount of time and energy to put the posts together and do the photos, etc...so sometimes I prefer to do other things instead of blogging. 

Let's get caught up on what's been happening.  First up is Sunday afternoon...

Waterworld pt. 1: Bring the Mop

There hasn't been much rain in the past week or so, which is good because when it rains, the water comes in the basement.  With all the hot and humid weather, it was only a matter of time before that would reverse itself.

Awhile after the rain started coming down hard, I checked downstairs to see how things were doing.  Christo's tarp is nice to look at and all, but didn't really do anything to keep water out of the basement.  We had removed a carpet runner from the workshop area since it rained last.  Turns out, the carpet was absorbing a fair bit of water, and covering up the extent to which things would spill onto the floor.  So instead of a damp floor, there was now enough water to actually mop up.  I got to work on mopping up, and awhile after the rain stopped, the water stopped making little puddles in the basement.

Waterworld pt. 2: Putting the "Hydro" back in "Hydro"

Later in the afternoon, it started to rain hard once again.  This time, there was no need to wait until the storm was over.  I knew the thing to do was go downstairs and mop up.  On the way through the laundry room, I noticed a new water stain on the floor.  I stopped to see if I could figure out where the water was coming from.

It was dripping out of our main electrical breaker.

I spent a brief few moments deciding whether it was better to leave the power going and not touch the panel, or to try and shut off the power when there was water dripping out of the panel.  I decided to shut off the power.

"When I regained consciousness..." (just kidding)

Once the power was shut off, I hung a flashlight from the ceiling, and got back to the mop and bucket.  Then after the rain calmed down a bit, I decided to call our contractor to see what to do about the power situation.  I didn't really want to phone at 4pm on a Sunday, but I didn't see any better alternative.  A short while later, Gerald, our foreman, arrived with his son-in-law Todd.  Luck would have it Todd is an electrician.

It turns out the standpipe for the electrical mast was in very poor shape, and water was running straight down and into the main breaker panel. Shocking!  After some careful application of plywood and the Handyman's Secret Weapon(tm), we were able to put the power back on.

Waterworld pt. 3:  Don't Put Down that Mop Just Yet

Of course, about 15 minutes after Gerald and Todd left, the sky opened up once again.  To alleviate the boredom of mopping up water, I stopped every so often to take a very close look at the main breaker panel.  No leaks, thankfully, and the rain stopped for the evening as well.

Special Delivery

The 6x12 Douglas Fir beams are here!  It's kind of like Christmas morning, except the tree was much too big to fit into the house, so we chopped it down, sawed it into lumber, and made it into the Christmas present.

 
There are 3 beams under the white cover.  We almost needed a longer driveway.  They basically run the whole length.  There is an additional shorter beam under the blue tarp.

big chunks o' wood.  These will be left exposed inside the second storey.

I measured one of he long beams at 28ft. 5in.  If you're reading this in Switzerland, that would be about 6.8m.  A further clarifying note to our Swiss reader...even though Canada is a fully metric country, we still do all measurement for building construction in feet and inches, and most fasteners used in construction are not metric either.

Slow Ascent Into Madness

Hydro continues to take their sweet time getting us information and price quotes on moving the service mast, etc.  Every day this gets to be a little more "in the way".

 
Get these *&$#$## wires out of here!

Although the windows and doors got finally ordered, that doesn't mean the hassle and extra costs have to stop there.  But hey, why am I using up all my good material in one day?

So until next time...keep the mop handy!