Do It Yourself Homebuilding continues

The Millers continue to plug away at building their new energy efficient home themselves. Visit our last two posts here and here to catch up on the progress.

Greetings to All,
First, we want to wish everyone a superb Thanksgiving. We hope that you can all gather around with family and friends. We know that the English clan out in Eugene will have a house full, and know that the Gabriels down in Laramie will be cooking up a huge meal.

Daylight has become scarce, and our weeks have filled up with other activities. Katie is on the Middle School Swim Team, Dan is in Boy Scouts over in Powell, and this week Dan decided (after being encouraged by the coach), that he should start swimming as well. So both kids are swimming M-F. Katie keeps improving her times at the meets.

We have been trying ever so hard to finish up that pesky metal roof on the house. We are up to the skylights that we have cut into the roof. The flashing kit that came with the skylights requires that you perform delicate maneuvers with tin snips and other sharp objects while tethered to the roof with your life line. Kind of like trimming your toenails sitting on the edge of the Grand Canyon.

In addition to the wind and weather not cooperating, yours truely took a pretty good fall from a ladder about ten days ago. I cowboyed things out for a few days until Peggy insisted that I go to the doctor. -A sprained left ankle, and a small radial fracture in my right elbow. So I have been slowed but not stopped. About the only thing that really hurts to do is pound with a hammer with my right arm.

We lost some sleep, planning strategy for placing the large front door unit (w / two side lights and a transom) and large bedroom exterior french door and transom unit. Both are large, heavy, expensive, and full of glass. So we rigged up a contraption to move these things so that they could be edged into place. We had success, no broken glass, no more broken bones. The house is now locked, and sealed from the elements. We have moved all the rough electrical and rough plumbing supplies into the house in anticipation of doing some of this work over Thanksgiving.

From the photos, you can see about where we are with the roof. We have also installed the porch rafters and completed the framing of all the second floor walls. Dan did a great job of securing the door units while riding on the front of the tractor forks. Less, you think that we are in violation of international child labor laws, I was close by walking alongside the tractor to secure the load.

So Happy Thanksgiving to All.

-Chip, Peg, Dan and Katie

-Our Holiday Break has just ended. We put some 9 days of work into the house and have accomplished a lot. The kids have been great between working hard and playing around with their Christmas gifts. Most of our days have ended in sheer exhaustion.

We have run several thousand feet of electrical wire in the house, and a lesser amount of low voltage Cat5, and speaker wire, installed some 50 can lights. A big accomplishment was the installation of all the R49 fiberglass insulation in the main body of the house ceiling (the great room vault, and over the second floor rooms). Chip and Dan donned hazmat suits for this task.

It is hope that all had a great holiday. We tried to get some Christmas cards in the mail. To those of you who missed one, we applologize for the lack luster replacement of an email greeting.

-Chip, Peg, Dan, Katie