Building A Home

WEBARS - that's Windows, Electrical, Bricks, Alarm, Roof, Solar. Those are the items on the agenda for today. The last of the windows arrived last week, so they are being installed. And thus the brick layers can return to finish off. The roof is still on-going, and the solar collectors for the hot water system are to be installed beginning at 1PM. And, of course, there's more wire to go into the house - both power (including for the new windows) and alarm.

This is a "bricks and windows" photo! The windows have been installed at the dining room end of the western wing, while Dean and company are bricking up the walls, now that the windows have arrived to delimit the brick areas exactly.

"Windows and electrical" here - Ryan and Chris are installing the big upper window, carefully positioning it, as there aren't quite enough degrees of freedom to allow for sloppy postioning. The window needs to align with the door below, the window adjacent and the roof line. As well as appearing level! And Steve is running the cable to power the window opening mechanisms in the two smaller windows - these can be opened to allow the hot air to escape.

And some time later, the last of the windows (just to the left of the centre pillar) is installed. Positioning still taking place.

Roofing

Time to put the end piece on the roof. First it needs to reach the correct position. Note also that the brick wall on the end of the garage has been completed!

Ready for inspection. Is this what I want? Is it OK? Yep, looks good to me.

The finished end of the roof - at least on the garage side. The same treatment is required for the other "end" of the house over the porch.

Solar Collectors

The first scheduled date for installation of the solar collectors (for hot water) was last week, but that turned out to be a quite nasty day, and was cancelled due to the rain, which would have made the roof quite dangerous. So a new appointment was made for today, at 1PM. I arrived a little after that, to find that the crew had not arrived. I spent quite a bit of time talking to Chris, Eddie (alarm), Steve (electrician) but still no solar collector installers.

About 3PM I had a phone call - they were delayed (well, that was rather obvious) and would be here by 4PM. Which came and went. And 5PM came and went. By 5:15PM I had enough, and was packing up to leave when they arrived. They were unaware of the original or modified schedule. And had been on the job since 6AM - 11 hours ago!

First step is to attach a couple of straps to the roof (using the existing screws.

To the two straps is attached a strip which will be the base for the collectors.

One of the collectors on the ground, being prepared by having the fittings installed. There are 2 pipes running the width of the collector; these protrude from the corners (but on the long side) which allow collectors to be paralleled by coupling the hot and cold rails together through all the panels.

Installing the fittings to the copper pipes protruding from the corners of the collectors.

Up, up and away. Hoisting the first of the collectors onto the roof.

Both collectors in place, but they seem to have left something on the ground. They could see the pieces, and I handed them up. You can see the two collectors sitting on the bottom rail which was attached above. There is another rail at the top, which is also attached to strips screwed into the roof.

The final photo, as it was sunset, and the work now moved inside to fit the plumbing into the walls. There is an addition to the lower rail (top also, but not visible) - clips screwed into the collectors and into the rail to stop any movement. Note also the copper pipe coming through the roof - the left one is for the cold water supply, and the upper (right) is the hot water outlet. Also on the top right is the air bleed valve - otherwise getting rid of the air in the circuit would be difficult.

There are no more photos from this day, as the light was fast disappearing, and the action had moved indoors to running the copper pipes to the water heater location in the laundry. Finally, at 8:15PM, by which time it is pretty dark, we left for the day.