McHugh/Gant Hangar House

Day 528 - Last Report for 2006

Sunday, December 31 - We drove up to HangarHouse on Tuesday after spending Christmas with Kelli's family in Loomis. Due to heavy traffic on Interstate 80, we decided to take the scenic route to Red Buff via Lincoln and Marysville (Highway 65) and then Highway 99. This was a nice change despite the very heavy downpour most of the trip.

When we arrived in Trinity Center, the power was out, and it was dark, slushy and raining. It turns out a tree fell across the power lines up near The Knolls, and the appropriate breakers did not break, so the power was out in the whole area. Well, we fired up the generator (which we have turned off so that it does not automatically start when we are away), and it ran perfectly. We fired up all the house systems, and everything worked as advertised. We ran all the furnaces, all the lights we wanted, and all the appliances. It sure is nice to have that backup!

So, what has been going on since the last report....

Garage

It is all cleaned up! This was a nice surprise to drive into a empty garage. Now we need those garage doors. We cannot get the southern California vendor to return our calls and emails. They seem to be terrible at responding to us, potential customers for three of their doors. We hope this is not indicative of their customer service, but rather simply that they are tired of telling us that they don't yet make the model we want. But with just plywood "doors" on two of the bays, it is cold in the garage so we will now raise the priority of this project -- it is one of the last remaining major tasks.

The master bathroom

Dave and John finished grouting and caulking the *new* shower on Monday 12/18. Kelli cleaned all the shower tile, window sills, and floors on Thursday 12/28 and sealed the grout on Friday, and sealed the window sills with enhancer/protector.

Dave installed a grab bar at the entrance to the shower...

We used the tile floor heaters for the first time. Very nice. Tigger seems to like the warmth also... The heat is under the tile. The light in the toe-kick area of the cabinets is rope light activated by a motion sensor.

We finally set up our bathroom with towels, Christmas gifts, and toiletries yesterday. We used the spa tub for the first time Saturday as part of our wedding anniversary celebration...

Cat door

Dave added a frame around the inside cat door to extend the tunnel so that the inside door will open into the tunnel completely.

Cricket has been using the door. She knows where the door is and will go through it to the outside with a little encouragement. She has been exploring the deck on her own and comes back into the house on her own. Tigger is still hesitant to go out. If we place him out on the deck, he will explore a little, but then comes back in through the cat door.

Mechanical room

After the HVAC crew installed our biggest unit in the mechanical room and hung the unit from the hobby room floor joists along with the make-up fresh air unit, Dave mentioned that the units should have been mounted on the floor to prevent vibration in the hobby room. Well, that modification is done.

Dave built "legs" for the unit, supported the units with a jack while he replaced the all-thread hangers with the standards. He also installed cross bracing to prevent torquing.

The thermostat that controls the exhaust fan has been moved closer to the generator, the large cooling fan is installed with a custom "Dave Epperson" stand, and heat shielding blanket and fabric tape is installed around the exhaust pipe. The shielding will prevent really nasty burns from the engine exhaust stack and will direct more of the heat out of the mechanical room through the exhaust pipe.

Weather Station 

At the request of family and friends who are going through HangarHouse.com withdrawals as we come to the end of the daily house reports, Mike has purchased and is setting up a weather station. When complete, not only will periodic reports be posted to the website (will 30-minute reports be sufficient?), but we are getting two webcams so you can check out the lake and weather. We will also join the Citizen's Weather Observer Program (CWOP) so that NOAA can collect and use our data.

This week Mike set up the new computer and got the weather station and computer talking to each other. The weather station is temporarily sitting out on the deck. We hope to permanently install the station on a post when we are back up at the end of January.

Office

John was here Friday to install the last of the pencil bar on the office window sill. The window sills are all cleaned and sealed with enhancer.

We moved the dining room table from the cabin over on Thursday to serve as a temporary office desk...

Dave connected a temporary second location to the phone line so that the computer can dialup and post the weather station data. The wiring project for all the high-tech outlets around the house will wait until we get back. Mike has to pick out the hardware for the wiring closet to get all the systems and outlets connected.

Cats Heaven

We bought the cats their own beds for HangarHouse in hopes that they stay off of our bed and the furniture. They seem to like them.

Cats in Kelli's niece's bedroom over Christmas...

Cats in HangarHouse... And you can see that we are using the wood stove.

Other Miscellany

We wore out the low-end (as in "cheap") door knobs on the exterior doors in the garage. So, Kelli ordered new Emtek knobs with locks that are keyed to the front door. Dave installed the new knobs yesterday.

Mike did some snow shoveling to help remind him why he left Chicago--and to show Kelli that he really did remember how. Seeing that this is Mike's first winter up here, Kelli let him demonstrate all that he wanted.

Kelli did some very late-Fall bulb planting Saturday. Another 100+ bulbs. This time she is planting them using the naturalized method--big clumps of bulbs in one spot, much faster.

We declared the inside of the house done and removed the foam pad from the stair treads. What a difference that change makes!

When the snow comes off of the metal roof, it lands on the next roof level or the deck with a big "whump!"... So far, the gutters are not affected by the sliding snow.

Miscellaneous house pictures...

An interesting statistic... we were looking through the HangarHouse.com pictures and it looks like we posted 5,672 pictures on the website--times 2 for the large and small versions. Then there are pictures that we took for documenting things like pipe locations and mistakes. The grand total looks like well over 6,000 pictures. And the camera is still working, although a little tired.

Happy New Year !!!

We will be ringing in this third New Year of the project with other Trinity Center residents at the New Years' Eve party at the community hall tonight. Then it is back to the Bay Area on Monday for work and a much anticipated sailing/floating vacation to the British Virgin Islands with our friends, the Floreys.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A contrast of living....

This is a picture from our condo balcony two days before Christmas. It looks like Fall...

This is what Trinity looked like 3 days later...

Other condo pictures...