Journal of Progress July 1-7

Monday, July 2, 2018

Built more spacers.

Work begins to get our electrical system installed. It began with digging trenches across two county roads while being initially cautious about phone wires.

  The blue stakes mark for phone wires.

Now 220 feet across two county roads

Found the rails buried under the road.  There is a reason this road is called Railroad Street.

 Going across the second road.

 The electrician has arrived to begin putting in the pipes.

The pole that will hold our meter looking back across the two county roads to the pole with the transformer.

 Now another two hundred and twenty feet up to the house.

 Beginning to install the pipes to carry the wires.

Don's job is to put the glue around the pole top and around the pole that will encase it.

It is hard physical work to push them together.

Getting under the rails.

The pipe from the transformer pole to the meter pole.

 Poles not yet attached sticking out of the ground.

The county roads had to yet be covered up.  We were supposed to have a compacter for this job but it ended up unavailable so we just had to hope this would be sufficient.

Another view of the poles not yet placed in the trench.

Tuesday, July 3, 2018

Built more spacers, including the slightly smaller ones for the very first bay. These must be less than 16" on center, so the decking above them can extend to the very edge of the deck while still accommodating panels that are exactly eight feet long. Still didn’t finish all the spacers, as I spent most of the morning with Aaron, the electrician, laying the conduit between the meter and the house. The electrician says the electrical inspector will not approve the installation until both the pole to meter line and the meter to house line are properly installed. Big pain!

Also, didn’t finish the spacers because I have run out of the long 2x2 members. I have no more 2x2s, so will have to rip some larger stock. But it was too hot to do so this afternoon. Will do that tomorrow morning, but probably won’t get the spacers made until the end of the week. Hopefully, I can actually start setting joists next week.

I’ve been giving some thought to how to get subflooring up to the top of the joists. No good answers yet, but one thing for sure: even temporary subflooring will be screwed in place! Falling through an eight foot high ceiling is nothing like falling two or three feet. Once is enough! (Remember the definition of an expert: someone who has already made the mistake you are about to make.)

Wednesday, July 4, 2018  Happy Independence Day!

The electrician left his trailer, locked, blocking off Sioux Street, right in the middle of the intersection. I don’t know why. I tried to move it, but he had locked the hitch with a padlock. Yesterday, I told him to move it, but he didn’t. I told him “Sombody will move it for you, if you don’t.” He didn’t.

This morning, when Barbara realized it was blocking the garbage truck, I went out to move the trailer. Turns out the garbage truck was able to get past, but I moved it anyway, using his safety chain, my rope, and a 2x4 to lift the tongue off the cement block he uses for a hitch leveler. In backing the truck up to the trailer, I hit the lock with the truck bumper and broke the lock clean off. I never even felt it. 

The electrician didn’t even use proper chocks to chock the wheels of his trailer, just a couple of big rocks that the digger guy dug up. So, I just pulled the trailer ahead about fifty feet, so it was well out of the intersection, chocked it, and left it. I’ll tell the electrician I’m sorry about his lock, but I saved him a bunch of money, as somebody would be sure to report him to the Sheriff, who would have to tow the trailer much as I did, and may have broken the lock on purpose, and even impounded it, plus issuing a citation, all of which would cost a lot more than a cheap padlock.

I put up the first of the joists and began putting up the spacers for it.

Marking the joist to cut it off at the correct spot.

Clamping it in place.

Securing it with the nail gun.

 The other end is flapping in the breeze.

Preparing the first spacer to go in.

Several spacers in a row.

I don’t expect to get too much work done today, as we’re going in to Orem for a DAR service project at a Colonial village. Should be a fun way to celebrate the Fourth.

Barbara supposedly conducting a 1776 school.  Period costume.  Three grandkids were in the school.

There was also a display of military vehicles, tents, etc. from different war eras.  Below is what was called the duck in World War II.  It could go on the land or sea.

This is called a half-track.

This annual tradition at Sierra Park in Orem had the right blend of patriotism and fun to make it a great way to celebrate the 4th of July.  Lacking other plans, we will make it our tradition.

Thursday, July 5, 2018

Got another joist up yesterday and finished installing the spacers for it; then put up another joist and spacers today. Total: four joists in two days. I simply must stop these interruptions (helping the electrician) . It’s also slow going because I’m working atop ladders. It often seems that my main job is repositioning ladders and moving stuff out of the way. I’ve come up with a corollary to Murphy’s law: wherever I stack my trash pieces of lumber, will be the next place I need to work.

Speaking of trash lumber, a lot of it has nails in it. I’ve asked several people who want to help to pull nails and move the scrap wood out of the way for me, but nobody wants the unglamourous jobs. Dealing with the scraps is dull and uncool-- and vital. But I dare not spend my precious building time pulling nails! I’ll pray about it tonight.

Most of the day was spent pulling the wire for the electricity.
Here the electrician is rolling the ground wire up to the street to have it spread out of the pull.  Previously he rolled up the electrical wire parallel to where he is rolling the ground wire.  Home Depot gave him the expensive copper wire for the same price as the aluminum grounding wire because they had run out of the aluminum and the project had to go forward.

Here the electrician is splitting the wire and cutting some of it off.

Here he is making handles out of the shaved wires.  It was in this preparation that we really saw that the electrician knw what he was doing.

Now he is threading what is called pulling line--kind of a plastic coated string--into the handles he made.

Here they are tightening the handles down over the pulling line.

Then he wrapped the whole thing with duct tape.

Here they are constructing a tripod over the meter pole.

A pulley is suspended from the tripod.

The electrician previously sucked the other end of the pull line through the pipes with a shop vac.

Then it was push on one end until one or the other end yelled "Stop!"

This was the pull end.  It was strenuous work.

 The line had to go around one 45 degree angle as well as curves so would become very hard to either push or pull.

Coming up out of the ground, the pull-line, wire assembly had to make a 90 degree turn.  Shortly after this picture was taken, the line broke and both the electrician and Don went down.  I told them I would have videoed it had I known it was going to happen.  They weren't willing to restage it.

Dontyping the two ends of the pull line together.

The electrician manually turned the pulley with each push to gently encourage the line to come up.

 The line is out.  This all represents 2-3 hours.

 Don thinks Rocky Mountain has to pull the wire between the transformer and the meter box.  Either that or the electrician somehow pulled it himself.  We are unsure about this.

The electrical box on the house itself.

Friday, July 6, 2018
Don summarizes most of what happened today on his post tomorrow. He also drew a schematic of where the wiring should go inside the house.

Saturday, July 7, 2018

Yesterday was a red letter day in four respects:

1. Got six of my twenty-four joists up and blocked. That’s a total of six, not six in one day. But that’s not too bad, considering we also:

2. Got the truck set up for carrying water and made our first water run in it, also hauling our landlady's BIG trailer carrying all the kitchen cabinets we’ll need. Oak cabinets at that. Many will need repair, and at least one is going to need a whole new box built for it. But the box is the cheap, easy part.

3. Meanwhile, the electrician finished pulling all the wire from the meter to the breaker box in the house, called the electrical inspector, and he came out and inspected. We passed! Now we just need for Rocky Mountain Power to come out and connect us to the mains. No idea when that will happen, but could be in a few days! 

4. Yesterday, we ate the first ripe apricot from our tree. 

Details are even more surprising. 

1. The joists. After putting up six and measuring, it turns out the spacers are actually about 1/8" too short, so to make it come out right, I’ve had to glue on shims, every four joists or so, to make them come out even. Not bad. At least I don’t have to saw them shorter!

2. Truck still needs work on the carburetor, and still has wasps somewhere, though I’ve found and destroyed two nests in it.  The truck is so powerful that I literally couldn’t tell the heavy trailer was attached. Hauled it back to Margaret’s bed and breakfast near the top of Eureka. Thought about stopping for gas at Carpenter’s station on the way up, as we were right on empty. Let Barbara talk me out of it. Both of us forgot about their new hours. Bathed at the bed and breakfast, and ate a wonderful ice cream cake. Thought about gassing up at the station at the top of the hill, but Barbara pointed out that they charge five cents a gallon more than Carpenter’s, and it’s downhill all the way, so I could get to Carpenter’s even if we ran out of gas. Carpenter’s was closed when we got there, so we had to drive all the way back UP “on fumes”. But we got there all right and gassed up. Looks like we’re getting about six mpg. Oh well, that’s one gallon per water run. I’m not planning to drive it to Tooele. And that should improve a lot with the carb fixed.

3. Sure that the building inspector would take at least several days to come inspect, as soon as he was sure he’d finish the supply that day, The electrician called the inspector to come out from Nephi, the county seat, forty miles away, and got back to work. As he was about to finish pulling the line out, a guy drove up in a tee shirt and jeans, and started chatting him up about what he was doing. The electrician thought he was another Mammoth resident, and told him how much trouble he was having. Turned out to be the inspector. Then he asked if the electrician had finished pulling the wire. Aaron said, “I’ve got the end right here!” and pulled. And the string snapped. Fortunately, the end was right near the end of the pipe, and Aaron was able to retrieve it and finish the job. The inspection passed, and the inspector said he’d call Rocky Mountain Power to make the connection. When that’s done, we’ll have power!

4. The birds have pecked most of the ripe apricots, and the wind blows them off the tree before they are ripe. But we are actually eating some of  our own fruit!

Saturday morning, we covered the cabinets before heading to town for the baptism of a granddaughter and then, on Sunday, the farewell of friends leaving on a mission.