Eek gads! Snow?

No. Don’t worry. It’s not snow… yet. This is just a close up picture of the spray foam insulation we used.

This was a pretty groovy deal. I watched an episode of This Old House featuring this process about a year ago and we put it on the list of things to research for the house. After weighing the pros and cons we decided to forgo the itchy pink fiberglass stuff and chose to do this instead.

The insulation guys come in, don their space suits, and spray the stuff into the walls with these gun like wands. It leaves a fog in the room where they are working but it was nothing really toxic... or was not supposed to be. They seem to be ok anyway.


Hmm. Anyway, it expands to like a zillion times its size or some damn thing… but as you can see it fills in all the empty spots.

It cures really fast and then the next thing you know they are trimming the excess and are all done. The manufacturer claims there is no off-gassing etc and that it is a very efficient type of insulation. The guy who came to give us an estimate said we might just be cracking a window in the winter.

Uh huh. We’ll see.

On Friday morning they arrived at 7:30 a.m. and by 3:00 p.m. they were finished insulating the house and rolling out of the driveway. It was a good thing they moved on out of the driveway because within a half an hour or so here comes the truck with the sheetrock/drywall delivery!

This is going fast and furious. Any construction gets down to a timing thing and its all kind of a puzzle. One thing has to go in before the other that kind of stuff. Good thing we have some pretty experienced help to let us know what to do next each step of the way.

By the time the weekend was over the guys had put up all the drywall that could go up until the pex plumbing was completed. Here is what I saw when I walked in the front door... standing in mudroom doorway looking into the kitchen with the living room and the deck beyond. There is a big sheet of drywall in the way in case you were wondering what that was.. it is not a wall. That entire space will be open.

From the same spot I turned to the east (left) and took a picture of the kitchen

and then in the living room back towards the stairs up to the loft master bedroom...

Then from the living room back into the kitchen out the mudroom and front door beyond. That is the big golden Delta beast in the doorway if you were wondering what was blocking the sun.

Next?

Larry came on Monday and he and David got started right away on the pex. They plan to have that done today, and then the rest of the drywall can go up.

We have electricity to the house and now the water has been piped in and is getting routed through the pex. Getting closer to being able to live in it every day!