Pool House Expansion Project, Days 67 - 23/12/15

Gutters, Ceilings, and Signs

Days Sixty-Seven , 23 December, 2015

A while back, I had mentioned in a post (http://www.winjama.net/2015/11/pool-house-expansion-project-day-forty_25.html) about a YouTube video I had watched that showed a really cool way of securing the ridge cap ends.

Well, here's the proof that our crew was up to the task and following the example from the video, you can see the ridge cap end is effectively and very nicely, closed off. High fives all around!

Roof Ridgecap With Closed End

Omar and the boys are closing in on finishing the furring strips. In fact, they may start installing PlyCem in the walkways and veranda this afternoon.

Omar Putting Up Furring Strips

 Here's another glimpse of the progress they've been making with the furring strips.

Lot of Progress on Furring Strips

Toward that end, I went up to Lano's Hardware here in Ranchito, to look for some LED pot lights for the walkways. What I found is really cool. I bought seven of them - two for each side of the walkways, which makes six, and the seventh is going to be an overhead potlight for the shower.

LED Pot Lights

They're really cool - literally. I had one plugged into an outlet in our kitchen for several hours, and it was barely above room temperature. And bright? Yes sir. They are bright. And frugal with current too. Each consumes only 4 watts of electricity,  So, with all seven of them turned on, they're collectively, only drawing a smidge more current than a 25 watt incandescent bulb.

Back Side

They're a snap to set up. You need to cut a 3-inch (approx) hole in your drywall or whatever, slide it in and adjust the little springy, clippy things on either side. The Ballast or controller, or whatever the little box thing is called, has slots on the ends for a couple of screws to hold it in place.

Clippy Things to Hold LED Lights in Place

One of the other things I bought up at Lano's was a dryer vent cover and tube. I even know where the hole for it needs to go. Now all I have to do is get one of Carl's boys to cut the hole for me and I can get this installed.

Dryer Vent and Tubing 1.01

The last items I bought today, were three brass faucets for the outside of the house. One faucet for each side of the new structure. When I got home, I teflon-taped the faucets and screwed them firmly into the PVC fittings. All the guys have to do is glue them in place and they'll be oriented correctly.

Outside Faucets, Taped and Mounted to PVC Fittings

There's many more photos than appear in each posting. You can see all the photos of the construction project on Flickr at: https://www.flickr.com/gp/winjama/0wVc3s. There will be new photos added each day of the project.    

A Little Watah Here, A Little Watah There

When we first built the place, we put a single faucet on the back-side of the house. That was adequate for several years. But, now that we've added planter boxes and a compost bin, our needs have changed significantly. Which change necessitates digging holes, finding the old pipes, and figuring out just how we're going to route stuff to accomplish what I'm seeing in my mind's eye.

For starters, I had Cody dig out the piping for the existing faucet. Naturally, it's buried directly under a 3-inch drain pipe we installed later - after we had our roof gutters installed.

Work is Just Starting

As you can see below, it's a bit of a tight fit. One thing that did help (seems like it does with each project too) is that I take photos of just about every phase of a project. Makes it easy then to go back when change is mandated and figure out, more or less, just what we had done in the first place.

Bit of a Tight Space to Work In

I decided to cut the water line right under the drain pipe. There was enough room to put an elbow there and reroute everything without digging up more than necessary.

I wanted to run a new line from there over to the new compost bin so we could have a faucet to take care of that area and the whole yard by the street. This meant that we had to run the line under the sidewalk (You can see that at the top of the photo below).

If this was in the states, making a 'water-jet' would be easy. Just go to the hardware store and buy a couple of hose threaded slip fittings (male and female) for an old length of PVC pipe. Glue it together and hook it up to a hose and blast away. Well, unfortunately, those fittings aren't available here.

Improvise. I found a piece of PVC electrical conduit that was just perfectly sized to fit the diameter of the hose I had in mind. I cut one end off the hose, slid the length of hose through the conduit and attached a new hose fitting to replace the one I had cut off. I now had a rigid water-jet to blast a tunnel under the sidewalk. Perfect. After attaching the water-jet assembly to a hose and turning on the water, it took about five minutes to bore a pipe-sized tunnel under the sidewalk. No big deal at all.

Running Another Line To the Compost Bin

Then, it just became a matter of gluing all the bits together, and before burying it all, turning on the water to see if anything leaked - which nothing did, so we were good to go.

Pretty Much All Hooked Up - Ready to Bury

Here's another view of the completed assembly showing the pipe running under the sidewalk. I haven't removed the old hose rack and hose yet. The rack will be repositioned by the double faucet, bolted to the steel post right there.

Faucet Re-routed From Wall to Garden

We're looking at the business end with the double faucet ready to go. One spigot for the watering wand curly hose and the other for the odd filling up buckets and washing hands and tools. Handy, eh?

Two Faucets Now

Cody's filling in the trenches he had dug for the piping. The pipe runs for now over to the corner of the compost bin pad, where I capped it off till Carlos gets done building the bin walls. Then I'll add some more piping, run a length up, install a faucet and my last hose rack and it'll be a done deal.

New Faucet Will Go In the Corner

Dianna had a good idea about a drain field for the front of the compost bin. We had Cody dig a trench about a foot deep and wide, and then fill it with gravel. Hopefully it'll work as we imagine it will.

Seeing How Everything Fits

Carlos starting the compost bin walls. It's going as high as the terra cotta fence in the background.

Carlos Hard At Work

A couple more hours and there's some real progress that has been made.

It's Going Up

After completing the two courses of each wall, Carlos cleaned up for the day. Next Friday he'll form up the top of each wall and cast a cap with rebar to give some rigidity to each wall. Then, it's parging the walls inside and out, and painting the outside walls and the project is done.