Pool House Expansion Project, Day 92-93 - 27-28/01/16

Plumbing, Ceiling Fans, Doggie Doors, Grouting, Drain Field, Roll-up

Day Ninety-Two and Ninety-Three, 27 - 28 January, 2016

Wednesday morning, I decided to get right to it and hook up the whole house filter (the little blue tank in the photo below) and the salt-free water softener (the big blue tank).

Stage One of Connected Piping to Filter

Of course, I periodically had to go on walk-about to see how other work and installations were coming along, like the office ceiling fan below. I love the antique look.

the Office Ceiling Fan

Mitch, the carpenter, had taken the rather plain Mennonite screen doors and did an outstanding job of modifying them to make the openings for our doggie doors. We still have the doggie doors installed upstairs in the Mennonite house.

Since we're still living there, it's a bit of a juggling act to determine just when we should move things like that down to the new house. It's partly a question of dealing with bugs, oh, and convenience, of course. Who wants to constantly be getting up to let three dogs and three cats (since they use the doggie doors as well) in or out virtually 24/7?

Doggie Door Opening in Screen Door

Here's Mr. Cobb, the electrician, assembling our new double-bladed fans. I saw these on the Lowe's website (where we bought all our fans). I've never seen anything like this double-bladed job. As soon as I saw it, I thought it would be cool to have. Each unit has smaller blades, about a foot long, I think, but the overall effect is like you have a ceiling fan with a seventy-five inch diameter, which would make for a huge fan.

Complicated Assembly

Of course, the grout work is progressing along. It really brings the tile to life and gives it a much more finished look.

Grout Being Applied

Here you can see it's been done down the entire length of the east walkway. It still needs final sponging.

Grout Going Whole Length

While all that is going on, Mitch, the carpenter is busy installing door jambs all around. Here, he and his assistant are installing the closet jambs.

Mitch the Carpenter and helper Mounting Closet Door Frame

Some of the hardest work currently, is digging the trenches for the septic drain-field. Marl is not the easiest stuff to dig through. It's basically the consistency of decaying concrete.

Digging Trenches for Septic Drain Field

Some time on Wednesday, the installers from Capital Factory showed up with the roll-up door. This was a nice surprise, as I wasn't expecting them till next week.

Rollup Door Minus Frame

Here's a nice example of the walkway tile after the grout has been applied and cleaned up. We opted to go with a 1/8th-inch grout line, and to use un-sanded grout. This give a much finer line, but also makes the tile look more unified. We love the way it's turning out.

Walkway Tiles With Chocolate Unsanded Grout

The guys from Capital Factory right away were stymied as far as being able to install the roll-up door. They said where we had the electrical wire coming out of the wall was in the wrong place. It would interfere with the roll-up frame. So, they left and were planning to return tomorrow morning, after we re-routed the wire, to complete their installation.

Wires For Roll-up Need to be Re-positioned

Sometime later in the afternoon, they returned. Seems in their zeal to install the door early, they grabbed the frame for another job up in Consejo. It was the wrong size for our job. That's why the roll-up was sitting on the floor in the photo above with no frame nearby. So, it's really a good thing that our wiring was in the wrong place.

In the photo below, you can see how I split the original incoming water line, so that now the incoming water is routed to the right-hand through-wall into the utility room and connects with the filter and softener. After leaving the softener, the water then comes back out via the left-hand through-wall, and then connects back with the piping going into the house.

I did this, because on the original construction, when the water pipe entered the house, it was routed under the concrete floor. Not knowing exactly where it went, meant either tearing up some of the floor to find it, or to simple route it like I did.

Outside Piping For House Water

You can see how the piping is run. It comes in via the left through-wall, diagonally up to the whole house filter, which also has a by-pass, so that water will still be able to flow when the filter is being changed. From there it runs up to the water softener, and then a run back to the right-hand through-wall. Simple, eh?

Piping For Whole house Filter and Softener

Here's how the connection with the water softener looks. Unfortunately, when I fired up the system (turned the water back on) there's a few leaks. And I had been so careful to glue things well and to ensure that leakage wouldn't happen. What are you gonna do?

Part of the issue seems to be a common problem here, in that PVC piping may be coming from one vendors, and the fittings from others. So, every now and then you find fittings that seem a tad loose when you glue and press them together. I had several fittings that seemed to be that way. I'll have to trouble-shoot it and see if I can get the leaks under control.

Piping For Softener

Something on fire? No, it's just Omar using his grinder to cut a notch in order to re-route the wiring for the roll-up door.

Dust Cloud From Omar Cutting Notch For Rollup

Another shot of the grouting. It seems that no matter which way you turn right now, somebody is grouting tile. It's getting hard to find a clear path anywhere.

Grouting East Walkway

Here's a glimpse of the re-routed wire for the roll-up, complete with an added junction box. Now we're ready.

Junction Box For Rollup

Mr. Cobb is busy assembling, wiring, and hanging the ceiling fans. We have three double-bladed fans - one in the living room, one in the bedroom, and one on the veranda for those days when there is simply no breeze at all. BTW, all the fans are indoor/outdoor rated.

Mr. Cobb Wiring Up Living Room Fan

Here it is in action. It stays stationary, but the twin blades make it seem like it wants to take off. It does move a significant amount of air, which down here, will be a Godsend.

Ready For Takeoff

Each of the blade assemblies is moveable. That is, each can be tilted some, to be aimed a bit other than just straight down.

Living Room Fan minus Cover

Now the Capital crew is back and jumped right in to installing the frame.

Snapping Chalk Line For Rollup Frame

They quickly drilled holes and mounted the heavy steel frame.

Rollup Frame Mounted

Almost immediately after that, the motor was fitted.

Mounting Rollup Motor

Since there were only the two of them, working with the roll-up was very awkward, due to its weight, they separated the roll-up into two parts, similar to the way you would separate a bicycle chain. Here, they're fitting half of the roll-up to the frame axle.

Working With Half of the Roll

They work the roll-up up and over the back side of the axle.

Ready to Fasten Roll to Axle

And, then fasten it to the axle with screws. Then they attach the other half of the roll-up and begin final adjustments so the thing works smoothly.

Fastening Roll t-Axle

After a couple of minutes, it does work smooth. They then attach the side tracks or guides that keep the roll-up close to the wall.

It's Working

From the inside of the living room, there's what it looks like unrolled.

From the Dining Room

The works of the assembly are now hidden behind a metal box-like cover, which they're installing now.

Mounting the Cover

There. It's all done. Of course now, Mr. Cobb has to re-route the control box to the inside of the living room, and the whole assembly will be painted to match the light tan of the walkway.

Installation All Done

While all that was going on, grouting continued unabated. Here Errol is using my ShopVac to prepare the dining room for its share of the grouting.

Vacuuming the Dining Room

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.        

Every Day's a Big Day Tuesday

I started out to title this posting 'Big Day Tuesday'. I changed my mind. Events just move too fast. I'll see if I can get caught up here.

What better way to get started than having a nice comfortable throne? Here's a shot of our newly installed 'terlet' - fully functioning too.

The Throne

It does still have one tiny leak. The right-side bolt that holds the tank to the bowl still leaks. I haven't been able to entirely stop it yet. I'm looking for an easy solution, so far it's avoiding me.

Windows Arriving

And on Tuesday (the day that started this post), at about 9:30 AM, or so, Roger, from Capital Factory (http://www.capitalfactory.bz/) here in Corozal, showed up with his crew and a full load of louvered windows, sliding glass doors and a roll-up door. They wasted no time beginning the unloading process.

Windows Stacked Everywhere

And, as fast as the windows came in, here comes tromping up onto the deck, this huge contraption - our new 'roll-up' door.

Roll-up Arriving

Looking huge, as it arrived, and even larger after it got installed, the roll-up door is quite the piece of machinery.

Roll-up On Deck

Of course, what we were most excited about, and what the real purpose of the roll-up door is for, that's to protect the double sliding glass doors that are the next thing to be pulled out of the magician's hat, er, truck.

Screen Doors Waiting Their Turn

But, unless we get the louvered windows installed first, nothing else happens. So Roger took the bull by the horns, and started the installation process with the first louvers going into the bathroom. I swear it was already a little cooler just with him doing that.

First Window Being Installed

To be honest, while the windows were being installed, part of Roger's crew was working on getting ready to install the roll-up. Here, they're getting ready to drill for the mounting bolts.

Is This Thing Level?

And magically, the roll-up is up. Actually, it did go up rather fast. Unfortunately, the size of the box for the roll-up covered the boxes we had in place in the wall for a couple of lights, one on either side of the doorway. We'll have to figure some way to deal with that later on.

Roll-up Is Up!

Right after mounting the roller assembly, comes the motor. This is made by the same Chinese company that made our gate motor (Dongrong), which has be virtually trouble free in over two years of continuous operation.

Next Up - the Motor

After the motor, then comes the 'curtain' as it's called. The metal fabric that is actually the part of the assembly that goes up and down. I suspect it weighs a bit.

Roll-up Curtain Arrives

Next, they have to get the curtain up to the roller. A simple way is to rig a couple of rope slings to rest the curtain in as they spin it around to find the end piece that actually becomes attached to the roller.

Ready to Hoist the Curtain

That in turn gets fasted to the roller with one metal screw. That is, until they make sure the curtain is rolling square to the roller. And they can't determine that until they get the two guides temporarily installed on either side of the doorway. An involved process for sure.

The Turn of the Screw

Ok. So now, it looks pretty level. Just a bit more adjusting and it'll be ready to roll up as a roll-up should... or, something like that.

Making Sure It's Level

Here's a quick glimpse of what the roll-up looks like, at this stage, from the inside.

Pretty Solid

While all this work was taking place, there had to be some supervision. Here's Dianna and Cody checking progress from the shade of our little gumbo limbo tree by the canal.

Supervising's Hard Work

Here's the final assembly of the curtain - Lots of screws hold it to the roller.

Final Attachment

Just so you don't forget, there was a whole other group of worker-bees putting the window louvers into place at the same time the roll-up was being worked on.

Windows in Bedroom #1

Part of the installation process is making sure the window opening is sufficiently large to accommodate the louvers. Here, Roger is using a hatchet to trim off some concrete from the kitchen window. Some windows, like this, were almost a glove-tight fit. Others, had quite a large gap. You'll see how it gets filled in later on.

Roger Adjusting Kitchen Window Opening

As you can see, Roger is a man of many talents. Not only adusting window openings, but as you can see  below, pretty good at the assembly game as well. Here, he's getting the frame set up to be slid into place to hold the sliding glass doors.

Roger Assembling the Sliding Door Frame

Here's a shot of the crew installing the framework for the sliding glass doors.

Installing Slider Frame

Next up, once the frame is screwed into place is the installation of the sliding glass doors, and in this case, installation of the two outer non-slider glass doors.

 Sliding glass doors Arriving

In pretty short order, it begins to look a lot like sliding glass.

Couple of Glass Doors On Track

I took advantage of having the pool deck umbrella open to shoot this shot of the glass doors. Starting to look pretty good if I do say so myself.

All Four In Place

We wanted to have the roll-up look a little classy, so we order it to come with a cover. Here, they're hoisting it into place.

Roll-up Cover Going Into Place

In case I didn't mention it (I didn't), this turned out to be an all day evolution. Roger and his crew didn't leave until after 5:30 PM. They worked hard too.

Cover's Almost Done

One of the last things they had to install was the motor cover. As you can see, the wiring is not completed. As Roger said, "We leave that to the electrician." Good thing I have one on tap.

Installing the Motor Cover

At this time of the day, there's just a little left to do. Pick up the debris, tools, and all the bits and pieces that result from an installation.

Everything Is Just About Done

There's just one tiny little thing left to do. That's to caulk across the top to fill in the gaposis between the slider frame and the concrete of the doorway opening. It's uneven, naturally, about three-eighths of an inch on the left side, tapering down to less than an eighth of an inch on the right side.

Final Caulking of the Slider Frame

Now, you'd think this would be a simple five or ten minute caulk job. Guess again.

It took just a little under an hour. first they were cutting and shoving some Styrofoam into the gap and applying caulk, and more Styrofoam and more caulk. the more they worked with it, the rougher it got. I have to attribute it to them being tired at the end of the day. They had already done a professional caulk job on the inside of all the windows they installed.

Finally, it became smooth, and they were done. We were all pooped.

Be sure to tune in next time as we cover the exciting adventures of Joe the Electrician, pulling my finger wire and finding what an adventure it can be dealing with Polyducto and concrete.