You are just not going to believe this one!

Tom & I sat down to go thru all the construction photos, to compile a collection at the request of the energy audit guy with the infrared gun, (no he hasn't been here yet-you didn't miss anything) in the hopes that he'll be able to spot something, somewhere that's creating this heat loss.
In the post dated March 15, 2007 (yes that's right 2007), I wrote about the problem with the drywallers covering things up & us not being able to find them-the big one was the thermostat wire for the foyer-which is still missing.
As we're going thru 6 mos worth of pictures, Tom yells "wait, stop, back up one!" Doesn't he spot the missing thermostat wire ??? He was close the last time he cut holes in the wall, just not quite up high enough. We'll have to cut a hole in the foyer wall, but hey-that's no big deal for Mandy to patch it-she's getting used to it!

see that black squiggly line-that's the thermostat wire!

Hearth & Window Seats

Tom & Mandy designing & creating the forms for the window seats & the hearth.

UH-OH

When the fireplace was framed, apparently Tom & Mandy noticed something wasn't quite right (and decided not to bring it to my attention).
Since it was going to be a major project to fix it, Tom chose to "sleep on it." If it wasn't for the fact that Mandy was off for a month from the end of Dec to the end of Jan, (& I had an extremely bored husband on my hands) I probably wouldn't have been told about it.
When the fireplace was in the wall w/o framing around it, it wasn't noticeable, when the framing went up there was too much going on & I didn't notice it. When Tom told me it jumped right out at me. At that point there was no way it wasn't going to get fixed now......

In the pic on the left the fireplace isn't quite centered

in the pic on the right it is now.

Tom waited for a reasonably temperate day, basically anything over freezing, because he was going to have to go outside & remove the insulation, along with removing the hardi-board inside, then get a couple of manly pairs of willing hands to help him move the fireplace over about a total of 1 3/4"! It was not going to be a quick process.
It may not sound like much-but to an anal person, it's a lot, it could ruin your enjoyment of sitting in front of the fireplace.
Man-it must be true love....:)
P.S. Isn't that some beautiful stone work?

Family room water damage

The leak in the family room that we thought we had fixed is not.
This is so frustrating........it's in the exact same spot as the one in the dining room that we haven't been able to find!
At least we hadn't gotten around to repairing the wall yet!
Hopefully the guys coming to do the energy audit will have some ideas.

Attic progress????

Tom's tools are out, the closet is finished, it's time for me to get to work now.
Man what a mess......

......and I foolishly thought I'd knock this off in a couple of days.
I was off to a good start.......

then it got a lot worse after I hauled out all the Christmas stuff!

So I started all over.........and it certainly took awhile!
Now there's a place for everything & everything is in it's place!

Am I awesome or what????

I wonder how long this will last ???

And why the heck do we have so much damn stuff anyway????
It'll be great when the dining room & family rooms are done & I can finish
unpacking, I'm betting most of this will be Garage Sale!

Looks like I did a heck of a job filling up that closet!

Well.....looks like there's ice

Shortly after we returned from FL in Nov, there was ice starting to form once again on the roof. In his ongoing quest to find a solution, Tom contacted a company to conduct an energy audit. That guy wasn't here more than 15 minutes and he determined that the use of peak vents & ridge vents were counter productive. He told Tom that the peak vents should be closed off & he was pretty sure that would take care of the problem. Said if it didn't call him back, but he was pretty sure it would. Nice guy, didn't even charge us! Guess who got to go up in the attic with all that blown in insulation & close off those peak vents??? Yep-Mandy!

Well, by the looks of things, the solution didn't work.........

So Tom contacted the company to come back & do a complete energy audit for $395. Definitely worth it to find out the problem so we don't have this happen every winter! Told us to plan for about 2 hours. OK we're there!














The team of 3 arrived ready to go to work....Tom showed them around, took them up into the attic and answered their questions. After about 50 minutes they were done! Bottom line......they had no idea......had only seen one other house insulated as well as this one. Great! Just Great! If they don't know, how the heck are we supposed to? But hey...no charge! They did say they would contact another guy to come over with his infrared gun & see if he can find the source of the heat loss. Well, I guess I'll be keeping you posted on this one too.....hey-if you have any ideas, we're open to them!