Success At Last!

A few minutes ago I received an email from our builder.  It included this:

It has been a much longer wait than any of us anticipated, but the process is finally close to over.  It will still be a few more days before we are in the house.  Power has to get turned on and the bank has to make sure we didn't take the money and build a shack.   We're hoping the power company can come out tomorrow, in which case the bank most likely will finish up Monday.

Still Waiting

My last blog post about the house was September 8 and I estimated at least two weeks more of work.  It's nearly 7 weeks after that.  The builder is now telling us the first week in November for the house to be finished.  The original estimate was the middle of September.  Assuming it actually is the first week in November the estimate will be off by 10 weeks.  Needless to say we are very frustrated with all of the delays.    

My in-laws were scheduled to come back from Minnesota on 18 October.  They could not delay this because of some medical appointments that could not be re-scheduled.  For practical purposes we didn't have a final end date when they left MN so it would be hard to delay without knowing how long the delay was going to be anyway.   They arrived as scheduled and we found alternative housing for a few days.  They've since left town again and will be staying with some friends and then going to visit my wife's uncle.     They are due back here in 10 days, that of course assumes the builder is correct on his estimate.  

I'm not planning on posting any more pictures until the house is finished.  The outside hasn't visibly changed much and until the lights are on upstairs with all the drywall hung it is too dark to get decent pictures.

For the builder to be correct and be finished by next week he still needs to:

1. Trim the upstairs - doors, baseboard etc
2. Paint the upstairs
3. Install all the bathroom fixtures upstairs
4. Install all the electrical fixtures upstairs
5. Install all the flooring upstairs and down
6. Install the heat pumps and finish HVAC under the house
7. Finish plumbing under the house
8. Finish electrical - there are lots of wires sticking out of the breaker panel 
9. Re-install all the toilets downstairs
10. Do final grading

Trim installation was supposed to start yesterday. It hadn't.  I also don't know when the HVAC, etc is scheduled for, not that it matters since it will most likely be late anyway.

Slowly But Surely

It's been a while since the last update.  The house is coming along, but more slowly than we would like.  The builder's initial estimate was 6 weeks to finish it after it was set.  6 weeks was today, and my estimate is there's at least another two weeks of work left yet.  The downstairs has all been trimmed out and painted.  The only remaining item is the floor, but the builder will install that when all the upstairs work is finished.   The well was drilled last week, the well pump was installed and the pressure tank connected this week.  The garage floor was poured last week.  This was holding up final trim and siding on the garage, that is supposed to be completed this week.  

The upstairs rooms are framed in. The electrical and plumbing still needs to be roughed in and the HVAC needs to be installed.  Once that is done, drywall can be hung and taped out.  The septic also needs to be installed, but that at least can happen in parallel with the upstairs.  The septic also should only take a day to do. 

Some recent pictures.  I held this blog post from last week.  I hoped to have pictures of the completed outside  but there is still a bit more work to do trimming the porch and garage.  

Here's the upstairs before any framing.  The wall straight  ahead goes down the stairs.  I will eventually be finishing all the space on the other side of the stairs.

Here is a shot standing in the same spot  early last week.  The builder is finishing out about half the space.  There will be two rooms and a bathroom.  The bathroom will be closest to the stairs.  

 Standing in the middle room.  The bathroom is on the other side of the wall looking straight ahead. 

Here's the garage floor.  This was holding up the trim-out and siding because they can't install the doors until the floor is poured and they can't trim and side until the doors are in.  The floor was delayed 4 days after the inspector decided the strings they set the elevation (thickness) on the concrete were 1/2" too low. One of many delays by the inspectors.

The fake rock over the well.  Eventually I will replace it with an actual well house. 

And the well pump is installed.  My county requires galvanized well casing to bedrock.  Other counties in the area allow PVC.  I've got 156' of well casing and an overall depth of 262'.   that's not as deep as I expected.  They trenched and installed the line back to the pressure tank today.  They tried last week, apparently there are too many rocks for the trencher and they had to bring back a min-excavator.

The Shed

I built a shed this summer at my dad's farm.  It is about a mile from the new house. It was easier to build it there than try to build onsite.  I had power so didn't have to haul a generator and tools up to the house site every weekend.   I also could just walk outside and work weeknights on it if I wanted to.   Of course when I got done building it we had to move it up the road.    It is a 12x12 shed and I should have taken more pictures during construction.

Anyway, here it is on the trailer ready to move. We picked it up with two tractors, one on each side and backed the trailer under it.  We did this on Saturday, just so we'd have time to engineer a new solution if it didn't work.  On the first lift I didn't have it perfectly balanced and it tipped some and one of the front wheels on the tractor came off the ground.  Do you know how hard it is to get a tractor wheel off the ground?

Here it is from the other side.

Moving day was early Monday morning, this was about 7:00 AM.  We figured there wouldn't be any other traffic that early on Labor Day.   You can't see the straps running over the roof but they are there.

Here it is at the new house.  It made the trip up ok.  

Here it is delivered.   We got it off the trailer in reverse of how we put it on.  Get the tractors to lift it up, then drove the trailer out from underneath.  My dad and I were on the tractors and couldn't see each other.  My wife acted as a load master and did a wonderful job  co-ordinating us both on lifting at the same rate and moving the tractors back and forth to get the shed set on the blocks.

A side view.  Once we are in the new house I will jack up the corners and set them on proper poured concrete footings.  

The House Is Set

The house was set yesterday.   They got started early while I was doing other things and got one section in before I got there.   Here's what it looked like when I got there.  the roof is shipped flat and then raised up by the crane after the section is set on the foundation.

 

I wondered how the roof wasn't wider then the house when it is laying down.  Here's why.  The last 4' or so is raised up and over to form the peak. 

 

Here's the other half  its way up the hill.  I didn't appreciate the size of these until I saw one moving.  The trailers are 70' long.   slight technical difficulties here, the back end of the trailer grounded out.

  

Here's how you get a house unstuck.  The dozer had to help all the way up the hill. 

A very tight squeeze but they made it. This section was harder than the other, since the eaves weren't sticking out on this side.

It made it to the top of the hill.  They are getting ready for the crane.  They are doing all the unwrapping.

Here's the crane.  The operator said it will lift 90 tons, but you've gotta have that weight really close to the base.

 Here's why it can lift a house and not fall over.  That's 30 tons of weight sitting there behind the cab.

Here's how they lift it.  There are 4 cables, run under the house through holes drilled in the band joists.

Here's the rigging the cables get attached to. 

 

Ready to lift.

A quick time lapse video of the lift and set.  I should have decreased the interval to 2 or 3 seconds.

 I had to leave after the section was set.  When  I got back, they were setting the gable ends.  They are built at the factory and trucked in.  The smaller sections that go on each side of the window are craned into the opening in the roof before it is closed up.  Then they are set by hand.

Another quick video of one of the dormers going in.

The dried-in house.  A pan shot I took today.   There's still a lot to do, the upstairs needs to be built out, HVAC installed, well, septic, etc.  As you can see the porch is missing as well.

Deliverance

Hmmm, that's probably not the best title.  How about Delivery, or Delivered?  Anyway, the house was delivered today.  It was supposed to be set as well but there was some more grading that needed to be done on driveway up the hill.  By the time they got the equipment in to do it it was too late to start setting the house.

Here are the two main sections.  The roof is hinged.  The sections will be picked up off the trailers and craned onto the foundation, then the roof is raised. 

Here's a shot from further away.  The truck with the dormers, the gable ends and some other assorted pieces had just shown up.

The crane is ready to go.  The house will be set in the morning.  I'm amazed they got that flat bed in there, the space is really tight for a 50' trailer.

Still Waiting

The house was supposed to arrive from the factory and be set last week.  Last week the builder told us it had slipped a week due to delays at the factory.  As of this morning it was confirmed for today and they would set it tomorrow. An hour ago I got a text from the builder that it would be delivered tomorrow.  Needless to say we are disappointed.  This new delay is not supposed to affect them setting it tomorrow, but we shall see.

The House Factory Tour

We toured the factory today and got to see our house.  It was pretty far along in the process - the walls inside had all been rocked, insulation was in, plumbing was in.  They haven't gotten sheathing on the outside yet.  I am told they do that at the same time they are doing all the taping.  They do as much as they can in parallel.  So they have a crew building the floors complete with all electrical and plumbing at the same time other crews are building walls.  All the interior walls go on starting from the center of the house out, they also install water heaters, bathtubs, etc.  After each house section is built and dried in (including siding) they tow it to another building to do all the finish interior work - trim, painting etc. 



The biggest dust collector I've ever seen.

Because precision matters.  cut to 1/8".   I've seen rough framing where 1/4" is good enough.

Here's a floor being built - most of these  pictures are not my house.  It's sitting on a jig.  The decking is glued and nailed after all wiring, plumbing, etc is pulled.  This factory builds the house off-frame.  The jig is perfectly flat, and the dollies can be adjusted for any imperfections in the floor.   You can't do this with a frame. 

Dead center, and a doubled band joist.  Over 30' of house every joist was dead on.

Here's how they lift the floor to set it on dollies:

And here are the dollies.  The house will roll on these until it is lifted onto the frame.

Interior walls being built.

Here's one half of my roof.  At the same time they are doing interior walls, insulating and doing sheathing they are building a roof. The roof is lifted and the house is moved under it. The house section it goes to is off to the left.  Notice the drywall on it already.

Moving a house, this is half of my house.  It's all manpower (lots of it).

Here's a closeup of the roof hinge system.  The house is shipped with the roof down.  After the house section is set on the foundation, the roof is craned up into place.  They will sheath and mostly shingle the roof at the factory.

 

Here's a jack they use to lift the house off the dollies to get the frame under it.  Once it's on the frame they put sheathing and siding on the outside, shingle the roof and then it goes to final finishing. 

 

The Foundation Is Complete

 The foundation is finished.  The color coat is on, mud plate is on.   I am told that the house will be delivered on the 14th.  This week they are supposed to back fill everything and pour the garage floor.   The last picture is a close-up of the color coat on the foundation. 

As Christians, Are We Still Bound By The Old Testament Law?

      Before we start, one note.  Scripture quoted in this and other posts is from the NIV, unless otherwise noted.

      I've recently had several people (both believers and non-believers) ask me if we are still bound by the Old Testament law.  Others simply quote half-remembered rules from the Old Testament without really taking time to discern whether they still apply.

     This post will be the first in what I hope/intend to be a series of at least a few posts.   How long the series becomes remains to be determined, mostly by the response/interest I receive.

   Exodus 19:5 states that the Israelites were God's chosen people:

"Now if you obey me fully and keep my covenant, then out of all nations you will be my treasured possession. Although the whole earth is mine"

As does 2 Samuel 7:23:
"And who is like your people Israel--the one nation on earth that God went out to redeem as a people for himself, and to make a name for himself, and to perform great and awesome wonders by driving out nations and their gods from before your people, whom you redeemed from Egypt?"

These are but two of a plethora of verses in the Old Testament establishing Israel as God's chosen people, with the caveat that they needed to obey God.  But why was the Law given in the first place?  Galatians 3:19 tells us:

"Why, then, was the law given at all? It was added because of transgressions until the Seed to whom the promise referred had come. The law was given through angels and entrusted to a mediator."


The above means that we are a sinful people.  God gave the Israelites the law until such time as Jesus came.  This verse also tells us that the law would be superseded by Jesus.


Back in Genesis we see as part of God's covenant with Abraham God tells Abraham about Jesus in Genesis 22:18:

"and through your offspring all nations on earth will be blessed, because you have obeyed me."

Note that God tells Abraham that because Abraham obeyed God, all nations will be blessed, not just the Israelites.  That is different from what we see in Exodus and the other books in the Pentateuch.  

So, if  Israelites are God's chosen,  since we were born thousands of years later, and not Jewish, how could we possibly be bound by the Old Testament Law (given in the form of the covenants) without converting to Judaism? This question of course presumes that Jesus wasn't who he and the Bible says he was.  If you believe that Jesus was the Savior, then this argument is somewhat moot.   We already see God's assurance to Abraham that all nations would be blessed. 

Matthew 1:1 confirms this assurance:

"This is the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah the son of David, the son of Abraham:"


So we can see that even from the beginning with the covenant with Abraham, God was working to send us a Redeemer.  In the verse from Exodus above, God tells the Israelites that so long as they obey Him,  they will be his chosen.  This changed when Jesus died on the cross for us.

Jesus says in John 14:6

"Jesus answered, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me."

We can no longer be redeemed through our works.  God sent Jesus to be our savior and it is only through Him that we find redemption.

Paul tells us in Romans 7:4-6 that we are no longer bound by the Old Testament (meaning we can't save ourselves through our own works). 

"4.  Therefore, my brethren, you also were made to die to the Law through the body of Christ, so that you might be joined to another, to Him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit for God. 5. For while we were in the flesh, the sinful passions, which were aroused by the Law, were at work in the members of our body to bear fruit for death. 6. But now we have been released from the Law, having died to that by which we were bound, so that we serve in newness of the Spirit and not in oldness of the letter."

    All throughout his writings Paul expresses the same sentiment.  2 Colossians 14-17, 2 Corinthians 3 5-6 and Hebrews 7:11 asks:

"If perfection could have been attained through the Levitical priesthood--and indeed the law given to the people established that priesthood--why was there still need for another priest to come, one in the order of Melchizedek, not in the order of Aaron?"


So, we have seen that  part of God's covenant to Abraham  was the promise of a blessing to all nations.  We see in the first verse of the New Testament that God did send the blessing, his name was Jesus.  Both Jesus and Paul are clear that we can no longer save ourselves simply by our own works.  

 The next post we will examine what Jesus meant by the word 'law' in Matthew 5:18.  It was not simply the 250-odd rules God gave the Israelites.   People often quote that verse to prove that we are still bound by the Old Testament, but I hope to show that the verse is being misunderstood.
 

Peanut Butter and Jelly

I learned recently that I had failed to do one important job as a father.  I had not yet imparted the proper way (and there is a proper way) to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.  Some people, if not most, may view peanut butter and jelly as the hated lunch item you smooshed when you found it in your lunch bag at school.  However, if the construction of the sandwich is executed correctly it can rival some of the finest meals. 

So, we will begin our discussion where any sandwich starts, with the bread.  The bread should be preferably home-made (or at least freshly baked) and cut to no thinner than 1/2" thick slices.  If you must use store bought bread, never, ever use Wonder Bread.  It's only good for smooshing.  Or fish bait.  The bread doesn't need to be white bread, but from experience any strongly seasoned bread doesn't mesh well with the peanut butter or jelly. It's best to stick with a white or wheat bread.

Now that we have our 2 slices of bread, we need to put something on them.  I won't get into a discussion on the merits of creamy vs crunchy peanut butter, that's possibly another blog post so I will just let the reader choose his or her favorite.  The jelly should either be strawberry or grape, or possibly blackberry.  If you use something like orange marmalade then it isn't really a jelly sandwich. 

Spread the jelly on the bread thickly enough so that if you hold the bread vertically jelly starts to slide off.  You aren't doing it correctly if all the jelly stays on the bread.  The peanut butter should be at least 1/8" thick, but that's really just a start.  I aim for about as thick as the nuts in the crunchy peanut butter. 

To assemble the sandwich, place the bread with the peanut butter on top of the jelly side.  This way the jelly doesn't slide off the bread - peanut butter sticks to bread. Once the two halves are together, the jelly will have a harder time falling off. 

To eat the sandwich, you have to eat it jelly side up, or all that peanut butter will stick to the roof of your mouth.  If you eat it jelly side down and it isn't sticking, you did something wrong and there isn't enough peanut butter on the sandwich.

Now that you know the correct way to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, Happy Eating!  I am certain that if you follow these directions carefully, your next sandwich will be much more enjoyable than your last one.,

Playing with Blocks

Concrete blocks that is.  The masons started the block work yesterday.  Watch a mason work some time.  I know how I looked when I've laid concrete block and bricks.  Watching a good mason work, it's almost like watching an artist.

 The mortar is mixed perfectly - too thick and it doesn't settle correctly, too thin and it falls off tools (and blocks).  He gets just the right amount on the trowel, and butters the brick or throws it down on the block just so.  Then of course when the block is set, its a tap or two to get it level, as opposed to me who does something like hammer it into place, check, take it off, more mortar, set the block, check, take it off, less mortar, set the block, etc.

Standing at the south-east end of the house.  The garage is on the left

Standing at the front of the house.

A Firm Foundation

The footers were all were dug and poured this week.  I was up at the site today and the all the concrete block and brick has been delivered.  The builder expects to have the foundation done by the end of the week.  My youngest took one look at the sand pile for the masons and headed straight for it.  We had to tell her rather firmly that it wasn't for playing in.  :)

The first picture is standing at the front of the house.  The porch is right in front of the camera.  The other two are from the south end of the house. The house will face south-east.  The garage is on the southwest corner behind the house.

The New House -It Has Begun!

Several months of planning, working the phones with Orange County culminated today when the builder started clearing the lot.  He will hopefully have the footings dug tomorrow and can probably start pouring them  next week.  The house has been ordered, he expects to be setting it on the foundations in a few weeks.  Here's a panoramic view of the lot. The garage will sit behind the house off to the left and I'm going to have him clear a bit more left-center for the pool we will have next year or the year after.

I will try to get some more pictures of the property.  The lot sits at the top of a hill.  It starts to fall just about the back of the cleared area.