5/4/10 Bought a bunch of stovepipe and other ventilation parts from Central Fabricators.

5/5-7/10 I went up to Camp Serendipity for 3 days: Wednesday through Friday.

On the way, I stopped at Central Fabricators to get a part they forgot to give me. Then I swung by Kemly Electric to talk to Brian about wiring the water heater. I got a 30A breaker from him for the purpose.

I arrived at Camp Serendipity at 12:40 and was soon greeted by Bert and Ernie. I started a fire in the wood stove and had my lunch. Then I de-winterized the trailer. I think this might be the latest I have ever done it.

Next, I got the wheelbarrow out and wheeled all the ventilation parts up the hill and stored them in the crawlspace. I also brought up three photo albums of the log home project in case the visitors due the next day wanted to look at them. Finally, I went to work and seriously cleaned the cabin up. I swept up the big chips, vacuumed the walls, window ledges, furniture, stairs, and then the floor. The place ended up being presentable.

During the course of the work, Dave Bradburn drove up in his truck and I went down to greet him. He was taking the census and he interviewed me for that, even though I had previously filled out and mailed back the form they had left at the door. Dave told me that he was looking for construction work and I told him that I would let him know if I had a need for his services later on.

When I quit for the day, I took the first shower of the year in the trailer. I am looking forward to the day that I can shower up at the cabin instead of in the trailer.

On Thursday, I started another fire in the wood stove. Bert and Ernie showed up again before I went back down for breakfast. They got their usual hugs and biscuits.

I did a little last minute cleaning in the cabin and then I inventoried the ventilation parts that I had bought. There had been a couple more errors. They charged me for two 4x10 pipes when I only got one, and they didn’t charge me at all for the three registers I got. I also did some figuring about how I would make a valve to switch the air flow between an outside vent and the heat registers in the three back rooms. I had bought two check valves for this purpose but I determined that they wouldn’t work. Instead, I decided I could make my own valve inside a tee. So I’ll go back to Central Fabricators and exchange the check valves, pay for the registers, and get my money back for the extra pipe I didn’t get.

I carried two long pine T&G 1x8 ceiling boards from the loft out onto the porch. I am going to use these to begin installing the ceiling boards on the gable eaves over the Grid 1 wall where I have the scaffolding already set up. After the guests are gone, I’ll stain the boards.

I went down to the trailer for an early lunch and a nap. I was awakened by Dave Bradburn who came back to have me be a proxy for the census report for another neighbor who didn’t happen to be home.

After Dave left, I got a call from Sarah Dart who told me that she and René Coppieters were just leaving Leavenworth and heading for Camp Serendipity. They are also LHBA members and they are building a log home in northern Idaho. We had arranged for this visit on Thursday which is why I shifted my schedule this week.

They arrived at about 2:00 and we had a delightful visit. They wanted to see everything, so we took the grand tour. We looked at the upper roadway and how I had widened it by building up the cliff edge with a rock wall. They noticed the wall ties in the foundation wall and guessed correctly that I plan to face it with rocks. So we proceeded to the rock pile so they could see what I was talking about. On the way, we took a short diversion to look at the top of the concrete staircase over the electrical service conduit. Near the rock pile, we could see the recent work of installing the septic drain pipe and they could see the accessibility route to the back porch between the rock piles.

While we were talking, a pair of gray jays showed up. They were evidently the same pair I had seen recently and they are pretty timid. But one of them did eventually take peanuts from Sarah’s hand while René took pictures. About that time two chipmunks also showed up and we fed them peanuts from our hands. At one point, I had a gray jay sitting on my head – actually on my hat – at the same time a chipmunk was eating out of my hand.

From there we went into the crawlspace where they seemed especially interested in the supporting structure for the floor. Then outside again, we went up on the front porch where they asked about the big floor planks. They remarked about the big rock behind the building so we climbed up there so they could look down over the other side to get an idea of the size and shape of the rock ridge. I explained the geology of the rocks as best I knew it from the German geologists and from Mark Gedosch.

Since there was quite a bit of scaffolding still set up on the outside of the Grid 1 wall, they were able to see examples of how I put the hanging scaffold frames to use, and how they were built. This was of particular interest to them because they are about four log courses high in their Idaho project now and they are going to need scaffolding of some sort from here on.

From the high rock, we traveled the complete figure-8 set of trails to the spring, noticing some of the bigger trees on the way. I also showed them a couple of the giant sequoia trees. We came back between the woodshed and the privy and then went back up on the front porch. I explained to René how useful my porch crane has turned out to be and he took a careful look at how it was constructed.

We went inside the cabin where they had a look at what I had done on the inside and they asked a lot of questions about it. We then went up into the loft where they had a lot of questions about the gable walls. We then got into a series of interesting discussions on various topics, but since it was rather warm up there, and we were standing up, we decided to go back down to the first floor and resume our conversation sitting in chairs.

We had a fascinating discussion centered mostly on linguistics. Both Sarah and René are retired professors of linguistics, so it was a very interesting discussion for me. I enjoyed their visit immensely. They left at about 5:30 on their way to their place in Idaho.

On Friday morning, I started out by building a fire in the stove and in the process gave Bert and Ernie their usual hugs and biscuits. After breakfast I did some more figuring about the ventilation system. Since the cabin floor has 12-inch joists because of the insulation requirement, the robbers that I had bought were not deep enough. Robbers are sheet metal parts that attach to a duct and connect to a heat register in the floor above. They are made for shallower joists so in my case I needed a couple more inches of rectangular duct between the robber and the register.

I had bought a 4-foot length of what amounts to half of a 4x10 rectangular duct. You snap two of these together to form a complete duct section. My plan was to cut this one four footer into six pieces to make three short duct sections for the three registers and robbers I had. Unfortunately, there is not quite enough metal for that. It is about 3 inches too short.

So either I need to buy another entire four foot length of pipe, or I need to make one of the sections another way. I decided to make one from some sheet metal scraps I have and not buy another pipe.

Next I went searching through the scraps of electrical wire I have to see whether I have the wire needed to wire up the water heater. I need about 23 feet of 10-2 with ground. I found a piece of 10-3, which I suppose might work, but I decided not to use it.

Next, I brought the sawhorses up to the porch and set the ceiling boards on them. Then I gave them each one coat of TWP stain. Finally, I covered the lid of the septic tank with four layers of tar paper and shoveled dirt over the top of it. I also filled in the trench for the electrical conduit to the dosing tank. That pretty much puts the finishing touches on the septic tank installation project. It is truly delightful to have that project done and to have a working toilet in the cabin. I left for home at 1:45 feeling exhilarated after the visit from Sarah and René.

5/8/10 Saturday. Made a 6” duct valve from a 6” tee, a piece of scrap sheet metal, and a wire coat hanger. I was very pleased with how it turned out.