I am in Oregon visiting Jen, and Kevin's never actually played under the hood of this blog. So today we are experimenting with me describing stuff from afar. All Hail Kevin, The Photographer.

Part One. Where we are with the siding.

Holy smokes! They've done the bump out and are clear around the corner of the addition.

This part got off to a wee rocky start. From experience with another job, Steve and Jonathan recommended that we use a special fabricated product - rather than ordinary wood - for the strapping on the addition. (You will recall that the strapping is the horizontal strips that the vertical siding is nailed to.) The idea behind this fancy-pants product is that it's riddled with vertical channels. Any water able to penetrate behind the siding is going to run down these channels and into the earth - it won't have an opportunity to pool up on the lip of the strapping and cause mayhem with rot.

So they order the magic stuff, only to find that it's a smidgeon (technical term) too fat - it'll interfere with the whole goal of having the siding NOT protrude beyond the windows and their trim. Someone - I forget who - got the idea of cutting this stuff down the middle, halving its thickness, with no reduction in functionality.

Many words. Time for picture.


The magic product. Before its surgery. Imagine it peeling apart like DNA being split (geek! geek!) or like...um...a zipper.



As you can see, they've put the new and improved strapping everywhere. They're ready to completely rock and roll on the rest of the siding. Whoo Hooo!

Part Two: Propane Tank progress

This may seem like a minor detail, but this is key. Connoiseurs of this project may remember that this whole thing entails a complete overhaul of the HVAC (if that's not too big a word for just-a-house) system. Instead of wood stove w/ oil furnace hot air backup, we're doing a propane-fired Budaris boiler, with solar backup. The addition will use just the propane, via hot water baseboards. The existing house will get its own baseboards, but we'll likely continue to focus on the woodstove in that part of the house. (Different zones, so we can control addition vs existing house separately.)

SO (I know, I know, lots of words...) we need TWO propane tanks. Here are the new ones. The old one is waiting in the wings to be picked up and brought back to the propane tank pound, to await adoption by another family...

You may admire the new siding while you're here.

Part Three. Did I say "solar"?

You heard right, solar backup. Solar Dude, Gary, came by and took some readings of the site, ran some numbers, and did the preliminary roughing in of two of three solar panels. These will be on the south facing roof of the addition, over the bedroom, next to the bump out.

Kevin said he took some pictures, but I don't think he sent 'em to me. (Oh honey...?)

I hope I've done this justice from afar. Oregon's great, but it's not this blog, so you'll just have to imagine what fun things I'm up to here on the left coast.