An Ounce of Prevention

Benjamin Franklin said, "An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure".  I am applying this to the heating/air unit in our new house.  I live in the country, and I have chickens in my yard.  Both of those add up to the occasional creepy, crawly visitors - snakes.  I have learned to live with snakes.  If they leave me alone, I will leave them alone.

I never thought about snakes coming in through the pipes for heating/air lines until one of W's co-workers took a few days off work to get the snakes out of his house.  The 4 foot plus rat snakes had crawled in through the pipes.

The opening is more than big enough for a snake or rat to crawl through.  Rather than leave them an open invitation we opted to seal up the holes on both ends with spray foam.

I will be checking periodically to make sure the seals are intact.  I found out that sealing up the areas is not common.  I would have thought everyone did it.  Are the pipes in your home sealed?

Week 44

I decided that it is easier for me to post weekly updates rather than daily progress.  We are at the point now that it is taking me several days to accomplish anything.

Since we passed our electrical inspection, we got busy putting up the rest of the dry wall.  The bathrooms got mold resistant dry wall.  W and his dad did this which resulted in a slower process.  I started taping and applying mud when they were done.

They also built the wall around the heating unit.  We have opted to build a door rather than purchase one.  The special order door would be much higher in cost than building one will be.

Catching Up to Day 272

I did not mean to wait so long between updates.  I have actually been busy with the new house.  Here is a quick catch so we are all back on track.

My father-in-law finished the cabinet for the second bathroom.

W and his father also finished putting up drywall in the living room/kitchen.

In the meantime I have been busy taping, mudding, and sanding dry wall.

That seems to be a never ending job, and I am nowhere near close to being done.

The heating/air people came back to the part two of their work.  The installed the outside unit and also put in the heat unit inside.  If you look in the background, you can see where I primed a section of the laundry room so I could see how well I did after (almost) everyone telling me I could not finish dry wall.

We also passed our first electrical inspection.  Woo Hoo!  That means that W and his dad can put up the rest of the dry wall.  I will be extra busy finishing dry wall.  It feels good to see some real progress.