It's fall already!

The fall weather means that we're going to need to stock up the wood pile again. We had planned to install direct vent space heaters in our home so we could leave the house for more than a few hours without having to worry about everything freezing up. After much online research, we settled on Cal-Gas here in Kamloops to supply the units we needed. Fred uses the Empire brand heaters in his own home and highly recommended them for our situation. Being "off grid" we must satisfy all of our electrical power needs with our solar panels and diesel generator. There are no hydro lines running to our house. The Empire heaters we chose use no electricity at all, burning propane and using convection to heat the cooler air at floor level, allowing it to rise naturally. That's where our ceiling fans come into play. They will push the warm air down from the roof to the rest of the room. Granted, the fans do use some power but it is a very small amount when running at the lowest speed and they wouldn't have to operate continuously.
We chose 2 different models for our home - the DV-35 (35,000 BTU) and the DV-210 (10,000 BTU). We put one DV-35 in the basement, one DV-35 in the dining room part of the great room, and one DV-210 in the spare bedroom on the main floor. This bedroom receives the least benefit from the heat of the wood stove and will not be used most of the time so we can keep it cooler until occupied by guests, at which time they can simply turn up the thermostat to a level that keeps them comfortable. We haven't had to use these guys yet (thankfully!) but are confident that they will allow us to keep the house warm at all times, even if we're not home to fill the wood stove every 8 hours or so. The basement heater will keep our water lines safe from freezing and make the area usable for whatever we want.
Direct vent technology means that the heaters get all their combustion air and vent their exhaust gasses through a double-walled pipe going through an exterior wall. Outside, all you see is a small vent cap mounted on the siding. In testing, the units are very quiet - another benefit! - and seem easy to use. There is a pilot that needs to be lit at the beginning of the season but it has a BBQ-style sparker to ignite it and a thermopile that shuts off the gas if the pilot light goes out. They come with everything you need to install them except for the short flexible gas line that must be installed by a certified gas fitter. We hired Brock from Rivercity Air to come up and install the units and he made quick work of it installing all 3 in less than 8 hours. He's a very nice guy and does great work so if you need someone to help with heating and cooling your home, look him up and give him a call.

Work goes on again this weekend with the siding. We've got to get all the remaining stuff on the front of the house. Then we will need to rent some scaffolding to finish up the siding on 2nd floor. Hopefully, the weather will continue to be dry - at least for a couple more weeks. I missed last weekend working on the house as I took a motorcycle trip to Edmonton, Alberta to visit my family. My mum lives just north of the city in St. Albert and my son and his family live in Sherwood Park, on the east edge of the city. It was great to see my granddaughter, Harlee, again. It has been almost 2 years since I was last there. She was only days old then and the change in her is amazing! She's walking, talking and generally being super cute. It was worth missing some "house" time to spend some time with her!

Oh, and it looks like we have a new addition to our Gull Lake Ranch family - a young colt we rescued from a future at the meat plant. "Whiskey" is a little over 2 years old and is a quarter house/paint horse cross who (we think) will mature to be a little over 14 hands high - perfect for Carol. He was gelded yesterday and had his feet trimmed so will not be in the best of spirits for a day or two. We owe Lea and Sara and the girls at Dreamscape Ranch a big "thank you" for finding him and looking after him until we have our place set up to look after him. He is super cute and seems very calm and friendly. We hope he likes his new home. One of Dreamscape's "retirees", Mystery, will be keeping him company at our place.

September...yikes!

Looking at the calendar, I notice that it reads, "September 5, 2012". We've been living in the house now for just over a year. It's hard to believe that a whole year has passed since Carol's parents visited late last summer. Inside the house is dramatically different with insulation, walls, flooring, a kitchen and two bathrooms all looking much like the finished versions we had in our minds' eye. Our electrical and water systems are pretty much finalized with just the basement and exterior lighting left finish. The mechanical room is looking pretty good with everything organized per the inspector's report.




We are slowly reducing the piles of "stuff to be installed" and getting some of the boxes of personal items put away in their new homes.
Outside, it's still a different story. The siding we were hoping to finish by the end of August is, of course, taking much longer than I first anticipated. Don't get me wrong, it's coming along nicely now, but it will be another month before we have it all done.




Where the siding is up the house is looking really nice. Finally, we are managing to hide the Tyvek house wrap under our Autumn Red fibre cement Certainteed siding. It goes up quite quickly but slows down around all the items that interrupt the clean expanse of the walls - stuff like windows, doors, vents, faucets, and outlet boxes. Since we have 19 windows, 3 doors, 5 vents, 4 outlets, 2 taps and a couple of conduit entrances, the installation goes "slowly," if I have to choose a word. Before they are nailed to the wall, the siding boards are easily broken if not handled properly. 



Compounding that concern is all the cutting and manipulating that has to happen to go around all the aforementioned obstructions. Tedious and fiddly work, this satisfying the Building Code! As I said earlier though, the place is starting to look good!
I have to get my butt in gear. We're running out of warm weather (not this week though, with highs forecast to hover just below 30*C) and I will soon have to focus on our firewood supply. Some good news on that front is that we should have our direct vent propane space heaters installed by the end of next week, courtesy of Fred and his team at CalGas.

That will take some of the pressure off our wood stove this winter and allow us to leave the place for more than a few hours without fear of freezing up all the pipes. We will use more propane with these in place but if you consider that we have only used about a third of our tank over the last 11 months, that should not be a big problem.