Framers, stucco guys, trenchers, electricians and roofers, oh my! We had another rain delay two weeks ago, since everyone needed to wait for the roof to go on and we couldn't do that in the rain. It has finally dried out a little, and the roofers have replaced the entire roof -- not just the part over the new section. Of course, it couldn't be simple. If you go back to look at the pictures of the casita, you will see that there is a metal cap over the parapet edge of the roof. While that look is okay for the new building, we really wanted the house to keep the same look, which means that we need to wrap the parapets in stucco. I'm sure none of you will be surprised to learn that the stucco method is way more expensive and labor intensive, but we really didn't want to change the look of the house. The good news is that the new roof is supposed to last for up to 30 years, so we won't need to do all this again any time soon.
In this picture you can see the roof material coming over the edge of the paper that will be under the stucco.
Once the roofers had made some progress, everyone else got into the act. The electricians have started to get things set for the new power in the back -- rather than try to run everything all the way through the old part of the house to the old main panel, they have set up a subpanel that will handle all the circuits for the new part of the house at the top of the steps to the basement. In all ways that really matter, the new panel will become the main panel, since it will have all the circuits for the kitchen, family room and back bedroom on it. The old panel will just have a few circuits left on it.
The stucco guys came and started to wrap the house in preparation for the stucco. It is taking them longer than it would, since they have to do extra work on the parapets. The paper on the side of the house goes up to the top of the parapet, and the roofing material wraps up and over the parapet. Then the stucco guys put another layer over the parapet that seals any nail holes, and then wrap the parapet in heavy duty metal lathe that isn't nailed in on the top -- only on the sides. It was really hot on Friday while they were up there wrapping everything.
To make things easier for the stucco guys, the framers had to come through and add about 3 inches to the height of the parapets all the way around. The extra height gives the stucco guys enough room to put a weep edge in to keep everything dry. Nothing like doing a roof the most time consuming, labor intensive, expensive way!
The trenching guys have also started. As many of you know, one of the main results we need from this house is a totally revamped waste system for the house, including a new connection to the street. We were hoping to be able to run the new sewer line straight down the driveway and into the street, but if we abandon the other connection, we need to seal it off under the street. It is far too expensive to dig up the street twice, so we will need to connect the sewer line in the same place, which means running it diagonally across the front yard. At least we will be able to avoid the big tree that is currently strangling our sewer line that way. Of course, any part of the yard that was still in its original condition, and there wasn't very much of it, will now be completely destroyed, since the trench will run from the casita in the back yard all the way down the driveway and across the front yard. In the picture at the top of the blog you can see the trench where it starts in front of the casita.
The one constructive thing the trenchers did for us is finally move the dogwood into the hole that Jake dug for it. As you can see in the picture below, it is still alive! We need to keep watering it, now that it is so hot.
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