Not even in a maze of porcupines.

[thanate]

I am presently huddling in two wool sweaters, and still cold. This is because the house has been steady at about 60 degrees since we had to open windows to vent plumbing glue smells this morning; the heater is not broken this time, but its vent is still hanging out of the ex-chimney into the now-enclosed attic. There are space heaters, but I am too stubborn to go dig one out, which you would be entirely justified in telling me is rather stupid of me. (And the contractors offered to bring us space heaters on loan when they discovered that they weren't going to manage to get the heater vented in time, but of course we already had our own.)

Dry weather continues to hover like a mirage, several days out in the 10-day forecast. On Friday, Holly was talking about scheduling the cement truck to come in on Tuesday morning, but it also rained .4" last night, (this is not 40% chance of showers) and is now theoretically supposed to continue showery until Wednesday, where the sun is hovering. It did "dry" out long enough for them to backfill around the foundation on Thursday, and then when it rained that night the leak under the basement stairs reappeared. The next afternoon I discovered that the front downspout had popped a joint, though, so it's still not clear whether that particular water problem was mysteriously solved from above or below, though of course it may have been a combination of both.

They've finished the siding on the third side of the house, and so we're just waiting on the stuff for the front to get here (probably Thursday) before they can do that. The rest of the basement wall has been cut, the gravel is spread out, and the vapor barrier ready to go for that mythical time when they're finally able to bring in the concrete truck and then move the basement windows and seal it all up. (I went out last week and bought a cheap sheet of 2 mil plastic which stapled up beautifully over the hole, giving the dehumidifier something to work with, and that helped tremendously.) The basement stairs are on order, and the windows between the old house & the new should be getting moved to their new homes (and thus perhaps letting the cat into the new area, eep!) probably tomorrow, and if we ever do manage to pour the basement, then the electrician will deign to come in and do his job, followed by the inspector, who can give them the ok to do insulate, drywall, & deal with floor laminate, and maybe we'll actually get this thing done. Oh, the back steps are also waiting on the concrete truck.

After great trials and tribulations, much heroicism on grauwulf's part, and much water sprayed about the basement (and me following people around with the wet-vac trying to keep it from puddling) the new water heater appears to be in and holding. If it did not have to run through a couple miles of pipe before getting anywhere, it would be terribly awesome (though, once we get to demolishing the current basement stairs, something can be done about this, too.) The main moral of this story is: read the instructions. Then make sure you've read all of them. Then make sure you're not trying to do fifteen other things with your time at the same time as you're following them. But other than that... we have hot and cold running water! And the gas is on! Awesome! (Though our original phantom gas leak-- never located by man or machine-- is unfortunately still there, so apparently it wasn't the old water heater vent after all. But it's back to just smelling nasty in the worst ventilated corner of the basement, rather than smelling like it's not safe to light a match in the dining room, which prompted the abrupt desertion of the old water heater in the first place.)


Thursday: Half-siding, no mimosa, and my photo-numbering scheme has broken down (previous to this, photos were numbered with the chronologic day of construction they documented, but I've lost count.)


Friday: Lots of siding, and our electric meter mounted to a bit of plywood, rather than sitting in a mud puddle, yay!


And we have, um, re-graded clay muck, on which I will (soon? I hope!) get to practice soil-building magic science. Not quite as much fun as layering fake archaeological strata in interlocking swirls, but far more useful. I shall also have to investigate local-plant lawn seeding options.