Wiring

It' official: we passed our rough-in electrical inspection!  Mainly due to my inexperience, wiring has been by far the most intimidating aspect of this project.  I knew absolutely nothing of the trade walking into this project.  And now, in lieu of passing my first inspection, I can say that I know the basics. 

The beauty of electricity is that it works simply.  Energy flows from a big wire to little wires to a outlet or receptacle that a switch controls.  The hard part is making sure that your circuit allows the energy to flow without any interruptions (and according to code).  

Planning out the design was by far the most difficult part of the job.  For one, you actually have to follow a code.  For another, the end result has to make sense.  There has to be some kind of logic to how you wire the place otherwise you end up with a spaghetti noodle looking mess where the switches don't turn the right lights.  But the real motivating factor to come up with a solid circuit design for a frugal Norwegian like me is money.  The last thing that I want is to double back copper wire over itself because I didn't think it through!  Needless to say that even with the help of friends, neighbors and a good "how to" book it took me over a month to completely design our circuits.

Although it took me a while to figure the design and amass materials, once I actually started wiring things went pretty fast.   The first step was to place the receptacle boxes.  Next I drilled holes in the studs for the wire to go through and pulled the wire.  Now that the wire is pulled through the wall or up and over the trusses from the service panel to the receptacle boxes the actual wiring begins.  

I really enjoyed wiring up the boxes and panel.  The work requires a great deal of precision but when you are wiring a new construction there is a great deal of leeway in the respect that you can make it up as you go.  With a little bit of common sense (knowing what each of the wires is doing) I wired up the boxes.  

My attention then turned to the panel.  In any home, electricity flows from the main service line into a panel.  Once in the panel the energy flows through a circuit breaker and then on through each of the individual circuits.  Circuits breakers are a good thing.  Each circuit has it's own breaker.  Breakers protect that circuit by cutting off the flow of energy if it detects any change in the electrical flow (overload or short).  Code specifies what kind of breakers are used based on the amperage of the circuit and what the circuit is energizing.

 

Once the panel and boxes were wired I made sure that everything looked nice and organized for the inspection.  When spring road restrictions are lifted our utility company with pull the main power in from the base of the driveway.  We will then connect that power source to the panel, get the final inspection and energize the system.

The learning curve was certainly steep.  However with the help of friends (Special thanks to Dan, Joe and Isaac!), a good book, and some common sense the castle is now wired.  

I'm now back on familiar grounds: carpentry! 

Time to insulate and drywall...

Phenology

Windy, cold, mix of rain & snow.  Highs in the upper 30's, lows in the upper twenties.  Low pressure will dominate the weather for the rest of the week.  This should melt the rest of the snow.  The rivers are all open and roaring at bank full.  Steelhead (rainbow trout) have not quite begun to make their way up the Cook County streams to spawn as cold water temperatures have led to little luck for anglers.  However, anglers lower down the shore have had decent luck this run.  The smelt run is in full tilt.  Smelt are small, bony fish that also ascend the North Shore streams in order to spawn.  Folks use a net to land these fish by the bucket-full.  The snowshoe hare is almost completely brown again.  Deer are still plentiful.  Juncos are feasting on our bird feeder daily.

Still wandering. Done melting.

The confluence of the Wood Mountain Road ditch and Osier Creek at it's finest.  

The winter snow has melted away.  Within a just a few weeks four feet of snow melted and flowed it's way down our new ditches.  I'm very pleased with how things went this spring.  We haven't had any major incidents.  The snow just melted and rolled down the hill just as we imagined it would.

Now the forest is once again alive with the sound of juncos, robins, black-capped chickadees and woodcocks.  Bears will soon awaken from hibernation.  The ground has thawed out to a point where we have begun to work the soil once again!

There's been a long standing joke between Amy and I on how often we've found ourselves wandering down some lonely remote dirt road.  Now that lonely remote dirt road leads us home...

Phenology

Cold, windy.  Highs in the upper 20's and lows in the teens with wind chills in the single digits. A strong low crept across the midwest over the past couple of days.  About 1.5 inches of fresh snow fell along the shore with amounts up to 8 inches further inland.  First sighting of an American Robin (actually a flock of Robins).  With an extensive range of most of North America, this member of the thrush family will be among the first to breed and lay it's distinct blue eggs.

Phenology

Clear skies, highs in the low fifties and lows in the high twenties.  The sugarbush is in full swing for maple syrup.  Local folks have been well situated in their sugar maple stands for a few weeks now as taps have been flowing like gangbusters.  Recent cold nights and warms days have led to large volumes of sap flowing into buckets across the county.  The sap is then boiled down to produce rich maple syrup.  Osier Creek "crested" with it's peak flow yesterday (4/11).  Water volumes dropped by half over night.

Phenology

Warm spring air.  First thunderstorms of the year.  Highs in the low 50's and lows in the mid 20's.  Intense rain showers have swells all the drainages to near flood stage.  Rivers have not opened up yet the small streams are rushing!  Large numbers of bald eagles and small hawks migrating along the shore.

Castle Moat

No castle is complete without a moat to protect you from dragons.... 

 

Phenology

Warm spring weather, Highs in the low 50's and lows in the upper twenties. Gentle rain showers have moved across the area every few days. Every drainage is now flowing, putting the culverts to the test. The driveway is starting to dry out along it's crown. The woods are back to life as first spring migrant birds have made it back north. By late May, as many as 150 species of birds will be on the North Shore all at once. 

Water, Year 2

Drainage is always an issue when developing property that is situated on a relatively steep slope with a shallow depth to bedrock.  Unfortunately this is a common scenario on Lake Superior's North Shore.  Under these conditions water moves fast, channelizes, then finds a fracture in the bedrock to dissappear into: only to reappear in another seemingly random location (i.e. spring).  While the spring melt this year has been gradual, plenty of issues have come up.

It all started in Feburary.  The nights were cold (as in below zero) but during the day the atmosphere had enough energy to start the groundwater thaw.  This freeze-thaw cycle quickly froze the culvert at the base of the driveway solid leaving all the subsequent melt to continue down the hill and eventually crest over the crown of the road at the base of the drive.  Every day the ice would stack up on top of itself over the driveway and freeze solid at night.  There was nothing that we could do about it!  So everyday I loaded the ice flow with salt and sand so that we could get a truck up and over it.  No big deal, it was just another daily chore.  When the sun forced a partial melt, I was out there chipping away at an ice sheet that grew to over three feet thick!

Once March rolled around that ice flow rapidly turned to liquid and permeated its way back into the ground.  Mud season had begun and the water started running as the temperatures were now warm enough to start melting the four feet of snow pack that had acculmulated throughout the course of the winter. 

We steamed our culvert to open it up.  With the culvert flowing the race was one.  At this point the ditch next to the drive did all of the work.  The problem for us was getting the water to move around the newly constructed cabin. 

Remember that the cabin was built during the winter when the ground was frozen.  Unfortunately for us we were so intent and focused on construction that we didn't have time to think about water runoff immediatly around the structure.  This mistake became very evident once those snowpiles started to melt and the roof started dripping!

When the slab was poured the masons leveled the site and dug around the pad to frame the pour.  Not thinking at the time, they simply left the extra sand in a berm around the perimeter of the structure.  During the winter this berm of sand froze solid.  Once the melt began the berm acted like a dam and trapped the water between itself and the cabin (particulary on the upslope side -north side - of the structure).  To add to the mix, the North side is also the shaded side were the sun doesn't pack the same melting force punch as the south.  Snow melted and dripped onto the berm.  Eventually the water rose high enough to crest the threshold of the door and seep into the cabin.  In the meanwhile we have been frantically chipping and digging to cut a ditch in order to channel the water away from the cabin to prevent it from flooding us out again.   So far water has seeped its way into the living space on two occasions!  Fortunately it wasn't a big deal as nothing was destroyed and I was able to mop it up right away.

The good news is that this is an easy fix.  Once the snow is all gone and the ground has thawed out we can simply cut down the berm and reshaped the ground around the structure to slope away from itself.  Beyond that we are installing gutters to collect the water and avoid it from concentrating its drip right at the base of the slab.  Worst case scenario I'll install drain tiles along the base of the slab.  Either way, this year will surely be full of digging in order to prepare for next year's spring melt. 

Water: I make my living from it.  We all literallty live by it.  I love to recreate on it. However, it sure can be a pain when it's working against you! 

Phenology

Rain and snow mix throughout the day. Highs in the mid to upper thirties, lows in the twenties. The ground is exposed in the south facing slopes. Water is freely running through the ditches. The road is shedding the spring melt as well as I could have expected. The snow base is down to roughly one and a half feet deep in the woods.