Sagebrush & Solar

We haven’t had a ton of measurable progress, but we’re moving forward. We have finished a few things ourselves and hired some others out.

Parge Coat

Our parge coat is officially complete. It took a little bit of patience for the right day of weather to come along, but it’s done and ready for siding.

Garage Header & Patio Post

We hired a framer to come out and finish our patio post. We will ultimately wrap it with siding and paint it.

He also framed out the garage door area, which had a void due to our peculiar walls. It’s now flush with the rest of the wall, making it ready for drywall. It will also support the garage door when it comes time to install it.

Gutters

We also hired a company to install gutters. The downside? We don’t have siding to affix the downspouts to, so the wind has blown off the downspouts.

We have some temporary rain buckets catching rain water, but the long term goal is to funnel rainwater into an underground tank to water trees, bushes, etc.

Soffits

We also hired a subcontractor to install our soffits and vents. This brings us one step closer to being completely dried in.

Fireplace Prep

In preparation for a cold winter, we’re gearing up to install our wood stove.

We’re consulting a friend regarding the masonry of the fireplace wall and reinforcing the flooring beneath where the fireplace will sit.

Septic Update

We’re still moving forward on our septic project. Our trench is dug, and next is the leach field and pipe system.

We’re hoping to rent an excavator before the ground freezes to finish this project and several others.

HVAC

We’re working with a wonderful local HVAC company who understand our situation and have offered to essentially list out the labor intensive (read: expensive) parts of the job for us to do on our own — and they’ll come in later to do the technically difficult stuff.

First step (outside of our consultation): cut the vent holes in the floor.

Solar

A while back, we talked about how we were considering going on grid due to a cheaper quote from the power company.

That didn’t pan out.

We were able to find several different companies online offering wholesale solar products for significantly cheaper than our local contact ($30k). Our system will run us about $14k and allow us room to expand in the future as needed.

Our system is ordered — we’ll have a more in depth post on this in the future.