Two steps forward, one step back...

Puddle on the floor.

Water was hugging the flue stack.

New caulking on the chimney flashing.

Well, it's good we discover little flaws now I guess. When it rained all night and most of Tuesday morning,  it revealed a little leak at the chimney flue. I found a nice puddle of water on the living room floor from where water found its way down.  I called our roofer, Al Schreiber, who was great about coming over in the afternoon.  So Al had a look and thinks it was the caulking around the vent pipe above the roof. He also put a better bead of caulking around the vent pipe flashing. I am still skeptical so we'll see if it will leak in the next rain, expected tomorrow.

Does it match my jacket?

I kinda' like it just white!

In a step forward, we are almost complete with mudding!  And the painter Al Hood from Sky Blue Contracting started!  Our walls and ceiling for the most part are a nice white colour of primer! I think we've finalized our colour selections for the walls. Adar was by far the most bold, choosing lime green walls and a dark blue ceiling. I'm pretty boring with charcoal and light grey. Serena, is well... We'll try to punch in some colour in places! I'll leave it at that.

Party's over! Now get to work!

We are just recovering from our post-EcoSolar Home Tour glow. We had 177 people officially drop in on Saturday!  Four people came Sunday, because they didn't read the date correctly on the website.  We had a great time showing all who visited our place.  It's coming together!

But there are hundreds of little things to do. I spend my time chipping away at them.  Like tonight. I fixed the stud/drywall where it needed to stop short so a railing post could go in nicely.

And I relocated a junction box for a light that needed to be aligned with a kitchen light in the basement suite.

And I found more stuff for my taper to do!  Like cut out drywall where it is covering a fresh air duct!

 And I'm please to say we were able to get some new air barrier up on the back of the house. This time, it has some strapping holding it down! So, there is only a small section left to re-do. Phew! I'm glad, because it's suppose to rain for the next few days...Just 242 more things on the "to-do" list!

Railings in!

Dan and Jeff from River City Metalworks dropped off all the panels and installed the guard rails around the loft opening and stairs!  Now we can have people safely visit tomorrow!  There will be a couple panels that didn't get their power-coat finish, but the important part is they are in place.  And they are solid.

PV installation!

Big Heliene 300 Watt modules.

Great Canadian Solar was keen to have the PV system installed ahead of the EcoSolar home tour. If you asked me last week, I would have said it was very optimistic to make it happen. We didn't even had someone to put up the siding that needs be to up behind the PV at that point. But somehow, the planets aligned- albeit with some weather challenges today.

Clifton, Ben and Chris persevered and there they are!  Ready to be grid-tied!

The first one goes up!

Ready for the last one?

Bloody heavy inverter!

Chris, Clifton & Ben. Everyone survived!

Yay! 16 Modules ready to rock!

SMA Sunnyboy inverter up!

Guts of the inverter.

Screw piles / Building porches!

 Landon, Dave & Devon [& Will too] built our front and back cedar porches today in the wet, windy weather. What troopers! Ahead of that, we had to put in six screw piles- three for the porches and three for the balcony off the kitchen.  It was quite a machine that drives the gigantic screws into the ground. It's too bad the soils are very silty clay around our house, as we needed extensions on the screw piles to get enough bearing pressure. So, they cost more than I expected.  But it didn't involve messy concrete mixing/pouring, etc.

By 5pm, the front and back porches [with no steps] were done.  They still have to finish them, seal them- but for tomorrow's tour, they are more than great!

Phew! Hardie-plank installed ahead of PV modules.

"Boothbay Blue" siding glistening in the sun.

After Clifton put up the PV structure, we had to race to get the hardie-plank cement-fibre board siding installed before his team installed the PV modules.  I hired Pelican Decks to help. Landon, Dave & Devon obviously do more than just decks!  They were great to help me in a pinch, as I still don't have a siding company signed up...

The "snorkel" lift really comes in handy.

Happy Hardie Installer.

And that's the last piece!

PV structure is up!

Clifton from Great Canadian Solar came by today. And it was bright and early at 7:30am to receive the Snorkel lift that would help make the installation of the PV awning structure easy.  And the structure is up!  It looks quite delicate. I imagine the PV modules themselves will help stiffen the entire thing. I hope we'll see it hooked up on Friday, a day before the EcoSolar home tour!