Thursday, November 24th 2005
Ready to hibernate.
I left you a month ago with the cold weather threatening to turn us into eskimos. I'll reassure you right away, we're now in relative warmth and fine-tuning the details in order to spend a comfortable winter season.
So, on that beautiful October Saturday, two merry groups of volunteers showed up and helped us with the second coat of mud between the tires. We also finished levelling the floor, started laying the crushed stone and making the forms for the cement floor. I believe everyone had a lot of fun and we all appreciated the splendid sunny day.
The following tuesday, things were not looking as good: we still had a lot to do before we were ready for the cement truck and it was snowing heavily. But once more, our lucky star was there. André, ALain's brother, was able to come to the rescue to finish preparing the floor and install the vapour barrier on the ceiling. Early in the afternoon, the sun came out and dried the road. ALain and I were putting down the billboard that is used as the barrier underneath the cement just as the 2 guys showed up to do the floor... We delayed our move by one day in order to acid dye and oil the concrete.
Once inside, we got around to installing the windows and door. Unfortunately, the weather wasn't on our side. It took 2 weeks and we had to do some of the caulking twice. We'll have to wait for next summer to make things more perfect. In fact, installing thermos glass inside homemade sloped frames is tricky business. We'll be better at it by the time we get to the back U but the obvious thing is dry weather for the duration of the installation...
It also became obvious that we won't be able to do as much work on the inside as we would have liked because we didn't get to finish the walls. Since it took a month to dry between the first two mud coats and the house is now closed, it's harder to get rid of all that humidity. We'll wait for spring when we can open windows and doors. Since the walls are not done, we can't build the kitchen counters/shelves and all.
One improvement over this summer: we have cold running water and ALain is busy getting the gas on-demand water-heater up and running. Right now we still have to boil water on the woodstove before we can do the dishes. Lucky we have that stove to help warm all that mass that didn't get to warm up from the sun last summer. We're fighting the earth's temperature but we manage to get the house up to 15C on cloudy days with the stove. On the other hand, it has the advantage that in the morning, it doesn't get below 8C without any heating.
Since everything is slowing down for winter, I'll get back to you in a few months when we get back to work. I'll spend some time writing an article for the magazine "Maison du 21e siecle" for the spring issue... Best wishes to all, may the new year bring you what you need!