It lives!

Howdy, blog-readers. After a protracted hiatus, I have returned to dip my toe once more into the inter-web's murky currents. Much has transpired with this house project over the almost 2.5 (!) years that's passed since I last posted to this blog. To bring things up to date, in a nutshell, I am just now getting ready for an occupancy inspection which I hope will happen in the first week of June - almost 5 years to the day that this project began!
Now, given that I have some catching up to do between where things actually are and where I last left them on this blog, I thought I would begin with a quick tour of the present state of things before I rewind to cover the missing processes that got me here.

Still plenty to do on the exterior (cladding for example), but things have gotten quite habitable inside.

The World Ender - Lord Huron

Pre-slab preparations - part 2.

I ended my last post about the foundation on the day that the rigid foam had been installed and the decision to omit the 10 mil poly was made. The following day was when the concrete guys were to come out and install the steel reinforcing for the slab, which proceeded as planned with no problems. For reinforcing, a 10 mm rebar grid was laid out on 12" centres and tied together. With hindsight, I know this is over-kill and if I were to do it again, I would have argued for lighter gauge reinforcing in my plans. My concrete contractor kept joking that if I ever needed any extra cash, I could open up my basement to do heavy-duty mechanic work since I would now be able to park a bulldozer or excavator on the slab. Live and learn.

Pressure testing.

The pressure-testing rig is complete... There's a pressure tank, a 1" inlet port for filling with a utility pump, a shut-off valve, a vent valve and a 3/4" auxillary port that connects to whatever you want to test.

To test the mabifolds, I soldered them together with pieces of 1/2" copper pipe and connected them to the test rig with 3/4 poly pipe. After testing I'll cut the manifolds apart again. To test the manifolds, I pumped water into the 1" port with the vent valve open. Once everything filled up, I closed the vent valve and the shut-off to the pump. The pump was only strong enough to pressurize the system to about 10 psi, so I used my compressor to put air into the back of the pressure tank until I reached 60 psi (well beyond the service pressure of the manifolds).

First bit of plumbing...

This project is part plumbing and part tool making. The plumbing has to do with part of the in-floor heating system I'll be installing. The tool making has to do with crafting a sort of "test rig" so as to leak check the in-floor tubing before we pour concrete all over it.