A rain test

Matt's turn to write again.  The past couple days have been busy.  On the framing side, the main level walls are now up and are partially sheathed and housewrapped.  On the interior, with the help of our friend Chad, the gravel in the basement has been leveled and the vapor barrier has been installed over the gravel and all the seams taped. On top of that the 2" rigid insulation is installed.

rigid insulation, and, apparently, a few children on top of the vapor barrier!

 Two nights ago Owen and I spent the evening chalking lines on top of the insulation to prepare for installing the radiant tubing.  Yesterday Owen and I spent most of the day finishing a few chalk lines and then screwing all the tubing brackets into the insulation along the chalked out lines.  Owen did all the brackets at the start and stop of all the curves and I did all the ones along the straight runs.  Then Owen and I started snapping the tubing into place.  Chad again helped us for a little while Friday afternoon to finish getting the last brackets and tubing installed.  It looks great! and all of the circuits closed themselves just the way they were supposed to.

Just before supper last night, Eric (the structural engineer that I do work for) stopped over to take a look at the addition and go over some drawings for a project we are working on.  Eric has been a huge help on our project.  Before we started the construction drawings, Eric and I had been talking about our upcoming adoption and the desire that Andrea and I had to have room for my Mom to live with us if she wanted to.  When it came time to do the drawings, I asked Eric if he would do the structural work for me on the project and he very generously offered his time to complete the structural work free of charge.  Then again yesterday he offered some more help.  I have never sweated copper before, but I need to in order to get some of the radiant connections made so I can pressure test the system before my inspection on Tuesday morning.  As such, at the end of a recent email to Eric I just off-handedly asked if he knew how to sweat copper.  He said he did and that he would be willing to show me how to do it.  On top of that, he also had an extra pipe cutter that he did not need that he donated to me.

Now that the vapor barrier and insulation are on, I essentially have a large pool for collecting and holding water, as there is no roof on the structure yet.  Typically you would wait to pour the slab until after the roof is on and things are a little more weather tight.  However, with a wood foundation wall system like we are using, it is necessary to pour the slab before backfilling.  Early this morning around 2 AM, Andrea and I both woke to thunder and lightning.  Our bedroom window faces west and overlooks the addition and as we looked out, it was very dark to the south and not so bad to the north.  For one moment, we discussed the option of trying to run out and spread tarps over the major openings to reduce the amount of rain that would fill our pool, but very quickly dismissed that as a futile effort.  For the next 30 minutes or so, we both laid there awake.  Not in a anxious or panicked way, but rather just praying and reflecting on how God controls everything.  I even recall thinking about how intimately God can control the weather in the account of the Exodus for Egypt when there was hail everywhere except in the land of Goshen.  As such, I knew that if God wanted to, it could pour all around the metro and he could keep our land dry.  At the same time, I was also fully aware that he had no reason to do that and that if it rained here that was OK.

Andrea's dad shared with us last weekend a phrase that someone at his church came up with. "If it happens, it is OK."  At first glance this doesn't sit well.  However, it actually makes perfect sense.  In Romans 8, Paul writes "And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose."  As such, I can trust that if I am seeking after Him, loving Him and have been called by Him, everything that happens is for my good.  So it is OK!  It was in that frame of mind that I laid back down on my pillow to fall asleep to the sound of rain pounding on the roof.  A couple minutes later I remembered that my sump pump had been unplugged as we had been using the cord for something else, so I figured I should at least get that plugged in before going back to sleep.  Then I slept until morning without thinking about the rain.

Unfortunately I do not have a good picture of what things looked like this morning, because I had misplaced my camera.  But after 2 inches of rain, the moat around the outside of the house was full of standing water, 2-4 inches above the top of the dirt next to the house, so about 8 to 10 inches above the top of my footings and my draintile.  My initial thought was that we were in trouble and that we were going to be re-doing the draintile if this is what it looked like with the sump pump running all night.  The second thought was that the pump probably was not working because the GFI blew out when the cord got wet.  Sure enough, the other cord that I had been using (that was plugged into the same outlet) was laying in a puddle of water on the sidewalk and the pump had not run at all the whole time it was raining.  I reset the outlet and within about 45 minutes, the water was almost completely gone from the exterior "moat". 

Next I went into the inside of the basement, to see how that had fared.  It was as I had expected.  It was like walking on a dock made out of rigid insulation.  However, I was very pleased to see that in a few locations where water had not run down the inside face of the walls, the inside face of the plywood and the bottom plate on the wall just above the footing (think 8" below the water level on the other side of the wall) was not wet at all.  That was a beautiful sight to see.  By mid-morning, the standing water was all gone and with a few sunny days, we should be ready for concrete when it comes on Thursday or Friday.