space age insulation

Well, the day we have waited for has arrived...no not that one, we still haven't moved in, but day one of the spray foam insulation was today! It's CRAZY! the product is called icynene, and we are so glad that we got it. It was a big investment for the beginning, but the overall value is incredible, it keeps houses WARM! the pictures we took are a bit on the blurry side as the spraying had just ended and with the windows covered it was sort of dim, but you can see how thoroughly filled the bays are, the house looks smaller inside to us with something inside the wall cavities besides wire and emptiness! The warmth is already apparent, and we will have some impressive solar gain on the passive solar side of the house (which I generally don't photograph as it shows three stories and makes it looks like a massive house!!). This is exciting news for us...it's been fascinating to watch. The sprayers come in a suit to protect their eyes, clothes and hair, etc. and use a spray gun to spray the foam in, it comes out of the sprayer as a liquid, but begins to expand at the rate of 100x in 8 seconds, and it's really funny to watch. Tomorrow I'll get a video of it, and when shawn has time, if anyone is really curious about it, please let us know and if the video turns out, we'll mail it to you on cd format!

Tomorrow the basement and main floor get sprayed, today they did the attic and the second floor.

The well is going in tomorrow, but so far, the drilling process has been such a comedy (???!!!) of errors, that I'll say no more about it. I'll just say that the trucks are huge, and have been on site since thursday now, and the drilling has not yet begun. Today it was because the water line froze up due to lack of antifreeze (don't ask me how you could forget that in a climate like Maine), and by the time it thawed , they realized that the diesel batteries for the truck were depressed by the cold weather and wouldn't start. So, they are charging tonight. If there's a well tomorrow, I'll post a hallulujah blog entry. :-)

Move in date, assuming the well is ever drilled, is planned for the day before Thanksgiving, and if that doesn't give us something to be incredibly thankful for...well, you get the picture!

Cold weather is upon us...snow showers later in the week, and evening temps have been in the twenties...we've been splitting wood like crazy, which is great fun (no, seriously!) and a nice break from construction. The electric and plumbing were inspected and approved by the local code enforcer. We've got about three cords split and stacked already and probably another cord or so to go, estimates say we'll probably only use two cords MAX with the super insulation in. We are really impressed with this stuff. Can't wait to try it out...this will be the first time we've ever lived in a well insulated house...wow, can't wait!

Ok, good night to all. Hope you are warm and happy out there, wherever you are reading from!