I did not sleep well last night.  I was a bit worked up about the landscaping and a bit worried about the iron gas pipe installation which looked to me like it would be difficult no matter how Darryll decided to do it.  We were both awake at 5:30 AM and finally got up at 6:45 AM and had breakfast.

The landscapers arrived early, before 8 AM, and got right to work.  Steve brought three guys and got them busy right away.  Linda and I walked the site with him, but he immediately saw more problems than we did.  There was no arguing or convincing; he seemed determined to make sure it was done right and that we were happy with the end result.  He stayed and worked alongside the crew to make sure stuff got done correctly.  They finished up around 11 AM.  We took one last look at the work and paid Steve the balance of what we owed him.  He said he would check back in 2 – 3 weeks to spot seed and fertilize the new grass.

Linda took off for the post office and grocery store around 8:45 AM and I started routing and stapling the sub-panel ground conductor along the edge of the deck by the rear library doorwalls.  Darryll (DCM Heating and Cooling) showed up a little after 9 AM with his nephew, Alec, so I took the next 30 minutes to walk through the gas pipe installation options.

Darryll decided to go with the original plan of running the pipe from the southeast corner of the house down the east side, around the corner across the back of the house under the upper deck, dropping it down and going under the middle deck, across the back of the garage just below the bottom piece of siding, around the northwest corner of the garage and up the west side of the garage to its end point behind the whole house generator.  There will be a T-fitting on the garage side of the middle deck, to supply gas into the garage for the two new furnaces, and another T-fitting at the end of the run.  One branch of the end T will have a shutoff valve and cap and will be used to supply gas to the generator.  The other branch will be capped and available should we ever decide to run a gas line to the (future) bus barn.

I determined where I wanted the sub-panel ground wire to enter the basement and drilled a 5/16″ hole an inch to the right and an inch below the water faucet that comes through the west wall of the house about 16″ back from the northwest corner above the lower deck.  This allowed me to route the ground wire around an inside corner to the hole and will allow me to tuck it up under the bottom piece of siding.

I wanted to get the ground wire into the main panel but I could not turn off the main breaker as Darryll was using electric power tools and Linda was working on her computer.  The connection will have to wait until no one is using power.  Once the ground wire is tied into the main panel I will remove the bonding screw in the sub-panel.

Linda made a different kind of bean salad sandwich spread for lunch using Great Northern beans and various other yummy ingredients.  We had some grapes and green tea to go with our sandwiches.

Having run out of construction projects for the moment I decided to work at my desk for a while, but my mind was elsewhere and I just wasn’t feeling the love.  The steps at the back door of the garage were going to be in the way of the iron pipe, so I removed them.  As long as I was out there I hung around to watch Darryll and Alec get the pipe under the middle deck.  It was a challenge, as expected, but for reasons that were unseen until Darryll tried to drill holes through the end boards.

First he encountered wet wood that kept fouling his hole saw.  Then he hit a nail, which did not enhance the performance of the saw.  It also bent his extension shaft slightly which he had to stop and straighten.  He then encountered joist hangars on each end and had to bend those out of the way.  Finally able to feed the pipe through, they encountered wood sleepers and a couple of large rocks.  They managed to go over the sleepers and push the rocks out of the way and got the pipe through.  Darryll and Alec put in a long, physically demanding day and got most of the 2″ pipe installed.  Two inch iron pipe is very impressive stuff and we were very impressed with the work required to install it.

For dinner Linda made a Farro pilaf, after which we sat on our deck and enjoyed a small glass of Riesling wine to celebrate the end of the landscaping project that has had our property torn up for the last five weeks.  We are very fortunate that we became vegans and that Linda took a serious interest in learning about whole-food, plant-based recipes, ingredients, and cooking methods just as we retired.  I shudder to think what our health would be like had we continued to eat the way we did until three years ago where, even as “vegetarians,” our diet contained a lot of eggs, dairy, and seafood, and not so much fruits and vegetables.  We watched Dr. Michael Greger’s annual summary address on NutritionFacts.org and went to sleep without the worries that interfered with last night’s rest.