The winery gets electrified

Today the electrical crew dug the trench and ran the wire from the transformer to the meter socket at the new building. You will notice that we had to remove a portion of our walkway the night before so the trencher could get through.  Amy took the day off to prune the grapes so she was able to take some "action" shots. You get an inside look at what the guts of a transformer and a meter socket look like.

The final picture shows what we worked on last weekend during the lousy weather. We began creating a soffit to cover the HVAC runs. The pic shows it taking shape - the plywood that covers the duct work. These strips of plywood are attached to 2x2's which are attached to the joists from the floor above. After these are all up we will run 2x2's along the bottom and then finally attach some across the underside of the ducts. This will all get drywalled in time.

The weather is looking up for this weekend so we will probably shift back to siding.

Siding Begins

While the HVAC and electrical crews continued to work inside the nice spring weather has allowed us to turn our attentions to the outside. Earlier in the week we peeled back some dirt and tackled the fun and slimy task of adding some additional waterproofing as we decided we needed to go higher with the dirt level on the north and east sides of the building.  Some work with the tractor and more dirt was added and the level has been raised.

The weekend brought the start of siding. We are using James Hardie cement board as we have on the house. We started on the east side of the kick out and used some leftover product from the house - they were a bit dirty that is why you see the odd colors. The angles are always a challenge and adding to the fun is that we are trying to make sure the laps line up with those on the house. We finished that side and turned the corner and just got started on the north side of the main building with new product. It is primed with a light green color which is a bit more pleasant to look at as it almost appears finished. 

A lot of siding to go!  The final pictures are the beautiful moon and sunset from Friday night March 18th.

Vestibule Floor

After spending 3 days in Kearney at the Nebraska Wine and Grape Growers Forum (including an unbelieveable banquet speech by noted wine writer Doug Frost) we came back to find our vestibule floor had been cemented in. Above we have some before and after shots of the pour. The cardboard  you see are void forms. The concrete was poured on top of the cardboard. It leaves a void so the freezing and thawing won't cause a problem.

Other pictures show the completed (by Rich and Erich) shingling on the kickout and the new garage door. The final shot is an inside shot of the can lights that have been installed.

Currently the HVAC company is busy installing the duct work and that will continue into this week. We have run into a scheduling snafu as the main beam for the vestibule will take a minimum of 4 weeks to get made. Hopefully that doesnt slow us down too much.

Other pics show