Mudding is in full swing. Frank the Tank has completed his signature ceiling texture on the main floor and will be moving to the basement next.
Mud-weiser
Chunky Monkey
A Stiff Pour
The driveway was poured today. This will be a two-part pour, with the largest pour happening today. We got a half inch of rain last night, but it soaked in pretty quick so it was still a go. The concrete is 6″ thick with 47B aggregate and rebar reinforced. This is the same high-strength concrete used on roadways and is rated at 4000 psi.
Soften It Up
The plumbers came today and hooked up the water softener. We went with a Fleck 5600 SXT 48,000 grain softener. Fleck is not a well-known brand, but they are a fraction of the cost of a Culligan or Kinetico system.
We knew that the water in this area was hard, so before we settled on this softener we got a water test from Servi-Tech Laboratories out of Hastings. The hardness test came back at 16 grains per gallon. We used this calculator to determine that a 40,000-48,000 grain softener would be optimal for our conditions.
Fill ‘Er Up
The wall insulation was blown in today. This is an ultra fit blow-in insulation rated at R-24. A traditional batt insulation would only be able to provide an R-19 rating on a 2×6 exterior wall, so between this and the brick veneer we should have a very airtight home. Once the sheetrock is hung on the ceilings they will come back and blow in enough insulation in the attic to reach an R-49 value, per Energy Star’s recommendation. We did opt for an R-13 batt insulation on the basement walls as well as all of the interior walls to help with sound dampening.
