We're back

We are back from vacation and ready to get all our rough ins finished in the next few weeks. Today I mounted one of two PEX manifolds to distribute the water in the house. This one is located in the basement and will be for the first floor. We'll have another upstairs feeding the second floor. We'll run flexible tubing to each fixture in the house. The PEX system works like an electrical box - you can shut off water to any one fixture without shutting off the entire house. It's also very efficient and easy to run. There's no soldering involved as it uses crimp rings to secure it to the various fittings. The brand we're using is Viega Manabloc that we bought from PexSupply.com. Pretty cool stuff. We'll post up more about it later.

We're also going to try to get the electrical roughed in upstairs so we can get one inspection done and then be ready to insulate and drywall everything at the same time. Originally we were planning on concentrating on the addition, but it's a lot easier to run everything all at once even though it means a little extra time being without a kitchen.

A resource we've been using for our electrical is www.ask-the-electrician.com. Dave has been designing our circuits and helping out when I get stuck on something. It really helps to have somebody that's been doing electrical a long time to come up with all the circuit diagrams and his prices are very reasonable for the do-it-yourself work. Plus it's nice knowing that all the lights and outlets are correctly divided so nothing is overloaded in the house.