Concrete (hopefully this is the last post about concrete for quite a while), back door view, and fire

It has been 3-4 weeks since we poured this back patio:


This is at the rear of the building, a level up from the parking lot.
The concrete truck parked up in the alley and we carried the cement down in 5 gallon buckets. There were four of us (we could have used another person or two) and it was hard, sweaty work. This is, again, water control. And it's a nice shady resting spot, too, that will be the beginning of the hillside seating area.

See the small concrete pad here?


That's for the air conditioner:

It sure feel nice inside!

Walking over to the other corner of the building, still standing on the concrete, this is the view:


The roof is actually red now, and I'll get those pictures up soon, but here it's still tar paper.
You can see the door in the back of PC's truck. In the previous post there was a picture of the door after it was unloaded, so I'm chronologically upside down. Soon I'll post a picture of the door where it's supposed to be...


Just a few minutes later, the fire trucks screamed through town to put out this fire:


It must have been a huge fire because I could see flames from here!


But the fire department(s) had it under control pretty quickly, because it didn't last long.

Thank goodness.

Gas! Finally!

If you're wondering why I'm so excited about gas (not the deviled egg variety, but natural gas for the furnace), then go to this page with all entries labeled 'gas' and start at the bottom to get an idea of the loooong process we've gone through in order to get the gas turned on.

Yesterday morning one of the local gas company guys (Thanks, Mike!) came and turned on the gas! In order to leave it on, he had to see not only the pilot light burning, but also the burner lighting up and the blower kicking on. I had a pack of matches and a long skinny stick ready and waiting for the lighting of the pilot light.
The burner kicked on a couple of minutes after I turned up the thermostat, but the blower would not blow. I know it worked; I felt it blowing hot air on Friday when the HVAC fellow came to inspect it. However, it doesn't count if the gas company man is not standing there to see it.
From the back of the dusty furnace room, Mike flipped the furnace breaker off and back on and the blower started right up. Yay!

Maybe I'll take a picture of one of the floor registers. However, you'll have to use your imagination for the hot air blowing your hair back from your forehead because I haven't figured out how to get that effect from this blog yet.

It's On! Woo-hoo!

The gas is on!
The furnace works!
Yay!

Just wanted to let you know.
More later....

Getting Closer!

Look! It's a shiny new gas meter!

It's hooked up to The 123!

We have a few more hoops to jump through, but it looks as if we will finally have gas. Monday. Hopefully.

Other good news: the furnace works!

Coffee House Design (and gas line - still!)

As of this weekend, the gas line wasn't hooked up yet, so I'm not sure what's going on with that.

The kids are back in school today, so everyone is feeling well again.

Now that the first floor is completely gutted, PC and I are trying to figure our layout for the Coffee House innards: the kitchen, the counters, the workings, etc. We have come to the conclusion that in order to get it right (meaning efficient and welcoming and building/health code approved), we are going to need some help.
We'll proceed with the utility fixes and get started on the ceiling while we start reading up and asking advice on restaurant design. I've been in contact with a Coffee House consulting company who can give us a hand with the coffee service aspect. Now I need to do the same with the food service side of things.

Gas Line...Ack!

I just started a post, and then I lost it. I have no idea where it went and I looked for it everywhere.
Anyway, I will try again....

When you walk into the Grafton 123 (when we open sometime next year), you can feel safe. Very, very safe. At least from any type of gas leak or gas explosion or any other type of gas-related accident. The safety standards required by the gas company are strict!
We passed the pressure test! Yay!
I did not get a picture of the highly-sensitive pressure monitoring seismology-looking equipment. Sorry, but I've been home all week with a feverish 7 year old. Poor kid has been anywhere from 99.0 to 103.8. Fortunately, with the help of a wide variety of Gatorade colors, he has been well hydrated. (Have you seen some of the new Gatorade stuff? They have Gatorade Rain and the Lime flavor is kind of a pale psychodelic green that puts me in mind of black cauldrons and eye-of-newt. When I see it outside of the Gatorade bottle in a clear glass, it makes me want to scream, "Don't drink that!")
Today I called the doctor, but with no openings and no other symptoms and the large intake of Gatorade, they told me to call them back if his fever spikes again. So far so good, though. It hasn't been back up since early this morning and he's eaten twice and switched from Gatorade to apple juice and a glass of milk.
He looks like he's finally kicked whatever nasty bug got him. Thankfully.
So, anyway, the gas line gauntlet is not over yet. They are going (maybe did already) to hook up the line to the curb box and install a meter. We have to get a licensed HVAC technician in there to inspect the furnace before they will turn on the gas. And if the furnace doesn't pass inspection or the pilot light won't stay lit when the gas gets turned on, then they'll turn it right back off.
Rigid. Safe.
Safe is good, but I have to keep reminding myself of the safe part.

Gas Line, cont.

So the pressure test to check the new line and new pipes entering the back of The 123 was Wednesday. Really, it's a 24 hour pressure test so it was Wednesday and Thursday. The test was complete with a fancy seismology-looking box with complicated circle graph paper and several arms with red pen tips on the ends.
Really.
However, I did not get a picture.
But, not to worry, because we failed the test.
So we get to do it again. Fix the leak, and then the gas company will come back and do it all again. Next week.
I will be sure to take pictures of the weird looking contraption.
Argh.

Gas Line

Here's the link to the original post about the need to replace the gas line.


This was a lot faster than digging the trench by hand:

A friend with a tractor and the small back-hoe attachment came over and dug the trench and backfilled it in about a half a day (Thanks, Junior!).




Here's the view from the street above:

Here's a picture of the required plastic gas line:

Remember the Curb Box that was such a problem to locate?
Look right below the yellow line painted on the stone:

Here's a close-up:

It's not really a box at all, but a plain-looking shut-off valve. The reason it was so hard to find is because it was so far below the surface. And this is after they raised it!

The painted yellow line was so we didn't lose it again.

There are a few more updates that need done before we can have it pressure tested. However, that should be done by the end of the week and then we'll be able to get a meter hooked up and start checking out the furnaces....

Water

“Turn it off! Turn it off!”

This was me yelling from the stairway while water rained down on my head from the ceiling. Crap.

We were just testing the system to make sure there were no leaks.
Ha.

When PC first turned on the main valve, putting pressure to the old system that hadn’t seen water in a while (At least a winter of freezing weather. Or two. Yikes.), the usual hissing-charging sound echoed through the first floor; even with all the dentist office divider walls still up, the sound reverberated through the ceiling tile.

First, I ran around the first floor to all the sinks -every little room had one- and turned off faucets. If the faucets kept running, I reached under and turned off the valves. Whoever did the plumbing 40 years ago for the dentist office had the foresight to take the time to put a shut off valve on every hot water line and every cold water line underneath every sink (thank you, who ever you are). There were several leaky (okay, really: uncontrolled pour-y) faucets, and though I was scared to trust the shut-off valves, there was only one that did not do its job. Not too bad for 40 years worth of sitting there and waiting to be called into duty. With PC's help, this only took a couple of minutes, but with that hissing (potentially leaking or pouring) sound coming from over our heads, it felt much longer.

Everything was off downstairs, but the overhead sound didn't slow. If anything, it was louder. I headed out to the used-to-be-the-reception-area and through the first doorway, intent on making the next turn and running up the steps (22 of them, remember?) to see what I could turn off up there. It was that momentum that kept me going, not even noticing the little waterfall that had started down the bottom few steps until I was right in the garden-hose-with-good-pressure-sized stream pouring on my head. Crap.

I had to back down out of the stairwell and yell down the hallway before I heard the pipe-clunking that I knew meant it was off. I went back to the stairs and squished myself against the wall to avoid the slackening downpour. I had a passing thought about the usefulness of the blue rubber ridged anti-slip stairtreads that were tacked to each riser, and how, hopefully, some day when most things work, I'd be able to remove them and refinish the old wood.....

It was the toilet. It had been dry for so long that the gasket between the tank and bowl rotted (How does a toilet get this black with no water in it? I tried not to think about it.); water was still seeping from beneath the tank and tracing the porcelain in a thin line to the carpet.

***Allow me to pause here to opine the carpet*** (Wait a second - am I even using that word right? Opine? It just popped into my head....going to look it up..... Alright, it's a verb, but it doesn't give an example of how to use it. It means to harangue, preach, orate, or lecture. Which is fine, but I don't want to direct this lecture to the carpet; I want to harangue (criticize, tirade)about the carpet. I'll leave it like it is, but I'm open to grammatical correction.)
Back to opining: You'd think it would've just been the same as the rest of the blue commercial-grade carpet (minus the padding), but no, it's in a category all its own. I vaguely remember stuff like this from childhood, but I'm not sure if it was ever popular. Maybe, but if so, it was popular for just a few people (ha.). Or maybe for just a very short time. Like, until the people who liked it regained their senses.
It's blue and green and shaggy. Need I say more?

Enough about the carpet. All the stuff on the second floor stays just like it is (minus the leaks. and the refrigerator.) until after the first floor is up and running as the 123 Coffee House and the third floor has been redone so I can move my office up there without plaster falling on my head.

Water. Yes. Water. Bottom line: the toilet leaked. Badly. I tore it apart and got the repair parts and put some of it back togehter, but I will have to say (and Thank You) that PC, though much bigger than myself, crammed himself into that little bathroom to reset the tank and bolt everything down. After the carpet dried out (Shag carpet doesn't take as long as I thought to dry out. Synthetic fibers, probably.), of course.
Once the water worked, the black came off (and out), but I'll spare you the details.

It took three (?) more turn-on-the-water attempts before I didn't have to yell "Turn it off!" any more. Now, the bathroom works just fine. As long as you don't want hot water. The tiny kitchen sink is still on the to-do list (Tiny kitchen. Not tiny sink. Though it only has one bowl, the bowl is large. And it was black. But now it's white. Oh, right...sparing the details...).

It’s been almost two months since we first turned on the water, but I thought it deserved mention. I suppose I can't complain too much; if I were 117 years old, I'd probably have a few leaks, too.

All the utulities will get their post (we've touched on the electric, and now water). Or two. Or three. Right now we're dealing with the gas lines. It may get more than three posts. Or four. I'll be sure to take pictures. Crap.