Excellent Tanning Opportunity

Yesterday (I'm breaking with my normal habit of back-dating posts to the day of the work) was a big day for radiant heat. I had never considered the difficulty of laying reflective foil-backed insulation on the ground on a really hot August day. You know how rich people on TV and Klinger from MASH use tri-fold foil boards held under their chin to tan more effectively? Imagine a 1988 square foot one of those.

Blood: check; Sweat: check; Tears: still several months to go. We (dad, Jim, and I) did succeed in getting all the insulation placed, and all seven circuits of Pex tubing laid out. Then we covered them with tarps to prevent direct sunlight, which I hear can degrade the oxygen barrier on the tubing. The foam stapler I rented from Washington (which you can see leaning against the wall in the foreground) worked like a charm. It was light-weight and easy to use, and did a pretty good job securing the tubing to the insulation. The alternative would have been to buy wire mesh and tie the tubing to it using zip ties, which I think would have taken longer, and surely would have been more expensive.

In the late afternoon, after crawling around on the foil while stapling tubing, I began to feel very weak and somewhat light-headed. As the youngest of the group and the owner of the project, I felt bad heading home while Jim and dad stayed to work in the heat on my house, but I really thought it would be best if I didn't pass out and/or die. I laid on the AC vent for about an hour, and Emily got me a popsicle. At one point I tried to sit up against the wall, but got simultaneous cramps in both my stomach and back, and felt that I couldn't move in any direction. I eventually made it back, but felt very weak the rest of the night. Today I continued to feel queasy and week, and thought my no-vomit streak might be in danger (March 2002). After some googling, I'm pretty sure I had heat exhaustion. Streak still alive so far.

The Dingo and the Vibratory Compactor

On my way to the equipment rental place in Jim's truck, Jason's brother called me (not sure why Jason didn't) to say that the gravel guys now said they could come on Monday. Too little, too late.

Here is a picture of dad operating the Dingo. He seemed to really enjoy it. He moved many, many buckets full of gravel to the spare gravel pile at the back corner of the garage, then dug out the extra dirt the excavation guys put in the porch area where the ramp should go, then did quite a bit of work grading the driveway area and filling in the front. The gravel part took longer than the first four hours of the rental, which meant we could keep it until 9:30 tomorrow morning. Even in the area where we could dig with the Dingo because of pipes, it was still very useful as a power wheelbarrow.

When we did finally get enough gravel moved out, and the remainder mostly leveled back out, I started laying out the insulation panels. I found that because I had raked the gravel to level it out, that left the surface very jagged, which made a lot of air space below the insulation. I walked on a couple pieces, and heard gravel popping through the foil on the other side with every step.

During our dinner break we decided to rent a vibratory compactor to squish the gravel. Jim came over after work to help out, and seemed to also have a lot of fun running the compactor. It made an amazing difference, as you can see in the picture the contrast between the rough, uncompacted areas and the areas he had already covered. By dark we laid out all of the whole pieces of insulation we could. Tomorrow we'll return the rental equipment, fit the rest of the insulation, and start laying out the tubing.