What We’re Building Next Door: The Mechanical Stage

In case you missed it, I’m writing a new blog series chronicling the construction of my neighbor’s NDI home. I’ve built for friends before, but there is something about being asked by your neighbor! We’ve been friends and neighbors for over 10 years, and I am honored they asked us to build their new home.

Now that the house is all framed up with windows, doors and the roof installed, it’s time for the mechanical stage. This is when the HVAC, Plumbing and Electrical are run throughout the house.

The HVAC subcontractor is up first. Since the HVAC equipment is the “biggest,” they will run all the duct lines and chases before any other trade gets started. Next comes the plumber. When we are building a home that doesn’t have an attached garage, dropping and storing materials can be a challenge. But we make it work…

After the plumber comes the electrician and then structured wiring.

By now, the utilities for the new house will hopefully be close to completion. Our goal is to get all utilities “hot” by the time the kitchen cabinets go in.

If you can talk a neighbor into borrowing power from their house, we can get a temporary sump pump installed in the basement which will help prevent the sump crock from overflowing and flooding the basement. This is especially important when the basement will be finished. We don’t like to install the drywall when we don’t have power to run the sump pump (remember water in a house is bad).

We are all plugged in over here!

The next subcontractor is the insulation company. Energy efficiency is pretty important at NDI so I have quite a bit to say about that. Stay tuned!

Dream. Build. Live.