Speaking of Attention

11:36 Saturday, 14 November 2026
Current Wx: Temp: 37.27°F Pressure: 1009hPa Humidity: 89% Wind: 10.65mph
Words: 74

Yesterday's "ground stop" event is probably a result of incompetence, in my opinion. Who needs terrorists or state actors when you have the Trump administration and its clown-car cabinet?

But it is yet another reminder that we live in a new world, and we need to learn to adapt.

I would encourage everyone to consider their personal level of preparedness, and to begin educating themselves about measures they should take to increase it.

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Building a House is a Leap of Faith

10:38 Saturday, 14 November 2026
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Words: 1202

Unless you're one of those super-competent, highly skilled, supremely confident, rugged alpha-males that seem to dominate the TubeYou-niverse, building a house can be a stressful endeavor.

It's not for the faint of heart. It's much like what Ray Bradbury wrote:

If we listened to our intellect we'd never have a love affair. We'd never have a friendship. We'd never go in business because we'd be cynical: "It's gonna go wrong." Or "She's going to hurt me." Or,"I've had a couple of bad love affairs, so therefore . . ." Well, that's nonsense. You're going to miss life. You've got to jump off the cliff all the time and build your wings on the way down.

We'd never build a house.

I've been thinking that had we known how much this would cost, and how difficult it would be from the standpoint of uncertainty, I'm fairly certain we wouldn't have started.

If you want a "safe" experience, then you'll probably want a "developer," and not a guy who builds houses. I hasten to add that this is by no means a complaint about Brad the Builder. But he never promised to be a general contractor, or project manager. We kind of took that role on, sort of on purpose, without really appreciating all that it entailed. A "developer," I think, brings everything together in one package, and perhaps you'll have less control over a lot of the details. But "the devil is in the details," and he will keep you up at night.

The HVAC contractor ecosystem up here is profoundly disappointing. Perhaps it's that way everywhere. They will not take a job unless they take the whole thing, including the design, equipment selection, load calculations (if they do load calculations) and everything else.

Basically, I'm going to supervise a plumber and we'll be installing the hydronic system ourselves, with technical advice and assistance from the manufacturer and Claude. That may work out just fine, and we'll have saved a metric fuck-ton of money. But there's a lot of anxiety in the process. Likewise with the ventilation. That will probably be Brad and I, with assistance from Derrick, his electrician and all-around, right-hand man.

We will probably save a lot of money, but we'll make mistakes that an experienced installer would likely avoid.

And if you're ever going to consider building a new home, I would say the most important choice you'll make, beyond the site location and your builder or developer, is what kind of HVAC system you want, because that will inform many of the design details in the layout and framing of the house. Perhaps that makes sense. It is, in effect, the "life support system" of the house.

As someone pointed out in a hydronic podcast I listened to, which convinced me that this was the right way to go, people will spend hours obsessing over the specifications of new cars they're considering, inside which they will spend, at most, a few hours each day; but they will give absolutely no thought whatsoever to the air quality inside their home, and the means by which it will be heated and cooled, in which they will live, eat, sleep and conduct nearly all the "activities of daily living," for years.

All of which is to say that part of my absence here is due to lack of sleep, obsessing over equipment, spending money, talking to contractors who ghost you, and trying to, as my Dad always said, "Keep the faith."

But I am encouraged by a lot of serendipitous clues. When I was going through my divorce, I was in a similar emotional state. But I was also doing a lot of meditation and paying attention to my attention. And I learned that if you pay attention, the universe, or God, or whatever you wish to call that dimension of existence that lies beyond our biological faculties, will give you clues. Feedback. Hints.

And you'll know if you're in the groove. On the right path. Tuned to the proper frequency.

And there have been so many of those in this project. And so I am encouraged to believe that this is all going to work out ok. We're "doing the work." We're not just foolishly slapping something together in some delusional belief that we know what we're doing.

I have to believe there is an enormous business opportunity for some entrepreneurs in the area of HVAC installs, where the client has engaged an engineering firm to perform load calculations and specify an equipment design for the home. As things are today, if it's not equipment that they're familiar with, or with a manufacturer they already have a relationship with, they won't take the job. Hydronic heating and cooling involves no refrigeration work, so it doesn't require an HVAC certification. It's just plumbing.

In other new house news, the front door arrived yesterday. The electrical connection to the house has been installed and inspected. That came in about 20% above the initial estimate. The electric utility is now able to come out and hang another 200-amp transformer, install the meter and turn on the power. We've begun installing the low-voltage DC lighting circuits.

We still need the roofers to install the standing-seam metal roofing, and a crew to do the siding. We're somewhat optimistic we may get the roofing on next week.

Brad is anxious to begin putting up the ceilings so they can install the insulation.

Once we get power and lighting, we can begin the hydronic install. I hope we'll be able to begin that in December. Claude is preparing a couple of highly detailed documents I can present to the manufacturer for their review before we begin assembly. It will also include a plan for a two-phase commissioning. We'd like to get the radiant heat going in the slab to take the chill off the house while the other interior work is taking place. The fan coil units can't go in until the drywall is in and painted, but we can run the PEX to the locations. That will be the second stage of commissioning, fan coils and domestic hot water.

I've been watching videos about cleaning the system before the first fill. My plumber has a lot of experience with hydronic slab heating, not so much with fan coils or hot water, so some of this stuff will be unfamiliar to him and I'm hoping we can work together amicably to do a lot of the detail work, like a flush before fill, which he may not have done before. But we'll talk about that. I'm paying him by the hour, so I can't imagine he'll have too many objections.

We'll do some of the vent ducting install before the drywall goes up, but we won't be commissioning the ERV and dehumidifier until that's completed and the house is cleaned of drywall dust. That project is going to require a lot of creative thinking in terms of routing ductwork. Flex ducting is great, but we have to be mindful of resistance to airflow.

We'll figure it out.

That's probably enough about all that.

As ever, the beat goes on...

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