Day 4: A House Needs Electricity

Today, Saturday, our contractor Arska arrived himself on the site to dig in the electrical cables for feeding the house with much needed electrons. In addition, four 50-mm flexible irrigation tubes were put into the gravel, which allow additional electrical supply lines from the main fuse box in the house to eventual other consumers on the yard: most importantly the cables for external lighting and for the the cars' block heaters will need to be installed before the next winter comes.

The yellow piles in the background were delivered today, too, with some delay due to the delivery person falling ill last week. They are FinnFoam sheets, which will be spread on the ground to prevent the ground from freezing under the house in winter. FinnFoam is a lot smarter than polystyrene in that it is non-compressible, and completely sealed: water can enter only the pores directly destroyed by cutting the sheets, i.e. the top couple of millimetres. Even if submerged for a year, FinnFoam stays dry on the inside, and thus retains its insulating capabilities.

Why does the ground need to be prevented from freezing? The problem is that water, when freezing, actually expands, and thus a process of freezing and melting under the house can lead to shifting of material under the house, and the house can end up at a strange tilt – though I doubt frost had anything to do with the tilt of the famous tower in Pisa... :-)

Finally, a nice photo of today's sunrise – or is it sunset or indeed midday? At this time of the year, the Sun doesn't rise much above the horizon. It looks like the digger's been here, too...