The work, that is.

OK – so while Gary’s been working pretty hard ever since we arrived last week, I’ve been busy catching up on bookkeeping, email, and general housekeeping.  Oh, and a little fun fabric  stuff too.  But today all that changed. Today Gary started training me to be his A/C installation helper.  Had I mentioned that we’re here at Montrose for the express purpose of installing A/C in the 2nd floor hotel rooms and lobby of Dreyer Hall?

(Jim, the director, had talked to Gary last summer about the possibility of putting A/C in this building, so Gary got the blueprints for the building and over the winter worked out a plan, figured out what he would need and submitted the information to Jim. Jim talked to the board, the board approved it, and the fund raising began! And that’s the story of why we’re at Montrose!)

We arrived last Tuesday afternoon, and the first load of equipment arrived Thursday morning.

Some of it went into the barn

but most of it needed to get to the second floor (and eventually into the attic!).


In order to keep it out of the hall (after all, they will be having guests this summer!), we took over one of the guest rooms and stuffed it full of stuff.

And more stuff.

Gary worked over the weekend, getting things started in the lobby and starting to figure out just how the whole attic thing was going to work, so today was the first chance he had to start my training.
So, duct building.
(You do want to know about this, right?)
Here’s what you do –
Take one of those 10 ft. boards out of those big boxes in the barn and set it up on a piece of plywood on a couple of sawhorses.

Get out the special tools –

And figure out where you needed to cut those special “V” cuts (uh-oh, math required here!).

Keep it straight, Steph.  These boards are $38.00/ea.

No pressure here.

So this is our trial box (I know it wasted some product, but we both really needed to work through the best way to do it!)
Make your four cuts

“Roll” it up to make the box


And then of course you have to do a special cut at the end so you have enough of the backing to wrap around to secure the box together.

And there you have it – our prototype ductboard ductwork.
🙂
Did you notice all the boxes piled up behind that first sheet of ductboard?

Let’s just say that I have a bit of job security!

And many days of itching ahead of me!

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