This Was More Complicated Than We Thought ｜ Installing Reused Windows In A Straw Bale Home

This week on OSRL, we install the remaining windows into our straw bale wall. Trouble is, these windows pose a particular challenge. How's it going everyone? Welcome back to the domestead. Now if you're new here, my wife and I were building our own home off-grid here in the Arizona desert. If you caught our last video, you know we suffered a number of setbacks that kept us from making more progress on the house. But that's okay because we also picked up a number of windows and doors that I'm about to put up. Now I discovered the windows I picked up had the flanges cut. And so I've been trying to figure out exactly how I'm going to mount these and kind of allow that to kind of keep the water out. This is kind of what the flanges look on the windows that I already installed. I think I have an idea of how to do this and I'm going to give it a attempt. So I got some materials at the ready that I can use. Ultimately, I got this metal here that I'm going to cut. Attach that to the outer edge of the window and then I can attach it to the framing. And then we should be all set. But I have a bunch of this, but I think I'm going to need some more to finish off these windows. But that's where I'm at right now. Hey, so you know last week we made a run to get the windows and doors, which is nice. But I'm going to need more materials to put those in. I'm going to need some metal for the windows and I'll need some wood for the doors. So we're going to get some of that right now. Yuvia's back there. She's in the backpack. The way back. What'd you guys call it? The backpack or the way back? I want to know. I need to know. All right. It's cold. I'm impressed that you were able to come outside with these chilly temps, but you made it. All right. You ready to go into town? Should be fun. You don't mind here waiting with Yuvia, do you? No. Sounds like she could use some company. I'm just going to be back real quick. Shouldn't take me too long. Okay. We got it. Not too bad. 25 bucks and everything's in this bag. Let's be off. We're almost done. All right. So I'm back from picking up some supplies and I'm going to get these windows ready to attach to the frames. So I'm very close on that, but something came up that I need to take care of immediately. So if you caught our last video, you know, we got a bunch of snow. You know that it was very cold and I closed up some of those pipes in order to keep everything from freezing. Now, when I tried pumping water, we weren't getting anything. So this could be a number of issues. It could be anywhere along that line. I got to figure it out because we're going to need water in there very soon. Yeah, I waited to the last minute to put on that water because the temps have been so cold in the mornings. We're talking mid to low twenties, so I don't want anything freezing up. So it is what it is. I got to go check the slide. I'm going to start from the front, work my way to the back. First thing I'm going to do is check out the filters. So this is part of my filter setup. I got here an inline filter. I'm just going to take this out and replace it with a new one. It's been a little bit since this has been replaced, so it's probably got to get replaced anyway. So I'll just do that right away. We'll see what happens with that. This is just a larger filter and filters out larger particulates. This I'm going to take off and just kind of clean this out and we'll see how it works. Yeah, this could be pretty dirty. That might be what the cause is. Okay, this may take a little work, but I'm going to basically take this apart, clean it out, and we'll see how that goes. Okay, I cleaned this out and put it back together and it was kind of gunky inside there, so maybe that was the key. Wish me luck. I'm hoping this is all it is. Okay, let's go turn on the juice and see what shakes loose. All right, we got water flow, y'all. I was nervous. Well, I got the water fixed and it was pretty... I was nervous, but it was pretty simple and you got to take those easy, simple wins when you can. It boosts the confidence for the next project. All right, so I'm ready to put the first of the new windows in. I was just about to do it and then I saw some smoke over to the north. Almost kind of looks like it could be a wildfire. It's kind of large. Quite a ways into the distance, though. Maybe a number of miles. So probably just a good idea to kind of keep an eye on it and hopefully it's not too bad. Hopefully it isn't a wildfire. Maybe someone's just doing... Maybe they're doing a controlled burn over there. You never know. So like I said, just kind of keep my eyes on it and see how this all kind of turns out. But meanwhile, I'm going to get to putting up these windows. Jess is out right now visiting family. And I thought how cool would it be if I could get these windows in before she gets back and kind of give her a little surprise. I don't know. It's a lot to do and she's only gone for a few more hours. So we'll see how far I can get. Took me a while to get this one window ready. Just drilling all those holes through that steel. Took a little bit, but we got it done. All right, so two more windows to put in. I got some of these little brackets and I think these will go much quicker. Just so everybody knows, yeah, there was like a little bit of fire over to the north. Looked like a decent distance away, a number of miles. So I don't think it was ever too much of a concern. I could actually see the flames with the binoculars, but it looked like it went out pretty quick. So wherever that fire was, I don't know if it was a wildfire or maybe a controlled burn or something like that, because sometimes they do that around here. Looks like it got out pretty quick. All right, one more window to go. All right, y'all, Jess is back from having visited her family and I'm taking her to the north side of the house. She's going to see all the windows that are in place. Cool. All together, five windows on this north hand side. You know what's missing now? Doors. Yep, that's exactly right. It's missing some doors. Recently, we talked about how we lost one of our chickens to a possible predator attack. I wanted to figure out what was going on, if there was some kind of animal getting into the chicken enclosure. I just got a couple of inexpensive trail cameras. I want to put them up in the chicken yard and get a couple different vantage points and see what's going on in there at night. Juno's around for her. So I installed a couple of cameras and I put them out. So first night, I didn't see anything unusual. No predators, unless you count Yuvia as a predator. She can't get in there, of course, but she likes to look in there, see what the chickens are doing. And there was nothing all night. Not even a mouse. So I saw the chickens going to bed. It looked like the rooster was kind of ushering the hens up to roost. And then he went to bed. And then he was the first one up in the morning. And he was doing his thing. Just a regular night, I guess. Regular morning. So I'll probably just keep the trail cams up there and just keep monitoring things. All right, y'all. We got a very exciting delivery the other day. I absolutely have to show you. Come along. Check this out. Yeah. Any guesses what this is? That's right. These are the pieces that go along with the polycarbonate panels. So now I'll be able to fit these things together and put them up on that south side wall. So very exciting. This is going to be the greenhouse. And yeah, with these pieces, I should be able to start working on that ASAP. So a little bit of struggle. But all the windows are in on this north hand side. Definitely looking more like a home. Windows are in. I do got to work on the doors. And also now with that delivery, I can start on the greenhouse side of the house. So very exciting. Lot going on. Almost too much to do at one time. But what can you do? All right. Very cool. Well, definitely give this video a big thumbs up. And we'll catch you guys on the next video. Bye.