On Wednesday afternoon, the garage slab was finally poured. On Thursday, most of the windows were installed. Now, on Friday, the temperatures are plunging and we have a mini-blizzard tinging the landscape white. Seems to be "just-in-time" construction...
Hope and Change /
This house was born out of optimism and the need to move forward. Tuesday's presidential election result has dampened some of that optimism. At least for now. I'm worried about the possible future that climate skeptics and an impulsive, hubristic leader will bring; worried for the next generations. I'll keep the hope that this single house will represent one small step forward to that future that I still want to see.
Underslab insulation /
R-15 insulation has been placed below the basement floor slab, over a continuous vapor barrier. Radiant heat tubing is to be placed next and then concrete will pour.
The 2015 International Residential Code requires R-10 insulation below slabs in our climate zone. We're going for 150% of insulation requirements in all envelope assemblies. A PassiveHouse, in contrast, would probably have R-40 or greater below the floor slab.
Underslab plumbing /
As we anticipate the pouring of the basement and garage floor slabs, plumbing is going in. Once complete, several layers of rigid insulation and a vapor barrier will be added. Then concrete.
On the lower left is the sewage ejector pump. The city couldn't verify exactly where the invert was for the street line, and we ended up with a basement floor elevation a little lower than what worked for pure gravity flow. Hence the pump. On the right is the sump pump basin. Exterior and interior drain tile feeds into this, and a vertical PVC vent will extend up through the roof, since the interior drain tile also acts as part of the radon venting system. In the background is the start of the drain piping for the basement bathroom's shower, toilet and sink.
Drone attack! /
Video shot and edited by multi-talented man-about town Kent Leonard on 10/11/16. Since then, the upper roof underlayment has been applied, the porch roof framing and sheathing has been completed, the south planter/railing has been framed, and we're waiting for Les Jones Roofing to free up a TPO membrane crew.
WRB products: Competing or Complementing? /
Kingspan GreenGuard MAX was specified for the weather resistive barrier (a.k.a. "housewrap"). One would think that the builders would have used GreenGuard tape for the seams!
Nope.
I called Kingspan, and it turns out the two products are compatible.
Framing Nearing Completion /
The front porch is one of the last major framing efforts left on the house. Next will be full "drying in" so that windows and exterior doors can be installed.
Overview from the street.
The roof deck features a center planter (one side of which shown to the left), providing railing/privacy/spatial definition to the habitable deck. Planted roof areas will extend east and west of this.
BFB's!! /
The lower roof is supported in part by a pair of 6-¾" x 19-½" glulam beams (glue-laminated lumber), architectural grade. They will both be clear-finished but otherwise left exposed. The framers whined at me today about how heavy they were...
The east beam, and the 5-¼" square PSL column supporting it. The beams articulate the space below. This beam visually separates the dining space (to the left) from the living space to the right).
Bird's Eye View /
Drone pilot / jack-of-all-trades Kent Leonard stopped by and did a flyover today. Here's a shot from that flight. Look for the motion picture coming to a blog near you! (in a few days)
The Value of Green Real Estate /
Several months ago, applying for a construction loan, I did my best to educate the appraiser working for the mortgage company on the "green" features that we were planning for the new home. I pushed him to look at comparable properties in the vicinity so that the benefits of such progressive construction would be taken into account. I believe that my efforts helped to some degree.
Now, after having toured a few homes for sale in the area and comparing the brochures they put out, I'm wondering the same sort of thing again. How are environmental features figured into the marketing and valuation of a home? It appears that they're really not. The MLS template seems to be rigid, using only the "remarks" area to include anything of the sort. I think this needs to change. Like the gas mileage on a car, a home should AT LEAST have its HERS score listed (is it built only to code, or how much better is it?). It should AT LEAST have yes/no answers to questions like "Does the house have any green rating system certifications?" or "How many of the major appliances are ENERGY STAR rated?" or "What is the annual water usage?" I intend to look into this in the upcoming months. Stay tuned.
Framing while awaiting Glulams /
We're awaiting the massive glu-laminated beams that will traverse the main floor living space and support the trusses which will bear the low, "flat" roof. Until then, the framers are erecting temporary supports as they complete the floor trusses under the conditioned bedroom and bathroom spaces.
In the current issue of SPACES, a feature article points out how a homeowner added fake beams to their remodeled kitchen to give the illusion of the space being a "working chateau kitchen", or some magical thinking like that. In our house, the beams will be real, exposed, and doing honest work.
Bonus: Spot the two errors in the photo above! Hint #1: One is structural, pertaining to bearing area and crushing. Hint #2: The other is impossible to tell in the photo, but prohibits the locating of a salvaged cabinet. Advice based on this find: Instead of allowing an extra ½" for a cabinet, allow an extra 2" for contractor inattentiveness. One would think that I would have learned this by now.
Apparently not.
Appliances and Improvisations /
Today, we started looking seriously at appliances. Although I've done lots of research on them in general, have read many, many articles on them, and have assisted numerous clients with their selections, the options out there can still be overwhelming. Our priority is to balance quality with environmental concerns. We're looking mainly at Energy Star rated appliances wherever applicable, as well as low WF (water factor) numbers. It's proving difficult - at this early stage - to find a single manufacturer for everything, so the end result will most likely be a blend.
We started with All, Inc. in St. Paul. We already have an Electrolux gas cooktop (free, from a kitchen being demo'd), and really like a package we saw of Electrolux laundry appliances (both Energy Star rated, with the washer having a low water use factor, and together at a good price). Bosch and KitchenAid both have very quiet (39 dB) dishwashers but one has the nice 3rd tray and the other one - the Energy Star rated one - doesn't. And what about these feature-rich microwaves, with convection and steam and a range of other options? We like one of the KitchenAid refrigerators a lot but it's $1300 more than a very similar model that is Energy Star rated whereas the more expensive model isn't. Choices, choices...
As a meaningless aside, I have a dumb sort of affection for Electrolux, for 2 reasons. One is that it's based in Sweden (my wife is 100% Swedish by ancestry, and I've liked the 2 Swedish cars I've owned). The other is that my first vacuum cleaner was an ancient Electrolux model that I got from my grandmother (who, interestingly, was 100% Finnish and had a deep distrust of Swedes). I had it for over 20 years and it worked well in all that time. It was primitive but high quality. I sold it with my wife's old Hoover on craigslist a few years ago when we upgraded to a HEPA-filtered canister model from Panasonic.
Finally, we did a walk-through of the mostly-framed first floor of the house this afternoon, and agreed (with the assistance of a crude computer rendering I'd prepared - see below) that we need more windows in the living room, flanking the fireplace. Sometimes, even with maximum obsessive forethought, one needs to see a thing to realize what it's going to be like.
Main Floor Framing: Rooms! /
Main floor walls have been going up, allowing us to start physically walking through rooms! It's a thrill after months of virtual walk throughs. So far, the framers have gotten lucky with the weather. It's been raining mainly at night lately, and staying dry during the day. We hope this keeps up for a few weeks so that framing can be complete as quickly as possible.
View northwest, from the future dining room to the future main floor bedroom.
Framing starts! /
Today, framing started, allowing us to start physically walking through future spaces! Yesterday's rain slowed things down a bit, but with the forecast for the upcoming week, the main floor deck and upper walls should be well underway by mid-next week.
Photo taken Friday, 1:20 p.m., looking southwest from a future office to a future bedroom (the framed-in wall opening can be a double window opening into an area well). The stair up will rise between the column and stud wall.
The center columns are 5-¼' x 5-¼" PSL's (parallel strand lumber), an engineered wood product that uses smaller wood strands and is generally stronger than solid timber. There are 2 of them, supporting a continuous triple LVL beam (laminated veneer lumber; a plywood-like material) on the main floor and a pair of heavy glu-lam beams for the south roof. The stud wall shown on the right side is a standard 2x4 bearing wall which will support the laundry room and main floor bath floor loads, as well as the family and master bathrooms on the upper level.
The basement floor slab will be 7" higher than what you see in the photo. The gravel is the sub-slab base, in which the drain tile / radon venting tubing runs. On top of this, once leveled, will be several inches of XPS foam insulation boards, a continuous vapor barrier, and a reinforced 4" concrete floor slab with embedded radiant heating tubing.
Main floor lumber delivery, water and sewer /
Today, the majority of the main floor framing was delivered - all but the PSL columns and column bases. The major wet utilities were also completed between the street and the basement - the copper water line and the sewer line.
The collection includes engineered wood (LSL rim joists, LVL beams, and I joists with OSB webs), plywood sheets (subfloor), and solid lumber (treated 2x6 sill plates, 2x10 headers and dropped framing, and 2x4's for miscellaneous wall framing).
Backfill /
Backfill was placed yesterday as the top of the shoring was removed, and then it rained. The site is now a mucky mess, but with good weather next week framing will begin in earnest.