Saturday, June 23, 2012

The Push is on...

The house nears readiness due to the Herculean efforts of our contractors. The deck is framed, the front portico is nearly completed, the drywall, a major part of what everyone sees, is well underway with completion this next week. Now comes the details of final visits by the plumber, electrician and heating contractors. And of course, we have yet to lay down the hardwood floor which I am doing (what was I thinking!). Site work final work was started today when I rented a dozer/backhoe and had a number of trucks of driveway gravel and 3 inch stone delivered. I also have managed to work the lake side to a level where it doesn't quite look like the surface of the moon. Some pictures follow. The shadow line on the floor is the furthest the sun penetrates (directly) during this summertime months. This is a good thing as the building would overheat without the overhang. Winter suns are lower and the overhand will allow THAT sun to penetrate and thereby heat the building. Note the work to curve the support beams under the catwalk from the main deck to the master bedroom deck. Ryan is an artist. Roof of the breezeway (beadboard). Fir has evolved as our wood of choice on this house. Warm, strong and relatively inexpensive. So with the roof nearly complete the pieces are coming together. Our UNOFFICIAL target to move in is July 11, 12, or 13. Our cat will also be glad as she is terrorized by our good friends the Reed Ericksons cat. She is spending a lot of time outside. Matt

Friday, June 8, 2012

Ok, not so good...

In my last post, I was estatic at the 'blow test' numbers provided by the testing service. Turns out, when he reviewed his data, he had made a fairly significant error and wanted to repeat the test at no charge. We did the repeat and found the infiltration rate really was on the order of 900 cfm - VERY high for an energy efficient house like this. Fortunately we found this out when we could still act on the data. When he came back we spent a lot of time patching, sealing, and caulking any place that not only leaked air but that was like any other place that had leaked air. We managed to get the number down to 800 or so which is a decent improvement but still not where we needed to be. One of the major "leakers" was around the foundation floor where the insulation came up to isolate the floor from the walls. Given that we have about 250 feet of running foundation wall, this was potentially a huge contributor. There were also spots we found that the electrician, gas guys, plumbers had drilled holes in places we had not thought to look since they were tucked down and behind. So in the end this was a positive in that we paid attention to the data. The insulators came in and the plan was to foam the basement walls (cellulose will wick moisture so we had to use foam) and armed with the data we had them focus on areas in the basement we knew to be a problem. We also had a few areas in the south wall that were unreachable for caulk and tape and they foamed those as well. In the end, once we patched yet more holes made by the trades, the number is down to 555 cfm. We feel this is a pretty good improvement and we are on the right path. The thermographic review of the walls indicate that the ceiling, walls and floor are vitually at zero loss. The area now, and I know this is way boring for most folks not bound at the hip with this project, is actually where the shower drain penetrates the slab under the now installed downstairs shower. We have not figured out how to reach this leak yet...but we will. We also know the front doors have not been adjusted yet and leak a little and finally we think there is still some measurement error in that the areas that we covered with plastic (the scuttle for the insulators) could not stand the huge negative pressure of the blower exhaust and kept tearing off the ceiling. It is a pretty good statement, to me anyway, that the suction on the building was so great that we were tearing plastic off the walls even when they were stapled and taped aggressively in place. If a building has a lot of leaks we could not drop the pressure up that low...or so it seems to me. Anyway, insulators done later today. Drywall on Monday or Tuesday. Most mechanicals are done or fully roughed in waiting for drywall. And, as of 7AM this morning, we no longer have any presence on Estes Road having turned over the house to the new owners. A HUGE relief and a HUGE amount of work this week in the final push. Now we have only one house to focus on. Matt