state of the dominion

I know that my posts have been few and far between, but commuting and work and all, it has been very hard to drag myself to do the updates.  Things are going well- 

• The siding is finished
• gutters are in
• Drywall is in, taped and mudded
• primer is going on as we speak and the ceiling painted at the same time.

Next week is vacation and I have an aggressive schedule

• I am going to hang the garage doors
• paint the kids rooms- maybe other rooms if time (living room comes to mind.)
• Jason is coming to tile

This house is tight!  very little heat is needed to keep us warm.  The energy efficiency  aspect of the house seems to be working perfectly.

 We are all wearing jackets here because the heat hasn't come on yet...  this is a picture of our great room- kitchen, dining room and living room (which also is around the corner)  See how much light is coming in?  Passive solar heating at it's best.  Even before the geothermal unit was turned on, it was several degrees warmer inside than out.

 two pictures of our fully sided house.  The landscaping is going to have to be done next spring.  Ahh well.  This project has taken longer than we expected.

 Looking up through our two story cathedral ceiling in the dining room.  So much light!

Yes, even our gutters are "green".  They end about 3.5 feet up so that we can attach rain barrels to them and we can recycle the rainwater for our gardens and lawn.

Estimated time of move?  Mid January.  WOOT!

Again thanks for reading.

A sided house

Insulation

Hello all- I'm sorry for the long intervals between posts but between teaching, building, and getting my masters, things are falling through the cracks.  :)

The plumber and electrician are in and working they both say that around the end of the week they should be finished.  That brings us to inspection then insulation.

Right now, I am torn between two different systems: a closed cell-hybrid or open cell system.

Closed-Cell                                                                                 Open-Cell



Highest insulating "R-Value" per inch (> 6.0)                          Good insulation value (R = 3.5)


Low vapor permeability (low perm)                                    Higher vapor permeability, but controlled


Air barrier                                                                                Air barrier at full wall thickness


Increases wall strength


(is a WRB – "Water Resistive Barrier")


Medium density (1.75 – 2.25 lbs./ft3)                                 Low density (0.4 – 1.2 lbs./ft3)


Absorbs sound, especially bass tones                         Best sound absorption in normal frequency ranges


                                                                                                         Economical yield

In either case, I am going to get very good insulation. In the closed cell hybrid system, 2 inches of closed cell foam is sprayed to create an air/water barrier with excellent insulating value (R-value).  Then fiberglass rolls (bats) are placed over the foam to increase the R-value. 

The open cell system simply fills the whole wall cavity with the open cell foam.  Each system has advantages and disadvantages.  They are both about the same in price and R-value.  I am not sure which system I will use. 

Thanks for reading.

subcontractors

I have to say that up to this point I feel pretty lucky.  As you all know, I have been the general contractor (GC) for this project.  Usually owners hire a GC to find (or do) all the subcontracting work.  The GC has a budget, which had been mutually worked out by the owner and GC, and it's up to them to keep everything together.  I am learning so much, so quickly about building that frequently it makes my head spin.  Luckily, I have family that has helped me in the design and budget phase, (Thanks Tom), family in the construction business (thanks Tim, Russ, Jason, Dave, Steve) that have not only helped in building this house, but have given great advice and gave me questions to ask when I knew nothing.  :)  I am currently looking for bids on vinyl siding- 

I read that for all contract work, (not just siding) I should be looking for 3 or 4 bids to get a feel for the cost. I also surf the web to get retail pricing on materials, although I know that siding isn't JUST siding, it has a lot of extra costs, like under insulation, nails, soffits, etc...  I also like to find out reasonable pricing for labor.  There are many places you can get this kind of information. http://www.siding4u.com/vinyl-siding-cost-calculator.php   for example was a place to get rough estimates on cost of a siding job.

So, I had a budget in place for siding, and went looking.  In the past week I received four bids.  All of them were from (seemingly) repatable companies.

The prices ranged from 8000.00 to 40,000.00 dollars! 

Admittedly the one from Sears, (yeah I know) which was the 40k bid had bunches of incentives, which dropped the price down to 28,000- WITH an additional 750 gift card.... but really?  Almost a four time spread? 

I guess the bottom line is that you need to do your homework, have an idea of what a job should cost and get multipule bids.  It's a jungle out there.


Thanks for reading

Sam

forging ahead

Things seem to finally be swinging our way- The lumber came in under budget, as did the shingles. Our decision to drastically reduce our front porch, from one that stretches the whole length of the house to the one that you can see in the pictures below, help trim some money.  We also made some cuts in the fixtures.  We are really trying to get back to our budget.  You can see Steven White starting to shingle our roof, and the windows and doors are all in.  Ben and I took some interior shots. You can really see the duct work for the geothermal system.

Thanks for reading.

solar documentation

We received a large packet today regarding our solar panels-  We will be generating about 62% of our electricity via the panels, and here are some of the statistics from it:

Environmental Impact Analysis


25-year Carbon Dioxide Reduction 155,214 Pounds

25-year Sulfur Dioxide Reduction 658 Pounds

25-year Nitrogen Oxides Reduction 260 Pounds

Avoided Fossil and Nuclear Fuel Use:

Equivalent to planting 724 trees or avoiding 169,782 miles of driving

picture out my second floor window