I think we’re almost halfway through the project in many regards. In about 2-3 weeks we’ll pass into the back half of the project once the roof is on and the windows are set. The house will be fairly well weathered in and work will be divided between inside and out. Framing is about done except for the screen porch. We’re discovering a lot of nooks that we’ll turn into storage. You can never have too much storage. For each nook though we have to add subflooring and work up solutions for the areas where we forgot to make the exterior walls air tight with the Grace Vycor.
This week we got our first waste container, a 20 yard container which is 22′ x 8′ x 4.5′ tall. We got it from a local vendor who specializes in recycling construction waste. Unfortunately our project generated a lot of waste. By stick framing the roof, the result is a lot of little cut offs which take time to dispose of. Every piece of something we throw out is something I paid for that isn’t going into the house. Waste is one area where I let myself down. Realistically unless the builder understands the concept of waste and works to eliminate it, building a house in the cookie cutter fashion, like we are in many regards, generates a lot of waste in material and money.
- One of two piles of waste we’ve generated so far.
Roofing plans are coming together. We’ll have one roofer install the underlayment and ice guard. For ice guard we’re using two brands; it really doesn’t matter, they’re all about the same if you get a good quality brand. We’ll have it installed in all the valleys, where projections like the loft, gables and dormers intersect the roof and along the eaves or gutterboards. At the gutterboard it’ll be wrapped to the bottom of the board and then up the roof about 6′. We’re going 6′ because our overhangs are so large. We want to make sure the ice guard terminates over the wall plane. For underlayment, because our roof is 12/12, traction is the name of the game. We’re using Grip Rite underlayment.
One detail our roofer provided us with is how to finish off the exterior loft wall where it meets the roof. Remember we’ll have 4″ of rigid insulation blanketing the house.
Additional work this week involves cleaning up the Raindrop housewrap. The framers blanketed it into the house cavity so we’ll cut it back to the sheathing line on top of the roof so air doesn’t travel down the Raindrop channels into the house.
house wrap needs to be removed from interior of house to prevent air from getting in.
The framers installed window bucks as well. These 2×8 projections around the window rough openings will be what we mount the windows to. The exterior insulation will butt up to the bucks. We’ll wrap the bucks in Grace Vycor Plus membrane flashing, underlapping it under the house wrap around the sides and top of the bucks. On the bottom the Vycor goes on top of the house wrap to shed any water.
2x8 window bucks in loft
Minor anomalies arose with framing such as the boys’ closets, the door opening have to revert to regular doors due to the shape. Take a look at the pic to see what I’m talking about:
we'll frame in the door openings more to eliminate the angle in the top left corner of the closet door opening.
Plumbing fixtures have been selected and the rough plumbing is going in. We selected 1.23 gallon flush toilets to conserve water, as well as low flow shower heads. The water supply plan is just beginning. We’ll be going with a 10,000 gallon cistern with an integrated filtering system to provide ALL of our fresh water needs. The cistern will have a light indicator to let us know when it’s low. We anticipate not having to truck in any water except maybe in the dead of winter when everything’s frozen, or in late summer when it doesn’t rain as much. A year like this year will have the cistern overflowing.
HVAC work should be starting soon as well. We’ll be going with a 95% efficient gas furnace with a geothermal add-on. More about that later.
nine apple trees 