Buttoned up, sort of...

Well as you can see by this photo, the windows are in.  The poor subs that have had to work in this cold windy shell have fashioned some temporary doors to make the inside almost bearable.

And speaking of doors, this photo highlights the depth of the walls.  Normally, the exterior doors would be hung on the outside of the framing and swing in.  If there is no wall to obstruct it on the inside, the door could conceivable swing all the way to the inside wall and be completely out of the way when opened.

One of the issues with high efficiency homes is because of the thickness of the walls, an exterior door mounted to the outside would only swing in 90 degrees, and then it would hit the side of the exterior wall, which would leave it very much in the way when opened.  The front door opens to the stairs, so if you were coming in the front door and planned to run upstairs to grab something (after removing your shoes of course!!)  you would need to step around and close the door behind you to get to the stairs.

So after much discussion and back and forth with Nate and our door supplier, we decided to mount the exterior doors to the inside of the framing.  The picture above shows where the doors will eventually be hung.  I think this will be a very cool, old fashioned look with the doors set deep into the framing.

So as of today, the rough wiring is all in place, with a few minor changes needed, and the rough plumbing is nearly complete.  Here's a shot of all the tubing to feed the heat recovery ventilator that I talked about last time.  It's sort of un-worldy looking in the basement with all these tubes hanging down from the floors above.

We also contracted with Sean at Techhome to come in and wire us for any audio/visual/phone/security wiring we may ever need.  The plan is to eventually run all technology to a rack in the basement, and this wiring will feed TV's, speakers, security cameras, etc., from one location.  You can use your smartphone to lower the volume, play different music in the basement or upstairs, or see who's banging on the front door.  

There is no better or cheaper time to do this wiring, even if you never use the technology.  If we decided to add this stuff later, the cost would be tenfold, to say nothing about the hassle of cutting and patching sheetrock.

So this short week before Turkey day should see the tech wiring completed.  Next we add the tubing for the central vac and then I think we're ready for insulation.

It was nice and sunny today and warmer than it has been, so I spent some time sort of absorbing the vibe in each one of the rooms, even the closets (very Zen!!).  The house has a great feel to it, very cool site lines from different locations, I can't wait to be living there.

Happy Thanksgiving all!!

Some Assembly Required

Parts is parts.

After what seems like an eternity of small signs of progress, our plumber stormed into our little project with a vengeance this week.  You can see by this photos, there are quite a few parts that go into the rough plumbing.

We met Tom Stebbins on Saturday after he had been on-site for a few days, sort of off and on.  In general, all of the contractors that we have met seem to be genuinely nice guys.  No sexism here ladies, so far everyone involved with the project has been male, although I know the excavator had his daughter with him one early morning.  I'm not sure what this says about the trades in general and especially since the crash of 08.

The thing that I have heard fairly consistently from sub-contractors is that it is impossible to find help these days.  Time and again, anyone involved in the trades has told me that if you know which end of the hammer to hold, you're probably working more than you want to.

Tom told us the same story.  He has at least three other projects that he is trying to juggle, and he just cannot beg, borrow or steal help, even on a part-time basis.  I suspect that has a lot to do with the slow progress over the last month.

HRV

So any-who, we're back on line now and things are moving ahead.  Tom and his crew started by mounting the Zehnder Heat Recovery Ventilator (HRV) on the basement wall and then moved on to running the drain lines.  Here's a picture of our HRV, waiting for his next assignment.

You can't see the geo-thermal loop in this picture, but it enters and exits the foundation wall just to the left of the HRV.  It will be connected to flanges on the right side of the right hand unit, and constantly temper the air with pre-heated and cooled 50 degree temperatures all year long.  The outside air will blow across a radiator of sorts in the box on the right.  In the box on the left, the stale air from the house will mingle briefly with the recently pre-heated (or cooled) air from the geo-thermal transfer unit to suck all the heat out that it can.  The stale air is then removed and the fresh air is distributed throughout the house.

Air ducts

These giant white coils you see here (there are four more on site) will eventually be the air ducts.  They're smooth on the inside so the air flow is not restricted, and no dust will collect inside the system.  The air handling is separate from the actual heating and cooling which is provided by two heat pumps.  These will be installed just below ceiling level on the first and second floors.  The HRV will circulate this air 24-7 all year long, so the inside temperature should be constant, wherever you are in the house.


I'll have a bit more on the heat pumps next time.

I am your father, Luke...

And then there is this monster in the basement.  This is an 80 gallon electric hybrid hot water heater.  The ceiling joists are set at 7 feet 10 inches down there, so you can get an idea how tall this dude is.  Tom tells us a higher capacity water heater is more efficient, so an 80 gallon tank should end up costing less to run than a 50 gallon tank.  The wife will like that as she has this big soaking tub to fill!!

So I'm liking the project again.  Our windows are close by, but not yet on-site.  Three of them were damaged somewhere between the factory and here, so these will be replaced this week.  We hope to see Kevin and his crew back on Thursday to install them.  Meanwhile, we plan to perseverate over siding colors.

So long ...

Snorkel not included.