Insulation

We used a Knauff insulation product called EcoBatt for this phase. It's a fiberglass insulation product but has a brown, rather than pink or yellow color to it. It is formaldehyde free and uses a specially formulated binder material to create the batts. For more details visit http://www.ecobatt.us/eco_batt.html. None of the workers on this page are wearing dust masks but we did. Fiberglass is fiberglass and it stinks to breath in. One thing I have learned about insulation that is worth noting; when you are installing insulation in ceilings, make sure you extend the insulation beyond the plane of the top plate. This can be tricky with cathedral ceilings but top plates conduct a lot of heat energy through the exterior soffits. We made it a point to do this in the new construction, and correct this in the original construction. This meant extending the ventilation baffles further into the soffits as well. Other areas of concern include corners, tees and headers within exterior walls. Corners and tees can be configured to accommodate insulation. These are hot spots of energy transfer in typical residential construction. Headers are another problem. Typically, headers are made with 1/2" plywood sandwiched between two (2x) members. This 1/2 material can be replaced with rigid insulation board to break up the thermal bridge. The plywood doesn't serve any structural purpose and transfers heat energy back and forth through the wall. I missed the header tip on our project but maybe you won't! You can find all these tips on the Earthcraft website.

Drywall continued...

The loft in the front room is coming along. Our little wood ladder is still around and just may end up becoming a permanent fixture.
Here is my to do list for the evening. The third bullet is one of the most important. For those of you familiar with the EarthCraft program, this is a key item. All the HVAC connections will be sealed with duct mastic. This is one area where the EC inspectors get tough. Although our project would not qualify for this program, we are following many of the guidelines. I will have to complete this before we close everything in with drywall. Unfortunately, they recommend against duct work in between cathedral ceiling joists, but this is our best option for air mixing at the front of the house.

One day we will actually use this front door!

Help from Bill and Don

We began installing drywall in early November and had help from Bill and Don. It was exciting to see the rooms take shape. Let's hope we didn't forget any wires or pipes!




















You gotta love that Roto-Zip!
Winter has begun to reach its cool fingers into our little construction project again. Memories of last fall's rain storms still haunt us all! We are all working like crazy to get our little house warm.
There will be many long nights ahead....

Chinese Drywall?

Let's hope not. We began installing drywall last weekend and made good progress with the help of Don, Bill and Chad. We will have more shots soon!

THE WOOD STOVE BOX

We began working on the concrete wood stove box last month. We built the formwork out of 3/4" plywood, welded wire mesh and reinforcing ties made from threaded rods. Within this box we ran 3/8" pex tubes that connect to the backup heating loop in the concrete floor. This loop is separate from the primary heating loop driven by the solar hot water panels. It will serve as a back up heating source at night or on cloudy days.
When complete, this will be a 3 1/2" thick, 3 sided concrete box that will transfer heat from the wood stove into the circulating water and down to the concrete floor. We hope to pour the box in the next few weeks. More details on this to follow....

We reworked some of the HVAC ductwork to fit the new room layouts. This return vent was relocated to the West wall of the bedroom overlooking the loft space. We have it sealed up right now while we work on some of the drywall. I have been applying duct mastic to all the joints to prevent any air leakage in the future. We are doing this to the existing registers as well. This is not a code requirement but it will help reduce the amount of air leakage in an around the supply registers throughout the house.
We increased the size of the opening in the original loft to have more free air movement throughout the house. The whole house exhaust vent on this side of the house is located above my head in this photo. With the new opening, we will be able to exhaust the original loft through this space.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Happy Halloween everyone! We have been working hard over the last month and have lot of photos to show. There are still some gaps in our envelope so spiders and birds have been joining us inside our house. This guy was a little large for the unsealed window gaps so he hung out on the front porch for a week or so.