Bricks and Mortar

Today's entry is short, but solid.  We're going to quickly get down to the real bricks and mortar.  Literally.

The most exciting thing in this past week has undoubtedly been the work of the bricklayers from Harlan Brick (followed by putting in more windows as a close second).  The bricklayers are surprisingly fast and we really appreciate them working during the hottest days we've had around here.  They got a couple of reprieves from rainstorms, but that also made it too dangerous to work on metal scaffolding, so they didn't during the storms.  Rain also made everything icky.  I'm afraid the soil surrounding the house is a disaster, so I'm getting advice from a lot of horticulture people on how to best deal with rejuvenating the soil structure after the big machines are gone.

Here are a few pictures to illustrate why we are so excited.  The pictures are of the south side which took only 2 days to complete.  They are now finished with the west and north sides as well.  The only remaining side is the front which should be finished early next week.

Installation of the scaffolding.  The green boards behind the scaffolding are another layer of insulation which has all of its seams sealed with tape.  From the brick inward we have a small air space, then the green panels seen here, then the green Zip system sheathing boards attached to the stud walls, then 2" of bio-based spray foam insulation, then 4" of blown-in cellulose insulation.  The walls will have at least an R-35 rating.

About half of the brick up on the south side.  This happened in 1 day.

The south side is completely bricked in this picture.

A view of the south side after the scaffolding was removed.  The small windows in the upper left corner are part of a 4-season room.  Wood siding will be put on around those windows.

Close-up view of the brick and mortar we used.  The brick is made to look old (on purpose!).  We didn't want the house to look neat and perfect, we thought it would be better to have it look like it has been here for 100 years.  The mortar color was chosen to match the trim around the windows and doors.

This is a detailed view of the brick pattern just under the parapet wall (see the upper right of the second photo up).  Jason the builder surprised us with this pattern.  It's the Roman numerals IX and I, in other words, 9-1.  This is the date we count as our anniversary, 25 years ago.  How's that for an anniversary present?

Thank you Jason, we'll contact you in another 25 years to build us a golden anniversary house.

Onward and upward,

Mark, Mark and Isabel

A ton of updates

Construction is in full swing and I really can't keep up with the daily changes.  Here are the highlights from the last week or so:

Garage:  The garage shell is finished, it just needs to be made pretty.  Sadly, we aren't going to put brick on the garage because we spent big bucks to put brick on all 4 sides of the house.  The garage will have wood paneling with some detailing.  The roof will be architectural shingles (they look fancier than ordinary shingles in case we ever look down upon the garage).  Placement of the garage came out perfectly and it doesn't look like a monolith in the back yard.

Garage exterior before finishing.  Believe it or not you are also looking at the future 

herb and vegetable garden.  Incidentally, we will actually have indoor plumbing, but as a courtesy

 to the builders, we now have a lovely green porta-potty.  So far 2 homeless people, one drunk person 

and one City worker have been grateful for a spot of relief.

Roof:  We now have a finished roof.  It is bright white to reflect Sunlight away from the house.  In technical terms, the roof has a high albedo (NOT libido!).  It will act in a fashion similar to snow by reflecting away light and thus heat.  In the super hot weather we've been having, everyone who goes upstairs remarks how cool it is.  Ordinarily it would be quite toasty upstairs.  The roof also slopes from the front of the house to the back at about 1 inch per 10 feet for water to drain away.  Additionally there is a layer of foam insulation under the roof material.  When you add up the insulative power of this foam, plus the interior insulation, our roof is rated at an R-70!!  That's very high and is like wearing a stocking hat, scarf, hood and space helmet.  Plus, the white rubber material that coats the roof is a recycled product.

White roof made from recycled rubber materials.  Under this membrane is foam insulation.  On the interior is more insulation, giving us a roof R-factor of 70!  This is a very high level of insulation.

Wall Insulation:  Our walls are getting a lot of attention too.  In the next couple of days 1 inch of rigid foam panels will go up on the exterior walls.  If you remember we had that on the basement walls earlier.  Then on the inside of the walls we are having 2 inches of spray foam insulation to insulate, but more importantly, it will seal cracks all around the house.  We are using a bio-based spray foam that isn't made from petroleum oils, but instead is composed of plant oils (like soybean oil).  Then the rest of the wall cavities will be filled with blown in cellulose fibers (from old newspapers and blue jeans).  This cellulose goes in damp to help it bind to the spray foam and to again fill in cracks, it will dry, be trimmed and then the wall board can go up.  And don't forget about all of the black tape going on all of the exterior cracks  (see the photo above).  We have been repeatedly told that thick insulated walls are one thing, but sealing cracks the way we are is mega intense insulating.  Our walls will have an R-35 rating.

Bio-based spray foam insulation in the walls.  There is 2 inches of this and then 

4 inches of cellulose fibers will come later.

Waste wood:  Jason and his crew are conscious of our goal to reduce construction waste, so they are constantly using boards from the main house in other applications.  We used leftover wood pieces for the garage structure, we will be using leftover foam insulation panels to make cold frame boxes for the garden, and the picture below shows how they used extra wood to create fire blocks in the wall cavities (a fire would have to burn through these blocks before it could get to the second floor).

The horizontal pieces of scrap wood are in place as fire blocks in all of the first floor wall cavities.

A peak at the next week:  Scaffolding was put up on the south side of the house so that the black tape could be put in place and then the rigid foam insulating panels, then the windows and finally the brick.  That's a lot, but it starts to go quickly once they get going.  The scaffolding will move around the house and the same order of materials placement will repeat (black tape, foam panels, windows, brick).  We also have the electricians and plumbers working inside.  Holy cow, how do I blog about all of that?

Scaffolding in place to finish the insulating, install windows and bricks.

Onward and upward,

Mark, Mark and Isabel

Come and listen to a story about a man named Jed

He's a poor mountaineer, barely kept his family fed, then one day he was shootin at some food and up through the ground came a bubblin crude.........

Black gold

Texas tea

Limestone, huh?

Insertion of the geothermal heat transfer tubing into the wells.

We didn't hit oil like Mr. Clampett, but limestone we've got plenty of.  Sorry to any neighbors who were bothered by dust during drilling.  If it ever rains the dust should wash away.  Our problem is a bit more dramatic since we have 4 piles of soggy rock dust, mostly limestone.

All of this activity is for the geothermal HVAC system.  The next stage is for a trench to be built that will accommodate the geothermal tubes and allow them to be linked together in a big loop.  This trench will be filled with the limestone dust and then soil removed to dig the trench.  Geothermal heating and cooling is one of the most important aspects of this project.  With this system not only do we get a very efficient system, but it is almost completely pollution free.  The only energy required is for pumps and fans.  We don't need to burn anything.  And the energy for the pumps and fans will be coming from solar panels!  All of this reduces our carbon footprint pretty close to zero.  And did I mention it's pollution free?

Our system is based on the fact that the Earth is a constant temperature (of about 55°F) at 200 feet down.  We drilled 4 wells, each to that depth.  This gives us a 5 ton system for cooling and a large heating capability.  Into each well is inserted a loop of tubing which is then surrounded by a type of grout.  This puts the tubes in contact with the Earth where heat can be exchanged.  We either release heat to the ground in hot weather or we take heat from the ground during winter.  Inside the tubes is a fluid based on a glycol compound (a safe version of the anti-freeze in your car).  This fluid warms up or cools down, depending upon the season, as it passes 200 feet down the tubes.  The tubes are connected in a loop to allow the fluid to circulate back up to the house.  The whole system is ridiculously simple and trouble free.

When the fluid circulates back to the house it will go into a heat pump which will extract heat from the fluid during winter and release heat to the fluid during summer.  Explaining that process reminds me of physics lectures, but you can look it up on the web at Wikipedia:  Heat pump physics.  Suffice it to say that you have a heat pump in your kitchen, most people just call it the refrigerator.

In our whole house geothermal heat pump, the fluid itself never leaves the tubing, it stays within the system to be circulated back down the wells.  But before it goes back outside it passes through a set of tubes contained in a giant water tank.  The heat the glycol fluid contains is transferred to the water in this tank when we're heating the house (or for cooling, heat in the water tank is transferred to the circulating glycol fluid).  Then the warm water in the tank is pumped to the radiant floor system in the house and we are thus warmed.  For cooling the cooled water contained in tubes will pass by a fan that will blow air across the tubes.  This cooled air then goes into the house and we are thus cooled.  The system is known as a water-to-water system (really it's glycol fluid-to-water) because the fluids are used as the medium for energy exchange.  Here's a diagram that takes me a bit of effort to digest:

Our system is so efficient that as a side benefit it will also make all of our domestic hot water and store that in another tank, separate from the one used for heating and cooling.

Combine all of that with zoned heating/cooling, a solar panel system, and we should have an HVAC system that doesn't compromise comfort while being energy wise.

What about the "V"?  The industry term we've gotten used to is HVAC which stands for "heating, ventilation, air conditioning".  One of the things that comes up when building an energy efficient home is indoor air quality (IAQ).  A big component of IAQ is ventilation, the "V" of HVAC.  Our house is so heavily insulated and sealed that we need to be careful to maintain good IAQ.  We aren't burning anything (except a wee bit of gas during cooking when we're not just microwaving leftovers), but the air can still become spoiled.  So we have an energy recovery ventilator (ERV) as part of our HVAC system.

Even animals have sort of a biological energy recovery system.  Take a snowshoe hare for example:

This little guy has huge ears to listen for hungry foxes and wolves.  The blood going to warm those ears would lose all of its heat to the air without a biological energy recovery mechanism.  The animal would then get too cold to survive up North.  So the blood going to the ears in arteries passes very close to blood returning from the ears in veins.  The warm blood gives up some of its heat to the cool returning blood and thus doesn't lose it to the air.

Our house ERV works in a similar fashion.  Air is brought in from outside (cold air in winter, warm in summer) through ductwork which runs very close by the ductwork for the stale air being exhausted.  The different air streams will transfer heat between themselves.  Thus in summer the cool, but stale air being exhausted will pass by warm, but fresh air.  The fresh air will thus be pre-cooled by the stale air (and the stale air will be warmed by the fresh air).  The reverse would happen in winter.  In this fashion we are able to recover at least 70% of the energy that would be lost by this ventilation of stale air.  Pretty slick, huh?  And we learned that from a bunny rabbit!

Onward and upward,

Mark, Mark and Isabel