Day 146 - Year End Wrap-Up

Every house looks better with windows :-)

As 2013 wraps up, we have about half of the windows installed.  Exterior doors have been ordered & then the housewrap.  While it hasn't been quick process, we are definitely starting to see some major progress.

Every house looks better with my beautiful wife in front of it :-)

Brian has about a week worth of work left to finish the HVAC rough-in.  The duct work is looking good.  No major hang ups.

HVAC ductwork above the laundry room

Similarly Nick has about a week worth of work left to finish the rough-in plumbing.  We decided use a Manabloc system for our plumbing.  It looks something like this:

Viega Manabloc

Instead of the plumbing looking like a tree (with a main trunk throughout the house & branches to each fixture), the Manabloc is a "homerun" system were every fixture has an individual line running from the Manabloc.  The benefits are 3 fold.  1)  Less standing water in the line to clean out before hot water reaches the fixture.  2)  Fewer connections that could leak.  The only connections are at the Manabloc & the fixture.  You also have the ability to shut off each fixture individually directly at the Manabloc.  3)  Better water pressure.  Since each fixture has its own water supply, no more scalding hot shower when someone flushes the toilet!  When they get installed, they remind me a bit of a spider.

In other news, we are finalizing the cap for the chimney chase.  We've been working with Alex Brick & Stone.  Currently we are leaning towards a grey stone cap (which is a bit ironic considering we currently live on GreyStone Golf Course) and a copper cap.  It will look very similar to this.

Well that's all for now.  Have a safe & happy New Year!

Day 141 - Shingles, HVAC & the Drama Known Simply as Windows

I took the entire week of Christmas off for vacation this year (payback for working Thanksgiving, Christmas & New Year's last year!), so I've been really busy at work these past 2 weeks leading up to my time off.  Needless to say, I've been slacking on the blog updates.  There's a lot to get caught up on, so buckle up because here we go!

In a nutshell, we have seen a lot of progress on the house over the past few weeks.  Unfortunately, along with the progress, we've also run into a few more headaches (more on those later).

Shingles

A big milestone last week:  The entire front of the house has shingles! (Just the 3 season porch to go & the entire house will be shingled!)

You can see the furring strips that make the air channel between the SIP panel & the shingles

More snow, but I promise there are shingles under there!

 

HVAC

Brian from Albany Heating has started to rough-in the duct-work for the forced air system.  I'm convinced that when architects/designers draw up a set of house plans, they tend to forget about those pesky little details like indoor plumbing, heating & air conditioning!  Between our house plan and the SIP construction, it became quite a challenge to figure out where to put all of the forced air duct-work.  Ultimately, we stole 20 inches of space from the office closet to run the main air supply trunk from the mechanical room to the 2nd floor.  For the return air, we stole space from Betsy's closet to run the air duct back down to the mechanical room.  Sorry Bets!

Brian buried in duct-work

 Due to the SIP roof, we have no attic space to conceal the duct-work for the 2nd floor air return system.  The solution was to put a lowered ceiling over the laundry room & hallway connecting the kids bedrooms.  This allowed us to tie in all of the air returns for the Heat/AC system & the separate ventilation system.

This maze of ductwork will be hidden above the laundry room

Another reason we chose to use Albany Heating for our HVAC is because Brian is very meticulous about sealing all of his ductwork.  Metal forced air ducts are just plain leaky.  A lot of contractors don't seal the duct seams.  The thought is that any air leaking from the air ducts is still inside the house & helps to heat/cool.  The problem with this is that the system become very inefficient.  You heat/cool the dead spaces inside the walls & inside floor trusses.  You also end up with vents that don't put out any air, and the house develops hot/cold spots.  Brian tapes all of his seams & uses mastic (think plaster of paris) when needed.  Here's a link if you want to geek out about ways to seal HVAC ducts.

 

Ventilation

 If you haven't already noticed, one of our goals is to make this house as energy efficient at possible.  Saving the environment is great, but living in a house that has really low operating costs might just be even better.  The geothermal heat & SIP construction are a big part of this.  Limiting the number of openings in the house (i.e. exhaust fans, plumbing vent pipes, etc) is also important.  That is why we will have no individual bathroom fans that vent to the outside.  Instead we installed a single ventilation system that is completely separate from the HVAC system.

All new homes are required by law to have a heat recovery ventilator (HRV) or energy recovery ventilator (ERV) to bring fresh air into the house while exhausting stale air to the outside.

Most HVAC contractors meet this requirement by fully integrating the HRV into the duct-work for the forced air furnace.  This isn't very efficient however, because you need to constantly run your large furnace fan to circulate fresh air throughout the house.  A more efficient way to ventilate a house is to have a smaller, completely separate set of duct-work that circulates air using a smaller fan.  This is the route we chose.

We purchased our ventilation equipment from a supplier called American Aldes.  We also had a company called Ventilation Advisors help us with designing the ventilation system.  It has individual vent openings in each bathroom.  Each bathroom has a timer switch turns on the central ventilation fan for a set period of time.  This practice has been a fairly common in new home construction for the past 10 year or so. The problem with this type of system is that the bathrooms can be underventilated because the systems try to pull air from all bathrooms at the same time.  Our system is unique in that each vent opening has a motorized damper.  Whenever the timer is turned on in one bathroom, the dampers close in all of the other bathrooms.  This ensures that you have a strong enough airflow to adequately ventilate the bathroom.

Bathroom vent with the motorized damper

 

Windows

I'm pretty sure that windows are the bane of my existence right now.   For starters, our new house has a lot of windows.  78 to be exact (keep that number in mind as this story unfolds).  Great for letting in natural light and providing excellent views from your house.  However,  windows are also very good at causing trouble when it comes to building a house because there are so many ways for things to get messed up.  For starters, when we were finalizing the SIP drawings for the house, the CAD designer messed up on the height of the main floor, so all of the windows were a foot too low.  Fortunately Phil at Centre Lumber caught the mistake & we got it fixed.  Windows got ordered back in September & they have been sitting in my garage since early October.

Hello Windows!

The bad thing about having two months go by with your house exposed the elements & plastic wrap over the window openings is that stuff tends to grow.  What type of stuff?  This type of stuff:

Hello mold!

 Mold is never good.  The silver lining to this issue is that the mold is limited to the untreated areas of cut lumber in between the window rough openings.  All of the factory edges on the SIPs were treated with some type of blue stain that prevents mold.  Treatment options to get rid of the mold include bleaching these areas vs. cutting them out & putting new lumber in between the windows.  Neither option is very appealing.  At the end of the day, another problem came up and made the choice for us...

 One of the benefits of SIP construction is that all window & door rough openings are cut at the factory to the exact measurements provided by the window/door manufactures, so window/door installation is supposed to be very easy.  Excellent idea in theory, but not so much in practice (where communication is often times less that ideal).  Here's what happened:  The Andersen Windows rep worked with the lumber yard to confirm the window schedule (all 78 of them) and the rough opening sizes (1/2 inch wider than the actual window per Andersen's published specs).  The lumber yard then sent the window rough opening measurements to Extreme Panel who cut the window openings into the panels.  So far so good, but here's where things turn ugly.

A few weeks ago Tom test fit one of the windows & noticed that the rough opening was too small (He couldn't even get the sprayfoam insulation straw in between the window & the wall!!!)  It's at this stage in the game that I find out Andersen Windows' published rough openings are on the narrow side for how most contractors install windows.  Tom told me that he typically adds1/4" to the published Andersen rough openings when he hand-frames windows.  I spoke with Jamie, our panel setter, and he typically adds 3/4" to the actual Andersen Window size (and ignores the published rough opening size) when telling Extreme Panel how big to cut the window rough openings in the panels.  Unfortunately, neither Tom nor Jamie were involved in determining the final window rough openings.  And me in my ignorance assumed that published rough opening specs would be just that, the size that the window rough openings that contractors need to install windows correctly.  Silly homeowner!

It's at this point I felt like we were trying to do one of these numbers:

Or perhaps:

Unfortunately for me, trying to resolve this situlation became a big game of "not my fault" with all fingers pointing away from whoever I was talking to at the time.  It was almost like congress trying to find someone to blame for the Obamacare website crashing!  In the end, Tom cut out all of the center posts for the rough openings and put in new ones that were slightly smaller.  All 78 windows worth :-)  Yep, that one stings the construction budget.  On the bright side, it got rid of the mold between the windows!  You see?  It ended up being really easy to decide how to take care of the mold issue.  Just redo all of the window openings!

At this point I'm already smiling really big, but the good news with windows kept on coming.  While out skiing with Harry at Powder Ridge, I got a call from Tom about the window in our master bathroom.  We have a small window in the master shower.  This should have been a fixed casement window that doesn't open.  However, the window got ordered as an awning window that cranks open.  Not ideal.  Open wood window + water = mold/rot/unhappy homeowner!  A replacement fixed casement window has been ordered.  Unfortunately, that just means more time delays & more cost overruns.  I'm hoping that the lumber yard will cover the cost of the window because it should have been ordered as a fixed casement window in the first place, but we'll see.

On the bright side, Tom and the gang were hard at work today & got most of the remaining 78 windows installed.  He told me that the house would be enclosed by New Years.  With the exception of the newly ordered window, I think we might get there!

 Odds & Ends

1. All the plumbing fixtures have arrived (except for 1 tub and the toilets)  and Hoffman Plumbing has started the rough-in work.  The plumbing will be done with PEX tubing instead of copper.  We're going to install the system as a "home run" system if possible.  More on what that entails later.
2. We are having a custom ladder fabricated by Messer Repair.  It will bolt directly on the mudroom wall and go to the loft above the main floor bathroom.
3. I met with Brian Boser, the electrician from Kummet Electric, earlier this week.  We finalized the lighting design & electrical layout. He should be starting his work in ~1 week.
4. Picking out the lighting fixutres is slowly progressing.  We still have several fixtures to pick out.
5. Crown Gas going to provide the temperary heater & a 500 gal LP gas tank to keep everybody warm on the construction site this winter.
6. Working on getting someone to keep the driveway clear to the jobsite this winter.
• See below for the reason why

 

Pop Quiz

Which vehicle left this "impression" in the snowbank after getting stuck?

1. Tom's truck
2. Nick's van
3. Joel's Subaru
4. Emily's Honda

Here's a clue:  Tom & Co pushed her out the first time & Nick's van pulled her out the second time!  Thanks for the help guys!

Day 126 - Framing is (almost) Done

Newsflash:  It's still really cold outside.  -18 F on the drive into work today.  Today Tom finished framing up the basement walls.  Emily & I just need to let him know where we wan the towel bars, so he can get extra bracing put in those areas.

The plan is for Brian from Albany Heating & Nick from Hoffman plumbing start their rough-in work next week.

This Friday Gered from G&E Cabinetry is coming up from Spencer, IA to measure for the cabinets.  Woohoo!  Good times.

The exciting news around the construction site today was that Harry decided it would be fun to stick his tongue on the metal construction lift that was sitting outside of the house.  He ripped off the skin from his tongue & came running to Emily with blood going everywhere.  A little bit of snow on the tongue & everything was good as new.  I couldn't be more proud that A Christmas Story came true in my family this year.  Now all Harry needs is a Red Rider BB gun!!!

Any way that about all.  No new pictures today of the house.  With it getting dark so early, I only get to the site after it's dark.  Here's a picture of the tub we're putting into the master bathroon.

Yep, it's blue!

My grandma would be so proud.  Her bathroom used to have a blue tub & toilet.  The answer to your question is no, the toilet is going to be white.  Now get your mind out of the toilet!  Sheesh :-)

Day 121 - Baby It's Cold Outside

125,000 BTU/hr of Tropical Delight

Cold as in -16 F as I type this!!!  Yeah, just a bit chilly.  However, thanks to Mr. Heater, Tom, Travis & Al were able to stay toasty warm & keep working today (OK, toasty may be a bit of an exaggeration).  The 2nd floor is completely framed in.  It looks like a jungle of 2x4's upstairs. 

Welcome to the Jungle

The kid's bedrooms are going to look really cool with their sloped ceilings & shelves above the closets.  We're also going to have an extra shelf by the vault in the master bedroom.  I'm not exactly sure what we'll put up there, but that's what nick knacks are for, right?  Just don't ask me to dust!  :-)

Kid's Bedroom Closet & Vault

The Master closest will have a 2nd doorway in it that leads to another storage space.  Normally this would be all unfinished attic space, but due to the SIPs, we can use it as heated storage.  Pretty cool.

It's a closet within a closet!

The mudroom staircase leading above the garage has also been framed in.  They had to move the door to the top of the stairs & build a platform at the bottom to make things fit correctly (Another necessary tweak due to the SIPs).

Don't they look inviting?

There will be a set of lockers up against the side of the stairs to unload all of our junk as we come into the house.  With the stairs in place, Emily is a bit concerned that the Mudroom will feel cramped with 5 people trying to put away winter clothes at the same time.  Personally, I think it will be great.  However, if Emily ends up giving me that "I told you so look" when everything is finished, it won't be the first or last time!

In other news, Extreme Panel shot me an email this past week asking for some pictures.  They want to use a picture of our house in their new brochures.  Pretty cool, eh?

Have a great weekend & stay warm!

Day 118 - Let it Snow!

Winter Wonderland

 Winter has officially arrived in central Minnesota.  Several inches of snow yesterday with more to come today.  By Friday the high is supposed to be -1 with a low of -16.  Brr... 

Despite all the inclement weather, the front porch got framed up yesterday.  Once it gets the sheeting on, then we should be able to finally finish the shingles.  After that, I'm hopeful that getting the windows in and the housewrap on will go fairly quick.

I want to give a big thank you to my neighbor, Mike.  He randomly came over to our house last night with his riding snow thrower and cleared my driveway!  The best thing about it?  He was driving his snow thrower with loafers on!  A true Minnesotan :-)  THANKS, Mike! 

Anyway, enjoy all the snow!

Mmm....Snow...

Day 117 - Front Porch, Appliances & Impulse Shopping on Black Friday

Front Porch

Tom & his crew started framing up the front porch this past Friday.  It was a little bit chilly outside. As they started to place the trusses for the porch ceiling, they came across another glitch.  The trusses came right up to the bottom of the master bedroom window leaving no room for flashing/window trim/shingles! Oops. When we converted the house to SIPs & added the 2nd layer of roof decking, the porch trusses became too tall.   The solution was to drop the porch ceiling height 6 inches. Good thing Linus isn't a tall kid :-)

In other news, we took advantage of some great Black Friday deals over the weekend & bought all of our appliances online.  We had a local appliance store give us a quote, but ultimately we saved a bunch of money buying online.  Savings on state sales tax alone was like getting the dishwasher for free!  We also stopped by Menard's on a whim & bought a faucet for the main floor bathroom.  You know that you're building a new house when your impulse purchase is to buy a bathroom faucet!

 

 

Emily & Harry chillin' at the job site.  Literally chillin' because it was COLD outside last Friday!

 

In other news, Christmas has come to the current Dunn house:

 

Christmas decorations going up!

Day 113 - Happy Thanksgiving Part II

I little bonus feature today.  A good friend of mine, Aaron Feltman, has a remote control helicopter.  He took a camera & flew by the house yesterday.  Take a look!

Day 113 - Happy Thanksgiving!

It's amazing how good it feels to vent a little bit every now & then!  And thanks to this blog, Emily doesn't have to put up with my whining (too much). :-) After my last post, I feel infinitely better.  We were able to solve most of previous issues, and the project continues to move steadily forward.  We are going to delay trenching in the natural gas until April.  Instead of a gas oven, we've decided to go with an induction range/electric oven.  The only thing on natural gas will be the gas fireplace.  Everything else will be electric.  As far as having a heat source for the workers this winter, the Geothermal unit is a No-Go until after construction is finished, so we will have to find some electric heaters to use.  Hopefully the SIPs will prove helpful with keeping things warm.  And now on with the latest news!


Big news on the job site this week:  Day 109 and we actually have a building permit posted!  I'm sure the building inspector will be pleased.

Lookin' good, Vanna!

Good news: The garage is completely shingled!!!  Not exactly ideal weather for shingling, but Tom & Al were hard at work yesterday.  On Friday Tom, Al & Travis plan to frame up the front porch.  After that is done, shingling on the front of the house should go pretty fast.

Hooray for Shingles!

More Good News:  Marty & Co from TreeTop Nursery installed our boulder walls this week!  I think they look awesome. It was Marty's birthday the day they placed the boulders.  Emily brought cupcakes.  Happy Birthday Marty!

Before

After

This pic just looks cool.

Smile Marty!  It's your birthday!

Even More Good News:  Brian Boser from Kummet Electric was out last week and installed the electric panels to our house.  We have 2 panels.  One is a dedicated panel for the geothermal unit.

Exterior

Interior

Well, that's all the news for now.

Between all the turkey, family, football & shopping, remember to thank God for all the blessings he has given you.  I'm thankful to have the ability to undertake a project like building this house.  It's an experience that I won't forget anytime soon!  I'm thankful for my job and the opportunities that I have to touch peoples lives.  It's an unbelievable privilege to have people entrust you with caring for their health.  It definitely makes the long days & short night worth while.  Finally, I'm so very thankful for my amazing family!  Harry is the most energetic, imaginative, and tenderhearted boy I've ever seen.  I can't wait to see what God has in store for his future.  Simply put, my Betsy girl is joy!  She lives each day to the fullest and melts my heart with every smile.  Linus is quite possibly the coolest 2-year-old I've ever met.  We have more in-depth conversations (usually involving Linus repeatedly asking the question "Why?") than you can imagine.  And that leaves my beautiful wife, Emily.  Wow!  How can I begin to describe how thankful I am for her? There are a million different ways she supports me and keeps this family running each and every day.  Laundry.  Cleaning.  Diaper changes.  Getting kids ready for school.  Helping with homework.  Getting kids ready for bed.  Preparing meals.  Dropping my lunch off at work!  Managing the social calendar.  Providing taxi service for the kids.  Grocery shopping.  Balancing the checkbook.  Putting up with me blogging about a new house!  She is selfless, tireless and deserving of infinitely more thanks that I can ever give her!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Day 105 - The Word on the Street

Betsy & Linus watch Sesame Street all the time.  At the beginning of each episode they have "the Word on the Street."  Well, today in construction land, the Word on the Street is Frustration!

I found myself feeling really frustrated with the house building process this evening.  I really shouldn't be too surprised at feeling this way.  Instead, I should be surprised that I didn't feel this way sooner!  Why am I feeling frustrated?  Good question.  In a nutshell, major construction delays (4 weeks of downtime since early October) have prevented several key things from getting finished this fall, and we are still a few weeks from getting the house sealed-up.  Before the house is sealed-up for the winter, we still need to:

1. Frame front porch & garage gable
2. Finish shingling roof
3. Apply housewrap
4. Install windows, doors & siding

These delays have created a bunch of not-so-fun problems.  Unforunately, the solutions to these problems either cost a lot of extra money and/or delay us from moving into our house until next April!  In other words, a "whole lotta badness".  Here's a brief rundown:

1. Masonry work for the front porch, basement walkout & chimney can't be done until next spring due to cold weather
• Have to somehow winterize the exposed areas & chimney until next spring
2. Natural gas service is not stubbed into the house yet
• Cost $4/ft to install BEFORE November 1st
• Costs $8/ft to install AFTER November 1st
• PLUS $480/day to rent Frost Burners (Avg 3-6 days!!!)
•  Options to remedy include paying 10x the cost to stub in the gas now vs. waiting until April when the prices to back down
3. Geothermal unit can't be used during construction or it will void the waranty
• Means we have to find another way to heat the house this winter so the workers can keep working!
• Only option I've heard so far is to Buy/install a used natural gas furnace to use during construction.  Awesome!  (Can you say bye-bye construction budget?)
4. Boulder retaining walls still haven't been installed
• They are going to try to work on this tomorrow, but if the ground is too hard, they might have to wait until next spring
5. Cabinetmaker can't measure for cabinets because interior walls haven't been fully framed in yet
6. HVAC & Plumbing rough-in can't happen until after interior walls are framed
7. Electric can't begin until HVAC & plumbing are roughed in

UGH!!!  New house construction = Not Cool right now.  I'm sure anyone who has built a house will tell me similar stories.  Oh well.  We'll just keep truckin' right along!

 Here are some of the latest pics:

Boulder walls will come off the left edge of the house & off of the concrete wall on the right.

Getting ready for shingles

Pouring the porch supports

Geothermal unit ready to be installed

Day 90 - Shingles!

Shingles are a very good thing

 The first section of shingles was laid today.  I was beginning to worry that this day may never actually arrive, but Emily has the pictures to prove i!t  We went with Timberline HD 30 year shingles in Pewter Grey.    Your can't get a good idea of the color from our pics, but you can see a close-up of the color below.

Bring on the rain/sleet/snow!

Timberline HD - Pewter Grey

Building a House with "2 Roofs"

 It has taken longer to get the shingles put on because of how we are constructing the roof.  With SIPs the panel itself provides the strength for the roof.  If the OSB panel gets wet & can't dry out, the OSB will rot causing catastrophic damage to the roof panel.  This is most likely to happen when the shingles are applied directly to the SIP roof panel.  There was a major issue with this in some SIP homes built in Juno, Alaska.  The SIP roof panels were not sealed properly on the interior, moisture migrated between the panels and the OSB got really wet.  Unfortunately, because the shingles were applied directly to the SIP roof, there was no way for the panels to dry, they ended up looking like this:

Ouch!  Not going to happen to our house if I can help it!

 The solution is to create a space between the SIP roof panel & the shingles so that air can flow over the SIP to dry it out in the event it should get wet.  This is why Emily & Harry have been telling people that our house is going to have "2 roofs".  Basically we are nailing 1x3" furring strips the the SIP roof and laying a 2nd layer of OSB decking over the top of the furring strips.  The felt paper & shingles get nailed onto this 2nd layer of OSB creating a nice channel for air to flow from the eaves to the ridge vent.

Something like this

Additional cost to add a 2nd roof onto your SIP house?  ~$5,000
Peace of mind knowing that your SIP roof won't rot away in 10 years?  PRICELESS!!!

(I'm beginning to realize why Emily keeps asking me why we are putting so much money into areas of the house that no one will ever see!)

Retaining walls

In other news, TreeTop Nursery will be putting in a couple of retaining walls for us in the near future.  We wanted to get them put in yet this fall to help prevent erosion next spring when the snow melts.  We debated several different types of block for the walls, but we couldn't decide on a color we liked.  In the end, we decided to go with boulder walls.  A little more maintenance in the long run, but I think we'll really like the natural look.  Pics to follow once they start actually building the walls!

Day 88 - Steady Progress This Week

The footings for the porch got poured this week.  Hopefully that means that we can get the front porch & garage gable framed up this coming week.

As you can see below, we have tar paper on the roof & plastic over the windows to keep the rain out.  Unfortunately, today's strong winds has begun to tear away the tar paper.  Let's hope we can get the exterior finished soon because more rain/snow is on the way!

Harry checking out the basement

Tar paper blowing off in the wind

We also got the epoxy floor put in the mechanical room this week.  I think it looks great!

Close-up of the floor

 Lots of interior framing done this past week also.  I think my favorite area so far is how the mudroom is turning out.  There is going to be a little loft area above the bathroom.  That could be lots of fun for the kids!

Mudroom/loft area as viewed from the garage entry

Mudroom loft

Office

Pantry on the left.  Front door straight ahead.

Dining/Family room.

Stairwell to the 2nd floor

Kid's bedroom/bathroom (minus walls!)

Master bedroom/bath/laundry room

Good bye!