dang, framing goes fast!

Hard to believe the house went from this last Sunday:

to this this Sunday, a mere week later:

I won't bore you with a reposting of photos since we documented progress pretty good during the past week.

We were able to take a closer look at the framing earlier today. It looks pretty darn good, but there's one definite booboo and a few potential booboos.

The definite booboo is the "horse" wall (as opposed to a pony wall) in the bathroom. There's a wall between the shower and the bathtub that doesn't go all the way to the ceiling:

It's currently framed all the way to the ceiling, so that will need to be fixed. It's an understandable booboo since it looks like a wall (and would be expected to be a wall) on the floor plan; however, one would need to look closely at the elevation to see that, nope, it don't go all the way up. This is rather critical since the horse wall allows better ventilation of the shower area (the vent is in the tub area).

The potential booboos are with the ceiling heights in the volume associated with the master closet, laundry, and rear entry. We had previously noted to the architects and builder that there was a bust in the description of ceiling heights in the rear entry area and the pantry:

First, the pantry is described as having an 8-foot tall ceiling; however, it's going to be a 9-foot ceiling in there given the height of the structure in that part of the house. To further complicate things, the section for that part of the house shows the correct 9-foot ceiling:

Half of the rear entry (the half closest to the door) can't be higher than 8 feet (it's under the same roof and structure of the closet and laundry) but it's included in the 9-foot descriptor of ceiling height (not shown in the floor plan snippet above). The inside walls for framing are framed for 9 feet. They'll discover that issue when the roof trusses arrive... Again, to further complicate things, the section shows the entire rear entry area with an 8-foot tall ceiling. That begs the question: Where does that 8-foot tall ceiling end if that is what the architects truly intended?

Intended to measure the refrigerator inset to make sure they accounted for the drywall thickness, but forgot...

showdown at the HVAC corral

I've got a meeting on Tuesday to meet with the builder, sub, and manufacturer's rep on the HVAC system. Things to talk about/verify:

• Why does the sub have a fresh air damper as well as an ERV?
• Why does the sub have a Honeywell ERV instead of the Bryant ERV?
• What is the model number on the Honeywell ERV?
• How much does that ERV cost?
• Will the ERV have a sensor shut off for high temperatures and high humidity?
• How many zones are in our system?
• What is the filtration in our system?
• What's the SEER of the system? Why is it less than the 20.5 the manufacturer says it is (although to be fair, the manufacturer says "up to 20.5")?
• How many thermostats are required for a three-zone system?
• Why are there vents with lights on the bid when there are no vents with lights on the plans?
• Why are there five bathroom vents on the bid when there are only four bathroom vents in the house?
• Will joints be mastic'd?
• Will flex duct be longer than 8 feet? 

shadow blog

If you read this blog and yearn for more (who wouldn't?), our pals around the corner who have the Green House, Good Life blog have been writing a wee bit about our house, most recently about the fly ash content in our concrete (which we were pleased to see!). The bride works on power plants, so it's cool to have a little bit of that beneath our feet. They've also posted about our detached garage and the beginnings of construction. We're glad they're writing up the green bits, because keeping up with construction issues is eating up most of our free time.

And their blog is well worth a read if you plan to build green, cause they went all out when they built their house, including geothermal, rainwater, and solar (they should be [fingers crossed] net zero).a We've been digital neighbors for a year now and look forward to being real neighbors soon!

bebe

When the bride checked on the house last week, she was greeted, shortly after she arrived, by Bebe (bee bee) and her caretaker. Bebe is 92 years old and lives a couple houses down and across the street. Bebe wanted to meet us and invite us over sometime to chat. She said she was sure our house was going to be beautiful.