let me tell you a second story...

Was able to stop by the house over lunch and take some daylight photos. The guys were there laying the roof trusses in their approximate homes. Since the guys were there (and on a break), I was able to climb the ladder and gawk and gander at the world from ~12 feet above grade. Purdy cool...

Bonus! Cool graffiti I saw driving back to the office:

HVAC back on track?

Met with the builder, sub, and manufacturer rep today to talk HVAC, and it was a hoot. We met at the manufacturer rep's office in the training room where they had a fully functional variable speed compressor unit set up.  Sweet! The first thought that popped into my (and the builder's) head was "Hot dang, that thing's BIG!!!" And it was only the two-ton unit (in my excitement I didn't realize I hadn't taken a photo of the unit until I was 10 minutes down the road...).

I couldn't find a photo online of it with a human (or a large forest cat) next to it, so here's shot of it with it's board [ahem] exposed:

And in case you still doubt it has a variable speed compressor, here's a cut-away:

[fist pumps; high fives]

The builder was concerned that the unit was so big that it would have to be moved to the back yard; however, the architects designed a nifty little (big, actually) place to put the unit:

Given that the house moved over a foot, there's 11 feet by 10.5 feet area for it. Plenty of space.

So here are the (paraphrased) answers to the questions I had:

• Why does the sub have a fresh air damper as well as an ERV?

"oops! Should only be an ERV."

• Why does the sub have a Honeywell ERV instead of the Bryant ERV?

"Can get a deal on them."

• What is the model number on the Honeywell ERV?

"I'll get you that."

• How much does that ERV cost?

[forgot to ask this; will ask after researching the Honeywell.]

• Will the ERV have a sensor shut off for high temperatures and high humidity?

"Yes."

• How many zones are in our system?

"Zones? What zones?" [will put three in]

• What is the filtration in our system?

"What you wanted."

• 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")?

"18; less because it's a bigger unit; bigger the unit, lower the SEER."

• How many thermostats are required for a three-zone system?

"Depends what you want; can do one thermostat with two distant temperature sensors."

• Why are there vents with lights on the bid when there are no vents with lights on the plans

"oops."

• Why are there five bathroom vents on the bid when there are only four bathroom vents in the house?

"Like to put a vent in the laundry." [cool]

• Will joints be mastic'd?

"Yes"

• Will flex duct be longer than 8 feet? 

[forgot to ask]

At the end of the meeting, the builder said "The typical homeowner doesn't really care about this stuff." He then patted me on the back: "You are not the typical homeowner."

The other thing I learned at the meeting was that the framing sub tore his Achilles playing squash over the weekend. He had surgery yesterday. The builder said that he was still directing activity on site, but that progress would be slower...

post within a post!

With the bride out of town on bidness and me with a late-ish meeting this evening, I wasn't able to get out to the house during daylight and nearly didn't go due to the expected lack of progress. Regardless, I went and was surprisingly greeted with a nearly completed second story. With damp soil beneath my feet, a sickle moon hung above, and the blistering brightness of the neighbors' flood lights, I savored the first feel of the nearly complete volume of the house.

Paint thinner couldn't have taken the smile off my face. 

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.

fusses over trusses

I'm back in town for a short respite and was able to stop by the lot. The framers are gettin after it! They started laying down the trusses for the part of the house that will have a second story, put a facing board on the joists that shows the length of the cantilever over the carport (dang!), and took care of more details and whatnot. They're getting all that stuff up there, including the large beams for the living/dining/entry/carport, by hand. We'll head out on Sunday to spend some quality time admiring the details...

joisting when it's moisting

The weatherman predicted a 10 percent chance of rain, so it rained all day. Nonetheless, the framers completed a bit at the site. The most visible bits were the joists placed over the living/dining/front entry areas and the temporary cross supports slashing across various parts of the house. Also, some of the roof trusses arrived.

Looking from the kitchen into the dining/living room areas:

Looking from the pantry to the back door:

Big trusses and medium trusses in the front yard:

Itty bitty trusses in the back yard:

Staring to come together:

Posted with Blogsy

framed again!

The bride stopped in at the lot (can we call it "house" now?) and found essentially all of the first floor framed, including the cantilevered wall! We were speculating last night how they might frame that wall since it isn't connected to the rest of the house except through the roof. What they did was build two temporary walls across both sides of the living room to the canti-wall. Yep: that'll work. Once the roof beams and the trusses go in, it'll all get firmed up.

Not sure when the trusses arrive or how they'll be put in place (a crane?). A second floor by this weekend?

Posted with Blogsy

design dilemma: bathroom tile

First, let's recap the tile story thus far:

1. Working with the interior designer we chose a tile for the floor in the bathrooms, something long and linear (6" by 24") and grey to evoke the concrete floor:

2. After crashing and burning on the initial choice for backsplash tile for the kitchen, we found this white-with-grey-wisps polished marble with similar geometric properties to the initial choice:

We were initially thinking pure white for the kitchen backsplash as well as the bathroom walls, but the marble surprised us with how cool it looks, how well it goes with our countertop choice, and how it will probably not look as dirty as pure white.

So our thinking now is: How about large format polished marble for the bathroom walls?

To further recap, here is where we need tile:

in the master bath:

 and the guest bath:

Ideally, we'd find polished marble in the flavor of our kitchen backsplash in the 6 inch by 24 inch size; however, we haven't been able to find it. An alternative is to get a smaller version of the tile with the same aspect ratio (1:4):

This tile is 2" by 8" and is available from the Tile Shop.

Here's marble at 4" by 12" from the Tile Shop:

Here's marble at 8.5" by 19.5" from the Tile Shop:

Here's 12" by 24" from the Tile Shop:

Here's 10" by 30" porcelain meant to look like marble (a big Modern no-no...) from the Tile Shop:

Here's the same but in an 8" by 12" format from the Tile Shop:

Or we could take another look at the sister tile to the grey tile at the tippy top of the post.