reclaimed barn wood
We finally started putting up wood siding this week. The image doesn’t really do justice. There’s a fair amount of depth and texture that will be great next to the smooth texture of the corten. We’re installing the wood with small head stainless steel screws over Drain Plane furring strips.
The interior just got it’s second coat of primer today as well, so we’ll be painting in the next day or two.
Firstly – I apologize for the low rez camera phone photos…didn’t have my camera handy. Running parallel with our SIPs house, we’ve been working on another house (the 14 house) on the other side of town built entirely out of ICF. The house has absolutely no wood framing. The exterior walls are ICF and light gauge framing. The sub-floors are metal pan deck with hydronic radiant concrete floors. Even the roof is a 2″ concrete slab. It’s been interesting to have both non-conventional framed buildings going on at the same time. Both of them are a first for us, which means they’ve gone a little slower than typical wood framed buildings. Both require a certain level of staging in order to get the materials on site, and erect them…it’s a bit of an art form really.
This week we are wrapping up drywall at the sips house. Paint will happen next week. You can see in the photo below the aluminum channel that will hold the sheets of glass along the bridge to the roof deck (it’s sitting on the floor). It’s a bit heavy, so we have a lift that will help us install it.
Lastly – a photo of the stair tower. Might be a great place for a piece of art.
For the entry to the house, we finally decided on a plywood panel. There were several considerations for this. Firstly, while the corten is cool looking, it’s not a ‘warm’ material to have next to an entry. We typically like to provide softer materials in areas that you’re more likely to physically touch. Another is price and function. Because of the detailing of corten panels, we had to settle on a material 1/4″ thick or less. We did our best to find something green, readily available and cost effective which was difficult. We settled on marine grade mahogany plywood. On the plus side, it was priced right and because it’s marine grade, it’ll last for decades. It’s all undercover and completely sealed on all sides with a clear marine grade sealer. We think Hank did a great job installing the panels.
I’ve also attached a photo of the atrium windows with some fresh drywall.
We’re installing drywall at the moment at the SIPs house…so not a lot for us to do at the moment. We’ve moved outside and are focusing on some boring stuff like hooking up utilities. The last few days here in Portland have been beautiful…sunny and in the 70’s. As is usually the case this time of year, the bike commuters multiply in numbers. I try to keep my carbon footprint low by biking as much as possible…thought I’d share a photo of my daily ride.
We had our first LEED inspection today. It was a bit less exciting than I had imagined it to be. I supposed I imagined a team of people with fancy equipment probing the house, but that wasn’t the case. Just a couple guys and clipboards. They have a standard punch list of items they went through. They’ll get back to us with their results.
Before the LEED inspection, we had to finish insulating and sealing the house. The only two areas that have traditional insulation is the floor of the second bedroom / ceiling of the covered patio, and the interior wall of the exterior building storage room (our replacement for the traditional garage). we filled the joist cavities under the bedroom with 3″ of closed cell foam at approximately R-18 plus R-30 worth of recycled denimum batts for a total of R-48. For the interior wall, we went with one pass of spray foam just to seal things up, then blow in cellulose (recycled newsprint and phone books. Now that the house is sealed, it is completely quite and warmer in the house. Even without a heat source yet.
We also had a blower door test done. This is not part of our LEED process – they provide one at the end of the project. This one was provided by Building America. We scored a 2 ACH (air changes per hour) under 50 pascels of pressure. The typical house in the pacific northwest is about 5.6 ACH. This is very good for us considering the drywall isn’t installed and some of the exterior doors don’t have their gaskets
Our structural engineer stopped by during the inspection to help us figure out our glass railing detail. See the photo of his handywork drawn on a wall. Some times, this hands on in the moment approach is the most efficient way to solve problems.
Structural Engineer's sketch of glass railing detail
As part of our super tight SIPs envelope, we are taping all the seams of the panels. Actually, each seam is spray foamed, then taped. There is a noticeable difference in the house now tha it’s sealed. The humiditiy level, we assume from people working in the house, has definately risen, which shows the importance of continous fresh ventilation. I’ve heard arguments from others that you don’t need to ventilate continuously – only at night when people are sleeping. I’d have to disagree if the house is as tight as this one…continuous fresh ventilation will insure the interior air is fresh, dry and clean.
I’ve also attached a few other interesting images we captured at the site. By the end of the day today, the house should be completely sealed. We have our first LEED inspection next Tuesday, so I’ll post again after the inspection.
This past week, an interesting concept hit us over the head – we actually need to sell this house! And fairly soon! We have roughly 2 more months of construction left. Next week we’ll have our LEED pre-drywall inspection which will be nice. Pricing this house will be extremely difficult not only for us, but for any appraiser. Most of the homes built in the area in the past few years were owner built, so we can’t use them for comparables. There also aren’t too many modern homes like this in Portland. If they are the same quality, they are typically either much larger, located in very desirable (and un-affordable) parts of town, or both. Besides the Orchid Street Townhome by Building Arts Workshop, there really are no comps in terms of LEED Platinum in Portland.
As an early goal of the project – we are trying to bring a conceptual modern design, energy efficient and low resorce use house to market at an affordable price point. Hitting this goal is made even more difficult using realtors. Not that their services aren’t recognized or valuable – they certainly are, however, someone pays for it. At the moment we’re looking into all of our options. We have a fairly good idea what price point we’d like to be at. What are your thoughts out there? What would you pay for a 3 bed, 2 1/2 bath ultra cool, no maintanance house?
actually not! finally our site glazed corner window is installed. we have a lot more pieces of siding installed as well. things are really starting to take shape.
While the trades are buttoning up their rough-in items on the interior, we’ve moved outside the house and started installing some siding. The lower portion of the house is clad in Cor-ten sheets. The upper portion of the siding is reclaimed barn wood siding. BUILD Blog had a great post about Cor-ten a while back – Click here.
corten and glass corner
This corner of the house is designed to take advantage of a
tree in the south western corner of the lot. The new street in front of the house bends around the tree. because so much of the devlopment of the 4 vacant lots was designed around this tree, we thout it would be nice to acknowledge it as well. The steel frame will be wrapped with drywall on the interior. The ceiling plane will terminate at the glass. The glass is installed into the window opening on site. It is sealed in place with structural silicone sealant. When it’s finished, the cor-ten siding and the glass will be flush with each other.
We’ve left a 1/4″ spacing around each panel to allow room for the panels to expand and contract. The holes for each fastener are larger than the fastener which helps the panels move around. Another plus to having a gap is this gives us a little “play” when we’re installing them.
We’re really happy with the way they’re looking. Over time, the amount of variation in colors on the panels will level out, the orange tenge will soften and we’ll be left with a nice deep, sued like appearance. It’ll contract nicely with the variated texture of the barn wood.
The panels we ordered came in 4′x12′ sheets. We had them cut down to 2′x6′ panels and had the holes punched in a shop using a CNC machine. This will insure the fasteners all line up correctly.
We also temporarily tacked some of the barn wood up just to check it out. A few of the pieces are a little red, but we’ll try to keep those ones to a minimum.
We had a fantastic turn out for the 11xdesign tour of homes this past weekend. Our SIPs project is a little bit out of the way of some of the other projects, but we had 400+ people. One of the repeating questions I answered was about why we had so many ducts installed for a ductless heat pump. Afterall, check out the image – those ducts are like a piece of art. The boys from Ecoheat really do a great job.
The duct work is for our ERV – Energy Recovery Ventilator. The ERV doesn’t provide any heating or cooling for the house, it simply moves air. Specifically stale air from the interior of the house is removed using exhaust ducts in the bathrooms and kitchen. As it passes over a coil on it’s way out of the house, fresh outdoor air enters the house, passing over a coil and is brought to match the temperature of the indoor air. The ducts deliver the fresh air to the bedrooms and living room. The ‘E’ in the ERV component refers to the systems ability to also handle humidity levels.
