Post move-in update

Well, we moved into the house two weeks ago.  We've been working on small projects since then like organizing the basement storage area, installing the pantry shelving units, landscaping, and various other tasks.

  We have noted that the Heat-Pump Water Heater we installed is definitely on the higher noise levels - there's a compressor that runs (in high-efficiency mode) for about an hour to bring the water back up to temperature.  The added benefits it provides by cooling and dehumidifying the mechanical and storage areas is huge.  On several days when the outside temps were in the high 80s, the temperature in the walk-out basement stayed at 70 degrees while the upstairs did manage to reach 74.  The geothermal system (ground-source heat pump) and heat-pump water heater are doing wonders at maintaining the humidity throughout the house - we're constantly sitting between 45 and 60% humidity levels. On days of high humidity and moderate temps we sometimes have to set the system to cool the house slightly to dehumidify it a bit.   We have not turned the GSHP on to heat or cool the house but about 10% of the days at most - usually that's to reduce the humidity a bit.  Yesterday and today when the inside temp was approaching 75 degrees with humidity in the 65% range we turned it to cool the house to 72 or 73 degrees which dropped the humidity to the acceptable range (sitting at about 55% at the moment).

We are running the ERV at medium speed for the moment and it seems to be doing the job (along with the HPWH and GSHP) of maintaining temperature, humidity, and indoor air quality.

I will confess the HPWH is a bit louder than we anticipated - it's in a room that is not sound-proofed in the basement and when it is running, you can hear it upstairs.  We plan on soundproofing that room in the near future which will also insulate it a bit.  Our HVAC contractor is contemplating stealing the cooling effect of the HPWH by adding a louver that we can open in the summer and close off in the winter when we don't need the additional cooling.


Other things that we've been up to include finishing (nearly so) the retaining wall and the associated grading behind it.  We then planted some 58 different perennials to provide continuous color to that area.  I also added a couple of legs of drainage to clear standing water in the "herb garden" at the center of the driveway as well as in the center of the front garden where it was pooling against the walk a bit.

Rain.  We had another 1/2" of rain last night and we've pretty much decided that we need gutter-guards.  The oak 'seed pods' and other debris that piles up in the gutters is pretty amazing. One thing we've found is that the downspouts clear themselves quite well of debris - this morning there were piles at the outlets of the 3 pipes comprised of leaves, oak seed pods and pine needles.  Unfortunately the rain chains aren't so good at clearing themselves of debris and on a couple of occasions the gutters have overflowed due to clogged outlets.  One point of note - the underground pipe installed by our grading contractor is the smooth-core variety, not the corrugated type you can by at Lowes or Home Depot.  It's rigid, has a corrugated outer shell but the inside of the pipe is very smooth.  It's a stronger version and doesn't catch all the dirt and other debris that otherwise clogs those corrugated wall pipes.  Very much worth the slight added costs.  One other point that our grading contractor made as to use the external connectors when joining two pieces of the pipe - they work much better than those interior connectors.

  On the subject of drainage - we have not finished the rainwater collection system but we have noted that it does a great job at collecting large amounts of pine pollen.  That stuff is pretty nasty when it sits and ferments in the barrels so we're going to do a bit more research on how best to eliminate that "feature."  Until then we've been draining off the tanks and cleaning them in prep for the "clean" rains that are soon to come.  I also purchased a transfer pump at Lowes that we're going to use to water all that landscaping that we just planted.  Plan is to connect the pump to garden hoses and feed it directly from the base of the two 275-gallon IBC tanks.

More pictures later but I wanted to provide a little update on our progress.

An for the person who asked - we used Sherwin-Williams Latex paint on the interior and elastomeric on the exterior.

Certificate of Occupancy and Answer to Garage Door question

This week was a good week - we raced to get things set for the final inspection like making sure the deck railing was complete (cable installed and tight) and installing the inside handrail for the stairs as well as a couple minor electrical tweaks.  On Wednesday the county inspector came in the afternoon and did his final inspection. The comments he made were "this should be easy" and "schedule the moving trucks." We had him visit the site any time we had questions regarding code requirements and that helped make sure we were ready for the inspection. Bottom line is he issued the certificate of occupancy so we are not scrambling to get our rental house packed up and moved while finishing some of the last details on the house

  We were a bit concerned with the inside stair railing because it wasn't as sturdy as we would like - the upper section and lower section are not currently connected due to some problems with the Indital components (the plastic cap and articulating joint don't fit together tightly enough to rely on them for stability) so we're going to order one more articulating joint and explain the situation to the folks at Indital to see if they can help..  The rail does work as a handrail but trying to use it as a "guard rail" isn't a good idea since the lateral stability of the railing is questionable in my mind, especially at the landing.  The look is great and goes well with the contemporary style of the house so we're going to work hard to get it stabilized.  I guess the telling story would be that when I spoke with the president of Indital USA he said they should have never sold me the components they did for a wood installation; it is designed for professional installation on concrete flooring...

We also got the Liquid Propane tank installed and filled - the plan was to install it under the deck but due to code restrictions we were unable to do that.  I poured a small pad using Sakrete quick-setting concrete but unfortunately it will now be a pad for some other use.  Steve, the delivery person installed the tank and connected the lines to the house as well as hooking up our Weber grill to the tank. Right now we're probably one of the few folks in the US that has a 120 gallon propane tank only supplying gas to their deck grill!  The good news is on Monday we will move the Thermador range into it's final place and connect it to the lines - so we'll be able to move in AND have hot meals as planned by the end of the coming week.

I cut the grass for the second time yesterday - with all the rain that has been coming down and the warm sunny weather, the grass has been thriving. The one problem is it's too hot so the winter rye is starting to show stress and browning up a bit.  Today the rain came down again and we collected about 100 gallons - I'd emptied one tank in preparation for construction of a better pad for the two 275-gallon IBC containers.  One interesting observation was that the 60 gallon barrel that did not have a drainage port on it had become a mosquito breeding ground - there were tons of larvae squiggling about in the water, some even under the screen (which means the eggs settled through the screen.  I dumped some of the water off but today's rains refilled the barrel and I'm sure washed a few of the larvae into the drainage system and then into the woods below the house.

Today we did the final install on the range hood cover and worked on the pantry shelving system - the glass for the range hood won't go in until the painters and cleaners have finished their work.  We have the painters coming back on Monday/Tuesday and the cleaners (house and window-specific cleaners) coming on Wednesday.  Once all that is done, we'll move the large stuff from our rental house and by this time next weekend hope to be living in our new house.

GARAGE DOOR
There was a question posted on the Blog regarding use of the garage door for a living space and the tightness of the seal.  We haven't really worried about how tight the door is since we have a breezeway concept (and the Carolina Wrens have moved in to raise their family) but the seal of the weatherstripping and the joints on the door seems quite tight.  We have the tempered glass for our door and it has performed quite well - today the rain beat against the door pretty severely but it stayed dry. I might not use it for a habitable room in the current configuration but we are very happy with it in our application.

Plumbing and electrical top out, water heater selection, cable rail, HVAC and more

This week saw the HVAC, plumbing and electrical trades complete their top-out in preparation for the certificate of occupancy.  We also uncovered the floors for the first time in months so they could get their final two coats of Bona High Traffic finish.  The stair railing components have now been cut to size and fitted so once the floors have hardened sufficiently we will install the final railing for the inside.  We strung the cable rail on all but the stairs for the deck as well - it was actually not too difficult but it did take time.  We drilled the holes in all the 6x6 posts and then constructed the 2x4 pressure treated upright 'spreaders' for the cable. After that we stained all the critical parts and then installed them.  The process we used was to cut the spreaders to length (high and low versions are required to prevent the cables from hitting at the corner posts) and then we strung the cables, tightened them, and after checking for plumb and centering we attached the uprights to the rail and the deck using screws.  We have not yet cut the cables off so that if we need to make adjustments we can still do that.  The tool that allows the quick-clamp to be released from the cable is only long enough to use if the cable is not inserted in the post so we would have to remove the threaded end of the cable assembly, release the quick-clamp, and then make the necessary adjustments.

  A couple weeks ago we were in a debate over what type of water heater to use.  We originally had a tankless LP unit in the plans but when the "dry hole" of a well appeared on the scene, we switched to a ground-source heat pump including a desuperheater (hot water by-product of heating and cooling) and a resistance water heater.  The water heater that we had initially delivered was very affordable but the annual costs of the unit were at the top of the category for their size ($520 for a 50 gallon heating tank) - which in actuality is a pretty small range.  We again went into the debate about tankless (which we were leaning to), resistance (typical water heater) or one of the new hybrid units.  After a bit more research on the tankless whole-house unit we found that the lag-time before getting hot water in the bathrooms would be unacceptable and the cost of operation was HIGHER than the resistance unit (200 gallons of LP a year, current rate is $2.79 per gallon) so we started researching the Hybrid heaters.  We read all the reviews and settled on an AO Smith Voltex heat-pump water heater.  The cost of the unit was slightly more than our budget line of the tankless whole-house system but the expected annual energy consumption was less than half of the estimated cost for the resistance unit and about 40% of that for the tankless.  The HPWP was delivered and due to the size we reconfigured the mechanical room a bit - the small 40 gallon tank for the desuperheater was moved over to the opposite of the room and the HPWH was placed next to it.  This provided a single drain solution for the pans and condensate pump (required for the HPWH).  Another condensate pump was installed for the ground-source heat pump since it generates a fair amount of water as it cools.  Rather than dump all that water into the septic system we installed two Little Giant condensate pumps that run the water out to the South West corner of the house - where they will be in our rainwater harvesting tanks so that in the rainless months we can continue to add to our tanks.  Pictures of the reconfigured mech room to be posted at a later date.  Oh, and the heat-pump water heater is a great air conditioner for the mechanical room - it cools and dehumidifies the air which our HVAC engineer plans to harness with a manual diverter to allow the cool/dry air to enter the living spaces in the summer months.  One other side note about the HPWH, when it's in hybrid or economy mode the condenser and fan can make a fair amount of noise so we plan to sound-proof the mech room (which we need for the ground-source heat pump and other mechanicals) in the near future.

  Here are pictures of the house in near-final stages.

No, that bird is NOT on the outside.  She decided that the open door was a good place to fly - she was in the garage (collecting next materials I think) and we managed to get her out by opening the french doors and then the clerestory window.  using the long pole scared her down and she miraculously flew out the door.

Convection/Microwave installed (and tested on pizza).

Workout room with paper removed from the floor - still a bit dusty but that will be remedied in the coming days.

downstairs bath - the hint of a reflection you see is the Optiplex (plexiglass) splash guard we installed over the knee-wall.

Lower stairs with stain and the first coat of finish on them.  you can also see the stairway light with the cover painted the same color as the walls.

It's all coming together - the range hood and duct cover are installed but the protective plastic is still on and the glass hasn't been installed yet.

Another view of the kitchen from teh family room - the soapstone looks much bluer here than it does in reality.

And here's the money shot - the only thing missing at this point is the railing but we're waiting to install that until flooring is finished.

Bedroom hallway in near-final state.  

The "relaxation room" with a view.

View from the niche end of the main hall upstairs

Living room doors - closed and yes, they still have the plastic protective film on them

Looking towards the west - the cable rail is installed at this point - hard to see in the small version but it is indeed there.

View looking from west to east - the very green section is where we  put down 50/50 compost/soil mixture and the less green section is the soil left after excavation (e.g. not the topsoil)

Here you can see the tails of the cable waiting to be cut and capped off

This is the other end of the cable system - a threaded rod which allows you to tighten the cable once the quick-clamp is in place and tightened by pulling the cable as tight as possible.

West ent of the deck, looking toward he south.

View of the deck from the Southeast corner of the clearing.

A bit wider angle

And looking due west - you should be able to tell what time this photo was taken by the shadows if you have ever used a sundial. We're thinking about putting a mariner's compass on the deck boards but maybe a sundial would be more appropriate!

Electrical and Plumbing, countertops, slat ceiling, closet system grass

A long time between posts again - Been pretty busy (I think yesterday was the first day I have not visited the site in about 3 weeks).

Snow happens!  We got a light snowfall and when I arrived the next morning the roof proved it was well insulated.  The house was set at 62 degrees overnight warming to 67 starting at 7:00.  This picture was at about 7:30.

Someone has been visiting while we're not there! Cat? Raccoon back? ...

 Since my last posting we have made significant progress including nearly completing top-out of the electrical and plumbing.  Electrician has a few fixtures to install and the Almond outlets - which is a story in itself.  The sub ordered Almond outlets to match the covers and began installing them on Thursday. It turns out they received Light Almond instead of Almond which are quite different in color.  Now here's the rub, the product ID for the Almond and Light Almond outlets are the same - they only difference is the use of AL for almond and LA for light almond.  Easy to figure out which is which isn't it?  It sure is nice to have electric light other than the florescent drop light we've been using when we need light!

The plumbers finished all of their top-out except one hand-shower bar and the hot water heater.  The shower bar requires drilling through that Italian tile which is very time consuming to say the least and it's nerve wracking so nothing cracks.  Installing the tub in the master bath also proved to be a bit of a challenge since it wasn't sitting on the floor.  When the granite installers set the tub deck, they did not set it high enough so we had to remove the mortar bed and redo that - but the worst part was the overflow vent needed to be dropped and it's very difficult to access.  After about 15 test-fits we finally got it into place.  It looks great and is going to be a wonderful place for a hot soak after a long day at work or long bicycle ride.  For the hot water heater we had originally budgeted for a tankless gas unit but with the installation of the geothermal, we had "downgraded" that to a standard electric.

  When the mid-grade resistance water heater arrived it was pretty enlightening to note that the energy rating label noted that of the class, this particular unit was at the top end of energy use for the year at $520.  That generated some healthy discussions regarding the cycle time of the ground source heat pump, the need for HVAC in the "shoulder seasons" and the amount of real hot water it will provide.  In the discussion we were heading towards getting that tankless whole-house unit again until we did a bit more research on the Heat Pump Water Heaters (a.k.a. Hybrid water heaters).  These units use a heat-pump to convert heat in the air to heat in the water and as side benefits they dehumidify the air and cool it.  We gathered all the information we could find and decided to go with the heat-pump water heater by AO Smith.  It gets good reviews and has a good warranty program.  We've read reviews of other manufacturer's heaters that have significant problems and they don't cost much less.  The attraction here was that we don't have to pay for LP to heat water (which is currently $2.79 a gallon and the estimated use is 200 gallons a year - or at current prices $558.00) and the side benefits might pay off.  Since the water heater is in the basement spaces and at present it will only cool the storage area and mechanical room, it seems like a good compromise.  Estimated energy use of this tank (which by the way is 60 gallons instead of the 50 gallon resistance heater unit) is about $250.  The unit does cost about 4 times as much as the resistance unit but that's only a 3-year payback period with a 12 year warranty so we feel confident in this decision.

One thing we did discover during our hot water heater investigation is it appears the larger hot water supply line for the house is now buried above the GSHP unit so we'll have to reroute it before the plumbers can connect the water heater.  We have a significant mechanical room with most of the mechanicals on one side of the room.  The one exception is the Energy Recovery Ventilator unit.  We also have found the GSHP transmits a significant amount of noise to the house which we believe is due to the unit being in contact with the floor joists above it - due in large part to the isolation blocks placed under the unit.

We ordered Soapstone for the kitchen counters from a supplier in NJ and had it delivered to our fabricator. The soapstone is "monsoon wave" and it isn't your high-school lab soapstone color or texture.  They fabricated it with a honed finish and brought it to the site to install a week ago Saturday.  The one glitch here was they had edge-finished two sides of the piece that goes between the range and the refrigerator.  The problem being that only the front was supposed to be edge finished while the sides and back were to be square cut.  The fabricator is still on the hunt for a local supplier for the soapstone but we believe they will end up going to our source to replace that one 25 1/2 x 27 piece.  When the soapstone is "dry" and not oiled it has a blue coloration but after oiling it turns deeper in color and takes on a deep green coloration.

Soapstone installed and oiled - but the bar top has not been installed nor have the fixtures.

View of the island sink up close - olied

Lengthwise shot of the island

This is the soapstone after a week of no oil - the tile was an experiment for the backsplash that doesn't work for us since it's too busy

The cabinet makers returned after the countertops were installed to install the bar top in the kitchen, the master closet shelving units, and the "DIY-install" pantry components.  We chose a solid cherry bar top for the kitchen which really sets off the cabinets and soapstone.  Both the bar top and countertops need to be treated the same with mineral oil.  Today I applied another coat to both and to show the difference between oiled and non-oiled I did half of the island soapstone and took the following picture.

Left half is "dry" and right half is oiled with straight mineral oil.  As you can see, this is after the plumbers have installed the faucet and soap dispenser. This picture was taken with the flash.

Here's a similar view without the flash - note the blue that this brings out...

Looking down at the half oiled surface.

Cherry bar top installed - the range hood cover is still a project in the works 

Some great looking cherry - and it is 2" thick.  The top is through-bolted to the island wall so it's sturdy (though we're still not letting anyone stand on it to do their work!)

View from the entry hall into the kitchen/family room

Grass is coming up - and it makes a real difference when approaching from the street. The house looks finished.

Garage at daybreak - lights on inside are only the garage door lights and not the florescent light.

View of the slatted ceiling from entry hall towards bedroom end of the house.

Same view with the lights turned on.  The ceiling is 3 1/2" hickory boards spaced just under 1/2" apart to fit the beam-to-beam space.  If you remember there is drywall painted black. The slats (with the light fixtures installed through the 2 center slats) are suspended about 9" below.  The design is meant to allow the panels to be lifted should any access be required in the future - though none is expected.

"the Money Shot"

Front entry hall - living room doors still have protective plastic on the glass and paper still on all the floors.

Living room door and hallway leading to bedrooms.

Looking down the hall from the niche end.

Master bedroom - this is a "Fan-away" where acrylic blades retract when the fan is off and spin out when it is running

View of the kitchen from the family room end.  

A bit of rain fell this weekend (about 1 1/4").  We now have 730 gallons of stored rainwater (+/-) and there was much more than that  that traversed the drainage system.

Let it Rain! Drainage design working as planned.

Today was the first real rain we've had since the final grading and installation of the drainage system.  The initial rain was soft and by about 10:00 we had collected over 50 gallons of water in one of the 275 gallon IBCs and all the 60 gallon pickle barrels were full.  The barrel by the front door was performing the fountain duties quite well - water from the overflow was spilling directly into the catch basin and going around via the drainage.  The west side barrel on the front was overflowing into the PVC pipe and filling that IBC in the back (only one is currently connected to the system).  The rear barrel was overflowing but due to settling of the dirt and lack of an installed overflow tube it was simply overflowing onto the ground.  Clearly the IBC would have been filled if this one were to be connected into the system.  That's a project for later this week.

Here's the barrel by the front door - rain chain is working well and the overflow is hitting the catch-basin.  That water collected in front is from when the overflow was removed as a test - after this the puddle went away and all the water ran into the drainage system, around the front of the garage and down to the back outlet which leads into the stream.

A view of the top of the barrel - the chain is currently resting on the window screen 'filter' that keeps the debris from entering the rain barrel.  On the other front barrel I used the grate that was included with the pickle barrel as a large-debris filter.  it's effective but the water splashes out more so we'll refine it a bit.  The screen in this case is under the threaded seal at the top of the barrel which is a very good solution.  The water is actually about 2" below the screen - what you see here is the screen and splashing water due to the downpour.  The are right - water really does race off metal roofs!

Here's the water overflowing from the front barrel to the catch basin.  That puddle in front is due to the settling of the dirt and a test where the extension was removed from the overflow.  

Here's a view of the lot during a particularly heavy downpour.  That puddle in front of the surface pipe is because the dirt settled  causing the end of the pipe to flex upward about 5" above ground level.  We'll tackle fixing that when it dries out a bit.  Clearly this drainage system is sufficient - once the grass seed sprouts and takes hold we shouldn't see the localized puddling (like all those footprints across the newly seeded area).

This shows (albeit a bit hard to see) the flow down the East side of the driveway and around the house.

You can see the drainage working as planned - water flowing down the valley to the left of this picture, over the hill and into the natural ravine.  

Interior painting, drainage system, and a garage door

This week was another busy week on the site -the painters worked on adding color to the inside of the house - after all the plastic and paper it was beginning to be tough to remember what it looked like.  We chose the following colors - Ivory Lace, Roman Plaster, Dragonfly, and Silver Sage.  The ceilings in most rooms were 30% or 50% mixes of the wall colors - the 30% was used on the stronger colors while the 50% was used for Roman Plaster and Ivory Lace since they were light to start.  Before they could paint they had to finish staining all the wood trim/doors/beams which they did early in the week and then they moved on to painting the walls then ceilings.

  Once the painting was largely done (except for cutting in the transition corners and all the trim) they removed all the plastic, paper and tape from the windows, doors, cabinets and trim.

The second coat of "added tint" acorn going on the beam - after they wiped if off it didn't look nearly as rich as this dark color.

Family Room - Dragonfly on the far wall, Silver Sage on the right.

Beams stained - before the paint

Another view of the dragonfly/silver sage walls.

Silver Sage and Environmental - it's difficult to see the difference in the two from this angle and in the camera flash.

Kitchen (Ivory Lace), Hallway (Silver Sage) and trim/doors (brown cedar) and beams (Acorn) - all woodwork here still covered with plastic.

Silver Sage on the hallway side of the living room pocket door

Roman Plaster on the living room side of the pocket door

Front door - silver sage paint and brown cedar stained wood.

Hall - silver sage.  That niche at the end may change to Ivory Lace for highlight

Upstairs hallway bathroom.  That's a sun tunnel and no electric lighting in the room.

Ivory Lace in the kitchen - that's the dragonfly wall to the right.

Ivory lace on the walls, alder and cherry cabinets, Carrera marble baking center

 Today the new garage door was installed - it's a Clopay Avante frosted glass door.  Eight feet tall eighteen feet wide so the door weighs in at about 500 pounds. We considered installing it ourselves but the additional charge for having professionals do this one was absolutely worth the money.  Two guys worked on the door for several hours and they knew what they were doing so it would have taken us twice the time.  The opener is a bit out of the ordinary in that it is not installed at the very center of the door - it's offset by a slight be to the left when facing out the door.  Fortunately we had pictures of "before insulation and drywall" which allowed me to cut a small hole in the wall and fish out the buried control wire.  Pictures have paid huge dividends in finding covered switches, outlets, wires, and to help locate where some wires are routed.  The garage door opener is one of the quietest we have ever heard - it's  DC motor that is just about 1 HP for all that weight.  The outside pictures of the installed door show that it was the perfect choice for this house.

View of the 3 panels installed - fourth panel about to go on.

View from the inside - yep, that's a frosted glass door on aluminum frame. 

Here's a view with it installed - but the opener isn't finished at this point

All done - this view doesn't show the true beauty of it

The brown of the frame highlights the window frame very well; and the glass accents the contemporary style of the hosue.

View from the inside after the complete install - you can almost see the off-center nature of the drive track here.  

After the grading was completed, we installed rain barrels under the rain chains (each side of the garage and one off the back deck).  I attached some PVC to the Northeast barrel to allow it to drain directly into the catch basin we installed for that purpose - this catches the East slope of the Garage and part of the North east roof.  The Northwest barrel catches the West slope of the garage and the North slope of the western deck.  That barrel has an overflow outlet attached to a PVC line that runs under the deck and into the 275 gallon IBC containers under the South side of the deck.  The rear barrel currently has no overflow but will feed the IBCs as well as have an overflow that goes into a catch basin below it to get excess water away from the house and flowing down the hill into the intermittent stream via the rip rap field we installed earlier.  Last night it rained enough to fill the 3 60 gallon barrels and add 50 gallons to the IBC container.  The rear barrel was full by the time I left yesterday but it had tipped over this morning.  The soil around the catch basin had turned into a gooey mess with the water - it was  disturbed during the installation of the basin so it will take another rain or two to settle in and compact down again.  I took advantage of a nice day earlier this week (or was it last week?) to spread some seed - Contractor mix on the rear (fescue with a little annual rye mixed in) and winter rye for the front and side yards.  The front and side will not have long-term grass but will have landscaping bushes and mulch.

PVC line from front rain barrel overflow to the 275 gallon IBCs.  Still have to strap it to the deck and put a drain mechanism in to prevent freezing in cold wx.  First test yielded 50 gallons of water (would have been more but I was in the process of test-fitting when the rain started...).

Temp home of the two IBCs - we'll dig out a bit more and elevate them so you can get gravity flow of the water from the two spigots.  Plans also include connecting the two spigots in the front with PVC so there is a self-leveling process as well as putting a powered sump pump in to get the pressure for watering landscape plants when necessary.