Happy Holidays to All!

by artist Kristina Solomoukha.
http://solomoukha.free.fr/#

Peace and Best Wishes to you all.
We are closing up for the week between Christmas and New Years to be with family and friends.  We hope you can also.

See you in 2015!

Siding Progress Report

Siding continues, with excellent results so far.

Also seen here, the weather cooperated and I added the bottom piece of steel to the breakfast nook, completing the box.  The red/white plastic is covering the fresh primer on the welds.

Roof is Finally Done! Wait. Recall that.

The long tale of the roof (not counting gutters) almost came to conclusion yesterday.  They finally came back with the last remaining skylight and a missing piece of flashing.  All was installed, and we thought we were finally complete with our lid.

Last night it rained good and hard.

This morning, there was a small drip coming from the new skylight.

Phbbt.

The Sad Tale of the Garage Siding

The garage was intended to receive the same furring strips under the siding as the house, to create a vented-cavity rainscreen.  (Exterior insulation not included.)

Turns out the subcontractor kinda forgot to include the garage furring in his bid. (It was mentioned in the work summary, but not in the line-items used to figure the costs.)

While a shady contractor might say something like this to try and line their pockets, I decided that our guy was telling the truth. 

Not having any additional money to throw at this issue (for furring and labor), and not being one to punish honest mistakes, our compromise is to use this "drainwrap" weather resistant barrier to achieve at least a minimal amount of ventilation. 

This brand uses a matrix of raised plastic nubbins to hold the back of the siding not quite 1/16" of an inch off the WRB.  This is one of the better alternatives of drainwrap out there; some just have a wrinkly surface texture as their "drainage plane".

Better than nothing, I am still skeptical of the extent of effectiveness.  Extensive testing led to the National Building Code of Canada adopting a rainscreen requirement with a 10mm (over 1/4") space.  That said, a series of tests by John Straube, PhD does show that a gap as small as 1mm (about what this is) still makes a difference.

We'll now have a laboratory on site to see how it performs over the years.

Plumbing Insulation

Lisa secured some plumbing insulation, and we covered the drain lines that run over the Living & Dining rooms. 

Got some confused looks from the cellulose guys...
this insulation is for sound, not temperature.

Yes, that is the yellow  WRB air-sealing tape being re-purposed.  It ain't pretty, but it gets covered.

Siding Begins!

The very first pieces of siding are on the building!

Nothing But Net (Insulation Continues)

Netting is going up on the exterior walls; this netting is what holds the cellulose in place until the drywall is installed. 

The Foam Ghost (Insulation Begins)

This apparition was seen in the Kitchen, spewing ectoplasm.

Piles Upon Piles

Schtuff

One of the features of being your own General Contractor - you end up with quite a lot of products & materials to store.

This is one side of our Dining Room.  Here you see doors, screens, an oven, plumbing fixtures, light fixtures, weatherstripping, curtain track, tile, door hardware, nails, and spray foam, among other items.

The other wall of the room is similarly stacked.

Shiny

Living Room view West toward Dining & Entry

Ladies & Gentlemen - drum roll please - the first finished surface in the building.

Our polished concrete slab turned out nicely! 

Photos below.

Fine Grind

How to churn mud and almost hit everything.

Today the floor slab grinding & polishing guys arrived.

We are very, very excited (and a little nervous) to see the end result.

High Winds

Hard to tell from the photo, but we are having a massive wind storm right now.  The large roof overhang is flexing just a little in the biggest gusts (just the bottom corners - the ridge is solid).  Power is out in nearby blocks.  I've been collecting flying debris from around the yard.  

A friend is reporting on FB that her roof shingles are literally flying away.  Yikes!