Our Erdhaus Featured in Washington Business Journal Daily Update

I opened today's Daily Update from the Washington Business Journal and scanned the headlines to see what stories were worth a quick read. Story #2 sounded interesting, and I thought it was another house the article was referring to. I was excited that it's actually our house featured in the story! The article is mostly right, but it over-represents the house a bit since we won't have solar panels (initially, at least, unless someone donates them or I win the lottery). The story quotes the house designer, John Spears, with Sustainable Design Group. It was fun to read about our house in a journal I regularly read. After the house is done, hopefully Dwell magazine will profile it -- then I'll be super excited!

Click on the link for the full story.

It Takes a Village.... to Raise a House?

We've been doing a lot at our house this past last week. So much that I haven't been able to blog about it. Wonderful family and friends have helped.

The drywall's done (hung, taped, mudded, sanded, paid for).

Interior walls have been primed....soon to be painted (Thanks, Bill!)

Companies have come by to give quotes for the deck.

Maryann from Terra Landscape came by to measure in order to prepare a quote for the walkway. We're getting quotes for pavers for a walkway. I'm tired of walking through mud to get to the house.

Erika came by to review her landscape design.

The interior stair landing has been built (Thanks, Larry!).

The interior stairs have been placed and (mostly) connected. I have a few more screws to put in.

The remaining cedar for the exterior has been stained (Thanks Mom!)

The rainwater tanks have been connected to one another; outflow and inflow are yet to be done.

When buying the no VOC paint at Amicus Green Building in Kensington, MD, we "window shopped" for some tile and decided to purchase some really beautiful tile there.

And more, but those are the highlights.

I gained about 10lbs this weekend - not from stress, but from my Mom's wonderful cooking. Mom and Bill came Saturday and helped through today (Monday). Not only did they help with a multitude of projects around the house, but they prepared meals for each day, all of which were incredibly delicious. I need to work harder on the house to lose some weight now!

Our architect and one of his staff came by today to review the progress and next steps. They're going to refer some folks to us for deck construction, interior finish carpentry, etc.

Recycling Dumpster, Window Update, Pranksters, and Thieves

About a month ago, I asked for suggestions from readers of this blog on where we might find a recycling dumpster for our construction materials. Sat Jiwan responded with some recommendations, Andreas made some phone calls, and we ended up choosing Environmental Alternatives, Inc. in Clarksburg, MD, which was one of the companies Sat Jiwan had recommended to us. Believe it or not, their pricing was less expensive than traditional dumpsters that just drop off at the landfill, and they'll also provide us with a detailed report of what we placed in the dumpster for recycling. That report is important for the EarthCraft House Virginia premium certification we're pursuing.

I'm dismayed that over three weeks after the great window fiasco was identified, we still do not have a resolution. Another meeting has been scheduled for Wednesday between Quality Window & Door and Sustainable Design Group. I'm hoping everything will be resolved to our satisfaction by the conclusion of that meeting. The windows are so important to the house and these companies advertise as professionals. I truly hope they live up to their word. A few folks have emailed me noting they are considering doing business with these companies but are awaiting the resolution of this window mistake before proceeding. I'll be sure to post on this blog when this issue is resolved (or not).

The final grading was supposed to have been done Wednesday and Thursday of this week, so the weekend was spent moving supplies, sorting through some leftover wood from framing to keep good pieces for other projects, and to recycle the remainder of it. Lots of manual labor, dirt, sweat, and general hard work. Just in time for the rain, which will delay the grading. That's OK though, now the lot is ready and the grading can happen when Mother Nature's ready for it to be done. In other news, the electrical rough-in work has been completed. The plumber will be on-site soon to start the plumbing rough-ins. Our contractor, Aaron, is on vacation this week and I'm heading out of town for business, so not much will take place on the house.

We know the quantity of signs in our front yard is a bit much, but once we had a couple signs from key vendors/partners, like the bank, the EarthCraft Virginia program, and our contractor, many other vendors jumped on the bandwagon adding their signs to the bunch. For a while, we thought perhaps the signs were mating and having babies when no one was watching! Well, someone had a bit of fun on Saturday evening at our lot. Someone, perhaps a group of kids, rearranged all of the signs, grouping them together and turning some around so they couldn't be read from the street. That actually was kind of funny. 

What was not so funny was the theft of about 150-200 leftover Terrabricks (Compressed Earth Bricks) that disappeared from our lot on Thursday night or Friday during the day. We didn't need them for the house, and the theft saved us the time and energy moving them out of the way so the final grading can be done, but we were planning to use those for a wall at some point in the future. It's never a happy time when someone steals something from you, but it's a good thing for us that we don't leave anything of significant value on the property sitting around. With technology as it is today, I wouldn't suggest anyone try to steal anything else, unless they'd like to risk the chance of being caught on video in the act. 

Weekend Summary

I truly was hoping to have positive news on the "Window Worries" post by now, but despite multiple conversations, our house designer, John Spears, and the folks at Quality Window & Door still have not come to any resolution. As happens so often, each side made mistakes and no one's willing to take responsibility. Hopefully continued discussions next week will lead to a quick resolution. We'll be in the third week of discussions. Enough talking, time for action!

Piedmont Roofing finished the installation of the standing seam metal roof. It looks awesome! Well, except one piece of metal on the North side fascia at the very back of the house, which looks severely dented. I was told by the roofers that it will be fixed when the drip edge is completed after the EIFS is installed. Piedmont Roofing's been a great company to work with - honest, helpful, responsive, quick. But I think we need to hold some money back from the final payment until it's resolved to our satisfaction.

Speaking of EIFS, we're chomping at the bit to get the extruded foam board and stucco installed. But that can't happen until our contractor, Aaron, caulks around all of the doors and windows as required by the EarthCraft House program. There are a host of other items that need attention over the next week in order for us to stay on track with Tier 3 certification, which is the EarthCraft Premium level.

We had an extremely informative meeting with Chris Conway (the Green Gobbler) with Conway Construction. Chris is our technical advisor for the EarthCraft program and he is worth his weight in gold! We don't need a psychologist while building a house, since we have Chris! Andreas and I went to DC on Friday morning and toured my friend Mike's townhouse which is in the final stages of a complete renovation. His house is absolutely beautiful and I can't wait to see the finished project. From there, we went to our construction project and met up with Chris. On the way out to our project, Mike asked what the value was in pursuing a green certification for the house. Most folks think we're getting tax credits or something similar. My answer to Mike was that EarthCraft is giving us peace of mind, since it's another set of eyes looking at this project and comparing the on-going work to an established, vetted standard. EarthCraft is our construction conscience ensuring the right thing's being done at all times. That's not to say that mistakes won't be made, but someone else is looking out for us to ensure they're not covered up in a way that would be harmful to us or to the environment. 

I'll interview our EarthCraft technical advisor, Chris Conway, and write that up for the blog in the coming weeks.

 

Roof, Roof! (And an update, or lack thereof, on the Window Worries)

Roof, Roof!

I'm pleased to report some positive news! After work this evening, I stopped by the house to see what progress was made on the installation of the standing seam metal roof that's being installed by Piedmont Roofing. The crew made a lot of progress today. Most of the metal roof has been installed. The metal is produced by Englert, which is located in New Jersey. They have an entire line of colors that have achieved EnergyStar ratings. The color we selected, matte black, is an exact match for the obsidian windows & doors from WeatherShield. I think the roof is looking great and it will be very attractive for many years to come. 

Last Friday afternoon, Tim Reed, the owner of Piedmont Roofing gave me a tour around the Middleburg, VA horse country where his company has done numerous standing seam metal roof installations. On the drive we were chatting about various roofing options. Englert's product has a 35 year color warranty and the roof will last even longer than that. If we had chosen an environmentally-unfriendly option, like asphalt shingles, the roof would last 10-15 years and cost 50-60% of the price. So we will have a much more attractive roof that will last many years longer, and is only a few thousand dollars more money. Take a look:

Window Worries Update:

I sincerely believed that we would have had a resolution to the window problem by now. It's been more than a week since the window issues had been identified. As you'll recall from the last post, Window Worries, I noted that there were problems with the clerestory windows (wrong size) and problems with the sliders on the Southern side (wrong glass).  I've spoken with our architect, John Spears, each day and he continues to follow up with Quality Window & Door. We still don't have a definite resolution, although John's been told that Quality Window & Door is working on a resolution. 

We greatly appreciate the comments that were submitted by you all, as well as the personal emails and phone calls on this subject. I remain optimistic that this will be resolved to our satisfaction. No one said construction won't come without its headaches, but this is a big one and we need it to be resolved very quickly.

Window Worries

ACTUAL

VS.

PLANNED

I was so happy last week when the windows & doors were delivered, but when I saw them, something didn't seem right. I thought the clerestory windows seemed smaller than I expected them to be. Then our architect, John Spears, stopped by the house early last week and also noticed that. He looked into this and the found that the salesperson at Quality Window & Door did not quote or order the proper clerestory windows. Instead of 3' x 3' windows, as specified in the window & door schedule detail, he ordered 2' x 2'. John had reviewed the quote in detail and did not notice that mistake. The right sized clerestory windows is extremely important as they are an integral part of the passive heating and cooling of the house. These smaller windows won't work from that perspective.

As if that wasn't enough of a problem, the hours and hours of discussions between John Spears and Quality Window & Door sales rep, with regard to ensuring the correct glass is used by WeatherShield in the manufacture of the Southern exposure sliders, seemed to have been forgotten as well. The standard glass was used, not the Cardinal Glass as specified by John. That means that all of the Southern sliders do not have the proper glass for the necessary solar heat gain co-efficient. 

There's not much point in building a passive solar house if the glass isn't right.

We all make mistakes. I probably make more than my fair share of them. But I try to catch them before someone else does and fix it. And if someone else catches my mistake, I apologize and work to get it fixed. 

So far, no apologies and after days and days and days, no answer as to what the fix will be (if any). I learned Friday evening that the owner of Quality Window & Door has been out of town and he'll be back on Monday, which is why they haven't been able to solve this problem. I hope we'll have a resolution identified on Monday. 

Here's the fix: 

1) replace the incorrect clerestory sized windows with the correct sized ones. 

2) replace the incorrect southern sliders with new factory-made sliders with the correct glass.

    -- NOTE: replacing the glass on-site with the correct glass is not an acceptable solution. We paid for factory-new windows with the quality control that comes from that environment and that's what we need to have installed in our house -- with the correct glass.

3) expedite the order with the factory so we do not have to hold up progress on the rest of the house for another five weeks while these windows are being made. It doesn't take five weeks to make/ship windows and doors. 

We remain optimistic that this can be accomplished. It's not that big of a deal in the overall context of a window & door business, but it's a huge deal for us and our house. Without the proper windows & doors, we might as well stop the project since the house won't be able to do what it was designed to do. 

Readers, do you think our expectations are too high? 

Earth Day DC

On the eve of Earth Day, I'm catching up on my blog postings. It's been a week since my last posting; a lot has been happening, which you can read about in the new blog entries below.

On Sunday, we enjoyed the morning and early afternoon on the DC Mall attending Earth Day, visiting with exhibitors, including the Sustainable Design Group - the firm that designed our house. There were a lot of people there by the time we left for the day, which was a good thing.