Long Live EarthCraft House Virginia!

Andreas kept a close watch on the crew today, inspecting on a regular basis and coaching when they forgot to do something that met the EarthCraft House technical guidelines. The EarthCraft book and Andreas's persuasive personality persevered and, at the end of today, we had 22 clerestory windows installed! The only clerestory window issue remaining is the window that broke, presumable en route from WeatherSheild to Quality Window & Door.

If all goes well, the siding crew will finish installing the cedar siding tomorrow.

Here are some pics of the windows installed as well as the new house wrap properly installed and with seams and staples taped over.

Inspection vs. Expectation

There's common advice that folks share when talking about building a house -- it's what you inspect, not what you expect. One can provide contractors with detailed explanations of homeowner expectations on design, quality, etc., but trusting that will be done just does not cut it in the construction industry -- there's only one thing that will, and that's inspection. It's disappointing that many subcontractors cut corners. Perhaps it's a lack of training, lack of skill, lack of supervision, or all of the above. But there are too many horror stories related to construction that only strong supervision by the owner(s) and inspection of worked performed will ensure quality construction meeting the design intent. We faced that issue twice this week. First with the new clerestory window installation and then with the deck post installation. Our construction manager, Aaron, was the subcontractor for each of these tasks and his crew just failed to get it right the first time. The end result is they're doing the work over, which is taking more time, costing Aaron more money, and adding unnecessary stress and frustration (for us, for Aaron, and for his crew that's doing the work over again). So the clerestory window saga continues. One of the selling points for using Quality Window & Door was that they would send a technical rep to oversee all window and door installations if you bought windows through them. That's included in the price. This is another area where they failed. When the original windows and doors were installed, the tech was there for only part of the day. This time, they couldn't find a rep who was available, so the sales guy who royally screwed up our clerestory window order came instead. He doesn't seem to know anything about window installation either. The fact is the five windows that were installed on Tuesday were put in wrong, under his and Aaron's supervision. The workers did not follow the WeatherShield installation instructions, nor the EarthCraft House program's technical guidelines. Andreas caught the error. Had he not inspected their work, all of the windows would have been installed incorrectly. There were a whole host of problems, and now the windows will have to be removed. One primary concern was that there was no house wrap (e.g., Tyvek) used for the window installation and the caulking was wrong. Had this not been inspected, the problems would rear their ugly heads years down the road. Once again, Chris Conway, our EarthCraft Technical Advisor saved the day as he confirmed that what Andreas described was incorrect and he walked Andreas through the correct installation process. (This is probably the 40th or 50th time we've called him with technical questions related to green construction and he has been unbelievably helpful and patient with us each and every time. He's amazingly knowledgeable and helpful!) We spent Wednesday morning on-site so Andreas could supervise the window installation to ensure the crew understood the EarthCraft technical guidelines and I could supervise the cedar siding installation that had been scheduled. I was leaving early Thursday morning for a work trip to Aspen, CO so this was the only opportunity to meet with the siding crew. As it turned out, the siding crew was unable to do any siding installation since they had to help the window crew install the windows. By the end of Wednesday evening, about 15 of the windows were correctly installed, with 7 left to go (plus the work of removing the incorrectly-installed windows.) The second inspection came quite by accident. While we were on-site, we noticed that one of the deck posts on the North side of the house was leaning. Since Dominion Power's subcontractors were trenching there, we thought they might had bumped it with their Bobcat. It turns out they didn't, but the posts were not installed correctly. There are concrete deck piers. The 6"x6" pressure treated posts must sit directly on the deck piers. Apparently, Aaron's crew decided they would set one short piece of post on the concrete pier, and then set another short piece post on top of that - instead of one proper length deck post. Apparently someone leaned on the first deck post on the North side of the house, it shifted in the soft clay soil, and that's when we pulled it out to inspect what was causing it to lean. That was very disconcerting so we checked the next one -- it was also wrong, with two shorter pieces stacked on top of one another. We brought this to Aaron's attention, checked the third one, and that one was fine. Now, we need to pull out each and every deck post to find any more that might have been installed incorrectly, and Aaron will need to replace those. Again, more stress and frustration (and expense to Aaron) that would not be an issue had Aaron been on-site supervising his crew and/or his crew had been properly trained and/or skilled to perform this job right the first time. Yes, Aaron's accepting the responsibility for these mistakes and we hope these are isolated instances and no future situations like this will arise. If they do, we'll know, as we'll be inspecting all of the work that's done. Speaking of inspections, the City inspected our framing and mechanical systems yesterday afternoon and both passed. Southland Insulators will be on-site Friday morning to spray foam insulation in the roof/ceiling area and around the basement upper walls (in the joist areas at the outside perimeter of the house.) Then we can schedule a close-in inspection and start installing drywall!

The new clerestory windows that have been installed look really great (again, no photos of those, since it was dusk when we got to the lot after going to our offices to work during the afternoon and early evening.) You can get the idea, though, from the picture taken inside looking out in the "incorrect installation" series below. (The window with the cardboard is the one that was broken upon delivery from WeatherShield to Quality Window & Door.)

Incorrect Installation:





Corrected Installation:




Leaning Deck Post:

EIFS and Window Framing Progress

It's wonderful to stop by the lot after a long day at work and see that some progress was made on the house! I had a big smile on my face tonight. It was starting to get dark, so the pictures aren't the best, but they show the EIFS scratch coat that is being applied to the Compressed Earth Blocks and a few shots to show the new, corrected framing for the windows.

We've been struggling to get a plumber out to the lot to do the rough in plumbing and arrange for the sewer/water hook up with the street. The plumber we plan(ned) to use (that's still TBD depending how some open issues get resolved) was unavailable for an extended period of time, so we tried to get quotes from three other companies. One provided a high quote with no supporting detail. Despite multiple requests, they never provided any detail so, for all we know, they just picked a number out of the air. Two other companies came by and promised quotes quickly. Despite multiple follow-up phone calls, and even paging one of them after hours, not a single return call or quote has come our way. Last I checked we were in a recession of biblical proportions and people were desperate work. Guess that's not true for plumbers. Or it is true and none of them are good business people. Any thoughts on that readers?

The EIFS crew dropped their scaffolding off on Friday, the extruded foam board arrived today, and they applied their scratch coat to three sides of the house - West, North and East. They have only enough scaffolding for those sides, so they'll get to the Southern side later this week as they work their way around the house. Tomorrow they'll apply the foam board and the two coats of synthetic stucco follow.

The framers came back late this afternoon to complete what they couldn't last week because of the thunderstorms. They completed the framing so the 22 clerestory windows can be installed when they arrive. Our Construction Manager has left multiple messages for Jay at Quality Window and Door to get a status report on the windows, so Aaron can schedule the crew to come to install them. The new/correct windows supposedly were ordered on May 28 and would take 4-6 weeks for delivery. So that means late this week or sometime within the next two weeks we should receive those. It sure would be nice to get that status report. Maybe Jay's related to the plumbers? Just kidding - he probably is waiting to return Aaron's call until he has an update from the factory.

And maybe the best news of the day - the sump pump was plugged in tonight when I checked, and the basement was drying out nicely.

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.

Shielded from the Weather

It's amazing what can happen in one day! Several key projects were completed (or mostly completed) yesterday. 

The crew from Piedmont Roofing installed the felt underlayment for the standing seam metal roof. So if the rain comes, as forecast, the house should stay nice and dry!

Quality Window & Door delivered all of our....you guessed it....our WeatherShield windows and doors. And there are a lot of them!  All of the windows, with the exception of the basement windows, have been installed. The basement windows will be installed on Monday morning. We still need to buy a double door for the basement area way entrance. We looked last weekend at Community Forklift, but they didn't have any double doors in their inventory. I'll try to get to Habitat for Humanity's ReStore in Alexandria this weekend to see if I have better luck there.

The framing crew also built out most of the interior walls as well. I am a little concerned about some of the door/entrances that are supposed to be framed for pocket doors, since I don't see how a pocket door could possibly work the way they framed it. And the closet along the North wall of the master bedroom is so narrow, I don't think a suit could hang in there. So that's not good at all. I'll be heading out to the house this morning with a suit (on a hanger) to try to closet on for size, so to speak.  I couldn't possibly live with a closet like that as it would be a daily reminder of one of the worst hotel stays I've had recently - the Radisson Hotel in the Stapleton section of Denver -- which had a closet built the same way. All my clothes had to be pushed back on an angle in order to close the closet door, resulting in wrinkles. (I'm not that tightly wound -- the closet wasn't what made the hotel so terrible, there were a host of other negative things, but I've digressed from the point of this post, so I'll stop my hotel complaining now.) Our contractor, Aaron, will be on-site Monday morning with the framing crew to ensure any mistakes or problems are promptly corrected.

Finally, the folks who will be doing the EIFS on the exterior of the house supposedly dropped of a sample of a smoother, lighter grey finishing since the one they did for the Renovation Nation filming is a bit more course and dark than we'd like. I couldn't find the sample and didn't want to get in the way of the framers, so I didn't poke around too much looking for it. I'll see it today.

Timeline Until We're Under Roof

I just received an email from our contractor, Aaron Holmes with Cornerstone Building, providing a revised time line to get the house under roof and interior framing completed. I thought I'd share it here:

- Complete stacking of TerraBricks above window and door headers & create Forms for the Bond Beam - this week
- Inspection of Bond Beam by City - Monday morning
- Pour Bond Beam - Monday afternoon or Tuesday morning
- 2 days for bond beam to cure before removing forms
- Framing for Roof & interior first floor - April 30th & May 1st
- WeatherShield Doors & Windows delivered and installed May 1st
- Electrical & Plumbing Rough-ins in first floor - Week of May 4th

As you may recall from the house plan post (see post entitled For Larry M.) there is no second story of the house, so the list above is a substantial amount of work to get the house closed up so interior projects can be initiated. Very exciting! Let's hope everything stays on track!

What is Dimple to Board, Drain to Tile, Water to Proof?

Ladies and gentlemen, some of the most important preventive measures are being addressed during construction this week -- that is the waterproofing and water removal system around the house's foundation. This was one area where we wanted to spare no expense, in hopes that we won't have water challenges in our basement.

The good folks at Bartley Corporation came back to the lot to coat the foundation with a waterproofing product, install the draintile around the perimeter of the house, and install dimpleboard which acts slightly as an insulation and predominately as a means for water to drain into the black plastic draintile. The draintile then was covered with stone and a filter cloth. All of this will soon be covered up when Bartley returns on Monday morning to backfill around the house. This all will be matched on the inside with a double sump-pump system with battery back-up.

In the meantime, we have ordered 50 sheets of 3" extruded foam which I will affix to the foundation exterior walls this weekend. We've placed the order for the WeatherShield windows & doors with Quality Window & Door in Beltsville, MD. And we ordered the energy-efficient radiant heat system and high-efficiency gas water heater from Radiantec in Lyndonville, VT. The windows & doors will take five-to-six weeks and the radiant heat materials should arrive early next week. I have scheduled vacation for March 19th & 20th to install the radiant heat system in the basement.

Check out our fancy waterproofing system: