100th Blog Post

This marks our 100th post. And I'm happy to report there's been some more progress. In the past couple of days, our recycling dumpster was hauled away. We filled two dumpsters during the construction, which is less than 1/2 what typical construction sends to the landfill. And many of the items placed in our dumpster will be recycled instead of dumped.

Bob Demarr's crew spent about 7 hours fixing the problems with the rough grading caused by Bartley Corp's team. Bartley's job foreman admitted to Andreas that they really don't do grading work - they don't have the right equipment or labor. That showed with the mess they created. It took Andreas more than 30 hours to dig out tree protection fencing Bartley ran over with a machine and dumped dirt on top of. I spent another 10 hours uncovering the Holly Tree roots they graded over, even though the root protection zone is clearly marked on the grading plan. Alas, we're now on the right path with grading. Demarr's crew hauled away a few truck loads of dirt today, leaving the lot looking much better than it has the past six months!

Inside, Bernie from Clarke County Plumbing, continued work on the rough-in plumbing. He put the vent pipes through the roof (now Piedmont Roofing will come back to seal that all up) and worked on the basement bathroom. Ferguson delivered the tub, toilet wall carrier and shower faucet rough-in and Bernie will install that soon. He also drilled through the EIFS to prepare for the outdoor shower piping, the hose bibs, and the sump pump piping. Unfortunately, he drilled the sump pump holes too high - the sump pump pipes were supposed to come out beneath the deck - so we'll have to work with Bernie to get that resolved.

Also inside, Aaron laid the pex tubing for the bathroom radiant floor heating. I want the shower floor to be as toasty warm as the rest of the bathroom floor, so that had to be laid today so a first layer of concrete can go over the pex tubing in the shower tomorrow. Bernie can then protect the shower floor properly with the rubber membrane and when the concrete floor is poured, it will work out perfectly.

Elmer's crew started work today on the parging. They spent the day applying a metal lathe around the doors and windows. They'll finish that tomorrow then apply the thin layer of cement to the walls and round out the edges by the doors and windows. After that cures, I can apply the American Clay Earth Plaster over the cement parging.

Jay with Quality Window & Door hasn't provided the exact date yet for the corrected clerestory windows to be delivered - hopefully that will be in the early part of next week so the cedar siding can go on Thursday morning.

Staining Cedar

There's a particular look we were going for with the cedar stain and I think we're achieving it! At Amicus Green Building Center in Kensington, MD, we purchased a "one coat only" stain that's made from plant oils. The color we chose is mahogany, which will give the beautiful orange-ish, red color we'd like for the cedar. This will be beautiful with the lighter color stucco below and the dark metal roof. As I mentioned in an earlier post, the cedar arrived on Friday. I had ordered the stain from Amicus a couple of weeks ago, it arrived, so I picked it up after work on Friday evening and I spent the weekend staining. I got most of the shiplap cedar siding done on three sides, and all of the cedar trim on one side. I only made it through a couple of the longer cedar fascia boards before running off to a friend's 60th birthday dinner. In any case, I made a lot of progress and Andreas is off tomorrow so he'll pick up where I left off - finishing the cedar fascia boards and the final side of the cedar shiplap siding. I have some more shiplap to stain for the outdoor shower, but there's not a big rush to get than completed since I'll build that fencing around the shower at my leisure. Here are some pics of the stain and the wood - both finished and unfinished.

Progress!

While I was out of town, a lot of things happened at the house. I need to get out of town more often, so progress continues!

Bob DeMarr and his team did the street cut and trenching to the house, as you saw in the photos from the other day. Later in the week they drilled through the 12" thick concrete foundation to bring the water and sewer lines through into the house. Meanwhile, Bernie from Clarke County Plumbing was on-site working on the rough-ins for all of the plumbing - bathrooms, kitchen, laundry, etc. Southland Insulators came back to finish the air sealing in the first floor. And Bartley's crew came back to re-do the deck piers they excavated and poured way back in February (the ones that collapsed when the excavation for the basement began). So we now have footers for the deck framing that will begin on Monday. Also this week, Bernie will continue with the rough-in plumbing to connect the sewer/water lines and the sump pumps; Elmer will be on-site to do the parging over the interior TerraBrick walls (except the pantry, which we're leaving as bricks to show them off), and Aaron will continue with his to-do list of items he needs to follow-through on, such as correcting the height of the baseboard outlets, installing the fireplace chimney and 6" duct for the range hood, etc. We're close to plumbing and electrical rough-in inspection time, which is very exciting.

The latest word on the corrected clerestory windows is they should be here early next week. Once that's done, we'd like to move quickly on finishing the exterior, laying the radiant floor pex tubing, and pouring the concrete first floor so we can then close-in the walls with drywall. It now looks like we're aiming for a mid-October move-in. Stay tuned!

TW Perry Rocks

I am at the house to stain the beautiful cedar siding we ordered through TW Perry. Actually all of our wood products have been supplied by them. Our sales rep, Ricky Bise, has gone out of his way to provide exceptional customer service. The cedar is the latest example of that. I have only this weekend available to stain the cedar and it was running a day behind from the mill, so it wasn't going to arrive on our lot until Monday. Needless to say, that wouldn't work with my tight schedule. Ricky sent his assistant, Jose, to get the cedar and deliver it to our lot yesterday so I could stain it this weekend. Ricky lost an important team member for several hours during a busy day. But it made all the difference in the world for our project and we are incredibly grateful. If you're building or renovating, give Ricky a call in TW Perry's Gaithersburg, MD office at 301.840.9600. He is extremely competitive in pricing and pulls out all the stops to ensure his customers are happy. Many thanks, Ricky.

The Big Dig

Just a few pictures of our own version of the big dig: the sewer pipe to our house, the City's water meter, and the patched street. Nice job from the guys at DeMarr!

EIFS, Act 5

Andreas is out of town for work and I'm back from my trips, so it's my turn to blog again. I hope you have an enjoyable Independence Day holiday today.

The crew from Seasons Services finished up the EIFS installation on the Southern side of the house on Friday morning. They work quickly! They've taken down almost all of their scaffolding as well. And they've caulked around all of the doors and windows so they're sealed properly from the exterior. Now that the basement doors arrived and Aaron has installed those, they also started the EIFS in the areaway. Since the EIFS installation is a process, they'll come back a couple of times to finish that section. There are some other minor details they need to take care of - such as completing the work around the step light electrical boxes and cleaning up the site. But we've been really pleased with Seasons Services' work on the EIFS installation. They're quick, professional, on the job when they say they're going to be there, and the quality of their work is very high. Here are some pictures of the Southern side:

EIFS, Act 4

The final EIFS coat arrived by surprise. I went to the lot today to check on the sump pump, and Claudia's crew must have worked today, Saturday, to apply the final EIFS coat. Here is what it looks like:

EIFS, Act 3

This is what the next stage in the EIFS process looks like. The styrofoam is covered with a base coat that has a nylon mesh embedded in it. This already looks pretty close to the final product - the final coat (with color premixed into it) now goes on top of that.

Our neighbors, our heroes

Just a brief post to say thank you to all our neighbors. For being so accommodating with a construction project that is, sometimes quite literally, in their backyards; for their advice and support; for recommendations for qualified subcontractors; for letting us borrow their water connections; for helping us clean the street; for keeping a watchful eye on our home; and for chasing away those people that are attempting to illegally dump their trash in our recycling dumpster.

Without you, our neighbors, this would not be the neighborhood we'd want to live in. Thank you!

Tight as ... Tupperware

Back in the late 1970s, my mother hosted at least one Tupperware party that I remember. The advantage of Tupperware is the airtight seal. Little did I know then that you want the same thing from a house.

I've been spending a few days on and off over the last few weeks airsealing around the house: mostly where the concrete meets the mud sill, and where the CEB wall meets the top plate. All you need is a caulk gun, a LOT of caulk (I used a GE product, Silicone I, but any silicone-based caulk will work well), and off you go. Believe it or not, this is one of the most energy efficient things you can do to your house (move over, replacement windows!) - so efficient in fact, that EarthCraft standards mandate airsealing in lots of places. Most of them I've covered now - for the rest of the airsealing (and firestopping), the professionals from Southland Insulators will take over before they apply sprayfoam insulation to our roof, the clerestory window area, and the bandjoist. More on that in a future post.

For now, just a picture of a nice, thick, bead of Silicone caulk between the top of the CEB wall and the top plate. Often under-appreciated, but such an important component of building green.

EIFS, Act 2

I'm blogging today instead of Mike - he's away.

Claudia and her EIFS crew wrapped the house in extruded styrofoam today. (Yes, there are different kinds of styrofoam: expanded - the white, bubbles-pressed-together looking kind; and extruded - which is much smoother in texture.) The advantage of extruded styrofoam is that (a) it has a greater R-value (R-5 per inch ... we have three inches, so a total of R-15) and (b) it is a water barrier (by contrast, expanded styrofoam is about as permeable as a sieve).

For now, the house looks like a big freezer box. The next few steps are to sand the styrofoam smooth; embed a nylon mesh in another scratchcoat, and then to apply the final EIFS coat. In a week, weather permitting, we should have the final product.

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.

Thanks, Jeff!

On Saturday, the rain continued for most of the day. It's good to have a stream at the back of the lot for the water to flow away. Here's a pic I snapped.

Our friend Jeff offered to help with anything that needed to be done on the lot on Sunday afternoon. I said the only thing that was on my immediate to-do list was manually moving the heavy, wet clay (dirt) behind the tree preservation fence. No machines can go back there to grade, so everything has to be done by hand. Jeff agreed to help with that back-breaking work. I had a dinner plans with another good friend, Quay, who was in DC from Colorado on business, so we stopped working after a few hours and noticed that it hardly looks like anything was done. There's a lot more dirt left to move. But my muscles are sore today to prove I worked! The photo below doesn't do a great job showing the pile of dirt that remains to be moved.

Wrong Windows Removed, More Flooding

At long last, our construction manager, Aaron with Cornerstone Building Services, finally had a framing crew out to remove the wrong clerestory windows and prepare the framing for the new, correct, windows. Well, the day they finally came to work it rained (they were supposed to start last Friday, then delayed to Monday, then delayed to Tuesday, then delayed to....you get the point - they finally came on Thursday to work). And it poured. And there was a huge thunderstorm. The lot was a complete mud pit (as you see in another post) and that made it very challenging work for the crew. But all of the windows appear to have been successfully and safely removed. However, during the process, they clearly were not being careful enough, as there was some damage to one of our sliding doors on the south side. The picture isn't clear, but there's a dent in the metal frame. Ugh. 

To add insult to injury, during our early morning call with Aaron, Andreas gave explicit instructions that the crew needed to be 100% certain that the sump pump was plugged in before they left. You guessed it - they didn't ensure it was plugged in. I know it was plugged in last time we left the lot, so someone from that crew must have unplugged it (either intentionally or unintentionally does not matter as they had instructions to ensure it was plugged in). So the basement completely flooded again. Hours and hours of cleaning up dirt from the last flood was completely wasted by simple laziness, idiocy, or both. I was not happy when I discovered that on Thursday evening and I'm still unhappy about it. The last picture below shows the water draining from the basement several minutes after I plugged the sump pump back in.

Puddles, Puddles everywhere

This rain is driving me nuts! Bartley returned on Tuesday with the repaired machine to continue the grading work. The clay dirt was too wet for them to complete the job, so they'll have to come back again after 4-5 days of no rain, which will give the dirt time to dry out. At this rate, I don't think we'll ever have that kind of dry spell! 

While doing the grading, the guy from Bartley drove right into the corner of our house, completely destroying three of the extruded foam board panels. Hopefully when the EIFS installers come, they will be able to easily add new foam board there and make it like new. You can see the foam board we cut away in the fourth picture below. 

On Thursday, when I was in an important all-day meeting, I received an email from my neighbor to the South stating that our silt fence needed attention. You will see in the final picture where the torrential rain storms that afternoon, following days of steady rain, were just too much for any silt fence to handle. I went that night and put up an extra layer of new silt fencing, hoping that holds in the future. Once the grading is complete, hopefully this won't occur again. If it does, we might be forced to incur even more water mitigation expenses (which we cannot afford) in terms of draintile to prevent water run-off. 

Prepping for EIFS Installation

In order to secure the best possible price for the EIFS installation (that's the extruded foam board and synthetic stucco system on the exterior of the house), we agreed to attach the basement extruded foam board to the house using TapCon concrete screws. That saved time for the installers, which saved us money. Andreas did the work, which took a few hours, about 100 TapCon screws with large washers, and five concrete drill bits to pre-drill the screw hole. Doesn't it look great? Now the EIFS installers will be able to nicely match their foam board with ours for a professional installation.

The bottom foam board will be a dark grey and the top foam board will be a very light grey, kind of like concrete. The clerestory part of the house (above the CEB wall) will have beautiful stained shiplap cedar siding.

Grading in Progress

When I was a kid, like most boys, I enjoyed playing in the back yard with big toy trucks, pushing earth around, and having a gay old time getting dirty. Well, I would have loved to have been on-site yesterday as the crew starting moving piles of dirt around as they started on the final grading for the lot.

Bartley Corporation is doing the grading for us. They brought a Bobcat like machine, but one that has rubber treads, instead of metal treads, due to the rain and wetness of the dirt. Unfortunately, they didn't get very far when the rubber tread ripped and the machine became disabled. The machine still sits at the back of the house, waiting to be towed away. It's questionable as to when they'll be able to get a truck back there since the lot is a mud pit right now. At least the grading is now going away from the house which should prevent some of the water from coming in the basement. I checked the basement tonight, after last night's rain, and while it's still a bit damp in the basement, I didn't see any new water. That's a very good thing.