In Loving Memory

Yesterday, my stepfather, Bill Ritz, passed away unexpectedly. This is relevant to the blog, since he enthusiastically and skillfully helped Andreas and I over the course of several weekends as we worked on various projects - painting, staining, installing stairs, cleaning, and the list goes on. Bill was a wonderful person, husband, father who gave so much to others and sought to experience the world and all it has to offer. He will be missed greater than words could ever explain by his family, his friends and everyone else whose life he touched. Rest in peace, Bill.

The Little City

The City of Falls Church unleashed a new brand this past week. "The Little City" is how it'll be branded. When I saw that as the leading story in the Falls Church News Press, I wasn't impressed. But I wanted to know why they came up with that, so I flipped through the brand presentation. The branding and explanatory presentation was prepared by the local SmithGifford advertising firm on behalf of the Falls Church Economic Development Authority.

And now I'm impressed. It's dead-on.

Check out the link to this blog post if you want to see a pdf of the brand presentation. Let me know what you think.

I can't wait till our construction is done, so we can live in our little house in The Little City.

Deck the Halls

I'm back from Montreal and spent the day working on the house. Evidently, I brought the snow with me. One of my priorities was to inspect the work that Jeff Gunther is doing as he constructs the deck. All I can say is, "wow!" So far, it appears that he's doing a very good job with this, as you can see in the pictures.

We had ordered the finish trim wood so Craig can start next week with the trim carpentry. TW Perry's crew dropped the wood in two stages - the first batch, Jeff carried in for us since Andreas and I both were out of town for work. The second batch they dropped in our neighbor's front yard. Fortunately, it was wrapped in plastic, so the wood didn't get damaged with today's rain and snow, but I felt badly that our neighbors had to have a stack of wood on their front lawn for a day until I could get to the house to carry it inside. Walking through the snowy mud wasn't fun, but the wood needed to be moved inside so it can start to acclimate with the house's temperature and humidity level.

In addition to the deck and the wood delivery, a number of other things happened last week. Bernie the plumber came to bring the rainwater capture fresh water line into the house, but realized when he got there that he was missing an attachment to a tool, so he couldn't drill through the foundation. So he moved on to another project - installing the hot water heater. And we uncovered another problem. Aaron Holmes told us this summer that the radon vent was going to be in the utility closet off the basement bedroom, and he had Bernie set PVC piping for the gas hot water heater vent. As Bernie looked at setting up the hot water heater, it occurred to him that it needed to be vented. Andreas reminded him that he already set the PVC piping for the vent. Nope - what's there is the radon venting. Another unbudgeted item - drilling through the foundation for the hot water heater vent.

So after speaking with the City inspector and learning the details of where the natural gas hot water heater vent pipe can go, Andreas arranged for Bob DeMarr's crew to come out to drill a hole near the hot water heater and another in the utility closet for the rainwater line. Andreas made a point to emphasize the importance of cleaning up after they drill the hole, so the crew did an okay job sweeping up the concrete and removing the concrete core, but they totally messed up our finished basement floors trekking gobs of mud throughout the entire basement. It took a long time today to clean up after them, and I'm still not done.

I checked some small items off the to-do list, but I didn't get as many done as I wanted to. Tomorrow's another day and I hope it'll be more productive.

Deconstruction

Seasons Services sent a crew out yesterday to remove some of the foam board and EIFS around the house. This is where the 2"x12" pressure treated deck ledger board will be connected to the house with Hilti epoxy bolts.

You might be wondering why this wasn't done before the EIFS was installed, right? So were we, but Aaron from Cornerstone told us we could install the ledger board on top of the EIFS. Wrong again! The code doesn't allow that; the ledger board has to flat up against the concrete foundation and then bolted into that.

Seasons Services removed the extruded foam board along three sides of the house and waterproofed the cut area. Jeff Gunther, who will be building the deck for us, will start installing the ledger board this week. After the ledger board is up, Seasons Services will come back to flash around the ledger board and add new foam board and stucco in any gap that's remaining above the ledger board.

If the weather holds out and it doesn't rain, Bernie with Clarke County Plumbing is scheduled to come in the morning to bring the rainwater tank pipe through the house. Then we can schedule final grading, which will be a most wonderful day!

I'm off to Montreal for work for the week, so I won't be able to blog, but Andreas might provide some updates as time permits.

Progress Report

Slow going is all I can say. Andreas worked his tail off in the mud and rain to finish the trenching for the rainwater tank fresh water line to come back to the house. Here are some pictures of his boots, his exhausted face, and the end product.

The next day, the plumber was supposed to come to drill through the foundation to bring the rainwater tank line into the house, but it was raining where he lives (1.5 hours away) so he assumed it was raining where our house is (it wasn't; it was perfectly dry). So he didn't show up. Meanwhile, the banks of the trench caved in and Andreas had to re-dig all of the heavy, water-laden clay out of the trench. I showed up after he had finished and found a wet, unhappy, tired guy who worked hard all day. The plumber is scheduled to come again on Monday and Wednesday. But guess what - rain's in the forecast again, so he probably won't show up.

Meanwhile, the electrician was going to continue on the inside of the house, but he decided he doesn't work during Thanksgiving week. Must be nice.

I spent some time in the basement bathroom working on tile install. The 18" x 18" tiles will be great later on since there will be less grout to clean, but they sure are more difficult to install than the smaller format tiles I have had a lot of experience installing in the past. The new wet saw blade came in handy, but the drill bit I bought from Home Depot probably wouldn't cut through butter, let alone porcelain tile, so I have to find a better option for cutting holes in the tile tomorrow. I hope to finish tiling the basement bathroom tomorrow, then I can move to the guest bathroom upstairs. Here are some pics after I sealed the joints between the Durock sheets, and as I'm installing the tile (which came from Amicus Green Building Center).

We've also worked on other miscellaneous projects, like taping/mudding some drywall in the basement hallway, applying American Clay Earth Plaster around the doors and windows (about 1/4 of the way done with that) and confirming all the details to get the deck started next week.

Any recommendations on a finish carpenter for the trim work? I'm looking for referrals and would love if someone could start soon.

This Friday - Our House on Planet Green's Renovation Nation

Don't forget to watch the TV show Renovation Nation this Friday, November 20th at 8:00pm EST (check your TV guide for local time/listing). The episode is called "Building Dirt Cheap" and will feature our house.

While the project isn't nearly as cheap as we were led to believe it would be, it sure is environmentally-friendly, which was a primary goal!

If, like us, you don't own a TV, you should be able to purchase this on iTunes to watch on your computer or iPod a week or so after the episode airs.

Amicus, American Clay, Rainwater Tanks, Woodpeckers

What a productive weekend working on the house! Yesterday was gloomy and misty, which provided a nice excuse to pick up our porcelain tile from Amicus Green Building Center. The owner, Jason, was there this weekend so we had a chance to visit with him and bounce ideas off of him. I may have written this before, but it's worth repeating -- before you go to Home Depot or Lowes, check out your local businesses -- especially those specializing in green products -- and support these companies. The knowledge base of the folks at Amicus, complimented by their exceptional customer service is great. But their variety of products and extremely competitive pricing is even better. We've really had great experiences working with Jason and his crew at Amicus, so pay them a visit when you need some supplies.

While picking up the tile, we also stocked up on American Clay Earth Plaster, since we ran out applying it in the guest bedroom and hallway. We had bought a relatively small amount initially, and now we needed more. So we picked up 10 bags of American Clay Loma for the base coat.

After we got to the house, we unloaded the tile and the 50 lb. bags of clay, and then I mixed up four buckets of clay for use this week. Andreas spent time digging a trench by the rainwater tanks for the freshwater pipe to come into the house. It's tough work and slow going.

We were on a tight schedule, since our friends Chris and Greg invited us over to dinner, so we couldn't work through the evening. (The dinner was wonderfully delicious, and it was great to have a fun, enjoyable evening off.)

Sunday was extremely productive. Andreas continued digging the trench and got the PVC piping for the rainwater tanks mostly set up. I worked inside on the American Clay installation. While applying the clay, I was listening to music on my iPod and heard a beat that wasn't consistent with the music. At first, I thought Andreas was attacking the dirt with his shovel. Then I had images of Woodpeckers flashing through my mind. I went to the North side to see if the woodpecker was back. No sign of it. But I head the noise again. I banged on the stucco and, sure enough, the woodpecker flew away from the back of the house. To make a long story short, we now have three holes in the stucco from that stupid woodpecker. It's not wood, there's nothing there for him, why is he doing this? I tried scaring him away, which seemed to work for the rest of today, at least.

Back to plastering -- I should tell you that we've had a change of heart with regard to the color for our walls. The drywall walls (i.e., the interior framed walls) will remain as bright white painted walls. The exterior walls (i.e., the compressed earth block walls) that I'm covering with American Clay, will just be tan -- the natural color of the clay -- which is called Snow Canyon. When I'm applying the plaster, it reminds me of chocolate icing my Mom used to put on cupcakes. When that dries, it turn much lighter and looks like a suede jacket. It's warm, inviting, and masculine. And it goes great with the stained concrete floors, the kitchen cabinets, and the white walls and ceiling. So rather than trying to lighten that clay through expensive additives, we're going to stick with the natural snow canyon look. The basement clay application will be lighter, though, since I already have a 50 lb bag of the final coat of plaster mixed with the white additive.

By the end of the evening, the application of American Clay was completed in the entire great room. Tomorrow night, I'll apply it in the master bathroom and start on the master bedroom. Hopefully by Wednesday the entire main level of the house will be covered in clay - in a good way. Then I can move on to bathroom tile installation!

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.

IKEA's Cool, but American Clay's Cooler

Last week, Andreas and I spent two evenings starting to put together our kitchen cabinets from IKEA. I finished most of the cabinet building today. Originally, we planned to get some awesome eco-friendly cabinets from Amicus Green Building Center, but we'll save those for some time in the future when we have more money. For now, we're on an IKEA budget. I'm pleased with the quality of their cabinets. They are an extremely good value and they'll look great after we measure out the exact location for the cabinets and set them in place, add the plinth block to hide the adjustable cabinet feet, and put the "perfekt" finishing pieces on the ends and along the back of the island to give it a finished look. The big cabinet in the middle is where the sink will be and to the right of that is where the dishwasher will go.

Speaking of dishwashers, Lowe's was re-scheduled to deliver our new appliances tomorrow (Monday). But when I got off the plane returning home from Tampa last night (where I presented on business aviation to the Aircraft Owners & Pilots Association aviation summit), I had a voice mail from Lowe's stating they'd be at the house on Sunday to deliver the appliances. So I skipped church to ensure I was at the house for the delivery, and then got a call from the delivery driver telling me he was going to deliver the refrigerator. But what about the other appliances? Well, it seems they screwed it up a bit and didn't have everything together on one truck. So no delivery today - all the appliances now will come tomorrow. This will be their third attempt, so hopefully the third time is the charm.

Neighbors from across the street, Helen and Jeff, stopped by to visit and check on our progress. Falls Church is such a nice place and our neighbors are wonderful and enjoyable people. It was nice to visit with them.

After I finished putting the cabinets together, I loaded the truck with the cardboard from the IKEA flat-pack boxes and was about to head to the city recycling bin to drop the cardboard off. But I got a better offer! Sarah from next door invited me over to their place for some homemade soup her husband had prepared. I enjoyed a bowl of delicious soup with kale, potato, and sausage, as well as some yummy chicken barbecue. We visited for a while after I ate and I enjoyed watching their daughter, Ellie, play as only a careless toddler can do. To be so young with so few worries again.... :-)

With a full tummy, I went back to work and primed some of the exterior walls with the American Clay Sanded Primer. It is what it sounds like - primer with sand in it. I applied that to smooth areas of the walls (e.g., where the drywall met the earth block wall, the drywall installers feathered joint compound onto the earth block wall to ensure a smooth seam at the corner). The primer seals that joint compound and the sand gives it grit so the American Clay Earth Plaster sticks to it.

While plastering, I had another nice diversion when my sister, Jessica, called. We hadn't talked in a while so it was nice to catch up and hear about the good things happening in her life. I wrapped up plastering after I ran out of plaster in the one bucket I had carried upstairs. I'm taking Monday off, so I'll bring a second bucket up then and continue plastering the guest bedroom. Scheduled interruptions tomorrow will be the appliance delivery and Ferguson dropping off the toilet bowls, sinks, faucets, etc. And I'll drop that cardboard off for recycling, before it rains later this week.

Project Update

Sorry for the infrequent posts. Lest anyone think we've given up on the house, nothing could be further from the truth. We have been making progress, which is refreshing!

What's really great is that the passive solar design of the house and the TerraBrick wall construction with concrete floors as thermal masses really work! It's been sunny, but relatively cool, all week, and the nighttime temps have been in the 30s/40s. We've been working in the house very comfortably without coats/jackets or any supplemental heat -- just the sun during the day heating up the bricks/floor which emit the heat at night when it's cold outside.

Here's a quick snapshot of what we've been busy with:

• The main level interior walls are painted with American Pride paint from Amicus Green Building Center. One of the neighbor's children said we should paint the walls green, since it's a green house. Her sister insisted we should paint the house as tie-dye and get bean bag chairs for furniture. Also a cool idea. But we opted for white interior walls and ceilings to keep things bright.
• The Modern Fan Company ceiling fans arrived from YLighting yesterday, and the extensions arrived today, so we will install those next week when we install the recessed LED lights in the ceiling. We've been coordinating with Tom the electrician to schedule a time for him to install the outlets and light switches.
  
• The concrete floors have been stained (two coats) and sealed (two coats) and they look magnificent!
• The main level building envelop TerraBrick walls mostly have been prepped for American Clay Earth Plaster application. I need to finish that work in the guest bedroom, and then will be able to start applying the plaster - that should be a fun, but time-consuming, project.
• When Steve Clark's crew came for the drywall install, we told him the only rooms in the basement to get drywall were the bedroom and bathroom. We forgot about the ceiling over the stair landing and the hallway to the basement bathroom and bedroom. With German precision, Andreas cut the drywall and we screwed the drywall boards into the joists; now we need to tape, mud and paint that.
  
• We have been putting together our kitchen cabinets from IKEA after dinner each night this week. I know, they're not the greenest choice in the world, but they're better than many other options that are available to us. The decision to go with IKEA was budgetary, but the quality actually is pretty darn good. It just takes time to put the cabinets together, and the instructions are not the best.
  
• With the exception of some PVC piping we need to purchase yet, Andreas now has all of the parts required to finish the rainwater capture system installation. But since he'll be traveling for a bit for work, it'll be tough to get that done as quickly as we'd like.
  
• We're working through some deck installation questions and getting quotes for the deck. The quotes have been all across the board in cost and time to complete.
  

Lots of other small details are being tended to, such as meeting with potential subcontractors to get quotes to finish up certain projects, etc.

Woodpecker Hell

The last thing we need is more stress. But there's a family of woodpeckers that aren't satisfied with the abundant tree opportunities available to them in the neighborhood. Instead, they've created two holes in the side of our house. On the East side, it's a small hole. On the North side, it was a small hole, but it's growing every day as the birds peck away at the extruded foam board. What started as a hole the size of a bullet has grown to a hole the size of a tennis ball.

Any ideas on how to deter these woodpeckers? Is it hunting season yet?

Shopping Spree

I'm back from my Association's annual meeting & convention, which was very successful. The weeks leading up to the Convention were busier than usual, so I wasn't able to post to the blog. Since I returned last Friday, I've been catching up on work, and working on the Erdhaus.

Shopping for fixtures for the house has been a high priority and a nice diversion from all the work we have yet to do. We ordered tile for the bathrooms and bought LED lights at Amicus Green Building Center in Kensington, MD. The master bathroom will have porcelain tile (12" x 24" horizontal) dark grey tile for the shower walls, and 1" x 1" black (color=carbon) porcelain tile for the shower floor. We selected 18" x 18" ceramic tile for the guest bathrooms. The upstairs color is cocoa and the downstairs color is a light tan. It's kind of funny - Andreas said I could pick the tile colors for the guest bathrooms, as long as I didn't pick tan or brown. As it turns out, we picked the tile colors together, and the ones we liked best were tan and brown. The LED lights were on close-out. Perm lighting is the manufacturer and they were acquired by another company. So the discontinued model was being offered by Amicus for a great price ($70 per 6" recessed light). Obviously they are energy efficient.

From YLighting, we ordered three ceiling fans - one for the living room, one for the guest bedroom, and one for the master bedroom. The ceiling fans are the Velo line by Modern Fan Company.


Tom, the electrician, is scheduled to start installing the interior light fixtures next week. We're holding off on exterior installations until the deck is built.

Another selection we have made is for the walkway to the house. Maryann from Terra Landcaping brought over some permeable pavers and marked out with orange marking paint where the walkway will be. While we have the pavers for the walkway, we're electing to go with a simple gravel driveway/parking area (until I win the lottery and can afford to put permeable pavers there instead).

In addition to having fun shopping, we've been working hard on the projects that we're responsible for. Andreas posted photos of the stained concrete floor. We cleared out the items that were in the great room, cleaned the floor there, and put two coats of stain in the great room. Well, Andreas did that and I helped a bit with the first coat of the soy-based stain. Andreas did the first coat of soy-based sealer on the floor today. The sealer will soak in and then we'll put a second coat on and allow it to dry overnight.


The floors look like a marble or granite counter top. The concrete soaks in the stain differently, so it gives texture and variations in color. The Acri-Soy stain and sealer also came from Amicus Green Building Center.

I took yesterday off from work to paint and my goal was to finish all the painting on the main level of the house. It took a bit of time to get set up, and I realized quickly that I first needed to get the shop vac out to clean up a lot of drywall dust that was in the clerestory area. Then it became clear to me that in order for the paint to look high quality, I needed to do a second coat of primer on the walls before applying the final coat of paint. So I applied the primer in the guest bedroom, guest bathroom, and guest hallway and I put the final coat of paint on the walls in the guest bedroom and hallway. I had finished the great room walls and the pantry last week (right after returning home from our Convention) so almost all the paining (oops, I meant to type painting) on the West side of the house is done (just the guest bathroom to finish). Then I can do the second coat of primer and then paint in the master bedroom, closet, and bathroom. I should be able to finish that this Saturday.

There were a lot of interruptions yesterday, which were welcome (painting gets old after a bit, so it's nice to have a break every now and then). Several people came by to look at various projects so they can prepare quotes for us. Another possible subcontractor called to set a time to look at connecting the radiant floor heating system. Lowes was supposed to deliver our appliances, but I called the night before to reschedule for some time in November since the lot is a mud pit. Even though they called later in the evening to confirm that the delivery was delayed, I got a call from the delivery folks stating my delivery was next on their list and they'd be at the house in 30-60 minutes. Oops. I explained the situation and they apologized, so it was a non-issue.

After Andreas finished his meetings at work yesterday, he came to the house and we installed some drywall on the basement ceiling together. We forgot to ask the drywall subcontractor to do a section of the ceiling at the stair landing and the hallway into the downstairs bedroom area. It took a few cuts of drywall and we installed the two sections together. I'll work on taping/mudding/sanding the drywall in the coming days.

While the inside is taking shape, we're hoping the weather will cooperate a bit so we can re-focus on the outside of the house. We started digging more trenches to finish the rainwater storage tank connections. Two trenches for overflow pipes and one trench to bring the water from the tanks to the house. (We've double-plumbed the toilets and hose bibs so they can run City water or rainwater.) Now if we ever again have a period of time without rain so the ground can dry out, we can finish the trenching, get the tanks connected, and then Bob DeMarr's crew can do the final grading.

Once the final grading is done, the subcontractors will install the rest of the cedar siding on the South and West sides of the house. Maryann's crew then can install the permeable paver walkways and we can lay truck loads of mulch over the clay soil to help stabilize the soil and make the lot look much, much nicer than it currently does. And then there's decking to be built, but that's a blog posting of its own - another expensive disaster we're trying to mitigate, compliments of Aaron/Cornerstone Building Services.

Each day's accomplishments brings us a step closer to moving in the house. It's important to recognize how far we've come, since it's easy to see how far we have yet to go.

We're Floored

We're almost done staining our concrete floors, but I couldn't resist putting this picture up: Here is what our floors will look like - concrete stained with a soy-based (Soycrete) stain and sealed with a matte-finish sealer from the same manufacturer (Acrysoy).

Several reasons for the slightly unusual choice of flooring: concrete floors provide the thermal mass both for passive solar heating and for the radiant floor heat; and staining the concrete was by far the most economical option, compared to tile or hardwood or bamboo flooring. And, we think it looks cool - the stain brings out the structure of the concrete, and creates some really wonderful colors.

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.

Oh Happy Day

Fast, efficient, effective. Three of my favorite words. That would describe the crew from Steve Clark Dry Walls, who we hired to hang the drywall for us. Steve was recommended to us by our awesome banker, Mike Terpak with Access National Bank in Reston, VA. His crew started around 8am today, and completed work around 8pm tonight (hence the poor quality photos, since it's getting dark out waaayyy to early for me). In that 12 hour period, they hung about 160 sheets of drywall throughout the house plus 16 sheets of Durarock in the bathtub/shower areas. It looks to me like they did a very good job, and the crew will be back in the morning to start taping and mudding all of the seams. They'll bring it to a smooth finish, ready for priming, and should be done within the week. This is an exciting time -- oh happy day!

Update at Last!

Many, many thanks to Mom and Bill for coming two weekends in a row to help out with home construction projects. It's been a busy time since I last blogged, and most of our effort on the house was cleaning up some errors Aaron Holmes (from Cornerstone Building Services) and crews he hired had made. There's still more of that to address, but we're making progress there. The rest of the time was spent moving various projects forward. Much of what we did is barely noticeable, but are important details.

Here's some of what we accomplished:

- Carried 165 sheets of drywall into the house, that 84 Lumber delivered in the yard.

- Measured and ordered paperless drywall for the bathrooms, as required by EarthCraft for the top-level certification (Aaron ordered greenboard, which is not permitted under the EarthCraft certification program top-tier)

- Met with two drywall subcontractors to obtain quotes for installation.

- Prepared PVC pipe for rainwater recapture tanks.

- Corrected framing mistakes (e.g., changed framing so the range hood exhaust can be centered on the wall the way it was supposed to be).

- Installed new framing around the TRV ducting and return air grill ducting in the guest bathroom and the master closet.

- Corrected the range hood vent ducting so it is now centered on the kitchen wall.

- ARS installed the fresh air ducting to the TRV and insulated the ducting in accordance with EarthCraft requirements.

- Nailed in electrical boxes in three areas where Tom from Creager Electrical left wires hanging for future electrical components.

- Mixed American Clay Loma and Porcelina plaster in buckets.

- Photographed all of the framing, plumbing, and electrical wires and noted measurements for each of these so that we know where they are hiding in the walls once the drywall is installed.

- Ordered copper-to-pex fittings to connect the pex tubing with the radiant floor heating system.

- Stained the cedar trim boards TW Perry delivered, which is for the house siding. (Aaron had not specified enough cedar when he gave us the requirements to order more, so the siding work has been on hold until all of the cedar come in. This was the first of three kinds of cedar we ordered again through TW Perry.)

In addition to helping with these projects, Mom and Bill brought us a wonderful lunch and homemade shoo-fly pie for Saturday, and fresh eggs and bacon from Pennsylvania Dutch country for breakfast on Sunday.

Sorry, no photos this posting.

Installing Rain Water Tanks

You might have seen the cute, little rain barrels that one can make from wine casks or plastic drums. Most hardware stores, and all green building centers, have these in stock so you can capture rain water from your gutter/downspout and use it for watering plants, etc. While those are good for existing homes, that's child's play compared to our new rain water capture system. We have three tanks that hold 1,400 gallons each. DeMarr's crew was on site to dig the ditch in the front of the house; the tanks will live under ground. They've been filling the tanks partially with water as they've backfilled the ditch. Bernie from Clarke County Plumbing will be on-site Friday to connect the PVC pipe to bring the rainwater to the tanks, and also to connect the pump system Andreas drove 8 hours roundtrip to Salem, VA to pick up so it would be here on time (another failure on our construction manager's part with poor planning). More to come on this as the tanks are connected, but here are some photos of the tanks in the ground.

The Economy Has Recovered!

Based on the lines at every store this weekend, and the amount of money we spent on the house, I think we can officially declare that the recession in the U.S. ended as of September 7, 2009.

If only that were true....

Over the past few months, we had shopped around for a while at various retailers for appliances. Andreas's boss, Tim, suggested we look at Lowes, since he found them to have the best prices overall. We had a good sense of what the appliances for our house would cost, and then, as it turned out, Lowes had a 20% off all Energy Star appliances sale this past weekend. Ka-ching! It was great. Each appliance we could buy with an Energy Star rating has now been purchased: Washing machine; dishwasher; refrigerator. The dryer and the slide-in range are not available as Energy Star approved. Except in Winter months, we likely won't use the dryer that often anyway, as a clothes line in the backyard will dry the clothes and add a fresh smell that will remind me of home when I was growing up. The range was our splurge - an Electrolux with great features. Our refrigerator/freezer (with the freezer drawer on the bottom) is Samsung. The washing machine, dryer, and dishwasher all are Bosch.

Now it's time to brag and talk bucks. Or savings of bucks, to be more precise. Andreas and I picked out an efficient Bosch washing machine and dryer. We were excited about the quality, but not thrilled with the price. The washing machine alone cost $1,098. That's more than I had ever spent before on an appliance in my entire life. But it was really quality, and really efficient. While we were waiting our turn for assistance, we wandered the showroom floor and came across three floor model Bosch washers - the exact same model as we picked out - marked down several times. All had a few scratches on them, but they still were brand-new, and everything seemed in order. We wondered why these floor models were so cheap. When a sales rep (Zony was his name) was available, we asked him why it was marked down so much. He said people usually don't want to buy them when they learn that they have to buy an $1,100 dryer to go with it. But since we already planned to buy that dryer, this was quite a deal for us. Zony helped us with all of our other appliance questions and the order, then it came time to buy the floor model Bosch washer. He needed an override for the discounted price, so he asked his manager to enter that. While asking his manager for the code, Zony asked him to give us an even greater discount on the washing machine, to which he agreed. Are you sitting down? The $1098 washing machine cost $200. We bought an extended warranty....just in case.

While our appliance brands don't all match, we're excited about the quality we got - best in class (well, best within our budget) for each appliance type. The only appliance left to buy is the range hood, which we'll order tomorrow. We've already picked it out.

While we were on a shopping roll this weekend, we decided to go to IKEA to get our kitchen cabinets. We will have only base cabinets, not upper cabinets. The cabinets we selected are very warm, yet contemporary in style. Fortunately, IKEA had everything in stock, so we took our new cabinets with us. They're ready for assembly! People who like to dismiss the thought of IKEA cabinets either are a bit uppity about name brands, or they don't know the significant increase in IKEA kitchen cabinet product quality over the past several years. My father and I made the cabinets in the kitchen in my condo, and they're beautiful. The IKEA cabinets look almost as good, but for a lot less money.

On a completely separate note, I saw yesterday the work of the siding crew and I am glad that Aaron fired them. Again, and again, and again, I emphasized to Aaron how important it was that his siding crew nailed every board of cedar in a straight, vertical line. I even sent photographs to of other buildings to show exactly what I meant. However, his crew's nailing, which does not show up on the photo we posted the other day, looks horrific! It's like they were on drugs and zig-zagged everywhere with the nail gun. I think all of the siding needs to come off and Aaron will have to replace any boards that are damaged. He had clear instructions, and in writing, so it's his responsibility to make it right.

Recycling Dumpster Report

As you might recall from earlier posts, we had a recycling dumpster on-site during part of our house construction. Rather than sending everything to the landfill, our dumspter vendor (Environmental Alternatives, Inc.) goes through all of the dumpster content and recycles everything that they can. Only what cannot be recycled goes to the landfill.

We filled the dumpster twice. About 45% of the dumpster content was metal, wood, concrete aggregate, gypsum, or other recyclable material. So while more went to the landfill than we hoped, almost 15 tons of material were recycled.

Three steps forward, two steps back

Since Mike is out of town, I get to make the Friday progress report.

Early in the morning, Dominion Virginia Power - our power distributor - came to hook up the cable that D. A. Foster had laid the day before. All they had to do was to run the cable up the electric pole at the front of our lot, connect the other end to our meter box, install the permanent meter and ... we had power in the house! They took the meter out of the old temporary service, and we can now dismantle the old temporary pole. Power's on!


Next, I decided to take the concrete that Bartley Corp had spilled (see Mike's earlier post) to be recycled. Since we are still officially Arlington County residents, I drove the concrete to Arlington's Solid Waste station. As a resident, you can drop off "small" amounts of concrete there for free. They grind it up and re-use it as aggregate for road and other construction.

Here's a picture of 1,120 pounds of concrete in Mike's truck:


And this is Arlington County's inert materials yard where it gets recycled:


Next, Southland Insulators came to install the spray foam insulation in our ceiling, and around the band in the basement. We chose a Demilec product, "Agribalance." Like the more well-known Icynene, it is an open-cell spray foam, but it contains more than 20% renewable, agricultural-based ingredients (mostly soy). It gives us an R-value of 4.45 per inch - and we're getting just a little over 8 inches for an R-38.9.

It's not easy to install. The applicator sprays a thin film onto the ceiling, which over the next 3 seconds grows to anywhere between 4 and 10 inches. Applying this smoothly and evenly is a difficult job. If you're thinking about doing this yourself ... think again! It is not for the faint-hearted, it's a messy job (it sprays just about everywhere), and ... it stinks. Here's a picture of the applicator, complete with plastic protection suit and fresh-air respirator:


Here's the ceiling once he was done ...


... well, three-quarters done. Then he ran out of material. They're coming back on Tuesday (Monday is a holiday - labor day) to finish up the ceiling and sides, and move on down to the basement. That means we had to cancel the scheduled close-in inspection, but it gives us a chance to measure that we've got the right amount of sprayfoam depth everywhere. I marked the areas that were under-sprayed with orange spray paint - that way, there's no ambiguity about where we need a little extra! Chris Conway, our EarthCraft advisor spent a few hours helping me understand how to tell where the insulation got under-applied, and how important the right spray-depth is.

Another step back (or forward?) was that the siding crew got fired. They just proved incapable of being precise and careful with what's a very visible component of our house. Every time one of our team (Aaron or I) turned around after giving them instructions, they just did how they pleased anyway. So, on Tuesday another siding crew will take over where they left off, fix what they couldn't do right, and hopefully give us the perfect siding.