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.

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.

Super Siding

Andreas snapped this photo with his iPhone and emailed it to me. I had to get it up on the blog. Doesn't the cedar siding look wonderful? I love the shiplap siding with the 1/8" gap between the boards. That adds so much character in a contemporary design way. The color of the Osmo all-natural stain we selected is so beautiful to me, exactly what we wanted, and I think it looks fantastic against the light grey/tan stucco. This is a nice way to end the day!

Holey, Holey, Holey

Bob DeMarr's crew came back to core drill some holes through the foundation and the TerraBricks for the TRV fresh air inlet and exhaust and the fireplace fresh air inlet. In addition, Piedmont Roofing came back and completed the roof penetrations for the fireplace chimney and the kitchen exhaust hood pipe.

TRV Fresh Air Inlet:

TRV Exhaust:

Fireplace chimney:


For Range Hood:

For Dryer Vent:

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:

The Electric Company

Earlier this week, Dominion Power's subcontractor dug the trench in our lot and ran the conduit and electrical wires through that. It's great that we won't have above ground power lines running from the street, down our lot, and connecting to the house. Underground lines will look better and, importantly, are not susceptible to tree branches falling on them, knocking out power.

At our condo in Arlington, we participate in the Dominion Power's green energy program. I expect we'll do the same in our new home.

At the same time the crew installs the conduit and wire for electricity, they laid conduit for Cox Cable. That's standard practice, even though we don't plan to have cable TV service.

Thanks, Tim! And Sunday Progress

Last night, Andreas and I enjoyed a delicious bottle of Prosecco, which a neighbor (Tim) gave us several weeks ago as a thank you gift for the tour of the construction site we gave him. The gift was unnecessary, but greatly appreciated. We raised our glasses toasting Tim and the other, gracious, residents of Falls Church, who we have enjoyed meeting over the past several months.

Today we cleaned more. It's not glamorous, but it is necessary. We vacuumed in the basement, preparing for more scrubbing of the floor. And the upstairs, where we cleaned up around the duct system registers. And Andreas broke up more concrete that was dropped around the lot by Bartley's crew. I think that's the last of it. Finally, we placed plastic sheeting down over the newly-poured concrete floor to protect that when the windows are installed tomorrow - at long last. Sorry, no photos again today. Except one of the tasty Prosecco!

Saturday Progress

We started work early this morning. The first task to tackle was filling in the basement window wells with stone. Of course we didn't want to fill them up all the way, but there was a deep mud pit area in each window well and that needed to be filled in, up to the base of the window well insert. We bought 1/2 ton of inexpensive #57 crushed stone to fill up most of the pit, and 1/2 ton of a more expensive decorative stone (it's called chalet) to top that off. So what you see from inside the basement is only the decorative stone. We couldn't have put any more stone in the bed of my little Ford Ranger since we already were close to maximum weight. So we thought we might have to make a second run for stone. Then it occurred to me that we could make lemonade out of the lemons Bartley's crew handed us this week. We broke up the leftover concrete they had carelessly dumped on our lot and put that in the window well pits first. We covered the broken up concrete (which is as if we had just put some larger rocks down first) with the #57 crushed stone next. It worked out well - we didn't need to make a second trip for stone and we used some of that concrete and didn't have to take it to the Fairfax County dump. There's still some left, but we think we might be able to use that for another project.

After a quick lunch, we filled the bed of my truck with free Wood Chip mulch from the City of Falls Church. We used some of it to freshen up a neighbor's yard area where some muddy water from our construction site ended up after a heavy rain earlier this week, some of it covered over the mulch Bartley's crew dumped concrete on, and the rest of it went on the corner of the lot to stabilize some soil, hoping to minimize any future run off.

Now came for the hard work - cleaning the basement floor. As we wrote in a post some time ago, before the sump pumps were installed (and once after they were installed when a crew unplugged the sump pump right before a heavy rain) we ended up with water in our basement. The water brought with it some very fine dirt that sat on the basement floor for months while we've been focused on construction. We decided to clean that up so we can soon stain the basement concrete floor. It took a few hours on hands and knees with a scrub brush, and now the basement bedroom, closet, and bathroom is clean. The floor is drying and we'll test the coloring for the soy-based stain tomorrow before we clean another part of the basement and then put down some plastic tarp to try to keep the area from getting dirty again.

Sorry there are no pictures today; we were busy working and I forgot to snap some photos. It's too dark in the basement to take good photos with the iPhone, so I'll try to bring a real camera tomorrow.