The doors and more

The big doors are finally in. One of the architectural visions for the house is to blur the lines between inside and outside by providing oversize openings to outside areas. This is accomplished by very large 3 panel sliding glass doors which disappear into the wall on either end of the common area. Although the frames were in last week, the doors weren't in until this week. These doors are unlike any other sliding doors I have ever seen. The crew was impressed by them also; in spite of the 3 panels weighing a couple hundred pounds each, the doors can be opened with only 2 fingers. When fully open, they disappear completely.

Sliding glass doors with Regan (right) our architect and Debra, his associate. (Click for a larger image.)

Open doors

Inside fireplace

The finish siding has been completed on one side of the bedroom wing of the house. Before being nailed up, it is sprayed with an iron oxide solution which causes it to darken rapidly. I've noticed on lots of new houses that the finish work is a lot sloppier than it should be. I looked carefully at a couple of areas where you might expect gaps or "close enough" work. All I saw were tight joints and crisp lines; this is a crew that clearly cares about their work.

Finish siding. (Click for a bigger image.)

My one concern about having fire sprinklers has been: what if no one is home and we have a fire? The sprinklers may put out the fire but who turns off the sprinklers? If we dump all 6,000 gallons of stored water through the sprinklers, we may end up with a huge amount of damage. It was my intention to have remotely monitored smoke detectors on the assumption that a smoke detector would go off before the sprinklers; hopefully, the only thing the fire department would have to do when they arrived was to turn off the sprinklers. Well, it turns out that remotely monitored smoke detectors are required by code if you have sprinklers. In addition, the sprinklers have a sensor that signals the remote monitor when a sprinkler opens. One of the other benefits of remotely monitored detectors is that they are all wired to a central control unit. This unit provides power during normal operation and has a battery backup when there is a power interruption. I no longer have to buy a big packet of 9
volt batteries from Costco for the annual smoke detector battery change.

The house will be heated radiantly with warm water circulated in a web of plastic pipes under the floors. This is supposedly the best way to heat a house for a variety of reasons. First, since the heat is provided from below, it is comfortable since your feet are warm and head is cool. Second, it doesn't lead to dust and dirt distribution like in a forced air system. Finally, the temperature of virtually every room can be set independently. This allows a guest to sleep as warm or cold as they like without disturbing the person in the room next door.

The beginnings of the radiant system

So where does the warm water for the radiant heat come from? Normally, it would come from a boiler burning oil or gas. At our house, the bulk of the hot water will come from 8 solar collectors on the roof which will keep a large storage tank filled with hot water. This water will be used for the domestic supply year round. In the winter, it will also be used for radiant heat. In the late spring through early fall, it will be used for heating the pool. (A heat exchanger will be used to transfer the heat from the storage tank to the pool water.) There will also be backup heaters fired by propane so we won't freeze if there is a long stretch of cold, cloudy days.

The basement of the shop will be where all the solar heating and storage equipment will be in addition to the pool pumps and backup pool heater. (Remember the soils problem we had during building the foundation? One of the side effects was a very large, deep basement under the shop, perfect for equipment like this.)

Wiring, insulation, and rattlesnakes

The last 3 weeks have seen lots of different subcontractors and progress in many areas. The roofer has returned and put on metal trim at the roof edge. The plumber has completed nearly all the plumbing. The fire sprinklers have been installed. Almost all low voltage (network, audio, video, telephone) wires have been pulled. Almost all the lights and outlets have been roughed in and wired. The ceilings in the outside areas have been insulated and are ready for the plasterer to start. The last framing details for things like tub surrounds have been completed. The last windows and doors have been installed, including the massive 3 panel sliding doors on either end of the common areas.

Plumbing and wiring.

Fire sprinklers (orange), low voltage (blue) and high voltage (wite) wiring.

Insulation in the covered patio ceiling.

Pool patio cabinet area and entry to exercise room to the left.

In spite of all this progress, we still have 9-12 months left to go. As they say, the devil is in the details.

A couple weeks ago, I hired a low voltage wiring consultant to validate and improve my crude attempt at designing a computer network, whole house audio/video/telephone system. He fixed various problems, pointed out deficiencies and simplified it in several areas. He worked very well with the electrician who provided the actual physical labor. His method was to go through the house after the electrician placed all the wall boxes for the low voltage systems and attach tags that specified what wire was pulled from where and how to tag it. After all the wires are pulled, he'll come back to install and configure the central control units.

Since the common areas have lots of lights, we didn't want to end up with a huge bank of switches. The solution is to use a lighting control system that allows a single keypad to control groups of lights; this system was also designed by the low voltage consultant. The end result is if you want to walk out to the pool at night instead of knowing which switches to turn on, you can press a single key on the keypad which turns on all the light from the main part of the house out to the pool in addition to the lights at the pool patio and surrounding areas.

Insulation is currently the big issue with no answer yet; the choice is between cheap and green. We are trying to build as green as possible but it is hard with insulation. We've already decided to spend a considerable amount on solar water heating. This will allow the pool to be used for more of the year and dramatically reduce the amount of fossil fuel used for heating. The decking (ipe) and flooring (most like Rose River Red Gum from Australia) are both certified as being sustainably harvested. We are planning on supplying a significant portion of our electrical power via a photovoltaic system.

The problem with green insulation is that it is very, very expensive. For example, to insulate with green spray-in foam would cost roughly 4 times as much as non-green fiberglass. Granted the foam is more efficient and will reduce energy costs but this efficiency doesn't come close to being cost effective. We are hoping to use a hybrid system where we use foam where we need the best insulation (roof and walls exposed to full afternoon sun) and fiberglass where it isn't as critical (floors, interior walls, ceilings in the outside areas). This will hopefully give us the best of both worlds while being at least partially green.

The crew has started to install the redwood siding that has been treated to darken
it. This will make the building look less new and avoids the variation in color that results from using untreated wood. As you drive through the wine country, you will see lots of buildings with siding done in the traditional board and batten pattern. Our house will be using the "reverse" board and batten which is similar but we like it much more.

Bottom layer of reverse board and batten siding.

Siding detail near the entry way.

Last week as we were walking through the house looking at the progress, I saw a baby rattlesnake curled up on a piece of wood. Contrary to what you'd think, baby rattlers are much more dangerous than adults since their venom is more neurotoxic than the venom of adult snakes. As the crew gathered round, various solutions for its removal were proposed. One of the crew volunteered that he actually had considerable experience at rattlesnake removal and he went off to construct his removal tool. This turned out to be a relatively short piece of plastic tubing with a loop of string in it. The loop is placed over the snake's head then the end of the string (at the other end of the tube) is pulled snug. This doesn't hurt the snake but allows it to be lifted and transported. Hopefully, when he grows up it will be somewhere else.

Our baby rattlesnake.