335 Maplewood Ave Renovation

Lots of snow - no ice dams

2011-01-28T14:57:00.000-05:00

James climbed up to shovel off the kitchen roof.

We shoveled off a little section of the insualted roof to inspect the ice damming situation.

It looks pretty good.

There is a little bit of ice on the edge but we suspect that that is from rain we had earlier in the week that might have taken a little bit of time to migrate down through the snow.

The underside of the drip edge is exposed to the elements and is conductive so when the rain water did trickle down - it must have froze the moment it hit the bottom of the roof where the flashing is. The strip of ice is about the depth of the drip edge. Just a thought...

I took the old temperature gun out on the roof and it is pretty cool to see the surface temperatures of the building assemblies from the outside and how they relate to the assembly R-value. It is pretty cool to see the temperatures corrilate with the thermal performance of the assemblies.

Outside temp of the snow in the shade.

R-18 Wall (no direct sunlight)

R-3 Window (The frame where I am shooting is probably a little less than R-2)

R-32 Roof

335 Maplewood Video by Now or Never Media

2011-01-24T08:55:00.005-05:00

Click on the link below to see Now or Never Media's professionally produced 5 minute video about the project here at 335 Maplewood!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vvja1b8Szgs

Bill Rogers of Now or Never Media capturing some footage.

No heat in my office..

2011-01-19T10:53:00.009-05:00

My office is the only room in the entire building that has been finished. Lucky me! The floors are sanded and refinished, it was re-plastered, painted, and is the only room with window trim. The only thing that this room is lacking is HEAT (which is funny since we are a HVAC Engineering firm). The conference room below me had its baseboard lines cut too.

We purchased a sexy new Runtal Radiator with a thermostat, valve fittings, and all the bells and whistles needed to hook it up back in the fall. It is all sitting right here here in my office, leaning up against the wall - ready to go. We have been waiting for the basement slab to be installed before hiring a plumber to come in a hook it up since marching around in the basement in a half foot of slippery mud is a less than ideal work environment.

Needless to say, my room has been a little chilly. Warmth from the rest of the building does not quite migrate its way over to my little office the way that I had hoped it would. When i get to work in the morning, the temp will be in the low 60s which might as well be sub-zero when you are sitting still in a chair all day.

Keep in mind that this room is wrapped in 3" of continuous insulation at the walls and 6" at the roof, just like the rest of the building. I had hoped that maybe the load in this room would be so low that I would be able to survive from the warmth from the rest of the building. Ehh... Almost. As good as the enclosure is in this room, it is still has 3 decent sized R-3 windows. When I use my wizard stick smoke generator and blow a puff of smoke at the window, you can see the smoke get sucked into the convective loop at the surface of the glass and the smoke runs down the surface of the window like a waterfall.

You can see in the table above that the load from the 3 windows in this room is just about equal to the load of the entire roof! This just goes to show that windows are bad bad bad insulators.

_________________________________________________________

To make up for this lack of heat while I paitently have been waiting to have my radiator hooked up, I have been heating my room with two 100w incandescent lightbulbs. As silly as it sounds, it has done a great job at taking the edge off in here. 90% of that 100w goes toward generating heat (this is why these lightbulbs are sooo bad). The light fixtures warn to not use anything over 60w but I figured out that if I point my desk lamp up, the amount of air that is drawn from all of the rising heat is enough to effectively cool the lamp. Don't worry everyone, I don't leave these lightbulbs unattended. (yes - I cleaned my desk to take this picture. It usually looks like a paper grenade went off)

By the way - This is what I see when I look up from my chair. Thanks to the continuous exterior insulation, we were able to preserve this beautiful structure and prevent it from being permantly spray foamed over or covered up by interior insulation.

See the little bookshelf up in the structure?

Finished Slab

2011-01-10T09:23:00.001-05:00

Alright! The basement slab is done! This is great! It has been quite a journey to get to this point and it has been one of the most dramatic transformations that I have seen in this renovation.

The next big step in the basement is going to be to spray foam the walls. We anticipate this happening sometime this winter with no set date on the calendar yet.

The Site Structures guys found this Black Label Beer bottle while doing their slab pour prep-work. A quick Google search tells me that Black Label was one of the top 10 breweries in the US in the mid 1950's. Great find!

This is our sump pump pit located under the stairs. The current water level rests a few inches below the rigid insulation and is self governed by a pre-existing gravity drain located in the south east corner of the basement. We had the gravity drain exit inspected and it does not connected to the city sewer system. We suspect that it is simply a length of pipe that is full of cracks and holes that does a good job dissipating water down hill from our basement - kind of like a leach field does with a septic system.

If everything goes to plan, water should continue to drain itself and maintain this water level the way that it has has for the past 50-100-200? years. We don't know when that drain was installed. In the event that the gravity drain stops accepting water, we will (unfortunately) need to pump the water to daylight if it becomes a problem. So far we have not needed to pump anything. Heck, James pulled the pump right out of the sump pit!

Concrete Pour Pictures

2011-01-06T14:42:00.002-05:00

Ahhh Yessssss.... Below Slab Insulation

2011-01-05T15:46:00.006-05:00

The site structures crew is scrambling to finish the basement prep-work in time for the concrete truck that will be here at 7 AM tomorrow morning to pour the slab. They in the process of finishing up laying down the below slab insulation and are starting to tack the slab edge insulation into place. Once all of the insulation is in place, they are going to roll out a thick yellow vapor barrier and tape the seams which will create a neat and tightly bathtub for the concrete to be poured into.
(below slab insulation walk through TODAY)

(It was only 2 weeks ago it looked like this...)

(laying down layer of geotextile fabric 2 weeks ago)

(the crushed stone being conveyer belted into the basement 2 weeks ago)

I just learned how to convert videos from my Sony camera (somebody took my Flip camera) into the correct format for uploads :)

Foundation Shelf

2011-01-04T09:37:00.011-05:00

In the back "L" of the basement, the foundation walls do not go down as far as the rest of the building. We need to provide lateral support for that soil beneath these shorter sections of wall so that it may retain its high compressive strength. We are going to do this by pouring a 6" concrete shelf to hold any exposed earth back.

(Imagine standing in a box of tennis balls (random analogy). If you were careful and maybe had some help, you could probably stand on top of the balls. Now imagine you are standing on top of box of tennis balls and somebody removes one side of that box. What is going to happen? The tennis balls are going to explode out the side and you are going to fall on your butt. In order for the tennis balls to have any compressive strength to carry a load (you) it needs lateral support to hold it all together (box). Get it? By excavating below the foundation wall, we essentially just removed a wall of our box.)

red = exposed earth

6" thick concrete shelf is poured around the sections of wall that would have exposed above the top of the finished slab.

The poured slab protects and reinforces and remaining sections of exposed earth.

This is what the final product is going to look like (except the translucent brick). Notice the 6" step? We decided to use a step to reduce the amount of exposed earth that we needed to pour a shelf for.

This is the section of wall before the shelf was poured. There was about 20" of exposed earth below the bottom of the foundation wall. Yikes!

The following pictures were taken today of the forms for the concrete shelf being removed:

This ridge vent material is going to provide us with a little space to let any liquid water from the foundation wall to drain down, bypass the concrete slab, and make its way to the drainage system below.

James and the Site Structures guys going over sump pump piping.

Layin' down a bed of crushed stone

2010-12-22T09:03:00.009-05:00

Double click on this detail to see exactly what we are building here.
Please note that they have laid the perforated pipe in the back "L" part of the basement (I didn’t get any pictures) and are going to install the rest today hopefully. They are right now trying to get all of the stone they are going to need for the main part of the building piled into the center of the basement so that they can return the conveyer, install the remaining perforated pipe, and rake the crushed stone out on top of it. They could not lay all the perforated pipe first because it would get in the way of the wheelborrows needed to get the stone in.

Site Structures first put down a layer of this black, water permeable, geotextile fabric that will keep the crushed stone from getting fouled by the clay below.

They rented a conveyer belt to get the crushed stone into the building. Outside, somebody pushes and shovels crushed stone from the back of a truck or trailer onto the conveyer belt. The conveyer belt then brings the stone into the basement and conveniently drops it in a strategically placed the wheelbarrow. This whole process requires a lot of yelling back and forth to not overload the wheelbarrow.

Once full, whoever is inside would carefully walk the loaded wheelbarrow across the basement planks and dump the stone in a big pile in the center of basement.

This is the last time we will ever see this mucky mess...

2010-12-20T12:03:00.002-05:00

In about 20 minutes from now, the Site Structures crew is going to start laying down a layer of geotextile fabric and crushed stone. This is the last time we will ever see this mucky mess again!

Material Delivery For Basement Work!

2010-12-16T16:03:00.005-05:00

I got so excited about this material delivery that I just had to stand on the foam and take a picture. Yes, I used a self timer for this picture (awkward). We received some perforated tubing for the perimeter drain, geotextile fabric to keep the crushed stone from smushing into the clay, and our below slab vapor retarder.

(The delivery guy handed me a bullet pen just like this one to sign the invoice. I almost forgot to give it back to him and he told me to give him back his bullet...)

Basement work? What?

2010-12-15T11:48:00.003-05:00

James Petersen and Charlie Bourdages of Site Structures measuring the tops of the poured lally colum footings in order to determine the final elevations for the floor slab assembly.

Frozen Sink

2010-12-10T08:57:00.005-05:00

Do you remember how we thermally amputated our kitchen from the main building? We never turned the water off to the kitchen sink. Umm Ya. Last night it was 9 degrees and they finally froze...

Wizard Stick

2010-12-07T08:43:00.005-05:00

A couple of weeks ago we bought a handheld smoke generator called a "Wizard Stick" to help us detect leaks and drafts in our building enclosure. Unlike the old type of acid based smoke puffers that are toxic to breathe and corrodes wires, the Wizard Stick produces safe non-toxic thick clouds of smoke using 6 AA batteries and a little bit of theatrical smoke juice. I have had the pleasure of keeping the Wizard Stick on my desk to experiment (play) with over the last few weeks.

Example of a chemical based smoke stick: http://www.teamflexo.com/products/teltru.asp

My office has not had its radiator hooked up yet and I use the smoke to verify that if I crack a window, air is being pushed out my window and not drawn in (because of stack effect). Depending on the wind, sometimes air will be drawn into the building and sometimes if it is gusty out, air will be drawn into and pushed out of the window crack erratically. It is a fascinating thing to see.

I discovered this mysterious little hold in the corner of my office that draws in air down into it. I don't know where it goes from there...

Our chimney has a brand new damper on it and it still draws a lot of air!

There are lots of inflatable bladder products available on the market that get jammed into flue right above the fire box and inflated. That is great and all but there is still a convective loop of outside air just on the other side of that inflatable badder. James and I have been trying to brainstorm a way to insulate and air seal the chimney flue up where the chimney intersects the roof. Here is a little napkin sketch James made...

Retaining wall done

2010-12-06T08:41:00.000-05:00

Site Structures is Back!

2010-12-03T09:35:00.006-05:00

Site Structures is back on site. Finally some action around here! They are building a 20' long (not tall) retaining wall along the property line of our next door neighbor's driveway. The wall that was there was not doing much to hold our neighbors driveway back.

Frosty Morning

2010-11-29T09:15:00.001-05:00

This is what the roof looked like outside of my window this morning. Cool huh?

NHSEA Presentation

2010-11-22T08:40:00.002-05:00

The NHSEA Presentation on Saturday went well. We really tried to make the session as fun and action packed as possible. I think we did a pretty good job. There were a few moments that I had to yell over the sound of the drill but other than that, it was good. I think that we set a world record for having the most slides(244)in a presentation while also performing a live building demonstration!

(from the left: Pete Swisloski & Dan Vooris from Bruss Construction, Me)

NHESA Presentation This Saturday!

2010-11-18T11:53:00.003-05:00

I am going to be giving a presentation this Saturday at the NHSEA Home Energy Conference in Concord with Peter Swislosky from Bruss Construction.

The presentation is going to include a thorough slide show of construction photos, explanations and reasoning behind design choices, and a LIVE building demonstration. The building demonstration will be performed using a 7' tall wall/roof mock-up and will showcase details used for our roof overhang build out, window instillation, and wall termination at the foundation.

This presentation is going to be jam packed with a lot of information and should be a lot of fun!

For information about the conference visit:
http://www.nhsea.org/home-energy/conference-info-2010

Workshop B — 1:15-2:45
335 Maplewood Ave-History meets Energy Efficiency
Ryan Lacey of Petersen Engineering
Peter Swislosky President, Precision Building Solutions
Ryan and Pete will talk about their adventures in retrofitting a historic building in Portsmouth, NH to reduce the heating load by a projected 85%. Learn how this project showcases techniques & materials that promote both preservation and sustainability. This session will include a slideshow of construction photographs and a live building demonstration that will exhibit techniques used.
For a preview, check out Ryan’s Blog http://petersenengineering.blogspot.com/

Kitchen Wall Insulation Complete

2010-11-08T11:02:00.000-05:00

Ron was in over the weekend and put up the 2 layers of 1-1/2" extruded polystyrene w/ staggered, taped, and foamed joint on top of the typar air barrier. He then put a layer of advantech sheathing over the foam to hold it all together and protect it. (just like we did on the exterior of the building) He removed the old door and installed an insulated exterior door because this wall is our new thermal barrier. We now officially have a 3 season kitchen. bbbbrrrrrr....

Good job Ron!

Oops... Sump Pump Hose Fell Back Into Building

2010-11-05T09:38:00.002-04:00

You know something is bad when you hear somebody say, "hey, why does it sound like a waterfall in the basement?"

Our temporary sump pump hose that we had running out of a basement window, fell back into the basement sometime overnight or this morning. The pump was running nonstop pumping water to itself!

It was only 20 minutes ago that I opened the basement door to see this scary sight:

I put the hose back out the window. We should be good now.

Insulate wall separating the kitchen

2010-11-04T09:53:00.015-04:00

We renovated all of the exterior of the building with exception for the kitchen. Why did we do that? The kitchen (seen below as the area hatched out on the right of the elevation) is falling apart and is literally built on cinder blocks. We did not want to put good money after bad trying to fix this section up. If anything, it needs to be completely torn down and re-built on a proper foundation. For now we are just going to leave it.

This elevation was part of our Historic District Commission submittal. The kitchen is the section of building that is hatched out on the far right.

We had the heating pipes serving the kitchen cut in an attempt to thermally amputate it from our main building. (that sounds really gross to say) The interior wall separating the kitchen from our conference room is our new thermal and air barrier. We are going to apply 3" of rigid foam to the walls just like we did to the rest of the building and we are going to replace the existing door with an insulated exterior door.

We need to connect the air barrier on the interior wall we are insulating to the air barrier on the exterior walls. Luckily, from the interior of the kitchen, a tiny piece of the exterior wall's Tyvek air barrier is visible. We are going to butt the Typar we are using inside up to the Tyvek and are going to attach them together using Great Stuff foam. Great Stuff does a great job getting into all the little nooks and crannies and does a good job adhering to whatever it touches.

This is a really scary picture. There is a lot of things going on here. Notice the vertical sliver of white? That is our exterior wall Tyvek air barrier that we are going to be attaching our interior Typar air barrier to using Great Stuff foam.

This is the Typar tacked into place. The rigid foam is going to go on top of this.

We needed to removed some floor boards in the kitchen to gain full access to the wall and sill.

View from the conference room towards the kitchen. This door is going to be removed and either put in the attic for a future project of donated somewhere.

In this photo you can see that the kitchen is literally built on cinder blocks. No wonder the floor feels like a circus fun house!

Ron sistered on a 2x6 to the exposed sill for added strength and to have something solid to build off of. He put down a bead of Great Stuff foam on the existing rough sill before sistering the new lumber to create a air tight seal. Believe it or not, the sill and the sistered pieces of lumber is part of the air barrier assembly.

Lets see if i can illustrate it using my markers...

Ok so the crayola marker sketch didn't come out too clean and "hing" of sheathing was cut of in the scan on the top right. Sorry about that. If I had the time, I would do it again with different markers.

What if we went ahead and removed every component in the drawings above except for the materials that serve as the air barrier? It would look something like this:

Air barriers need to be continuous in all directions. To ensure that the air barrier is continuous, you should be able to draw a line from the roof to the foundation highlighting the materials and connections that make up the air barrier assembly and not need to pick up the marker. Picking up the marker at any point would be what we call a hole. Holes are bad. Notice how the sill is part of the air barrier? Crazy stuff.

Dual Flush Toilets

2010-11-02T11:23:00.001-04:00

We replaced our archaic 3.6 gallon per flush toilets with a couple of new water efficient dual-flush toilets made by Toto. The dual flush has two buttons on the top that allow the user to either flush with 0.9 or 1.5 gallons depending on the "situation". They are really easy to use. There is nothing exotic or scary about these toilets, they just save a lot of water.

The old 3.6 gal/flush toilet in the yard. It looks like it could possibly be hooked up. hehe

The buttons ontop of the tank where you select the type of flush you want.

Tim Sturdevant of Sturdevant Heating and Plumbing installing one of the toilets.

Basement digging complete!

2010-10-22T09:32:00.011-04:00

The basement digging is complete! Woo Hoo!
I want to give proper credit to the team of workers from Diamond Staffing that did most of the job. (Labor Ready was on site for the first 2 days (I blogged about them) and then we switched to Diamond Staffing whom was on site for the remaining 6 days.) They really did a great job. I have a lot of respect for how hard they work.

The next big step in the basement is to address a few weak looking areas on the foundation walls, we might or might not need to do some reinforcing. We are consulting with Jeff Nawrocki from JSN Associates regarding what we should do. Hopefully everything is OK. Once the walls are cleared, we are going to lay down landscape fabric, roll out perforated pipe for perimeter drainage, lay down about 6" of crushed stone, put our insulation on top of the stone, roll out a vapor barrier membrane on top of the insulation, and then pour a 4" concrete slab on top of that. There are still lots of things to do! When all is said and done, there will be 6'-6" clearance to the bottom of structure throughout the basement.

On a seperate note:

I observed this frost on our roof yesterday morning. Notice that there is no frost around the plumbing vent (aka the stink pipe) and around the chimney. The plumbing vent is made of copper (conductive), I suppose that makes sense. It is a big thermal bridge. The chimney is a little bit more intriguing. Brick is conductive no doubt (about R-0.15/inch) but that is a big bare spot! There is no blocking around the chimney, it is completely wrapped in foam. There is no thermal bridge around the chimney except for the chimney itself. I wonder if there is no frost around the chimney because of conduction from the warm building, from stored thermal energy from the day before that kept the chimney warm overnight or if as the sun rose it heated up the chimney enough in the morning to begin radiating energy to melt the frost before I showed up to work. Maybe it is a little of everything. However this happened, this image is a good example of radiation heat transfer. How else would that frost be melted 2' away? Conduction through the shingles? I doubt it.

I guess we will never know...

Basement progress

2010-10-13T16:52:00.003-04:00

Day #3 of basement digging is over. I had the opportunity to join the team this morning for 4 hours for some back breaking work. Hats off to these guys for how hard they work. I feel like I was hit by a car.

Digging out the basement

2010-10-12T12:10:00.005-04:00

6 workers from Labor Ready (local temp agency) have been on site chipping away at digging out the basement. 3 are digging, 2 are running buckets, and one guy loading a wheelbarrow with the buckets and dumping it in the driveway. It is hard hard work. They are really getting after it down there... We are estimating that they will be here for the rest of the week. The pile of material in the driveway is massive yet in the basement it seems like they have barely scratched the surface. We are are going to be hiring somebody to come in with a excavator and a dump truck to remove the material from the driveway.

Blower Door Test

2010-10-05T10:26:00.007-04:00

It was like Christmas morning here at Petersen Engineering today. I ran downstairs from my office to find 3 big boxes by the fireplace containing a blower door. Just what I always wanted! In a fit of joy I opened the boxes and set the door up with Matt to test it out and learn how it is done. (Matt just joined the Petersen Engineering team after working 6 years Conservation Services Group where he performed thousands of energy audits and blower door tests. He is what I would consider a blower door expert.) We set it up and depressurised the house to 50Pa and walked around the house to feel for leaks. This was interesting...

We felt air around some window openings, the louvers for the future ERV connection, the exhaust hood connections for the bathroom fans, the bathroom fans, general cracks around the rubble foundation, the fireplace in the basement was super leaky, there was a big hole in the foundation where the natural gas comes in... lots and lots of little things need to be addressed in order to dial this number down.

The results were not as impressive as I had expected. We blew a 0.62 ACH Natural. For everybody that is unfamiliar with the term ACH Natural - This number stands for natural air changes per hour of air within the building. So we blew and 0.62, this means that over the course of an hour, 62% of the air in our building will naturally exchange with outdoor air through cracks and gaps in the building enclosure. We have plenty of room for improvement and lots of big holes to foam up to dial this number down.
This should be an exciting number to continuously work on driving as low as possible. I will post updates as we consinuously work on air sealing the building.

Green Building Open House Recap

2010-10-04T08:45:00.001-04:00

This Sadurday's Green Building Open House was a success. About 25-30 people showed up. It was a mix of people on the Green Building Open House tour and curious neighbors that wanted to drop in and see what we have been up too!

Unfortunately we the article that was published in the paper last week said that the open house was going to be on Sunday 10/3 not Saturday 10/2. We had no idea! Somebody kindly dropped off a copy of the newspaper in our mailbox with the wrong date circled to bring it to our attention. We are so sorry for anybody that showed up on Sunday for the open house only to find that nobody was here. Hopefully they will be able to attend our next open house.

Platinum Fence Install

2010-09-29T14:36:00.005-04:00

In the News & Green Building Open House

2010-09-27T11:41:00.003-04:00

Our project was on the front page of the Portsmouth Herald on Saturday!

Read the article here:
http://www.seacoastonline.com/articles/20100925-NEWS-9250318

We are gearing up for the NESEA Green Building Open house this Saturday from 10-4 along with about 500 other sites across the country. According to the NESEA website, last year about 15,000 people toured over 500 sites throughout the Northeast. We are anticipating a lot of curious visitors.

Stop by! We would love to show you around.

We will be serving food and beverage. (beer, wine, cheese, crackers...) There will be lots and lots of pictures to browse through and ask questions about, a slide show, video cuts from Now or Never Media (whom has been documenting the entire project), and ofcorse James Petersen, Michael Bruss, most of the Petersen Engineering Team and myself will be here to answer questions and show people around.

We hope not to disappoint many visitors by the absence of PV, and other site energy PRODUCING technologies. We so far have just REDUCED energy. That is not a tangible thing that people can see and from our last open house expericene, we learned that that it is a difficult concept for some grasp. Its not something that we can plug into the wall and point at and say "hey! Look what we did, that is what is GREEN about this building". Although our project might not come off as sexy as the other projects on the tour that are focused on producing energy, we hope to give REDUCING energy and historic preservation an ultra sexy appeal...it might just take a little beer and some wine to do so... :)

Details can be found at the NESEA Green Building Tour website for our building and the many others in the area:

http://www.nesea.org/greenbuildings/

Landscaping & more (yep you guessed it) first floor structure work

2010-09-23T12:24:00.000-04:00

Site Structures finishing up the front walkway..

James watering the grass...

Site Structure & James going over drip edge - crushed stone details.

Jared digging a footing for a lally column...

General cave-like basement conditions...

More general cave-like basement conditions....

Screwing in joist hangers...

Applying construction adhesive to the top of a LVL they just cut..

Front walkway progress & more structure reinforcement pictures

2010-09-20T13:32:00.003-04:00

Front steps installed, more sod, and more loud noises from the basement!

2010-09-17T16:21:00.000-04:00

First floor reinforcement & landscaping

2010-09-16T16:30:00.000-04:00

First floor structure reinforcement is banging away (literally). Most of the new lally columns are in. They are now getting started screwing and gluing new LVL joists to the existing (weak) floor joists and beams. They are reattaching the newly reinforced joists to the carrying beams and sills using galvonized joist hangers.

Site Structures was on site today giving the front yard a make over. They planted 2 pear trees, spread loam, and rolled out some fresh sod. It is looking good! They will be back tomorrow to finish up and install the front steps.

Bruss is BACK!

2010-09-14T11:34:00.007-04:00

Ok wow. So a few things are happening.

1. Bruss is back. They are in the basement right now pouring footings for new lally columns. They found some old bottles while digging holes for the new footings. We are glad to have them back.
2. Site Structures Landscape was here this weekend. They cut down a tree out back, dug up our amazing collection of weeds, poured a slab for the front steps, and laid a bed of compacted gravel for a walkway.
3. Petersen Garden Design (James's wife's business) is outback taming our out of control and neglected garden.

I don’t have time to write any more today. Hopefully these pictures taken today will speak for themselves.

Turf War

2010-09-10T17:26:00.006-04:00

The landscaping crew is going to be on site tomorrow morning. I was just looking outside and was very impressed with the turf war we have going on right now between all of the different weeds. I just had to doccument this...

Painting

2010-09-07T12:50:00.004-04:00

The room was painted this weekend by one of Ron's sub contractors. (I don't know his name) He did a good job!

We are going to let the room air out for a few days before moving in. The paint odor is still pretty strong.

That is just about the end of this chapter of the renovation. The next big thing on our horizon is the first floor structure and basement work. That should begin sometime in the next few weeks.

Final day..

2010-09-03T16:49:00.000-04:00

Today is the day that we planned on having this room finished by.

We have a new employee starting on Tuesday and need to move a workstation into this office in order to make room for him. (By the luck of the draw, I was chosen as the lucky employee to move into this newly renovated office! Oh Ya!)
We are a little bit behind schedule. The painters are going to be here this weekend which throws a wrench in our original plan of moving furniture this weekend…

A few people stopped by today to tie up some loose ends...

Ron came in to finish up the interior window and baseboard molding.

Mike from Tesah Networks came in to install the wall outlets and finish up the network wiring.

Jeff Bower of Jeff Bower Electric was in instialling finished outlets.

This room is pretty much ready to go. It just needs some paint...

Floor refinishing is done

2010-09-02T10:44:00.000-04:00

Heritage Hardwood Flooring's third and final coat of varnish has finally dried. Finally! After applying each coat of varnish, windows were closed to prevent dust from blowing in and stirring about the room and disrupting the finish. The varnish had nowhere else to off gas to except to the interior of the building. This anti-dust precaution set the stage for a flawless finish but on the other hand created a toxic experience for us building occupants to deal with. Luckily, most of us were out of the office during this time or were able shuffle around the building to get away from the odors.

Next time around we plan on looking into other water based low or zero VOC options.

We could not be happier with the finished product. It came out looking great. These pictures do not begin to do the floor justice.

Wow!

2010-08-30T10:51:00.005-04:00

Wow. Mason (owner) and Chris (son) seen here applying the first seal coat. Chris first went around the perimeter cutting in the edges while Mason took care of the center with the big mop. They will be back tomorrow morning to apply the first coat of finish. They said that it really starts to look good after that. I think it looks great the way it is. I can't wait to see how it looks tomorrow!

Floor sanding

2010-08-27T13:37:00.007-04:00

It has been a relatively quiet week with exception for the Blue Angels circling the office and the constant screaming of a 220 volt floor sander the last 2 days.

Heritage Hardwood Flooring from Lebanon, ME has been on site the last couple of days sanding down the floors in the office being refinished.

Once they are done sanding, they are going to hit the floor with 3 coats of varnish. We can't wait to see what it looks like!

Floor before sanding.

Heritage crew carying their massive floor sander up the stairs.

This is the sander they are using for most of the floor. It is a the tank of belt sanders. They also brought a couple of smaller sanders for edges and hard to reach places.

Back and forth...

Up and down...

This is one of the smaller sanders used for the edges.

buzz buzz buzz......

The sanders are also hooked upto a dust collection system in the truck. By law the room needs to be taped off with plastic bags and everybody in the room must wear a mask because the risk of sanding lead paint. The dust collection system did a pretty good job at keeping the room comfortable to be in.

Plastering

2010-08-23T11:00:00.009-04:00

Plouffe Drywall & Restorations was on-site today applying plaster on the walls. They skimmed on 2 thin coats of Imperial-Veneer Basecoat ( http://www.usg.com/imperial-basecoat-plaster.html#tab-features ). This is the same plaster that Strawberry Bank uses for many of their historic renovation projects. According to the guys, this plaster behaves and looks just like the original horsehair plaster that is in the rest of the building with exception that there is no horse hair in the mix.
After chatting with the guys, I learned that they are brothers (even though they look nothing alike) and have been in business for almost 20 years. They made the skimming of the plaster look easy and weren't afraid to tell me that "this ant easy!" and that it is only because they have been doing this for (freeking) forever that it goes so fast and that they aren't messing up and getting it everywhere.

An awesome website about everything plaster put together by the National Park Service: http://www.nps.gov/hps/tps/briefs/brief21.htm

Communication wiring

2010-08-14T13:46:00.000-04:00

Mike Tesah of Tesah Communications running phone, internet, & network wiring...

Interior finish work begins

2010-08-10T11:17:00.013-04:00

Ron Dixon (Dixon Building LLC, South Berwick, ME (603)591-3710) began working this morning on the interior of the second floor office in the addition. He has started patching up the floor where the bathroom once stood. He was able to use a pile of old floor boards we salvaged from a renovation across town for making the patches.

Ron sorting though pile of salvaged floor boards taken from a home being renovated accross town.

While pulling up damaged floor boards, Ron found pages from some type of a jounal or log book from 1804 stashed beteween the floor joists! We can't quite make out what it says.

This is the joist bay that the papers were found.

Eye of the storm

2010-08-02T08:56:00.010-04:00

The dust has finally settled outside as the Bruss crew has been off site for a couple of weeks now. The silence and absence of constant banging and screaming table saws is somewhat eery, as if we just entered the eye of the storm (knowing that first floor structure repair that is scheduled to begin sometime in the next few weeks).

Over the next week or two, there will be local a local carpenter on site (whom i don't know the name of yet!) renovating the interior of our (vacant) office located on the second floor of the addition. On Friday, a couple of brothers from the craigslist "services offered" section came in for a few hours to scrape off and bag up the existing plaster and wall paper. They did a great job.

The plaster was in poor condition throughout the room.

before

after (plaster removal)

As-Built 3-D Section

2010-07-21T09:18:00.002-04:00

This is our updated As-Built built 3D Section of our building enclosure. Double click on the image to make it BIG.

The end of this chapter

2010-07-20T09:33:00.009-04:00

Bruss has officially packed up and left the job site. :( They will be back in a month or so to complete the first floor structure repair. This blog isn't over yet!

The front of the building as it is today. (looking sharp!)

Miscelaneous pictures from last week:

New back door.

It has an R-Value of R-6.6! WOW!

Front door molding.

Painting

2010-07-08T09:59:00.013-04:00

Simpsons Painting from Derry, NH has been on site the last few days painting the exterior of the house. The siding arrived with one coat of primer and all other pieces of trim were primed before being installed by Bruss. This left the Simpsons crew with the job of caulking and applying the 2 coats of finish paint.

Before painting, all gaps and cracks are caulked. This does 2 things. The first and most important thing is that it keeps liquid water from getting behind the siding and trim to cause any potential trouble. Sure, we have the Tyvek and Home Slicker behind siding but why rely on it in such a big way if we don't need to?
The second thing that it does is fill in all of the little cracks and gaps so when the paint goes on, the transitions between the different pieces of wood will look nice and smooth.

Apply caulking...

smooth it out...

Caulk...

and Smooth....

Once the caulking is dry, they are ready to begin painting using a spray gun.

Paint spray gun pump.

Tape off windows.

Spray some paint!

The painting with the spray gun goes very fast. They wait about 20 minutes between coats. It takes longer for them to climb the ladder than it takes to spray the paint in the area they can reach.

Paint the trim with 2 coats of white using brushes.

The crisp white trim is really making the trim POP! Niceeee

Siding is DONE

2010-07-02T15:29:00.004-04:00

The last piece going up! They guys wrote their names and the date on the back of it before nailing it up. Hopefully nobody will see that for 100 years!

(Photo taken this morning...95% done)

Siding Install

2010-06-30T08:37:00.036-04:00

The Bruss team subcontracted the siding instillation to Deventry Construction. They are fast, efficient and have a lot of guys to get the job done in time for the painter who will be here next week.

The siding we are using was milled in Granville, VT by the Granville Manufacturing company. They have been open since 1857 and specialise in high quality wood products.

The spruce siding was delivered to us a few weeks ago. It came in 6' lengths with 1 coat of primer already applied.

This is how they install the siding:

First they carefully calculate out the vertical reveal distances of the siding so that a full course of siding will rest at the top and bottom of each window (this looks good). The siding reveal distances will fluctuate a few 1/16 of an inch throughout the building in order to make this happen. Don't worry, these little differences are invisible to the naked eye.
Double click on the image below and notice how the reveal distances change as you go up the building and that there is a full course of siding above and below each window. Also notice that at the bottom of the wall, the siding reveal starts out small and gradually gets larger as it goes up. This is a historic detail we wanted to include. Aesthetics aside, building up the siding at the bottom of the wall kicks the bottom edge of the bottom piece of siding out over the skirt board a little bit to help divert water to shed over it and not behind it. Old building all over town have this detail. It looks good and the original siding on this building likely utilized this detail.

These are their "story poles". They have the pre-determined reveal distances marked out on them for the different sections of wall. They hold the story poles up to the corner boards and window trim to mark out where the siding needs to line up on the trim.

See the marks on the corner board...

Once the reveal distances have been established and marked, it is time to start cutting and nailing!

Cut siding to size. (after measuring of course!)

Prime all cut edges.

Pre-drill the nail holes only at the ends so that the wood does not split. (yes... unfortunately it splits)

Hold it up.

Nail it down.

Notice that the Home Slicker does NOT smush when nailed. (The force of the nail is spread out over a large area.)

They are hand nailing because nail guns can be inconsistent in how far they fire the nail into the piece of wood. They sometimes will shoot a nail completely through the siding. We don't want that. These nails are going to be exposed and we want it to look good. Hand nailing is the only other option. It takes a little bit longer but we want it to look good.

That is basically it.

Here are some miscellaneous picture...

One of the ground guys passing some siding up to the guys on the staging. (They typically have 2 guys installing the siding and 2 guys supporting them by cutting pieces to length and bringing it to them)

Notice the full course of trim at the top and bottom of the window... Looks nice huh?

They wedge a little scrap behind the bottom course of siding to give it that extra little kick out.

Notice how the reveal distance get bigger and bigger as you go up?

4 Deventry guys and 2 Bruss guys (installing front door trim so that they can run siding up to it) all working on the same wall at the same time.

They are almost done...

What is that yellow stuff?

2010-06-25T10:18:00.017-04:00

People driving by stop and ask all the time: "What is that yellow stuff on the wall?" and "What does it do?"

It is called Home Slicker. It is a plastic mesh that goes on behind the siding and creates a little air gap.

Why do you want that?

1. It helps quickly drain and ventilate moisture out from behind our siding.
2. It serves as a capillary break between our siding and Tyvek.
3. It provides pressure equalisation behind the siding (to help keep wind driven rain from being drawn into wall)

The bottom of the Home Slicker is exposed to daylight. To keep bugs from crawling up the gap created by the Home Slicker, screen is wrapped over the ends. (See below)

Top of window flashing!

2010-06-22T10:08:00.006-04:00

Just how we left on our 6/15 post....

Fold up Tyvek.

Cut flashing to size.

Fold edges of flashing over sides of window molding.

Gently tap it into shape so that the corners are square.

Tap tap tap...

Lay down bead of caulk.
(If water does get behind the flashing..we do not want it getting behind our trim as well and working its way into our walls.)

Place flashing back ontop of window.

Make it tight.

Even at the edges..

Nail at center...

...and sides

Fold Tyvek down.

Cut back a few inches.

All of it...

Lay down small piece of tape at corner.

Tape angled cuts of Tyvek.

Final piece of tape to hold down flap of Tyvek to flashing.

*clap hands and walk away

...but don't forget to caulk the edge of the trim. (I don't have a picture of this)

Window molding & bottom wall cap

2010-06-15T10:38:00.011-04:00

The Bruss team has been hard at work installing the window molding throughout. It gets nailed to the outside edge of the window trim. It really makes the windows "pop" and look more elegant.

Window trim without molding

Window trim with molding

Window trim with edge molding.

Primed and ready-to-go pile of window molding.

Profile of molding.

The Bruss team has also been installing the bottom wall cap using a synthetic instect and water imperimable material made by Azek. This piece serves as an insect and weather barrier to protect the bottom of the wall's exposed overhang.

1837 Newspaper found in wall

2010-06-10T08:34:00.009-04:00

Artisan Electric was on site yesterday installing an exaust fan in our downstairs bathroom where they found this newspaper:

_____________________________________

Dave priming window molding.

Lee installing basement windows.

Quick picture upload!

2010-06-07T15:43:00.012-04:00

Thursday...Foam wall

Friday...Exterior sheathing

Today...Cut window openings in sheathing, roll out Tyvek and install windows

Foaming final wall

2010-06-03T08:54:00.003-04:00

This is the final wall to be foamed. (yahoo!) The Bruss team saved this wall for last for a reason. We always wanted to have at least one non-boarded up window in each office. Each of our 4 offices has 2 windows on this front facade and one window on an adjacent wall. All of the adjacent windows have been installed already so now that they are working on this facade, we are not in total darkness when they board up the windows at the end of the day.

Window Install

2010-06-02T11:53:00.024-04:00

All that is left to do is caulk the edges of the trim, install the drip edge over the top of the trim & fold/tape the tyvek down.

Window Rough Opening Prep

2010-06-02T11:11:00.024-04:00

Ready for window install!

Window Prep Work

2010-05-26T09:00:00.023-04:00

The windows arrived with no trim attached. (Believe it or not, this is a factory option for some non-flanged windows.)

Corner of unopened window

Prime Trim

Ends of trim will be primed when cut to size

Cut to size

Use Kreg jig to drill out pocket screw holes

Pocket Screw trim together

Stack of assembled trim

Lay pre-assembled trim piece onto window

Nail to window

Cut back sill extension (for aesthetic reasons)

Prime exposed wood

Caulk back of trim

Done! Ready to install!

Window Mock Up

2010-05-20T09:05:00.007-04:00

The Bruss team installed our first window on Tuesday as a mock up (they did not install the drip edge, tape the Tyvek or caulk the trim). Everything went well. They decided that the window trim is going to need to be riped down to a smaller dimension to be more historically appropriate. (The window trim seen in the pictures below will be removed and cut to size)

The next big step to do all of they prep-work for the window trim. It needs to be cut to size and primed on all 6 sides. The trim will then be pre-installed on the windows followed by the complete window instillation into the building.

marvin "window clip"

Sustainability at Home Tour Tomorrow 10am-2pm

2010-05-14T10:50:00.002-04:00

We will be participating in the Portsmouth Sustainability Fair's "Sustainability at Home Tour" tomorrow 10am-2pm. Stop by 335 Maplewood Ave for a tour and to ask any questions. Don't forget to check out all of the other wonderful tours going on around town as well!

Sustainabilty at Home Tour website:

http://portsmouthsustainabilityfair.org/the-portsmouth-sustainability-fair%E2%80%99s-%E2%80%9Csustainability-at-home%E2%80%9D-tour

Picture Update

2010-05-12T08:35:00.010-04:00

Picture Update

2010-05-10T13:56:00.007-04:00

The Bruss team has been hard at work all day installing the built out window rough openings and installing a exterior layer of Advantech sheathing...

Looking back....

2010-05-07T08:44:00.015-04:00

1/29/2010

2/2/2010

2/03/2010

2/11/2010

2/19/2010

3/01/2010

3/18/2010

4/2/2010

4/12/2010

4/20/2010

4/26/2010

4/29/2010

5/3/2010

5/5/2010

5/7/2010

Air Barrier & Window R.O. Connection

2010-05-03T10:54:00.037-04:00

The internal layer of Tyvek is our primary air barrier (remember? Check out the blog from 3/16 for some background). We are going to be poking huge holes in that air barrier for our window openings all over the place. How are we going to maintain our air barrier integrity with all of these giant holes poked in it? We need to create an air tight connection between the Tyvek air barrier and the windows somehow. We do not want any air leaking around the window openings.

We broke this detail down into two main connections that need to take place.
One connecting the Tyvek to the built out rough opening and a second connecting the built out rough opening to the window.

Connecting the Tyvek to the built out rough opening is where we had to put our thinking caps on. It is not a standard off-the-shelf detail. We wanted to figure out the most efficient way to make this connection work.

We looked into 3 different methods:

Option A - Cut back Tyvek

Option A - Lay down bead of caulk

Option A - Fold Tyvek into caulk

Option A - Lay down bead of caulk ontop of Tyvek

Option A - Install rough opening

Thoughts? - Lots of steps, caulking is sloppy... It would work but there has to be something better!

______________________________________________________________________________

Option B - Install rough opening and cut back Tyvek

Option B - Vycor Tyvek to built out rough opening.

Thoughts? - Much more buildable than option A huh? It appears easy to install & inspect. The Vycor adheres to Tyvek, wood & Adventech so the connection would have been solid. The only major downside is that Vycor isn't a cheap material.

(We were prepared to move forward with this detail until we discovered option C!)

________________________________________________________________________

Option C - Cut back tyvek

Option C - Install built out rough opening

Option C - Fold Tyvek down ontop of tyvek and cut back leaving about an inch behind.

Option C - Put up first layer of 1-1/2" rigid foam, leave about a 3/8" gap.

Option C - Great Stuff foam gap paying attention to getting a good solid fill and contact with Tyvek.

Option C - Install 2x3 trim nailer (securely screw into studs beyond).

The window trim needs something substantial to nail into. 1/2" Advantech is not enough.

I first thought that this sounded unnecessary because how much does a piece of trim weight? Not much, right? Why throw in this big sub assembly for something that weights so little? Why not just nail it into the Advantech and call it a day?

Well, this is why: The Bruss team felt confidant that the finish nails holding the trim down would fail without a sub assembly over time. (I believe them) If the nailes failed, it would be a disaster from a water management standpoint. We need to keep water out from behind the trim. We can't have the trim lifting and letting water get past the caulked edge of the trim.

Option C - Install second layer of foam, leave ~3/8" gap

Option C - Great Stuff foam voids on both sides of nailer.

Option C - Install final exterior sheathing.

The final connection that has to be made to make this wall assembly air tight is going to be between the window and the rough openings. Great Stuff foam is going to be used to make this connection. The Bruss team is going to simply fill the 1/2" crack around the rough opening from the inside of the building as seen below.

Pictures of Option C in progress -

We did a mockup of Option C and then took it apart to see how well the foam stuck to everything. We had to tear the foam off of the Tyvek. It stuck really well.

Foaming the first layer of rigid foam, Tyvek to the rough opening.

Second layer of foam and nailer installed and foamed

Interior demo work and window R.O. instillation

2010-04-29T09:46:00.012-04:00

We are having a meeting today to determine how we want to have this layer of tyvek connect with our built out rough openings to maintain the continuity of our air barrier.

This is the second floor on the addition. They removed the ceiling to expose the timbers and removed an unneeded bathroom. The timbers and underside of sheathing will be remain exposed.

You can actually see bits of hair in the plaster when you look at it close...

Let the wall work begin!

2010-04-27T10:37:00.009-04:00

That roof is looking so good i just had to post another picture...

Finished soffit boards (ohh!! ahh!!)

It went on like this...

Now they are ready to begin working on the walls. They are going to work on one section of wall at a time. The first thing they are going to do is remove the windows then roll out a layer of tyvek (primary air barrier). After this.. I don't know. I guess you will have to just check back tomorrow : )

Dave wrestling a window frame.

The existing rough cut sheathing.

Tyvek rolled out and tacked down over rough cut sheathing and window openings.

-----------------------------------------

We had a new dumpster dropped off Monday. The dumpster being hauled away is not going to the landfill. No No No No.... The truck seen is from Naughton and Son Recycling, LLC out of Bradford, NH. They are going to dump this dumpster out in a big warehouse and sort it for reusable lumber and recyclables. Nice huh?

Shingles are on!

2010-04-23T11:37:00.015-04:00

Wednesday

Friday Morning (you can't even tell that there is 6" of foam under that roof!)

Meanwhile...

The Bruss crew is replacing any damaged exterior wall sheathing. They said that it has been pretty solid throughout for the most part.

Lee found this growing on the window seen in the pictures above. haha Our existing windows are soo green that plants grow on them!

Install Fascia Board

2010-04-21T08:33:00.002-04:00

Roof overhand sub-assembly

2010-04-19T07:54:00.012-04:00

The Bruss guys thought up a crafty way to insulate & air seal the roof overhang using scraps of 3" XPS left over from the roof and less of the pricey can foam.

Cut back bottom sheet of rigid flush with wall.

Install nailer.

Install sub soffit.

Shoot a layer of can foam on top of nailer, in front of nailer & on top of sub soffit (basically everywhere).

Smush a 3" scrap of XPS into the foam.

Shoot some more can foam around the XPS scrap. (Dave is so happy!)

Install sub fascia board.

Screw into sub fascia board.

Screw through roof sheathing.

Ta-da.

They should be done with the final overhand sub-assembly sometime today.

Build out roof overhang

2010-04-13T09:04:00.011-04:00

Jared taping up the ends of the rigid foam.

Nailer & sub soffit board installed

Foam void

Install sub fascia board

Make it square. (not square in the photo)

Once they complete this the whole way around the building, the next steps will be to roll out Ice & Water shield at the eves, riges & penetrations, install a drip edge, lay down roof underlayment and install shingles.

Northwest St. Roof

2010-04-07T08:37:00.006-04:00

Once they finish foaming & sheathing this section of roof, they are going to start building out the soffits.

Cable & Telephone wires were in the way of the staging. Somebody from the cable and phone company swung by last week to give us the ok to push the wires back with a notched out piece of wood.

1 screw holds up entire Bruss crew (620lbs)

2010-04-05T16:10:00.004-04:00

Back on Feb 10, I went on a rant about how the screws holding the foam to the walls will not bend because of the compressive strength of the foam is so high. Check it out.

Today, Jared cut up some scrap Advantech and 3" Foam to build a little 1'x1' wall moch up and fired one screw into the center of it to test it out.

See what happened:

This was with 3" of foam. We are going to cut up some more scrap foam when it becomes available and try this same test with more foam.

Cool huh?

Roofing

2010-04-02T17:30:00.000-04:00

Biggest screw i have ever seenn

2:00 Replacement sheathing almost done....

2010-04-01T16:25:00.006-04:00

After they finished up re-sheathing, they covered the roof back up with the tarp, cleaned up the job site and were on the road by 3:30. It was a productive day.

Noon - Bad roof sheathing removed, purlin repair

2010-04-01T12:14:00.005-04:00

8am - Remove Old Shingles

2010-04-01T08:14:00.003-04:00

lets see how much they get done today....

Wow. it looks cool from inside...

Hey! Its raining again...

2010-03-30T12:00:00.007-04:00

Yesterday was a rain out with exception that Lee drove in to facilitate a lumber delivery from Lumber Barn and a dumpster switch out in the morning...

Rather than stay home and watch The View today, the guys decided to come in and get a head start in the basement and do some prep work for the first floor structure repair that is scheduled to start once the walls & windows are in. Depending on how long this rain lasts, they are going to try to pour a few footings for the new lally columns that are going in.

Dave measuring the existing floor joists.

Lee smashing up some slab where a new footing is going in.

Roof Progress

2010-03-26T11:08:00.013-04:00

Hey! The rain stopped!

The Bruss team got to work yesterday stripping down the roof here on the annex. They replaced some sheathing and discovered another rotten timber. (No way! Really?) The beam is exposed on the inside of the building, they just cut out the sections of rotten beam (leaving the interior exposed sections of the beam untouched)and built out a few 2x6's to replace the rotten sections. This calls for a sketchup model...

Ok. You have yourself a beam..

but it is really a semi-rotten beam (red)

so you cut the bad section out

leave behind the remaining solid sections

Build out with 2x6's Ta Da! Good as new!

(Thursday) Strip off old shingles.

Super rotten corner.

Rotten beam

All closed up

They had the whole thing fixed and buttoned up before i could take any progress pictures. I can't keep up with these guys!

Maplewood Project on NPR? YEP!

2010-03-24T09:56:00.002-04:00

Check it out...

http://www.nhpr.org/node/31708

No Boating in the Basement.

2010-03-24T08:53:00.003-04:00

Rain Rain Go AWAY!

2010-03-24T08:18:00.004-04:00

The Bruss crew cant get anything done when it is raining like this!

...its looks like it should be gone already. Maybe they are going to show up late?

Foaming The Roof

2010-03-19T09:25:00.003-04:00

This was shot 15 minutes ago...

FYI - The red foam they are using to seal up the gaps (which they intentionally make) takes about 45 min to cure. The foam I touched at the end is mushy because it did not cure yet.

More Roof Pictures

2010-03-18T16:39:00.010-04:00

Roof Pictures

2010-03-17T14:03:00.005-04:00

Air Barrier?

2010-03-16T11:24:00.033-04:00

OK these last 2 pictures were taken literally 2 minutes ago. These guys are flying!!! Notice the Tyvek below the insulation? What is that all about? No no, we don't have it backwards. It is there for a reason!

That is our primary air barrier silly!

We want this enclosure to be as air tight as possible. When an Architect is designing their building enclosure in section, they should be able to draw a line from the roof all the way down to the basement slab without picking up their pen to define where the air barrier is. It has to be a constant line because a break in the line would be what we call a hole. Holes let air in. Holes are bad.
Look...ill do it. Even do the basement. (there is lots of cracks, pipe penetrations, conduits and stuff you and I don't even know about below grade that connect with the outdoors) Doing this exercise makes you critically think about how the air barrier will be maintained through the sometimes tricky details. ...like a roof edge detail.

Marker down.

Keep going.

I think im done....

No. Wait. almost forgot... the basement... Done. Bam.

Why did we draw the line there and not somewhere else? Well...

This is a 100yr renovation. What does that mean? It means that we are trying to maintain a high level of quality and durability in all aspects of the project so that the building will not need any major work for at least the next 100 years. That is 2110. That is far.

When we were thinking about where the air barrier should be, we first though well what about the the Tyvek and roof underlayment on the outside? We are already putting it up...lets just do an extra good job taping it up and call it a day. Ideally, yes that would work but keep in mind we are talking 100 years here. If in 50years Joe contractor is hired to replace the siding, rips opens up the wall and slices up the tyvek...that would be an air barrier compromise. That is bad. So keeping in mind that we don't know what is going to happen in the next 100 years regarding building maintaince, we wanted to bury it deep where nobody could mess with it, keep it dry and warm and hopefully SAFE because it is so important.

What about the foam? What if we did a good job taping and foaming the foam edges? Ehh same thing. Buildings move, those sheets of foam are going to be bouncing around and shifting as the buildings timbers expand and contrast. The tapes and foams that seal up the edges of the foam are relatively new. Will they last 100+ years? I don't know. We don't know. Nobody knows. What happens to the low expand foam when XPS sheets want to pull away from eachother? Does it stretch or does it fail? I don't know. It is a risk we don't want to take. We are going to tape and foam all the edges anyways but we are going to expect it to well...fail over time in some places.

What about some type of spray applied air barrier? Hah. Our existing rough cut sheeting has gaps in it as large as 1". I don't think that a spray applied membrane can bridge that gap.

What if you taped the exterior sheathing? Well we are going to do that anyways but there is a joke about peel and stick tapes & membranes....they call them stick & peel membranes. haha It is a small durability risk. The big issue with this method is how the air barrier will be connected and worked through the roof overhang. It is too complicated. Too many beads of caulk to fail. Lets Keep It Simple Stupid

Ok so..

Taking everything into consideration, we decided on rolling out a layer of Tyvek ontop of the existing wall & roof sheathing and then build everything new on top of that. It is constant, easy to inspect and is not labor or material intensive.

Here are some step by step sketches that attempt to break down what is going on up there.

Strip the building down naked to the existing sheathing.

Roll out some Tyvek right over the edge of the roof.

Put foam & nailer for roof edge ontop Tyvek.

Build the roof edge and not have to think about the air barrier. Nice.

I will get into WHY we want air tighness another day!

Finally! It stopped raining

2010-03-16T09:55:00.011-04:00

(taken from www.ikitesurf.com, it is a great place to find wind data)

Construction has been at a standstill with all of this lousy weather. On Friday the weather man predicted rain so they did not show. (it is not smart to remove shingles in the rain) So Friday was a flop. Monday was a hurricane conditions. There was heavy rain & wind. (see wind chart above). Finally, a nice day. The Bruss team is back on the ground...well, they are on the roof actually.

These pictures were taken about a hour ago...

INSULATION !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2010-03-15T13:29:00.001-04:00

Sills...100% done!

2010-03-09T08:22:00.010-05:00

Final sill repair

2010-03-04T13:36:00.019-05:00

Is that light at the end of the tunnel or just an oncoming train??!!

haha

The Bruss team finished up the North Wall on Wednesday afternoon and has shifted to their last and final wall on the east side of the annex. So far it is looking like a real doozy. I am going to let these pictures speak for themselves. Lets just say that the cement truck will be making a second visit.

Before I show you the pictures from today, lets look at how the North wall progressed since the last post on Monday.

Pictures from Tuesday:

Pictures from Wednesday:

____________________________________________________________________________

Pictures taken from today:

The Bruss team started digging down this morning to check out the foundation...I went to a meeting, came back 3 hours later and they had the wall jacked up, earth dug down, sill removed and were removing loose rubble at the foundation. Wow. The foundation turns out to be in pretty rough shape. It consists of loose rubble held together by dirt. Yes dirt. I will keep you posted on this one...

South Wall Scaffolding, North Wall Foundation Repair

2010-03-02T11:13:00.009-05:00

Seacoast Scaffold and Equipment is on site today setting up pipe scaffolding on the south wall.

AND...

The Bruss team is on the north wall installing the rebar for the concrete pour that they are planning on doing this afternoon. The next step after the rebar is in is going to be building out the forms and pour the concrete.

Rebar inserted into stable brick & rubble foundation.

House Jenga

2010-03-01T11:48:00.006-05:00

I keep referring to the game Jenga on this blog. I cant help it. They are outside pulling bricks out of the foundation and it looks like they are playing Jenga with a house.

Do you remember the post from Feb 22? Check out that video out if you haven't yet. The guys are out there at the moment doing THAT. They so far have picked up the wall, supported the first floor in the basement and are getting to work removing loose brick & the old sill.

Check out the video:

On a more general note:

Bruss posted a sign

It is very wet and muddy out

The Bruss team uncovered another rotten timber. This is the east wall on the annex where there is no overhang. I wonder if there is a connection?

see....

Dang Rain...

2010-02-25T16:26:00.010-05:00

This rain is really slowing construction down. Thursday was a complete rain out and today they had to pack it up around noon. They did manage to stick it out long enough to close up the west wall.

Pictures: Al Cyr & Lee Beaton closing up the West wall

North wall foundaiton repair

2010-02-22T17:14:00.008-05:00

Once the sill is replaced on the West wall, the team is going to be shifting their attention to the North wall. The video below breaks down what they are going to be doing. The house is currently resting on unmoartered bricks.

Video

Napkin sketch of North wall foundation repair from Dave.

Sill Removal on West Wall

2010-02-22T16:29:00.008-05:00

The Bruss team removed the forms from Fridays concrete pour, setup the lifting jacks, picked up the entire west wall & have begun cutting out sections of sill for replacement. See photos:

Jared Raymond, wrestling a boulder.

Jacks do not leave much space to work.

Completed foundation reinforcement. (from Friday)

Lee Beaton, changing blade on sawsall used to cut existing sill out.

Foundation reinfocement

2010-02-19T09:43:00.015-05:00

Bruss is gearing up to replace the sill on the west side of the building. The foundation needs to be reinforced and built out before doing any sill work. The foundation & structure has shifted over the years.

This is the still right now. It extends past the foundation.

It actually has rolled a bit. The weight of the building is resting where there is not much support from the foundation.

This is what Bruss Construction has done / is going to do...

Drill holes into existing foundation & insert rebar. (done)

Add rebar horizontally and vertically. (done)

Build forms. (done)

Pour concrete. (in progress)

Remove forms. (Monday)

Don't worry about the foundation extending out so far. It looks silly now but once the wall it built out with rigid foam & everything, it will extend past the concrete. No worries.

Replace sill. (next week)

Photos from this morning...

Random Day

2010-02-17T18:01:00.007-05:00

Snow Removal

Jared Raymond removing material inorder to reinforce foundation wall

Dave King foaming up cracks and voids on the Northwest St facade

Wait until that snow melts...mud city

Northwest St. Sill Replacement

2010-02-16T16:43:00.007-05:00

Picture: Closing up the Maplewood Ave facade on Friday.

The black membrane seen is a capillary break (Ice & Water Shield). This will prevent any water that wicks up the foundation from contacting the sill. Most of the sill on the Northwest St. was only rotten on the bottom. Hmm...maybe it was a result of capillary action?

Response to a sill question:

2010-02-11T14:49:00.009-05:00

Q: What if you used some type of recycled/salvaged material like strips of car tires or crushed soda cans as your sill? Would that work?

A: Umm...no.

Sills in post & beam construction are load bearing. This means that load of the walls & floors above actually resting on the sill.

Random analogy:
Remember the game Jenga? I do! Imagine that you are playing Jenga on a uneven surface like an old warped picnic table. You setup the game the best you can on the table, you even needed to shim a few of the blocks with some playing cards because the table is so bad. Think about it like this: the old warped picnic table is like the rubble foundation, it is inconsistent, not straight & not level. The tower of Jenga pieces is like the building, it is heavy & it needs to be level. The bottom course of the Jenga pieces is like the sill. The sill needs to carry the load of the pieces above, provide a level surface for everything above to be built upon and bridge the imperfections of the table below all at the same time. Get it?

I tried. :)

If the sill was made of strips of car tires, the finished first floor would be like a fun house at the carnival.

Jenga!

Notice the gap...

Rendering of actual carnival Fun House floor

Front of building's sill is in

2010-02-11T14:30:00.007-05:00

Picture: Dave King, site superintendent, prying a pressure treated 2x8 into place.

Picture: Corner of building up on jacks.

Picture: Completed sill.

Exterior Insulation Reasoning

2010-02-10T10:19:00.028-05:00

OK lets talk about insulation. This is a touchy subject. I know. It usually gets people fired up so that being said....put your helmet on. I'm going there.

We are choosing to use rigid exterior insulation. Why? There are so many options and ways to skin this cat. (I'm a cat lover I swear...) We could blow in cellulose, fiberglass, pump low expanding foam into the wall cavities. Why in the world are we using rigid insulation?

The reasons are pretty simple:

1. We do not want to alter the interior finishes. It is fine the way is it and we intend on leaving it alone. "if it ant broke, don't fix it"
2. We want to keep the wall cavities open for future routing of utilities and communication lines.
3. Continuous insulation eliminates thermal bridging associated with framing. Thermal bridging derates an assembly R-Value.

*put on nerd had*
Example:
In a 16" OC wall using standard framing members there is ballpark 20% framing & 80% cavity. Just for fun lets say we had a 2x6 wall @ 16" OC and filled the cavity with R-6/inch spray foam (R-33). Wood is approx R-1/inch so the framing would be ballpark R-5.5.

(% x U-Value)+( % x U-Value) = Weighted U-Value
(.80 x (1/R-33))+(.20(1/R-5.5)) = .060 U-Value

1/.060 = R-16.5 Weight Assembly R-Value

FYI... R-Value = 1/U-Value
U-Value = 1/R-Value

Just because there is R-33 spray foam in the wall, it does not mean that the wall is R-33. The thermal bridging knocks it down to R-16.5. )
*nerd hat off*

We don't want thermal bridging to rob our assembly R-value.

4. Thermal bridging creates variety of temperatures within the wall assembly and on interior surfaces (look at the THERM images below). This variety of temperatures increases the potential for condensation inside the wall assembly. Condensation leads to mold growth & material degradation. We don't want that.

5. The building's siding and windows are at the end of their life cycle. They need to be replaced regardless of what insulation system we choose. Adding a layer of continuous rigid insulation while the siding and window replacement is going on is relatively easy to do.

See the therm images below:

Part 2 of this blog:

Q: How are you going to attach all of that insulation to the building?
A: Big Screws!

Q: Wont the screws bend from the weight of the siding?
A: No! Look at this back of napkin moment calculation:

*nerd hat on*

*nerd hat off*

Basically the compressive strength of the foam prevents the screw from being allowed to rotate and bend down. Ballpark...each screw in this system can support 700lbs of wall before the foam will begin to compress and let the screw bend. Unless we are going to be hanging cars from the wall...screws bending is NOT AN ISSUE!

These are the actual screws that Bruss will be using.

The screws will be fastened into the studs as seen above.

Questions / Comments?
ryan@petersenengineering.com