Landscaping…Day 3

The switch from daylight savings time has thrown off my daily reporting routine. It’s way too dark after 6:00 pm to get any photos of outside progress at the “L” Shaped House so I stopped by this morning and took a few shots of the landscaping completed yesterday. The first photo shows the back side of the house from one of the new dirt piles (actually I think it might better referred to as MUD!). The limestone base and drains are installed in the patio area and much of the grade out to the woods has been roughed in. The JLM guys plan to start on the lower modular wall this morning.

The second photo shows the view from the living room window looking toward the woods behind the house. The limestone base and drains outside the basement door and the rough grading for the walls shows up nicely. The ridge of dirt/mud at the left hand side in the back will be hauled out tomorrow morning by the excavating guys. We will get a much better idea of the grade out back after the extra dirt is gone.

Landscaping…The backyard plan

Brett Nutting at JLM Landscaping has been working with us to develop a back yard landscaping plan for the “L” Shaped House. The sketch below gives a general idea of where we are heading with the plan. The basement walk-out creates the necessity for a retaining wall on the right hand side of the patio. Brett plans to address this with two modular block walls. On the left hand side of the walk-out we plan to build a short rock wall that disappears into the hill and becomes a “boulder field” as the hill climbs to the grade at the music room end of the house where a second boulder wall will be built. The outer end of the patio will have a short semi-circle of modular block wall defining a sitting area. The upper wall will die into the hill somewhere toward the middle of the back wall of the garage. We plan to incorporate a small sitting area here as well. The plan includes crushed limestone trails that connect the breezeway door to the basement patio and also provide a connection to the existing trail through the woods.

An important element of our plan is to bring the woods back up to the house. As a first effort we plan to plant 28 trees in the area between the music room “boulder field” and the back end of the garage. The trees will include 5 Blue Beech, 10 Quaking Aspens, 10 Balsam, and 3 Arborvitaes that will be strategically placed shielding the utility pole. Matt at JLM has already picked the trees at Gertens nursery (see the blue tags) and the landscape guys will plant them as soon as the walls are complete.

Landscaping…Day 2

The JLM landscape crew has been hard at work all morning at the “L” Shaped House. Andy and his guys are preparing the area outside the basement walk-out for the installation of the modular block walls and paver patio. In the first photo below we can see the limestone base in the freshly excavated hole. The top of the lower wall will end up at the white line painted on the far wall. The upper wall will step back a few feet and rise to the grade above.

The next photo shows Andy and the crew starting to excavate for the upper wall. The lower wall will end up being about 2  1/2 ft high, the upper about 6  1/2 ft. They will roughly follow the waterproofing still visible on the back wall of the house.

The video below shows Andy at the controls of the mini excavator as he starts on the upper wall excavation. As you will see the soil at the site is really sticky!

Insulation…Day 4

The Insulation guys showed up to install the blown-in fiberglass insulation above the garage ceiling. The insulation is blown up a big plastic tube from a truck parked at the curb out front. They attach a plastic netting material to the bottom of the open web trusses and climb right up into the ceiling to direct the hose all around as the 20” space is filled right to the top with fiberglass. The first photo shows Ed sprawled out inside the ceiling holding the “business end” of the fiberglass gun!

The video below shows the blown-in insulating process in action.

The last photo (added Friday) shows the garage after the Lakewood guys finished installing the insulation in the ceiling…they used something like 45 bags of fiberglass. All that is left is the vapor barrier in the ceiling and the sheet rocking may begin.

Insulation…Batting & Vapor Barrier wrap-up

The Lakewood Insulation guys are done with the fiberglass batting and vapor barrier installation at the “L” Shaped House. There are four parts to the process they use.

• Any openings in the walls are filled with Hilti Filler Foam.
• Owens Corning R-19 insulation is installed in the walls between the studs.
• The walls are caulked with a synthetic rubber sealant (Manus Bond acoustical sealant).
• A 4 mil plastic sheet is installed covering and sealing the whole outside wall.

The insulation crew is purposely trying to seal the entire inside of the home against vapor penetration. They are careful and deliberate as they apply the foam and caulk and pay particular attention to the areas around the windows and doors. Once the sheetrock is installed the inside of the house will be sealed about as well as I can imagine. There will will be at least two more insulation applications at the house; the ceiling in the garage and attic will both be filled using a blown in product.

Landscaping…Day 1

The JLM Landscape crew started on the landscaping at the “L” Shaped House this morning. In the first photos below Andy and his crew are installing the 4” PVC pipes that will drain the patio outside the basement walk-out door. We are going to have two 12” catch basins in the outer corners of the patio (each having its own PVC pipe) and a long section of drain tile in the hill to the left that will eventually connect to the vertical PVC pipe in the first photo. the second photo shows the far ends of the PVC pipes “looking out” the hill behind the house.

The video shows Andy filling the front end of the trench with the tracked skid steer. All the rain in October has left the soil completely saturated and makes the Cat 277B sound like it is working pretty hard.

The last photo shows Andy starting to work on the West side of the back yard. He plans to install the crushed limestone base by the walk-out door and “sculpt” the grades tonight making it possible for us to meet on the site tomorrow with Brett and finalize the overall landscape plan.

Insulation…Day 3

The insulating crew is blazing through the “L” Shaped House at a rapid pace. They had the bonus room done before noon and are working in the garage and stairwell this afternoon. I imagine that the fiberglass batting will all be in place later today. The photos below will help to show that this job is as much about the installation of the vapor barrier as the fiberglass insulation. The first is taken from the landing in the front stairwell looking up at the second floor ceiling (the book nook is on the right). The 6 mil polyethylene sheet is attached to the framing, calked at the windows, electrical outlets, and heating ducts, and taped at any seams. The idea is to create an air tight moisture barrier.

The bonus room looks and feels completely different with the insulation and vapor barrier installed. The place is eerily quiet and feels about half the size it did yesterday. Here the extent of the vapor barrier is also pretty obvious. The fiberglass batting is installed in all the walls and anywhere the hose for the blown in applicator will have a hard time reaching.

Insulation…Day 2 (evening report)

The Lakewood Insulation guys finished up the insulation and vapor barrier on the second floor and have almost all the batting installed on the first. The photo below shows Anna’s bedroom with the outside wall insulated and the vapor barrier installed. The areas around the windows and the perimeters of the walls are calked and taped. The ceiling will be filled from above with a blown in fiberglass product later.

The next photo shows the insulated exterior walls and vapor barrier in Helen’s room. Here you can see that the interesting attic spaces in the “L” Shaped House will be inside the insulated perimeter of the house.

 

The Lakewood guys have finished most of the first floor. The next photo shows the newly insulated exterior walls in the dining room, kitchen, and breezeway. It is amazing how different the place looks with the nice pink walls.

The last photo shows the inside of the music room. Because of the shed roof above this space gets fiberglass batting all around. It is startling how quiet the interior of this space has become!

Insulation…Day 2

The guys from Lakewood Insulation in Burnsville showed up this morning and started installing the fiberglass batting and vapor barrier on the second floor of the “L” Shaped House. The first photo below shows the West wall of the master bedroom with batting installed between the studs in the wall and ventilation chutes in the roof extending into the eaves. The plastic vapor barrier will attach to the outside wall and along with the sheetrock create a cavity for the fiberglass insulation that will be blown in the ceiling later.

The next photo shows one of the Lakewood guys on stilts stapling the ventilation chutes to the underside of the roof sheathing between the trusses. The chutes allow outside air into attic space above the insulation. The last photo shows the upstairs kids bathroom and laundry areas with insulation in the walls.

Busy Walls…Happy Workers?

One of the consequences of having an open first floor layout is what Paul Winters is calling “busy walls” (some of the workers have a different name for them…). The Electricians, Plumbers, Heating, and Automation guys are all fighting for interior wall space. Walls in the center of the house are particularly desirable and the “L” Shaped House has precious few of them on the first floor.

The first photo below shows two of these walls in the area between the kitchen and dining room. At the left is the narrow stub wall that Mike Kloti and Paul Winters added in the design specifically to accommodate lighting switches. As you can see this wall also provides a path to the second floor for hot and cold water and an inlet for the central vacuum. It is especially telling to note that the heating guy was “kicked out” of this space and had to install his cold air return in the floor right in front of the wall. The interior walls on the right between the kitchen and laundry room are also brimming with electrical, plumbing, heating, and automation infrastructure.

In the next photo we see the wall between the kitchen desk and laundry from an angle that also includes the short stub at the end of the dining room arch. This section of interior wall has the main heating duct to the second floor in front and two cold air returns behind as well as electrical switches & outlets and a plumbing waste line. The third photo shows the foyer closet walls where the heating guy has installed three cold air returns leaving room for only one plumbing vent and a couple of electrical switch boxes.

 

The next photo shows the interior walls where the gas fireplace will be installed between the living room and music room. This space is also housing a central vacuum inlet, a waste line from the master bath, a cold air return, and a bundle of home automation wiring. The last photo shows a pair of cold air returns cut into the living room floor next to the stairway. The heating folks would prefer to place the returns in the walls but once again the open floor plan is forcing compromise.