The frequency of blog postings has been slowing down, but work has continued at a decent pace. In April and May, we dense-packed the North wall, completed the steel roofing, roughed-in the electrical, began insulating the rim joists above the sill plate, and started on the hydronic floors. Among these, are a few are very […]
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It Has Been A Month…
A month has passed without an entry. So what have we done? South Wall. From the Eastern wall, across the South and around the corner to the West wall: Larsen trusses have been put up, sheathed, dense-packed with cellulose, windows detailed, wall covered in Typar and a first layer of strapping applied. Work was completed […]
Making Up for Lost Time: Dense-packing a Big Wall
Last week was a cold one! We avoided outdoor work at the expense of building progress. I spent the time designing a solar thermal system for another seasonal energy storage project. But on Saturday, sleeves got rolled up again (figuratively) and progress was made once again. When we left the site over a week ago, […]
“Building Morale”
We moved three steps forward last week: the laundry room (the room between the house and garage) got insulated and sealed off from the house, the Eastern gable end got sheathed, as did the ceiling of the main house. Taken together, it gives the project a real sense of progress and a nice way to […]
The Windows Are In
It may be -23°C outside today, and I may be inside writing a blog entry to get away from the cold, but we’ve had a relatively good run of luck with the weather this fall and winter – so far. Of course it has meant working weekends and taking days off when Mother Nature deals […]
Merry Christmas, Everyone!
We’ve put our tools down as the end of the year approaches and the special holiday season is upon us. We now have all the roof structures built and steel on all but the North side of the main house About half the windows are installed and the remainder will be done soon after we […]
Dense-Packing the Larsen Trusses
Yesterday we completed the Larsen Trusses over the laundry room. The photo on the right shows Bryan blowing a loose-fill of cellulose over the top plate level of the upper floor. All the lower sections of the Larsen Trusses have been dense-packed and closed up with fibreboard. Above the top plate level we switched to […]
Starting the Larsen Trusses, or “Building the Parka”
Recently we’ve started making our Larsen Truss (LT) assembly. These are the vertical structures that suspend the surface of the exterior wall further out from the structural wall in order to accommodate a thicker layer of insulation. In our case we’re using 16” I-joists that are lag-bolted into the 2”x6” studs. Recall that our OSB […]
More Windows, Doors and…Hydro!
If Pictures are Worth a Thousand Words, Here’s a 9,000 Word Essay
The photos below show some the the Passive House features: The large overhangs on the roofs are to accommodate the Larsen trusses (the “parka”) and to provide summer shading on the windows. The direct sunshine coming through the window openings and how far it penetrates, as shown in this […]