Lots of photos.
Here’s the heating system so far.
The black box on the wall is our electric boiler. We still have to install the plumbing for the solar thermal panels and connect the radiant hydronic manifold sitting in the wall opposite and out of view.
This is a close-up of the type of connector I mentioned.
An o-ring is sitting inside the connector under that little band. The wrench tool clamps onto that ring and squeezes it tight. Nifty. Ooops, I forget a picture of our plumbers’ soldering.
More sample terrazzo, this time the sample is only about 4” square.
This has blue glass, iridescent clear glass, iridescent blue glass, a fused glass square, shells from an old necklace, and turquoise, hematite, and mother-of-pearl beads from old bracelets. We made a run to the local thrift shop and found most of this there.
Window in the master bath water closet.
The walls are about 24” deep. The windows are set back about 4”, but we still have about 16” of windowsill. Every window has the sides and top rounded in for the waterfall effect--- you get the sense of more light coming in the window because it cascades over the softened edges. The windows in the kitchen and all the window seats square off at the bottom, while the rest of the windows rounds at the bottom. Some window will be finished with old-growth salvaged cedar or fir, or with tile.
This window seat is in the master bedroom.
I have yet to build and install the window that goes here. I have all the laminations done, I just need a clear spot to square it up and glue and nail. That plastic is covered with plaster from when we stuccoed the walls. Yep, it's pretty gross. The top of the window seat will be hinged to add some storage. Right now, it's filled with the laminated plans for the house.
At the bottom of the wall is some electrical conduit and a metal receptacle. This will be wrapped in either wood or stone we salvaged. I have my neighbor’s diamond saw, so we can trim the stone.
The cupola extends 40’ down the middle of the house.
The top of that ceiling is about 16’ from the floor. It will be finished in wood---probably maple with a mahogany trim pattern. We’ll see if I can create the pattern I have in mind. This view doesn’t show the floor---it’s another 6’ or so below what the photo is showing. And there’s my scaffolding, which is just another word for four ladders connected and on wheels creating a tall platform of fear and loathing. Good times, that.
We have copper raincups at the four corners of the house. Why raincups? Because they’re pretty.
These raincups will direct rainwater into small bowls, and then into a 4” tightline that will run underground to our rainwater tanks. I haven’t yet decided on a filtering system, though Robert designed one that looks pretty clever. The fab GF happens to have a client that produces water filters (among other things, including contaminated water clean-up systems used after natural disasters and stuff) and we were going to talk to them about their products and how they work.
I’ve been considering a two-tank system, but haven’t done enough research to commit to any design.
Thanks for looking. And reading.
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Copper rain cups
They look great. Aren't you concerned about your neighborhood tweakers? Here in the Portland area tweakers are stealing all the copper, and other metals, they can rip from anywhere- cemeteries, construction sites, utility lines and copper gutters and downspouts.
Is tweaker theft not a concern where you are? And if not, how great for you.
Fucking tweakers
They are right across the street. We've let it slip that the rain cups are "plastic."
But our strategy is siple: we rarely leave. Our walls are all open and the electrical and plumbing are all copper. They could yank it out easy. We were cased twice last fall and last Halloween, when we usual go into Seattle to scare the children, we just happened to stay home. Good thing, because someone was in the house when we went in to lock up. The back door was hanging open and the dog was sniffing around like crazy.
The house now has alarms, but the biggest deterent to thieves is that we both work at home and our schedule is erratic. And we have some neighbors who talk with the tweakers fairly often and they've let it slip that not only do we have guns, I have a temper.
I will not keep a gun in the house. But I have a bush knife my next-door-neighbor made next to the bed and the fab GF used to keep Ryan's Japanese cat's paw by her side of the bed. I don't know what we'd do with these things, but we have 'em.
A few years ago we were living in the middle of the Central District in Seattle. I woke up after midnight because I heard something from the back door. Jumping out of bed, I grabbed table leg with this big bolt sticking out of it from a table I was planning to restore and headed through the kitchen.
I kicked open the door to the back porch. The alarm went off as I saw someone jump over the fence and into the yard next door. I was yelling for the mfer to get his ass back to take the beating he deserved and waving that table leg like a crazy person. Then I realized I was getting kinda cold.
Then I looked down and saw I wasn't wearing anything.
Moral of the story: an enraged naked woman is the scariest weapon of all.
You can have that advice no charge.
What's the answer on this?
I assume tweakers are meth freaks? (I've always thought it was bizarre that the Ds didn't have a highly publicized anti-meth program, since it's such a scourge in rural areas. Then again, I'm not sure more jails is the answer, and that is the answer that would no doubt be proffered...)
[ ] Very tepidly voting for Obama [ ] ?????. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.
"First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win." -- Mahatma Gandhi
Yes, meth heads
Meth is a nightmare. I've been thinking about this a lot because this is an epidemic among no one gives a shit about. These are people who would have been working class a generation or two ago and now are just poor. Many are homeless live in encampments, like the one across the street, or at the end of my pal Bob's street.
Answers? Haven't any. Lots of thoughts, though. Like the crack epidemic, meth is a drug where culture and class collide. There's a lot of ugly here besides addiction and crime.
Damn!
That's some project. I chew on my hands about getting contractors to install a bathroom -- you're actually building a house. That is so cool.
I'd be interested to know how you situated it -- where does the light fall, and so forth.
[ ] Very tepidly voting for Obama [ ] ?????. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.
"First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win." -- Mahatma Gandhi
If you lived closer, I'd send Scotty the plumber over
He'd have you fixed up.
The land is about 330' east-west and 660' north-south. Both houses are situated on the front two acres and face true south. Both are maximized for passive solar exposure. I'll try to pull the topo we did so you can get a sense of it. It's a lovely little bit of land.
We originally were going to build in the back, which still has quite a few trees, but decided we'd rather build in front and look at the back. This was lucky as the neighbor to the south, southwest and west have all cut down their trees and are relying on our greenscreen to maintain privacy.
The people to the southwest harvested 48,000 board feet of alder before they built. There's a small lumber kiln about 30 miles from here that specializes in alder for the Japanese cabinetry market and that material went there for top dollar. I don't think they've planted any replacements for all the trees they took.
I don't like that. You cut it, you replace it. That's just good sense.
This small plateau was logged off about a hundred years ago with most of stumps blown to make way for farms and small ranches. It was subdivided years ago into 5 and 10-acre parcels. It's a mix of rich and poor, with a common element of horses (lots of horses here), some goats and sheep, and small cattle operations. More tractors than BMWs by far and we're zoned rural use, so if you don't like the smell of farm animals, this is not the place for you.
The soil is acidic (typical here) and the topsoil not terribly rich. We're in an area of glacial deposit since the last ice age, so the dirt has a mix that includes clay, silt, sand, but no big rocks. The big rocks are just to the north of us, about a mile away.
And there is water. Since we're on a plateau, we have no streams, creeks or springs, and no wetlands or standing water. but I'm pretty sure we wouldn't have to dig in the gully to far to find it.
It rarely gets really cold here, though a crisp fall will leave the blackberry leaves frosted. Spider webs between the trees will glisten in the sun and once the sun hits them, you will see the frost melt away in the time it takes to drink a mug of coffee. There are so many ferns I don't know the names of them all. It is quiet in the day, except for a pileated woodpecker that has decided one of the old trees in the front woodlot is the place to be.
Copper
We've had a small-scale plague here in Vermont farm country with thieves flying in on somehow unmarked helicopters and literally lifting off old copper weathervanes from barn roofs while the farmers are in the field.
As a person who came of age in the drug-soaked '60s, the resurgence of meth is mind-boggling to me. No matter what weird drugs people did in my time, psychedelics and various kinds of mushrooms I wouldn't have touched with a 10-foot pole, meth was the one thing even the biggest druggies shuddered at the mere mention of. I knew slightly a couple of people who were messing around with heroin who were terrified of just the idea of meth. It's such a bad, bad, bad, horrible drug, I'm mystified at its popularity, if that's the right word.
Other than the helicopter-borne copper thieves, we have practically no crime here and it's one of those places nobody even has a door key. But the rare brief outbursts of burglary every few years are invariably traced to folks with drug problems, probably meth but the rumor mill hasn't given up the specifics to me, anyway.
The latest crime spree included the theft of our mail carrier's car, which was discovered on fire some miles away, allowing The Authorities to charge the thief with arson and put him away for a while. Turns out Vermont has no "grand theft auto" statute, so auto theft is only a minor misdemeanor here, given the book value of most well-used country vehicles. Strange.
So police who chase these thieves wd be copter copper coppers?
Amazing.
Our thieves are a lot less ingenious than that. I mean, an antique copper weathervane is worth some money. Mostly out here they're looking to scrap the metal, so they'll grab any bit of metal they can get, especially copper and aluminum. And batteries. Pacific Battery will give you $5 for any big battery you bring in, so a lot of batteries go missing. And now cataytic converters, especially out of jacked up Toyota vehicles (the convertes are really easy to get to).
This gets tough because I know that addicts need help, not handcuffs. But we can't risk theft, especially fo our electrical and plubming as we don't have the money to replace and repair. If my tools are stolen, that's a problem and we're keeping Ryan's tools as well. If his tools are stolen, he'll have a hell of a time finding a good job.
So what do we do? Make ourselves appear even scarier than the cops and so far, it's worked. Does it help the people across the street? No. But I don't know if we can do anything but leave them be.
copper! terrazzo! windowseats!
[sighs of ecstasy... ]
grandma and grandpa lived in a huuuuge 100-year-old house and the floor with all the bedrooms on it had been chopped up sorta funny to make closets in more modern times. the closet off one of the guest bedrooms ended up with one entire wall being a large window, and grandpa built a small bench in front of it for us kids. whenever i got tired, as i inevitably did, of all the family reunion togetherness, i'd grab a book from grandpa's library and sneak upstairs to that closet to read in the window [and watch them all playing croquet on the lawn below].
That sounds like an Alexander pattern
Window Place.
Ohio, I wonder if you had any of Alexander's patterns in mind, building?
[ ] Very tepidly voting for Obama [ ] ?????. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.
"First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win." -- Mahatma Gandhi
Ya mean, did I buy the book, read it cover to cover, stick
sticky notes in it for cross-references, make notes, revise the drawings, and then stake out the rooms in what was just the yard and walk the fab GF through it, including the miming of opening and closing doors, while carrying that book with its sticky notes in my hands while I did?
You can't prove it.
The windowseats serve several purposes, one being a nice, comfy place to read or think and another to serve as furniture, meaning we need less square footage in which to put the couch. The couch is right there in the wall. They also offer a bit more storage. And they're pretty.
I keep going baak and forth on installing a DC-powered sconce as a reading light. The battery can sit in a little slot in the window seat and can be charged by a solar panel or pedal power. The dc wiring can go behind the cedar or fir I'm going to wrap the windowseats with.
Since the building code is such a problem...
... I'd love to be able to "prove it" with a series of posts from you on this.
Since one thing we are about is analytical tools, and Alexander's set of analytical tools is extremely powerful!
[ ] Very tepidly voting for Obama [ ] ?????. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.
"First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win." -- Mahatma Gandhi
lambert, are you having problems with the Code?
I have a copy of the International Residential Code (IRC) right next to me. Normally I keep it in the house, so it's filled with sawdust and other crap. I have lots and lots to say about the IRC and building inspectors, most of which is surprisingly positive. But we started speaking with the county two years before we started building and one guy I spoke with a lot lives in a dome house---lots of fellow travelers. So we knew what the PDS was looking for and why before undergoing our trials by fire.
Mark, our inspector, was doubtful about how a bale house would work until he came to approve covering it all up. Once he saw it, it all made sense because level, plumb, and square apply across all materials and we had solid engineering on both the bales and structure.
And he was a resource. We all knew that the IRC sets minimum standards and we wanted to build better than that. He was able to point out areas where he thought we'd get value both financially, structurally, and aesthically. It was an ongoing conversation--I'm hoping it remains so with the new inspector.
We also made Mark's life easier by telling him what we were going to do and how we were going to do it, so he was able to tell us whether or not he would pass it and what he'd prefer to see. Pretty soon you start seeing the bones of the structure and what it is required to do, not because of code, but because of the forces acting upon it. Connections within the assembly become really interesting to think about.
No, no personal problems with the code
But my vague understanding is that the standardized building codes make a lot of "green" (watch that word...) innovations difficult, and really get in the way of experimentation. Am I wrong?
[ ] Very tepidly voting for Obama [ ] ?????. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.
"First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win." -- Mahatma Gandhi
Cautious with "green" is appropriate...
My experience has been different, so I'd say that making the use of these materials "difficult," and that's a relative term, is appropriate. Not only are you risking people's financial health when they buiild, you're risking the roof caving in or a fire killing them. True of any structure. And this applies to not only the people who do the building, but the people who buy and want to live in it afterward, so there is a consumer protection facet as well.
But these materials and methods can be tested and usefulness can be quantified. It costs some money to do, but it can be done. And frankly, a lot of people who are experimenting have very ltitle experience with construction and really do want to wish a roof into being. They're desire to ignore the Man trumps good sense.
For example, there was an attorney who decided to build a totally "green house" in a small "green" development not too far from here. She then had her soil pipe plumbed to a pit filled with pea (ha!) gravel and covered with dirt in an area with high runoff (we get a lot of rain) and where people use wells for potable water.
Now, one could argue that it probably wasn't going to hurt anybody, etc., but there's a reason plumbers are licensed. They are dealing with a public health issue. This woman was not the only person who needed to flush her toilets and yes, there is always someone who lives downstream.
And this is upsetting because there are alternative to sewer systems and septic tanks availablke to people with access to cash. Multrums, dry toilets, burning toilets (not what you think), blackwater and graywater separation---lots of responsible and tested options if you look and make the commitment.
(FTR, graywater reclamation is illegal in this state because all wastewater is defined as blackwater and must be disposed of as blackwater. But people can and do use water from, say, their laundry to water their plants. Just don't sotre it as that will elad to major problems with contamination and, well, stinkiness. Not as bad as blackwater, but still, pretty bad. Anyway, I've been speaking with the state on this issue, too, but not making much ehadway. Again, a five-gallon bucket in your laundry sink to catch the water will elt you water your houseplants just fine.)
It's not that hard to find out about the codes. Any licensed subcontractor has to know the code of their specific trade and many know a lot about all the codes. They'll tell you. Or you can look it up. Once you udnerstand what and why, the system you want to install can be designed to match those minimums. Anyone who is good at this stuff already knows how to do this.
It's when people want to build something cheap on and fast that there's often trouble.
I hafate get my low-voltage wire run this morning, so i have to stop reading Corrente and get moving. But there's a lot more to this, including DFH
, that I would love to discuss.
Thanks for the pictures!
They are fantastic.
Do you actually leave the hay bales in the walls then? Is that why they are 24"?
Where's the hay, then?
That was my question, too.
[ ] Very tepidly voting for Obama [ ] ?????. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.
"First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win." -- Mahatma Gandhi
Hay? HAY? Why, you...
Straw, my little chipmunks. Though you can use hay, hay has food value while straw does not. And straw is very very dry, while hay is supposed to have some moisture. They actually give prizes to people who are able to produce hay bales with the proper moisture content. (It's a pretty cool display, I must say.)
I have a little moisture meter to read the moisture in bales of all kinds of things. We would use it to measure our bakes before they went up. Our moisture readings went from about 7%-11%. That's dry.
Yes, the bales make up the entire outside wall. Three-string bales, 22"x16"x48" roughly, weight about 80-90# (hay weighs over 100#). Insulation value is a nominal R35, but it's closer to R50 for straw baled this tightly. With stucco, the walls are 24" thick.
Hay. Honestly. No chocolate cake for either one of you.
So the exterior walls are all bales. The roof extends from these walls to the cupola, where beams run from post to post. Interior walls are all framed as is typical for a stick-built house, though most of the interior walls have built-in storage. For example, the long wall running under the cupola from post to post is called The Great Wall of Storage---in addition to openings for the doors, it's built-in shelving from floor to the beams. With the exception of the French doors we salvaged from a house built in 1912, none of the inerior doors swing. They're all face sliders, like sliding barn doors. The track is mounted above and the door itself is clamped into place.
It takes a little more work to open a face slider than a swing door, but we save the 36" or so clearance for a swinging door. And we can use any reclaimed doors (or I'll build shoji screens) since we just need to cut them to fit and clamp them with the rollers at the top.
And for anyone thinking of tossing in a 3-little pigs joke...moral of that story: don't let a pig build your house.
We have a thousand pictures of all this stuff if you'd like to see the walls going up.
Will I still qualify for cheesecake if I remember straw?
I am only an occasional weekend farm girl, so while I do know the difference... I forget how important it is.
Well, okay. But lambert is on double-secret probabtion
.