We finally moved in with much less anguish than anticipated. Rae came down the weekend before the move to help us finalize some of the remaining projects in the new house. Cleaning the cabinets and the job site were a priority. You may have noticed the large piles of debris in the pictures looking outside the living room window in previous posts. We had been stockpiling wood scraps for recycling. The pile was often a source of materials during the project for backing material and little odds and ends. It is a relief to regain our view. 
Jake and Rae returned on moving weekend to help unpack. By the end of the weekend we had almost all of the boxes unpacked, and most of the pictures hung. We had accumulated a lot of pictures over the years and our tastes have changed since the 70's, so we ruthlessly discarded pictures and frames that no longer suited our new environs.
We took three small trailer loads to Kamps pallets for recycling. The clean material is ground up with in big chipping machine and a large electromagnet removes all of the nails. They resell this material as landscape mulch. Construction debris which can contain treated lumber, painted wood, or wood with glue, is chipped and sent to a pelletizer that compresses the material for fuel. They buy back pallets after sorting based on the condition, and will send a check once they have determined the value anywhere between 3 and 5 dollars each. These are resold to end users.
Our total landfill for the project included four “Bagsters” from Waste Management. The Bagster is a three cubic yard fabric bag that you purchase a many of the big box lumber centers for about $30. You can keep it on your property as long as you wish. The fabric drains nicely, so you don’t pay landfill costs for rainwater. You also don’t pay for a weekly rental rate for a dumpster. When it is full, you call Waste Management, and they come out with a truck with a small crane attached which picks up the entire bag for about $75.
I ended up taking two pickup mini-van loads of the rigid foam insulation to the dump as well. Though I originally identified a recycler it turned out they did not accept this type of foam, and I did not have time to find an alternative use. They did take a load of Styrofoam we had collected. I had about one cubic yard of scrap metal which I redeemed for about $35.00, and about four pickup loads of cardboard which I was able to recycle at no cost. Total out of pocket cost of construction waste will end up being about $400.
In the process of condensing a five bedroom home down to a two bedroom home, we ended up donating a lot of furniture to Habitat for Humanity's Re-Store along with some leftover construction materials which I was happy to find a home for. I also have worked on historic homes for the last 35 years, and had many tools that I will no longer require which also found a home at Re-Store.
My office is put together now so I can operate efficiently, though I still have a wire management problem that I have to figure out. Rae's creative genius provided dual purpose for my office space which will eventually become the dining room. We installed our old dining room table against the far wall which looks like a library table, will act as a conference table, and can easily be pulled out into the room and used as a dining table when we have company. Two of my favorite prints, a series of watercolor thumbnails by Mary Blocksma looking out her cottage window on Beaver Island in Lake Michigan, hang over the table. We will need to re-frame them to get them to scale right in the space. Below that is a mantle clock that belonged to my great-grandfather.
The inspiration for the color scheme in the house came from this not quite complete set of 20's and 30's era National Park reproduction posters. We would not have had the courage to have selected such bold colors on our own, but we implicitly trusted Rae's capacity to assemble a color palette and make it all work right. We do have strong opinions about our likes and dislikes, so we may not have been her best clients, but we are very pleased with the results. The last two posters came in this week, and will be mounted shortly. This week we are preparing for the final push. We have been getting estimates to complete the cement stucco. Our experimentation with the stucco on the foundation gave me such a case of tendonitis that I am prepared to find someone else to finish the job. Besides, Judy was concerned about workmanship quality for something that will be such a permanent and prominent aesthetic feature. I agree.
The stucco must have at least 72 hours of cure time without temperatures dropping below freezing, so we are nearing the date when we can safely start work. We cannot finish the rainwater harvesting system until the stucco is complete, which means we cannot re-spread the topsoil or plant the prairie. This will defer planting at least a couple of months.
The blower door test results are back, and though not as spectacular as originally anticipated during the testing, they are more than adequate. As a reminder of what a blower door test does, a fabric frame with an exhaust fan is firmly fitted in a doorway and turned on. A computer measures the air pressure differential between the inside and the outside. The air pressure differential can be quantified as a numerical volume of air leaks in the building.
The building code requirement is to have less leaks in the home (around windows, door, etc.) than would provide for three air changes per hour (ACH). Passive House design only allows 0.6 ACH. Design and construction detail is essential to get the leakage rates down to this level. We tested out at 0.44 ACH under a fan pressure of 50 PA (Pascals - a unit of measure for air pressure). This includes the open ductwork associated with the fresh air supply and exhaust, the range exhaust, and the three exhaust fans in the bath and laundry areas. The effective leakage rate without the air pressure differential is 0.02 air changes per hour. This equates to 8.9 square inches of hole in the side of the house, or an area of about 3" x 3". Our last home, which was 100 years old had a hole over 900 square inches based on the blower door test. We consider this an improvement.
The advantage of such a tightly constructed home is that you control the heat losses and gains though your mechanical system. The disadvantage is that you are required to provide fresh air to sustain life and health in the building by mechanical means. This requires that the heat recovery ventilation system (HRV) operates on a 24/7 basis. There is not a great deal of energy consumed by this equipment, just a small fan motor, but the reliance on energy to sustain life in the building is disconcerting. In the summer months we can just open the windows and turn off the equipment.
When the HRV is not operating, air quality noticeably suffers within a few hours. The air is stale and stagnant, and you begin to feel as if you are struggling to get enough oxygen. You may have experienced this at one time or another in a classroom or confined public space.
The blower door test results are back, and though not as spectacular as originally anticipated during the testing, they are more than adequate. As a reminder of what a blower door test does, a fabric frame with an exhaust fan is firmly fitted in a doorway and turned on. A computer measures the air pressure differential between the inside and the outside. The air pressure differential can be quantified as a numerical volume of air leaks in the building.
The building code requirement is to have less leaks in the home (around windows, door, etc.) than would provide for three air changes per hour (ACH). Passive House design only allows 0.6 ACH. Design and construction detail is essential to get the leakage rates down to this level. We tested out at 0.44 ACH under a fan pressure of 50 PA (Pascals - a unit of measure for air pressure). This includes the open ductwork associated with the fresh air supply and exhaust, the range exhaust, and the three exhaust fans in the bath and laundry areas. The effective leakage rate without the air pressure differential is 0.02 air changes per hour. This equates to 8.9 square inches of hole in the side of the house, or an area of about 3" x 3". Our last home, which was 100 years old had a hole over 900 square inches based on the blower door test. We consider this an improvement.
The advantage of such a tightly constructed home is that you control the heat losses and gains though your mechanical system. The disadvantage is that you are required to provide fresh air to sustain life and health in the building by mechanical means. This requires that the heat recovery ventilation system (HRV) operates on a 24/7 basis. There is not a great deal of energy consumed by this equipment, just a small fan motor, but the reliance on energy to sustain life in the building is disconcerting. In the summer months we can just open the windows and turn off the equipment.
When the HRV is not operating, air quality noticeably suffers within a few hours. The air is stale and stagnant, and you begin to feel as if you are struggling to get enough oxygen. You may have experienced this at one time or another in a classroom or confined public space.
The last element will be the installation of the Photovoltaic (solar) panels. Our preferred vendor, UniSolar, just declared Chapter 11 bankruptcy. They are still constructing equipment to fabricate the next generation of solar cells which is 50% more efficient than what they are currently producing. They expect to go into production this spring, and this should help get them out of trouble. Cost per watt is what makes any solar manufacturer competetive, and the new technology promises to vault them into the lead. We need to stay with a thin film solar cell because the other panels require structural reinforcing of the roof. There are other thin film manufacturers out there if need be, so we are keeping our options open as they work through this bankruptcy. UniSolar is based in Michigan and developed the thin film technology.
I am not expecting to post any more blog postings for another month or so until there is more activity on the site, though I do have some thoughts on writing about the lessons we learned, what worked, and what we would do differently. We still have a fair amount of organizing to do after the move, and a lot of small unfinished projects. The devil is in the details. Stay tuned.
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