Who’ll stop the rain?  May 23, 2013

It started raining over the weekend and hasn’t really quit. All manner of rain -- torrents, downpours, thunderstorms, sprinkles, passing showers, showers that hang around.....

Things are going wrong and downhill, literally. Yesterday we observed that parts of our driveway were washing out, rivulets bringing silt from the excavations down into the road. Today, Mitch discovered that he’d cut the 6 bent-connecting girts one tenon length too short. We either have to replace the girts, or use a free tenon made out of cherry.  We chose the latter.

Today, I called to see how things were going, and I knew right away that they were going really badly. When you’ve been married to someone for 21 years,  timbre of their voice is  like the soundtrack of a Saturday morning cartoon. You don’t even have to hear the words to know what’s happening.  “What’s going on?”

“Everything’s going wrong. The sides of the hole collapsed.  It shook the house.  At first, I thought it was thunder. but after a few seconds I realized it was the sound of dirt falling.”  The sides of the excavation have caved in, pouring dirt and mud down on top of the stone and the drain pipe and radon pipe. Gerg climbed down into the hole and rescued the ladder and the tools.  It’s going to rain more tomorrow. More dirt will come down.  Nothing to do but wait and assess the damage when it stops raining. Chris said he was sorry, it’ll work out. Indigo said he was sorry too, probably too much to dig out by hand. John said if it were a traditional construction we could have poured the foundation right away and maybe avoided the problem.  He’s probably right.  We’ll regroup & re-dig next week. It's completely depressing.

I have to give two presentations over the next two days, and I’ll be away tomorrow night.  Hating to leave when things are so bad, having trouble concentrating on what I have to do. I’m thinking that it could get worse.

Hard times blowing round our cabin door.

May 26, 2013

Still raining.  More collapses of sides of the pit. At this point, it doesn't really matter because they have to dig it all out again anyway.  At night it’s so cold that it’s been snowing.  They got 4” of snow at Mitch’s in Plainfield, and it collapsed one of the two 20’ x 10’ canopies we were using for work areas for pieces of the timberframe. Flooding and devastation in NW Vermont. Requesting FEMA aid for disaster area. It's ironic that this cold, intense weather is part of the global warming trend.

Heating Up  - April 28, 2013

So...the reason I'm behind on my posts is that things have been picking up speed at a rather alarming rate here. The first load of timbers for the first floor deck and both of the round wood center posts for the timberframe were delivered to Mitchell Estrin's place last week (he's a partner in Montpelier Construction).  Gerg's been over there many days since then, planing and sanding the timbers.  He and Curtis have been using a power planer that weighs 42 pounds.  Glad it's not me.

Our son Geoff came over to our place two weeks ago and helped Greg cut down about a hundred small trees... 

Geoff stands amid the scene of destruction.

...to get ready for the Pathfinder. Which sounds like some sort of New Age prophet, but in fact is a simple gizmo that optically demonstrates, for any point you set it up, the path of the sun by time of day and time of year.  It’s a hemispherical dome; you mount certain charts under it, set it up north/south, and then you can see, by looking at and through the dome, or by taking a pic and doing it later, the path of the sun in relation to shading objects such as the horizon, trees, hills, buildings, etc.  This way, we know which parts of the house walls will get sun when....so we can plan our window placement, performance specifications, and shading.

Indigo using the Pathfinder during his first visit - right after clearing.

Here he sets it up at the proposed placement of a second story window during his second visit - after some excavation work.

The Pathfinder, with Indigo and Gerg and the horizon and trees reflected in it.

Also, John Picard and his helper, Bert, arrived last week with the BIG MACHINE. 

 

"This thing's not afraid of anything,"  he told me with a big grin.  "Is that why you have 'No Fear' stenciled on it?" "Nope, that's my other machine. This is the excavator."  It stood in our yard all week, looking like a dinosaur taking a nap. 

Bailey and I check out the excavator.

He brought over his John Deere 350B 'dozer too, and before we knew it, a whole bunch of our trees were down and buried in a pit, and we were grieving the loss while oohing about the new sunset view that just opened up.  You can't have forested land AND sunsets when you live in a valley.

Newly sculpted!

The new landscape resembles the Moretown landfill, but I'm trying my best to visualize fruit trees and an herb garden. They say the best time to plant a tree is ten years ago, but I'm relieved that we never landscaped that part of the property, which was mostly a young, wild forest.  We did lose a bunch of our blackberry bushes.  But now we're thinking about a live roof on the cottage, planted with strawberries.  As Skip says, "If you're going to plant something and take care of it, you might as well be able to eat it."

Visitin'

Last month we had a great opportunity -- we got to visit another Passivhaus.  We met the builder, Ward Smith (Turtle Creek Builders) at the LEAP Energy Fair in Waterbury on April 13, and he generously invited us to tour their newly-constructed Passivhaus in Moretown. (Ward, by the way, won the "Vermont Builder of the Year" Award this past year.....and he wears the most amazing glasses. Round, and the latest pair is bright purple, although he is known for wearing bright red ones. Scoff not -- these things are important! If you bumped into him at the farmer's market, you'd definitely remember him.)

The enclosure for the outside portion of the mini-split.

Gerg, Indigo, Bailey (our doggy) and I met up with Ward, David Vissering, Chris and his business partner, Malcolm, at the Moretown General Store, and Ward led us up a short road to the house site. They did the usual housebuilder thing....looked at the eaves and the size of the overhang, the solar panels, and the vents....basically circled the house and examined parts of it until I started to get cold and asked if they minded if I went inside.

The guys looking around; Ward (in the light blue shirt) explaining.

Front of house with window-shading scheme.

Deep-set windows create their own window seats.

I took off my boots at the door, and the first thing I noticed was the warmth of the floor. Then the uniform warmth of the air in the room. Then I noticed the amount of light that was coming in, in spite of the fact that the window openings were about 18" deep.  Very nice.

Then, of course, I had to investigate the kitchen.  Induction cooktop by Maytag -- check. Super energy-efficient dishwasher by Fisher-Paykel -- check.

Fisher-Paykel two-drawer dishwasher uses only two gallons of water
to do a load of dishes and is so quiet you don't know it's on.  (We just got the single-drawer model and I love it!)

 High-efficiency washer and condensing dryer by Bosch -- check. 

Nice, functional kitchen

Great cabinets with lots of practical storage (Ward told me they were made by Kraftmaid).  

Fancy pull-out vertical storage frames the refrigerator,
shallow pantry shelves along adjacent wall.

The living room has a really nice view across the little valley.  Additional light comes in from the high window above the stairway, which opens via an electrical gizmo mounted on the wall.

Clerestory openable window above stairway.

The house is a bit unusual, as it was built specifically for two people with disabilities to live in with a full-time caregiver -- so there are three bedrooms, each with its own bathroom, and some other accommodations.

We made our way downstairs, and another astonishing sensation -- the basement floor was warm to the foot. Because the slab is so well-insulated, it felt amazingly like a heated floor. Fantastic! It was so warm in the house, in fact, that the "air conditioning" was actually on. Which is one function of the mini-split, which is a heating and cooling unit made by Mitsubishi.

Indigo examines the mini-split.

Ward is a tireless raconteur, and extremely interesting.  I could actually listen to him talk for a really long time about things I barely understand -- which is what I did.

Ward holding forth about the Zehnder HRV.

It was so much fun to be in a real Passivhaus. We've been talking so abstractly, looking at charts and diagrams, and doing so much imagining.  To see it "in the flesh" ("in the wood"?) was a thrill.  Thanks, Ward!

This is the Sunward storage tank attached to the domestic hot water tank.

Sunward pumping station

Holding tank for solar hot water.