construction – Page 2 – On ErikaRS' Mind

Mechanical and Windows

Posted on February 19, 2012June 18, 2023 by ErikaRS

This was an exciting week for work on the house, and a couple new stages are starting.

Plumbing wrapped up this week, but the inspection was delayed due to scheduling and payment issues. There’s plenty of time, though, so a delay on that is not a big deal. The natural gas pipe in the kitchen was installed. The upstairs bathtub was filled with water to test for any leaks.

Various framing modifications were done this week: the fireplace was lowered to bench height, framing for a soffit was put in over the kitchen (this ended up being just for aesthetics; there is no functional need for it), the door to the dressing room was moved, the closets in the second bedrooms were shortened to provide desk nooks, the entry closet was taken out to prepare for built-ins, and interior framing against the foundation in the lower part of the house was done. Here’s the interior of the dressing room, showing the corner we have for closet space now:

The exciting rough-in work this week was the mechanical system. We’re getting a mini-split system, a.k.a. a heat pump, a.k.a. a ductless system, which, as one of the names describes, does not use ducts for pushing heated or cooled air around. Instead, it uses a series of tubes. We want to explain this system in detail sometime soon, but the short version is that these tubes carry heat via refrigerant and move it between the interior and exterior of the house — one direction gives you heating inside, the opposite direction gives you cooling. On the inside, we’ll have units in the living room, the office, the media room, the master dressing room, and each of the second bedrooms. These all aggregate to two units outside the house:

On Friday morning, our windows were delivered! A few have already been installed, and the rest should go in fairly quickly. We can finally see what the exterior charcoal frame looks like at full scale. We were surprised at how large the windows are. The framed glass panels certainly provide a sense of scale that the rough openings don’t. Also, we have a lot of windows in the living room:

The timelapse is fairly boring this week; the end shows a couple of the master bath windows popping into place.

Most or all of the windows should be installed next week, and the mechanical rough-in should continue. It looks like the next step is to wrap all the tubes with insulation.

Foam and Hose Bibs

Posted on February 13, 2012June 18, 2023 by ErikaRS

This last week saw more progress on the exterior, and a bit of smaller progress inside.

The vapor shield wrapping was finished this week. Since we decided orange wasn’t the color we preferred, they started adding foam panels over the top, giving it a more Mondrian look.

Inside, blocking was added and some framing changes made. This picture shows the blocking in the entry for the bench that will go in.

A bit more work was done on plumbing to bring it near completion. Hose bibs were added around the exterior:

and the Power-Pipe was installed:

This drains the hot water from the shower, and pushes the cold water up the copper spiral to absorb the heat from the waste water, giving you much more hot water for showers.

The timelapse shows the foam panels going up on the exterior.

The plumbing inspection is scheduled for early this coming week, so that portion should be wrapped up soon. The windows have been shipped, and should be delivered sometime this week. We finalized our HVAC choice, so work on that should start this week, too.

Rough-In and Exterior

Posted on February 9, 2012June 18, 2023 by ErikaRS

It’s been a hectic several weeks for us, and we’ve fallen behind here. But construction has still been (mostly) happening.

The week after our last post, the Seattle area had one of the largest snowstorms in a few years. We were stuck at home most of the week, and not a lot was accomplished on the house, either.

Since then, things have been progressing nicely. Plumbing rough-in is finished, besides any later fix-ups or changes we or the inspectors need. This picture shows the laundry room: copper pipes for water in, washer/dryer on left and sink on the right, and the black pipes for waste water. Right behind it, you can see a bit of the master shower; and the back wall will support the master sinks.

Outside, the roofing was installed as soon as the snow cleared. It is a gray membrane called VersiWeld TPO, and covers the main roof, the mid-level eyebrow, and the rooftop deck. On the deck, it will be later covered by decking and the green roofing modules.

After that, work on the rest of the exterior house started. The first step was to wrap it in a vapor shield to protect the interior from moisture. You can see the white wood around the windows on top of the shield. This allows the windows to be securely mounted — they can’t be mounted on the foam that will come next.

More concrete was added. The slab at the very bottom of our stairs was poured, along with a short retaining wall extending from the north-east corner of the garage, and the foundation for our entry stairs. The wall on the left of the picture is level because it will support the flat landing from the garage, while the main stairs step down to the entry.

Changes captured by the camera slowed down in the middle of January, but you can see a nice bit of framing going up at the beginning of the month, and the orange vapor shield going on at the end.

We’ve been working on a lot of design stuff that we should discuss. The big things are electrical/lighting/data plans, and mechanical (HVAC) systems, both of which are up next for rough-in work. The exterior will continue to progress, with the windows on schedule to be delivered next week!

Framing Mostly Complete

Posted on January 19, 2012June 18, 2023 by ErikaRS

We’ve had quite the exciting weather (for Seattle) lately, so I only got a brief look at the house yesterday. Framing looks to be substantially complete. The roof and the rest of the stair tower are sheathed with plywood, the garage is framed, and the rear deck is in progress.

More and more of the work is going to be in the interior, but hopefully there will still be some things to see outside. A day or so was covered up this week due to snow.

The framers are still at work with some blocking and other details. Rough-in plumbing is being worked on this week. Roofing is ready to go as soon as the snow lets up. In general, there is exterior work and interior work happening now. Externally, the house is being wrapped, and it will be sealed once the windows are in (still a few weeks away). Internally, all the rough-in work is being done — plumbing, mechanical (HVAC), and electrical/data. Any blocking for other penetrations (for example, fans) or internal support (for example, shelving, art, etc.) also needs to be completed before the rough-in stage is finished.

Review of Q4 2011

Posted on January 9, 2012June 18, 2023 by ErikaRS

It’s the start of a new year, and the end of the old one. Construction on our house started around the beginning of October 2011, which lines up quite nicely with the yearly quarters. In this post, we’ll summarize the last three months and reflect on what has happened so far.

This was a major quarter for our house. We started construction from just a pile of dirt:

It was dug up:

Then footings and foundation walls were poured:

Framing started with the lower floor:

Continued with the main floor:

And then almost finished with the upper floor and roof:

Here’s a video summary:

We haven’t done a lot of design during the last several months, but we had some good accomplishments. We finalized and ordered the kitchen and bathroom cabinets from Pedini and the windows from Eagle. Our architect redesigned the garage entry (for people) to allow us to stay dry when going from the garage into the house. We changed our HVAC system to one that allows us more control (details in a later post).

This has been a relatively quiet period for us as the owners, but now it’s time to start doing a lot more design work. We’re working on choosing some of the colors on the roof and edges, deciding what concrete is going to be poured in the backyard before landscaping prevents heavy machinery from getting down there, thinking about stairs, the front door, and a lot of the built-ins, and designing all the electrical systems. The next three months will see framing completed, the house wrapped and sealed, and hopefully much of the rough-in completed inside. We’re looking forward to seeing everything happen, and we’ll keep cataloging all the changes.

Second Floor Framing

Posted on January 8, 2012June 18, 2023 by ErikaRS

Framing continued apace, with the majority of the second level finished. Framing on the roof was started, and the main structure is now visible.

With the second floor in-place, the extra supports on the main floor have been cleared out. We captured a panorama of nearly the entire floor.

The video shows one of the upper walls literally popping into place. We had a chance to observe the framers put up the north wall upstairs. They build the entire wall flat, including the plywood sheathing, and then use jacks that attach to a beam (I think a 2×4) to lever the wall into place. Then it is quickly given a few nails on either end to keep it standing while they get everything squared away with sledgehammers (probably a rubber head). The majority of the framing has been done by just three guys (I’m assuming there were a few extra helping to deliver the largest beams).

Next week should see more framing. The garage is the main thing we we’re excited to see next, but it might be slightly delayed due to some changes to the roof connecting the garage side entry to the main house entry.

Framing Continues

Posted on January 7, 2012June 18, 2023 by ErikaRS

[This is a bit late; the post is talking about the last week of 2011, from Christmas to the New Year.]

Framing continued this week, with various pieces getting some attention. The main floor framing was finished, including the brow above the entry way. The garage floor was framed, with sturdy boards laid down for the floor. Some big beams were delivered to provide the ceiling of the main floor, and support the second floor. This includes a large metal beam that runs over the dining room to the pillar at the stairs.

The upper level had floor enough to walk on, and to see the beginning of the rooms up there. I captured a panorama of what will (roughly) be the view from our bedroom.

There was also a bit of work done on the backyard to level it out, and integrate it with the slope of the neighbor’s lot.

The camera got knocked around a bit this week; plus the holidays resulted in less work than normal.

Below is the full month summary. There were a lot of changes in December! It started out as bare foundation walls, and ended up with most of the main level fully framed. It will be exciting to see what January brings!

Main Floor Framing

Posted on December 26, 2011June 18, 2023 by ErikaRS

This week there was a lot of progress on framing. The lower level was finished, and the majority of the main floor was framed. The footings for the back deck were dug out and poured. This was exciting to see. It is the first time we were able to walk around in a full-scale version of the plans we’ve been working on for so long.

I took a few pictures of the in-progress work on Tuesday, and then more pictures over the weekend. I also added descriptions to all the pictures, since it can be confusing trying to figure out what is what when only the framing is in place.

The video only shows part of the work, since the exterior sheathing blocked some of the later work.

This week the crew will start framing the upper floor, with the roof scheduled for a week or so after that.

Framing

Posted on December 17, 2011June 18, 2023 by ErikaRS

This was an exciting week, as it saw the start of framing! A little bit of backfill was done at the beginning of the week. After that, framing started strong. They put together a good portion of the lower floor, including the media room and storage/future bathroom. There is also the first of the trusses that will support the main floor.

In the video, you can see how all of that framing work only took three days. The form of the house will be appearing very soon!

Next week the framing will continue.

Backfill

Posted on December 12, 2011June 18, 2023 by ErikaRS

Last week was quiet. The crew completed footing drains and put up some waterproofing on the foundation walls. At the end of the week, they started back-filling the foundation — our camera was moved so that the big pile of dirt could be used to fill in around the foundation.

For now, the camera is up at the top of the site, pointed towards the lower portion. We’ll probably move it to a better position once the dirt-moving is done.

Next week should see a bit more backfill, and then framing will start!