Renowned architect Steve Baczek posts a lot of great content on social media sharing his expertise in building science. When I saw the post linked below, I could not help but smile. He provides a very entertaining tour of our new homes future foundation walls.
https://www.instagram.com/reel/CiJTRC2Drrm/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link
Don’t forget to enable audio for the full impact.
The rain that started yesterday continued through the evening and much of today thwarting our plans to pour the concrete basement walls. Unfortunately, we will have to wait an entire week before the necessary people and resources can be rescheduled. This is very disappointing but I made the best of an otherwise unscheduled day to complete preliminary plans for the electrical wiring of the house. Above is the drawing for the first floor.
Jeanine shared this photo taken by her friend Aliza while out on an extended bike ride this past weekend. Unfortunately, the beautiful weather has given way to all-day rain. While much needed to break the drought we have been experiencing, it does not bode well for the concrete work we have scheduled for tomorrow.
It has been several weeks since we managed to assemble the whole crew for a meal. Nicolai has been all over the country practicing with his team for the World Cup (just 3 weeks away now), Maya was in quarantine recovering from her second bout of Covid and Kyle was in Las Vegas for a work function. As a bonus, we were joined by Sarinnagh, who is like another member of the family. We were all in Somerville to see Maya’s new apartment, located a few steps away from Union Square. She is sharing the third-floor flat with three friends (two from high school) and is now a short walk away from work. After moving to and from three different states for internships, in and out of her dorm at Olin every year, back and forth to Amsterdam for a term abroad, and in with us while waiting for her lease to start, Maya is really looking forward to settling down for a while. We are thrilled that she choose to remain in Boston.
We learned that Nicolai will be playing an exhibition soccer match in the center of Times Square next Saturday. Other obligations permitting, I may make the drive down with Maya. Meanwhile, Kyle is headed to Cabo, Mexico for another work function next week.
The formwork for the basement walls of the River House was completed this afternoon. Weather permitting, the concrete will be pumped in on Tuesday. I spent the day working with Kyle on his basement renovation, which is really starting to take shape. Jeanine helped Maya move into her new apartment in Sommerville which she will share with three friends. A nicer day you could not wish for. Jeanine and I enjoyed the last rays of the sun at the worksite and relaxing on an old bench with a commanding view of the river.
Passing kidney stones has a hard part (kidney to the bladder) and an easy part (bladder to the free world). For me, the first part usually lasts for a few days and is no fun at all. The second part can be delayed by weeks or months and is often triggered by airplane travel. This morning, I welcomed this fine collection of stones including one in the shape of a heart (if you are a lover) or an arrowhead (if you are a fighter). The long dimension of the triangle is about 3.5mm. I am now something of an expert on kidney stones but still have no idea why they always seem to arrive in large groups. Perhaps the big one makes a way for the little ones. I would rather pass a hundred small stones than one big one, much less a big one with sharp angles.
The side door entryway to our Road House is something of an oddity. It features five doors. One to the outside, one to the garage, one to the kitchen, one to my office, and one to the mudroom. It is something of a major traffic intersection and the floor has taken a beating over the years. This morning, I started a project to install cork flooring in this space. Step one was to lay down a substrate, in this case, 3/4 inch Advantech (we will be using the 1-1/8″ version for the River House sub-flooring). I used glue and screws to secure it. Next, I need to fill the screw holes and board seems. Cork will telegraph the slightest imperfections from below, so I will take my time to ensure this gets done right. I hope to install and seal the cork over the long weekend.
I have spent a considerable amount of time evaluating different options for lighting and lighting control for the River House. I have settled on Leviton Decora Smart Wi-Fi Motion Sensing Dimmers for control. 36 of the 38 lighting circuits in the house will be fitted with this switch. The device is highly programmable and can be configured as a regular dimmer switch, an occupancy dimmer, or a vacancy dimmer. Every light will be controllable from my phone, the internet, or any of the voice assistants (Siri, in our case). The switches can communicate with each other as well (motion at the top of the stairs turns on lights at the bottom of the stairs). 36 motion sensors spread throughout the house also make for one hell of a security system. I also spent several days evaluating recessed LED lighting fixtures and have selected the 4″ Halo HLB4069FS1EMWR which will be used in 76 places. I down selected from over a dozen units based on the following characteristics: cost, appearance, total lumens, lumens/watt, color temperature, ability to dim, color rendition index, beam angle, ability to use in showers, ability to use in contact with insulation, size of the connection box, style of connectors, ability to daisy-chain, built-in wire clamps. I then ordered one of each of the top three choices. I then wired them up to my chosen dimmer switch and tested them for: flicker, acoustic anomalies (hum or buzz at all lighting levels), ability to dim to near zero, ability to mount directly under a ceiling joist, spring tension to hold fast to ceiling, quality of diffused light (analyzed the shadows, looked for hot spots), mounted on the ceiling and observed light spread to determine optimal spacing.
Some people (including close family members) think I am insane for investing this kind of effort for something as mundane as lights and switches. The fact is, I enjoy doing this type of research and investigation. Moreover, the investment in time now will pay dividends in the future. I will be happy every time a light in an unoccupied room turns itself off and when I tell Siri to turn off all the lights in the house when going to bed or to set the lighting scene for a dinner party with one command.
One of the projects I am working on for a client involves dispensing a precise amount of powder to be mixed with a solvent. For the moment, I have settled on a vibratory dispenser and spent some time today testing an inexpensive unit I purchased on Amazon. It performed as expected but I learned that vibration frequency was possibly even more important than intensity in determining flow rate. I did my initial experiments with salt (because it was handy) and need to repeat with the actual powders of interest.
On my way home from my soccer match this morning, I noticed this newly completed house which shares some design elements with our new house project. Jeanine and I returned later in the day to check it out more thoroughly. Naturally, the outing ended at Kimball Farms for ice cream.
The soccer team I am playing with this season has many talented individuals but we have not learned to play as a team yet. We faced last year’s league champions in our opening match with many of our players still on vacation. The result was a predictable 0-4 drubbing. I played for 70 minutes and had our only shot on goal, a header off a corner that just skimmed the outside of the post.
Floor framing is generally very straightforward. When you are hell-bent on having zero ductwork or pipes on the ceiling of your basement, it is anything but. Access to the joist bays from the mechanical room has to be very carefully thought out to ensure that supply and return ducts have a path through the labyrinth to the necessary locations. Add in a ventilation system with 32 supply/return tubes and you have a real puzzle on your hands. Happily, I have come up with a plan which should satisfy all the objectives.
My Audi has been in the shop all week. I brought it in on Monday because my adaptive cruise control was not engaging properly (the only problem I have had with the car in three years). While performing diagnostics, they determined that one of 36 battery modules was not performing properly and needed to be replaced. Fortunately, the replacement will be covered under warranty but the repair involved removing the entire battery assembly (pictured above) from the bottom of the car. I have been advised that the work will not be completed until early next week.
I spent half of the day on-site and among other things, helped to unload an entire 53-foot long trailer full of ICF blocks that will be used as forms for the basement walls. Insulated concrete forms (ICF) are lego-like blocks made of styrofoam-like insulating panels that are held together by internal webbing designed as cradles for rebar and anchor points for fasteners. Once stacked to the desired height, concrete is poured into the forms and the resulting wall assembly has an R-value of 25. Jeanine joined me on a visit to the site this evening and we wound up visiting with our neighbors who invited us over for snacks and drinks.
When building an extremely well insulated and tightly sealed home it is imperative that a ventilation system be included in the design. Such a system runs continuously bringing in filtered fresh air from outdoors while exhausting an equal amount of stale air from the house. Rather than waste the energy in the conditioned air that is being sent out of the home, an ERV (Energy Recovery Ventilator) extracts this energy and transfers it to the fresh air entering the house. We have selected the Zehnder 600 Q to serve this purpose in our new home and it is able to recover up to 95% of that energy. Because of extended lead times, I placed an order for our system today so that it will be here in time for the HVAC work, currently planned for November.