We completed several tasks on our critical path to completing our SIP roof today.  An important task was to have all of the beams on site so they could be graded.  Having our beams is critical so the structural framing can be completed on the ground floor so we can move the SIPs onto the roof with the crane on Wednesday.

Picking Up Our Reclaimed Beams After Milling in Watsonville

Dave Merchant, from Out of the Woods, loaded the three beams that we milled to size on Tuesday at his site in Bonny Doon.  Dave met Bryan in Watsonville at Jackel Enterprises, where we loaded the remainder of the beams that were being milled.  From there, Bryan followed Dave up Highway #1 and over the hill to our project site.  There, our framing crew unloaded the beams by hand and staged them for grading.

Charlie Jourdain, from Redwood Inspection Service in Pleasant Hill, arrived on our site as planned and the beams were ready for him.  Charlie examined and graded each beam, then stamped the end of each beam.  He will be sending us a certificate stating the grade of each beam.  Note that Redwood Inspection Service is a division of California Redwood Association, of which Charlie is the President.

Loading our recently milled reclaimed Douglas Fir beams in Watsonville. The beams on the truck were milled by Dave Merchant in Bonny Doon.

Bryan followed Dave's truck back from Watsonville. Dave is going up Winchester Boulevard with our reclaimed beams.

Dave backed the trailer into our site so it could be unloaded quickly and easily.

Charlie Jourdain, President of California Redwood Association, came to our job site and graded our reclaimed beams. Charlie is measuring the grain of the wood as the grain runs diagonally in this beam.

Charlie measured and graded all of our beams on site, which were just delivered a few hours ago.

Making Insulated Headers

On the West side of our house we have two bathrooms.  The beams that support the SIP roof at the front and back of the house extend through the building.  However, we have two bathrooms on the West side and, even with exhaust fans, these bathrooms will have a high moisture content.

To provide greater protection from condensation, our durability plan requires insulated headers to keep keep the surfaces of the exposed beams warmer and prevent condensation from occuring. 

From two of the reclaimed Douglas Fir beams, we had Jackel Enterprises cut two 1-3/4 inch wide planks.  Using these planks, we sandwiched 2 inches of rigid R-10 insulation.  Thus, we end up with an insulated header that is 5-1/2 inches wide and over 19 ft long.  This insulated header will be over the windows in the two bathrooms.

Similarly, we require a small insulated header on the East side of the house, above the exterior Kitchen door.

Francisco makes the insulated headers by sandwiching 2 inches of rigid insulation between two planks, cut from our reclaimed Douglas Fir beams.

Completed insulated header. The two pieces of reclaimed Douglas Fir are held together by a number of 4-1/2 inch galvanized Simpson Strong Tie SDS screws, countersunk into the planks.

Moving the Temporary Steel Beams

The temporary steel beams supporting the existing East and West walls of our house were moved clear of the structure today.  Several inches of the concrete haunches were removed so the existing walls are now free and clear, and are entirely supported by the house once again.

We’re ready to remove the temporary steel beams from the site on Wednesday, February 24.

Reducing Construction Waste

Renovation and construction projects can generate a tremendous amount of waste that goes to landfill sites.  According to the LEED for Homes Reference Guide, ‘Construction and demolition wastes constitute about 40% of the total solid waste stream in the United States.’  For our project, we are targeting to create as little construction waste as possible.  When our Green Rater, Darrel Kelly, came to our project site on Tuesday, February 16, he was surprised, and delighted, to see how little waste we were generating as we were using three 35 gallon garbage bins to hold our framing debris.

Earth Bound Homes delivered a trailer to our job site today that will be used for all the framing debris.  All the framing waste on our job site was dumped into the trailer as it will be taken for recycling.  We will obtain tags on the debris removed with the trailer.

This is the trailer from Earth Bound Homes, which contains all of our framing debris to date. Note that a number of the pieces in trailer are reclaimed wood, which would otherwise be landfill. This debris will be taken for recycling, not landfill. Reduce, reuse and recycle (redirect).

Overview and Inspection of Progress this Week

Given the days are longer now, Jo-Anne was able to drop by the job site at the end of the day today to inspect our progress. 

Our first major shear wall is in place in Kate’s bedroom (formerly the Master Bedroom).  Having the shear wall in place prior to Jo-Anne’s inspection showed significant progress. 

In line with that shear wall is another shear wall adjacent to the Atrium.  Scott Andersen, who did the conceptual design of the remodel, specified during his most recent job site progress review that we include recessed art niches in the wall behind the glass bridge to the Master Suite.  Three recessed art niches were framed in today and the plywood will be nailed in place next week.

Jo-Anne walked the property and was smiling as she was pleased with our progress this week.

Completed SIP walls on either side of our doorway at the front of the house.

Same view of the foyer, taken on September 29, 2008 when the roof was being deconstructed. Note the diagonal brace on the temporary site fence through the door - it is the same diagonal brace in the photo above. Way cool.

Three art niches that are framed in the shear wall behind the glass bridge facing the Atrium.

Example of recessed art niches (not in a contemporary style house).

Example of recessed art niches on a large exposed wall.

Plywood 2x6 shear wall between the Living Room and Kate's Bedroom.

Jo-Anne, standing in Kate's Bedroom, smiles as she walks the property inspecting our progress this week.

Our flag is flying and our Insulspan sign is posted. The site is buttoned up, ready for the rain that is forecasted through the weekend.

We’re trying to get our CUDO cistern installed next week so that item is completed and stroked off ‘the list’ (an achievement for 2009).  This will require excavating so we need to confirm where the underground utilities are located.  Call before you dig …

Harvesting Rainwater at 17509 Via Sereno for Irrigation

Our plan is to harvest 100% of the rainwater from our roof and just under 100% of the rainwater from our hardscape for irrigation (the water from the driveway will flow into a small swale).  The water will be stored in an underground CUDO cistern (with capacity of 3,677 gallons).  We will have a pump in the cistern that will be connected to our irrigation system so we will avoid using potable water for irrigation.

LEED Points

Our design will provide LEED points in a number of areas.  Under WE 1.1 Water Reuse, we will get 3 (of 4) points for harvesting rainwater for external use.  We cannot use water inside the house so we are giving up one point here.  Since our system is designed to harvest rainwater from 100% of the roof area, we are eligible for an additional point for Exemplary Performance.

Also, we will receive points under SS 4 Surface Water Management under Sustainable Sites.  Specifically, we will receive 3 of 4 points for having over 90% of the hardscape surface water going to a cistern (SS 4.1 Permeable Lot), 2 of 2 points for Management of Runoff from Roof (SS 4.4) since we installed permanent stormwater controls to manage runoff from the home and we had a professional engineer design our lot to manage runoff from our home on site.  

Consequently, our complete underground CUDO cistern system will result in 9 LEED points (of 136 possible points).

Underground Requirements

Once the underground CUDO cistern is full, any additional water will flow to the back of the storm drain in an underground 6-inch pipe.  This design was approved by the Town of Los Gatos (they own the storm drain) and the City of Monte Sereno.  Yes, we will require easements fro  m each municipality.

The 6-inch underground pipe needs clear access to the back of the storm drain and it will go under the sidewalk.  This is where we need clear access from other utilities.  All of the services on Via Sereno are underground so we need to ensure the cable TV (Comcast), telephone (Verizon), water and sewer (San Jose Water Company), electricity and natural gas (PG&E) and street lighting and not located where we will be digging.

So … we marked our excavation locations with white paint and called USA (Underground Service Alert) so they could visit the site and identify where all of the underground services are located.

White paint showing where we plan to excavate from the underground CUDO cistern, under the sidewalk, to the back of the storm drain.

We’re Clear to Dig!

We received notification that all of the service providers (Verizon, PG&E, etc.) had been to our site and marked the location of their underground services.  There are no underground services in the path from our underground CUDO cistern to the back of the storm drain – we’re clear to dig!

Our biggest concern was that there could be some underground utilities in the dirt strip between the curb and sidewalk, which would increase the depth of the excavation for the drain and require us to dig by hand.

The markings are on Winchester Boulevard so there is nothing in the dirt strip at the left. We're good!

Markings on the curb and sidewalk. Note the very faint marking by the light standard showing the power source is going toward the sidewalk and not into the path of where we need to dig.

Lisa Meline, of Meline Engineering, is a key member of our design team as she designed our geothermal heat exchange ground loops and completed the initial design of our radiant system inside the house.  Importantly, Lisa introduced us to Matt Jung of 88HVAC.

Lisa sent an e-mail last week saying that she had some meetings in the Bay Area and she would like to visit our site and see the progress to date.  Perfect.  Lisa showed up 15 minutes early and reviewed the site with Bryan.

Lisa arrived at the site early to review our progress to date.

Lisa taking photos of the PEX in the concrete piers.

Lisa was most impressed with the PEX in the concrete and took a photo of the PEX that was pressurized to 100 PSI (and holding the pressure!).

Quick Trip to Watsonville to See Jackel Enterprises

After Lisa left, Bryan and Christie Tunnoch, who was visiting from Vancouver, Canada, went ‘over the hill’ to Watsonville to Jackel Enterprises so we could measure the reclaimed beams from the original structure and to take a quick look at our resawn redwood decking.

Since we need 6×10 beams, we will need to identify where we will use the original beams in the remodelled ground floor.

Bryan and Christie met with Steve Jackel, who showed them some of the FSC inventory of FSC lumber that he had as well as other large timbers from British Columbia, Canada.

Steve Jackel showing FSC lumber that he is holding in his inventory.

Original Douglas Fir beams from 1969.

More original beams from 1969.

The original 2x6 tongue and groove redwood decking that has been cut in half and remilled (now is 5/8-inch thick) with a new tongue and groove.

Huge 14-inch by 14-inch Douglas Fir beams from British Columbia (not FSC).

Steve showed us some wood that he is drying slowly in his kiln.

We are planning to increase the structural strength of our building so it will meet the upcoming changes to the seismic building code requirements.  The U.S. Geological Survey is updating their maps and those changes will take effect with the update in the building codes in California. 

Perry Haviland, FAIA, is on the Structural Design/Lateral Forces Committee, which is part of the Code Change Committee that will be recommending changes to the California Building Standards Commission. Perry is currently reviewing our design, including the structural elements.

If we were planning to build this house and then sell it, we would simply meet the minimum code requirements and be done.  However, since we are planning to live in the house for the next 15 years and we believe that a major seismic event will occur during that time, we will do our best to strengthen the various components of the structure without retrofitting any of the materials that have already been completed (e.g., our concrete and SIPs).  Increasing the structural strength is part of our Durability Risk Assessment. 

Under the LEED-H requirements, the Durability Planning prerequisite (ID 2.1) requires that our project team address durability explicitly in the home design by assessing durability risk factors and identifying and incorporating specific measures into the home’s design to address each factor. Our team completed the Durability Risk Assessment and, with us living less than five miles from the San Andreas fault line.  We need to address the high risk of seismic activity.

We requested our structural engineer of record, Innovative Structural Engineering, to review and approve our proposed changes to increase the structural strength of our building.  As part of that review, Shane Lothrop needs to know the spacing of the anchor bolts that are embedded in the top of the concrete wall between the atrium and the garage.

A digital camera and measuring tape tell the story nicely.

These anchor bolts are embedded in the concrete.

First two anchor bolts.

Second two anchor bolts.

The anchor bolts are offset from each other in a staggered manner.

Other offset.

Another view of the anchor bolts.

Many people have asked us why we are installing solar photovoltaic panels on our roof.  They believe that solar thermal panels are superior since solar thermal can provide hot water for (1) domestic hot water; (2) radiant heating inside the house; and (3) heating the swimming pool.

Since we will have geothermal energy available for our domestic hot water, heating in the house, and even to heat our swimming pool, we have a greater need to generate electricity. 

Our geothermal heat exchange uses multiple pumps.  These pumps need electricity to operate, so we will be using renewable energy from our photovoltaic panels to obtain renewable energy from the earth.

Our stated objectives include being zero net energy and zero carbon.  We intend to meet these objectives is through renewable resources, including geothermal heat exchange and solar photovoltaic generation.

Increasing Use of Electricity

Generally, our household has been an early adopter of new technologies.  These technologies often require electricity to operate.  Thus, our household may use more electricity that others so we want to be ‘hedged’ against the rising cost of electricity.

In an article today entitled, ‘Plugged-In Age Feeds a Hunger for Electricity ‘ the New York Times reported that:

Worldwide, consumer electronics now represent 15 percent of household power demand, and that is expected to triple over the next two decades, according to the International Energy Agency, making it more difficult to tackle the greenhouse gas emissions responsible for global warming.

To satisfy the demand from gadgets will require building the equivalent of 560 coal-fired power plants, or 230 nuclear plants, according to the agency.

To reduce the burden that our household will put on the grid, we’re going to to two things. 

First, we will do our best to anticipate where ‘always on’ devices will be and have ‘on/off’ switches in those locations.  These switches may be connected to our home automation system so the switches can be turned off automatically when required.

Second, we’re going to have solar photovoltaic panels on our roof.

Sizing Our Photovoltaic Panels

We designed our house so we could fit up to 48 solar photovoltaic panels on the roof.  However, due to the current legislation in California, we can only generate as much electricity as we use.  We cannot be net generators of electricity.  Frankly, we can’t understand this legislation and we believe the legislation needs to change.  This issue is in front of the California senate, with AB 560 (to raise the limit on net metering from 2.5% to 10%) and AB 920, which would allow homes to be net generators of electricity.

Existing law provides that where the electricity generated by the eligible customer-generator exceeds the electricity supplied by the electric distribution utility or cooperative during a 12-month period, the eligible customer generator is a net electricity producer and the electric distribution utility or cooperative retains any excess kilowatthours generated and the customer-generator is not owed compensation for those excess kilowatthours unless the electric distribution utility or cooperative enters into a purchase agreement with the eligible customer-generator for those excess kilowatthours.

Given the size of our house and usage patterns, Akeena Solar estimated that we should install 32 photovoltaic panels and that will drive our consumption to zero.  Given that the cost of photovoltaic panels is dropping and the performance is increasing (and, we simply can’t generate a financial return on additional photovoltaic panels), we’re limiting our installation to 32 photovoltaic panels.

We will, however, have all the infrastructure in place to support 48 photovoltaic panels so when the legislation changes and we can be a net generator of electricity or, if our power consumption is greater than expected and we need more panels to drop our net consumption of electricity to zero, we can simply bolt in the additional photovoltaic panels as and when required.

Future Capability for Electric Vehicles

Although we do have electric vehicles today, we are going to have our garage wired for charging electric vehiclces.  If we have electric vehicles in the future (Tesla?) then our consumption will increase.  And we’ll simply bolt in those additional photovoltaic panels.

Other Thoughts

To help heat our swimming pool, we plan to put PEX tubing in the concrete decking around the pool.  Thus, the warm pool deck will pre-heat the water circulating in the pool, which will heat the pool and cool the deck.  With appropriate valves and controls, this should be a win/win.

We believe strongly that water conservation is much more critical than most people recognize and water conservation will become equally as important as energy conservation.

To help reduce our water demands, we will use low volume plumbing fixtures and drought tolerant, native California species in our landscaping.  Importantly, we will have an underground cistern that will capture 100% of the rainwater that falls on our roof.

Rainwater Harvesting

Under the LEED-H guidelines, Water Efficient (WE) has three components:  Water Reuse (WE 1); Irrigation System (WE 2); and Indoor Water Use (WE 3).  At this point in our project, we need to ensure that the physical properties of our site will support our design (i.e., not constrain the elements in the design) so a cistern is critical.  The use of a cistern is covered under Water Reuse.

Water Reuse includes WE 1.1 Rainwater Harvesting System; and/or WE 1.2 Graywater Reuse System; or WE 1.3 Use of Municipal Recycled Water System.  There is a maximum of 5 points available in Water Reuse and up to 4 of those 5 points can be in WE 1.1 Rainwater Harvesting System.

We do not have a Municipal Recycled Water System and will not be utilizing a Graywater Reuse System; consequently, we need to focus on a Rainwater Harvesting System.

The design of our Rainwater Harvesting System will include 100% of our roof area and the cistern must be sized to hold all of the water from a 1-inch rainfall event.  Given our roof is 63’4″ by 63’3″ (almost a perfect squate), we have 4,006 sq ft of roof area.  For a 1-inch rainfall event, our roof will capture approximately 2,484 gallons of rainwater.

Cistern Requirements

Our property cannot support an above-ground cistern so we need to have a location for an underground cistern.  The swimming pool and existing trees at the back of the house limit our location to the front yard.  It would be great to have a cistern under our driveway but that would come at a significant cost.

Alternatively, we have some space at the East side of our front yard where we removed a Canary Island Pine tree.  Removing the stump will require an excavation, so it will make a feasible location for an underground cistern.  We will use the excavated soil to fill the remaining voids at the front of our house.

Our civil engineering team, from Bowman & Williams, were reviewing our alternatives and Casey Carlson recommended that we consider the CUDO System.  He was familiar with the CUDO System and though it could be integrated with our site easily.  We liked Casey’s design and recommendations.

CUDO System

The CUDO System is an innovative product that include 2×2 ft plastic cubes, which can be configured in a number of ways.  A bladder goes around the internal plastic cubes, creating the cistern.  The CUDO System could include a pump that can be connected to our irrigation system, thus reducing our water demands.

Given our space availability, Bownman & Williams recommended that we put in a CUDO System that is 4 cubes wide (8 ft) by 8 cubes long (16 ft) and 2 cubes deep, that is just over 24 inches below grade.  The underground cistern will have a capacity of 492 cubic ft, or 3,677 gallons.  This will allow our cistern to hold approximately 1.5 inches of rain.  Once the cistern is full, it will have three pipes to carry the overflow, via gravity, to our storm sewer.

The team from CUDO Stormwater Products, Inc. included Doug Allard, Ron Powers, Jon McDonald and Sue Lillo.  They tailored the design from Bowman & Williams and helped to establish the detailed specifications.

Site Visit by Sue Lillo

The sales representative for Northern California, Sue Lillo, was going to be in the area so we invited her to visit our site.  Bryan hosted her site visit and showed Sue the various features of the house.

Sue confirmed that the location would work and that she would ensure the product was available and delivered when we need it.

Sue Lilo, sales representative for Northern California, arrived at our job site and reviewed the features of our renovation project.

Sue standing on the stump, showing where the CUDO System will be located (below grade).