Building SIP Ponywalls, Hosting Visitors, and Presenting Our Project
Wednesday, March 17th, 2010We have a sense of urgency to complete our project. Our feelings are heightened when it is raining. But today we throroughly enjoyed a beautiful, blue-sky California day. Spectacular!
Our tasks included building our SIP pony walls and hosting Jerry’s Kauffman’s class from San Jose City College. In between, we were absolutely delighted, and honored, to host Dawn and Steve’s first visit to our project site. We’re counting on their return visit in the next six months (before we complete our project).
Building Our SIP Pony Walls
Our roof is a bit complicated although we like to think it is simple. There are three types of connections for our gable roofs to connect to our flat roofs, and several other connections for each of the lower- and mid-level flat roof to post connections and multiple post to top level flat roof connections. All of these connections come together over the corner of the Garage/Atrium, where our concrete wall is that goes all the way to the foundation (18 ft).
Putting the SIPs into this area was difficult as there were numerous anchor bolts and we added five 1-inch threaded steel rods, each embedded 12 inches into the concrete. Adding to the complexity was the rigid conduit to carry the DC current from our 48 solar photovoltaic panels to the two inverters, located in the East Mechanical room.
Oh, the other component in this area is an 8×18 steel beam that connects the roof structure over the Living Room to the concrete wall in the Garage/Atrium. This steel beam needs to be fabricated and is located inside the mid-level SIP roof. The trick when working with steel is to have accurate measurements as it isn’t very maleable once fabricated. Unless you have a cutting torch and arc welding equipment on site.
Hosting Dawn and Steve’s First Site Visit
Jo-Anne arrived at the project site with Dawn and Steve. We took them on a full tour of the house, going through every room. Both Dawn and Steve are from the Boston area so our Eichler and ‘California Modern’ design was very different than the residential architecture that they see on the East coast.
They were impressed with the ‘green’ aspects of our project and wanted information on the payback of our solar photovoltaic panels. Apparently, Massachusetts doesn’t have as many bright, sunny days as we enjoy in California.
Dawn mentioned that her husband, Dave, would be most interested, and impressed, with the insulated header in the West wall of the house. Steve thought our temporary site office was over the top.
They promised to return and see our project again.
Presenting Our Project to San Jose City College Students
Jerry Kauffman, who we had met at the Kaneda Residence, was at our second Collaborative Informational Session last week and had arranged with Bryan to bring his students to tour our project.
The 20 students arrived promptly at 5:45 pm and toured the entire site. Bryan gave an overview of our objectives and construction challenges and then took the students through each room, highlighting the innovative building materials and ‘green’ features. The students had many questions, which Bryan did his best to answer concisely and accurately (he may have pontificated a few times).
The tour concluded on the SIP roof. All 20 students climbed the ladder up to the roof and walked around the perimeter.
It was the perfect time at this point in our construction for the students to see how SIPs are assembled on site. They could see the lower-flat roof in place and how the 2×6 plates are connected, with the pony walls going on top of the plates to support the SIP gable roof. Moving around the roof, they saw the shear wall assemblies with the straps connecting the joints on the top of each beam. Also, they saw the connections on top of each Hardy Frame. Bryan distributed samples of the ‘blue screws’ that connect the SIPs so everyone could appreciate how the connections were made.
The presentation concluded at 7:30 pm and Bryan locked the gate just as it was starting to get dark.

Connection between the lower- and mid-level flat SIP roofs over the Garage/Atrium concrete wall, including the anchor bolts and LPT4s.

Note the strapping at the right side that will connect the bottom of the nailer on the steel beam (to be fabricated) to the top of the SIP roof over the Garage, which is then connected to the concrete wall in the Garage/Atrium. There is a lot going on in this location!

Carlos is caulking the bottom of the pony wall SIP where it will be placed over the 2x6 plate. This pony wall will support the SIP gable roof over the Kitchen.

We uncovered the SIPs and staged the pony wall SIPs on the roof. The large SIPs stacked on the temporary pool cover are for the gable roofs.

Dawn, Steve and Jo-Anne enjoyed the full tour in the late afternoon sunshine. Amazingly, all of them stayed clean through the tour of our active construction site.

After touring the lower level (basement) and ground floor, everyone climbed the ladder to the SIP roof.










































