Front Door Installed

The front door has been installed at long last. Two weeks ago the opening was prepared and the rest of the porch siding installed. We also hung the mail box. The door handle and lock combination is on order as we'd forgotten to do that. 

The door and upper trim along the ceiling will be stained a dark walnut colour soon.

Sidding Completed

SE corner showing the foundation covered with a thin hardy-board panel 

Front porch. Next up is the front door which will be moved a bit to the north. 

New bead board covering the old nasty painted board. 

Interior of porch. 

Outside of porch with hatch to under-porch storage area. 

North side. AC pipe still needs to be attached. 

North side. 

West elevation. We changed the design of the window trim of the middle window. 

Sidding Begins

More Insulation!

Under the front porch. 

If we had unlimited money we would rebuild the porch so that the InSoFast was continuous above and below the porch; eliminating a thermal bridge created by the porch framing. 

Small Items

Over the last couple of weeks some small things have been completed.

• The exterior of the original foundation has been water proofed with tar and insulated with InSoFast panels. 
• Because of the delay in the siding installation we had the sofits covered to prevent animals from potentially nesting or hanging out.
• Inside a still hot but no longer needed gas line was removed. It ran nearly the length of the house along the center support beam. Now that it is gone I can proceed with installing the sound isolation channels and hanging new drywall to finish the ceiling. 

One somewhat alarming discovery - a water pipe to the basement shower that has been exposed to the hot exhaust pipe from our on demand hot water heater. The exposure has resulted in corrosion plus the exterior vent was allowing considerable air infiltration. 

The water pipe will be insulated and the vent insulated with fire proof rock wool.

Foundation Insulation

South foundation:  Excavated down about 1' below grade. After drying it will be broom cleaned then black water sealing tar applied.  

 

Southeast Corner

 

North Foundation

 

North Foundation

 

Insulated and filled back in. 

North Elevation: Showing join between old and new part of house. The new part is SIPs and thus no additional insulation needed. 

New Soffits

South Elevation. Kid's room. Note the foam panels go all the way to the top of the wall. The framing for the new soffits attach to the panels, not the wall, thereby eliminating a thermal bridge. You can see the foam insulation that encloses the pantry and access to attic and back roof.   

Dinning Room push out. 

SE Corner. Past water damage and rot is clear. Fortunately the plywood holds everything in place. 

North Elevation. Attachment of the soffit to the panels is clearer. 

NE Corner. 

InSoFast Pt 2

South elevation. 90% complete. Demo and rebuilding of the sofits remains. No insulation will go on the back of the house as it is already super insulated. All the windows have been reframed to match the new depth with the insulation.  

North elevation. 

East elevation. The unconditioned attic space is also insulated rather than install spacers to have the same level for the siding.  

Panel Install Begins

After a 5-week wait for materials work has resumed.

At the sill plate level a new board is installed around the rim of the house. Metal flashing will go over it. The InSoFast insulation panels and then the siding will go on top. 

Bye-bye blue. Panels installed up to the level of the sofit.  New cedar framing was installed around the windows.

SE corner of the house. Eventually a decorative column will be built on this corner. 

South elevation of house. 

Mechanical Ventilation

The new mechanical ventilation unit is now installed and running. It sucks dirty interior air from the upstairs bathroom and kitchen while bringing in fresh outside air and dumping it into the existing ventilation system. There's a heat and moisture exchanger so that incoming air is conditioned and we are not losing heat.

Blue Skin done

Today was more demo including taking down all the gutters. The majority of the white siding (installed when we remodeled 6 years ago) was removed. What was left is small trim-like pieces.

The cellulose installer came back to finish up a couple spots he missed yesterday on the front of the house. Under the front (east) windows, upon drilling a hole for the cellulose, fiberglass insulation was found...installed backwards; the paper side facing outwards. We figure the previous crew thought they were doing a good thing but by installing it backwards it may have contributed to moisture problems.

They also found drywall, which is odd as our walls are plaster on the inside. Frank, the lead construction guy, said that our porch was probably inclosed in the 60's and that the drywall was used in place of lathe with the plaster going over it to match the rest of the interior.

We are water tight with one exception; above the dining room bay windows. By removing the gutters the rotted facia was exposed and they were not able to put blueskin over.

Backwards fiberglass is gone. Preparing for cellulose. 

Tacking up mesh that hold in the cellulose. Used when there is no wall. 

Former window to basement. Covered when previous owners installed a bathroom. Was only plywood between the outside and inside. The silver vent is the inline water heater exhaust. 

Back of house. Most all the white panel is gone. 

Blue south side. 

Front all blue. 

Big Blue Day

Another day of big progress. 95% done with the blow in cellulose and "blueskin" vapor wrap.
In the attic I added some wood blocking to secure the window frames to the house frame. The construction crew didn't want to remove the old exterior trim since that was what was holding the windows in place.

Under the front windows. Hollow wall cavity above the enclosed storage area in the basement; which had a frost wall and was spray foamed during the big remodel. 

Showing the newly filled cavity between the dining room windows. For all of them, they pulled out the fiberglass and used foam board and spray foam to insulate. 

Fully rebuilt corner. Old wood pulled out, new beams added and the cavity insulated with foam. Made an actual corner unlike what was there. 

Repaired and insulated corner and header above windows. 

The cavity below the front windows is now filled with cellulose. Rather than wait for Dave to show up with foam we had them use a mesh to hold in the cellulose. 

Blue house! The entire old section is now wrapped in Blueskin vapor barrier. Getting lots of looks from passersby. 

Front of blue house. Under the windows and to the left still need insulating.