Project 9504: Colchester, VT

This week we start construction of a house for Outer Bay at Marble Island, Colchester VT. Outer Bay at Marble Island is a waterfront community consisting of 40 home sites, twenty-one townhomes, 3 beaches, an adjacent marina, tennis courts, and a community pool.

The home sits on a 1/2 acre lot with views of Malletts Bay and the Green Mountains. The house is 2016sf with 3beds, 2 1/2 baths, wrap around porch, second floor deck off the master bedroom, an attached 26' x 32' garage, and 648sf unfinished bonus space.

This house is for sale and will be ready for occupancy in March, 2012.

Contact Doug Boardman at 802.846.9538 for more information.

Set Day. NEK, Vermont

Last week we set the NEK, Vermont house. Set Day turned into a reunion of sorts. In total, we had 11 guys onsite that day. Four of those guys have been working with us since the beginning. All of them have sons in the business today.

Total that day, there was 182 years worth of modular experience on that jobsite. The four alone have 130 YEARS worth of modular experience. I don't think you'd find a more experienced crew setting a home, anywhere.

The day started PERFECT.

Busy Site. There's a lot to do today.

First Module.

Second Module.

Third.

Fourth.

Kitchen Module.

Last Module.

Lift the Hinged Roofs

End of Set Day.

The guys are going to focus on getting the main house water tight / roof complete. Next week we'll set garage walls. Balance of garage plus porch / screen porch will be built onsite.

A sneak peak at the interior finish. The plywood walls to the left are temporary. The guys will site build a bumpout / window seat here.

March

March is a slow month in the building business in Vermont. Earlier this week we got 2 feet of snow. Tomorrow they're forecasting 1 1/2" of rain. And the cherry on top is mud season is around the corner. (where local Road Commissioners post their roads to ALL overweight vehicles including excavation equipment). Most builders are spending more time shoveling snow and pulling trucks out of ditches then they are building.




Lucky for us, we build inside. But that doesn't mean the production schedule is full. Most of our Builders and Owners are pushing their delivery dates out until the weather gets better. We'll pre-build some of these orders, but it leaves us with a production hole.

What do we do?

We generally use March for special projects. This may include spec houses. Or, we'll use this slow time for houses that take extra time. Last year we built the Gypsy Meadow and Blush Hill houses where we installed faux timberframes inside the traditionally framed first floor.

This years "skunkworks" project is a 2952sf house destined for the Northeast Kingdom in VT.


This house will feature: a wood beamed ceiling, custom built-ins, Andersen A-Series windows, custom hemlock exterior trim, radiant heating, dense pack cellulose insulation, and an HRV system.








Hopefully the weather will cooperate so we can get the foundation in the ground and set these modules mid May.

The Shoreham

We've decided to build ourselves a new model home. Hopefully the weather will cooperate and we'll set it early next week. The model will be located at our Main Shop in East Montpelier, VT.

The Shoreham. 28' x 40'. 3 bed. 2 1/2 baths.






First Floor Front Module. Siding is CVG Hemlock (primed). Trim is MiraTEC (primed). Windows are Andersen 400 Series w/ SDL grills. Front door is Simpson Fir. We'll paint the exterior sometime this spring.




Second Floor Front Module. The module is lifted into the air so we can run plumbing to access panel locations.




Kitchen Cabinets are Merillat Portrait Cherry w/ Amaretto Glaze. Main countertop is Formica. Island is John Boos Butcher Block. We'll install hardwood flooring once the modules are set and sealed.



Interior Trim is simple 1x4 pine (painted). We've also added a simple chair rail detail.

Stay tuned for more photos of the set.

High Performance Walls

We're asked a lot about "high performance" or "super insulated" wall systems.

I'll save you the 25 minute rant, but I will tell you where we are and where we're not.

Where we're NOT. Foam Wraps.

I'm a big fan of Fine Homebuilding Magazine and the Journal of Light Construction. They're both a good source of building information. However it seems that every issue they're changing their details on how / where / what type foam / flashing details. Further they tell you that if you screw it up, you'll rot the walls from the inside out. . . you will, in fact, build a composting wall.

However this lack of consensus is not my biggest problem. My biggest problem with Foam Wraps is the execution (or lack there of) of the flashing details. This is where the "rubber meets the road".

I have no doubt that most Architects, Energy Raters, etc understand the science and details that go along with foam wraps, but in the field I've seen atrocious execution. See below for a picture I recently took of a house using an exterior polyiso foam wrap.


I'm not singling out a particular builder, but I see this all the time. The reality is that the Building Scientist nor Architect are the person installing the flashing. . . . It's the low bidder. While I don't think that all flashing details look like this, seeing just this one scares the heck out of me. What good is an R60 wall if water can pour around the window openings.



Where we ARE. Double Wall Systems.

There are many versions / degrees of a double wall system. Taken to it's extreme (no thermal bridging) is the Larson Truss (see picture below). This particular house was built by Vermont builder Robert Riversong. See here for a description of the details of his Larson Truss.



Scaled back to a simpler form a double wall system can be built using 2x8 plates and 2x4 studs both inside and outside the wall. See below. This picture was taken in our shop today. We'll install dense pack cellulose into the wall cavities making sure we "stuff" it between the 2x4's.

Our simple version of the system allows for an R28 wall and reduces significantly the thermal bridging that happens in the field of the wall. The wall R-value can be increased simply by increasing the plate depth. A 2x12 plate would yield an R43 wall.

This system isn't perfect (there is still thermal bridging at the top / bottom plates, window / doors RO's, and floor assemblies), but it's better then a sharp stick in the eye. While the plates do thermal bridge to the exterior, that thermal bridge (roughly an R6) is less then the 15sf R4 window hole you have next to it.

BEST PART about our version of the double wall system is that flashing details are STRAIGHT FORWARD. You're using conventional methods against conventional materials.


And, I sleep well knowing that your window isn't leaking water.