First, family! In something of a rare feat, we were able to spend time with both Josh and Elizabeth’s families for Easter. Nieces and nephews were paid $5/bucket full of large rocks collected for Elizabeth’s new rock garden.

So much is happening, we’re going to dive right in with a roof update and then to the HRV chase in the laundry room, our front and back porch getting permanent poles installed, polycarbonate roofing has been ordered, and finally, the story of our backwards interior door and how it was fixed.

First, the roof update! We have lots more roofing installed, but we’re being delayed because of weather and because of a mismatch of materials and bending tools (the materials our roof was ordered didn’t work with the bending tools the roofer had on hand). But, we’re making progress.

The HRV, which we’ve discussed previously, is what our allows our R-56 roof and R-40 blown insulation walls to not actually stop the flow of fresh air. If you didn’t know or weren’t sure, when you build a highly insulated and tight home, you will want (or in some places be compelled to) install a fresh air exchanger. These are commonly called ERV or HRV systems. Since our outside temperatures can plummet to sub-zero for extended periods of time, we opted to install the recommended heat exchange unit, designed to transfer up to 80% of the inside air’s temperature to the incoming outside air. Think of it like an always running, but hyper efficient, whole house fan.

The HRV required some modifications to get the vent outside (we chose to push it out next to our vents in from the laundry room. Additionally, we needed an intake. And before I reveal where we stuck this in-take, I’d like to quickly discuss a big learning point we have made on our below-grade, zero-entry construction. 

Zero-entry is where a house requires no steps (thus no ramps) to access the majority of the home. We wanted this particular feature for our aging relatives and for our own sake, to age in place. We wanted our everyone to be able to access the majority of the home without needing to walk up ramps or steps. This required some really interesting engineering to make the grade and entry points for the home to line up, without water intrusion.

The side effect is that our concrete forms for the foundation and basement area makes it very challenging to access upstairs from downstairs (all outside walls are sitting on 10 inches of the best foundation concrete we could get). This means all of our trades people have a heck of time getting water, HVAC, and electrical upstairs. Especially challenging to access the living room because the open concept of our stairs means we have about 3 feet (that is almost entirely utilized by HVAC and electrical) where everything can access the north side of the house, where the stairs stop and before the crawlspace begins.

Thankfully we have a very functional crawlspace that allowed us to run a ton of electrical, plumbing, and HVAC to other important parts of the house (kitchen, dining, guest bathroom, laundry, etc). 

All that to lead up this: We now have FOUR new HVAC things to hook up in a fairly tight, nearly complete utility chase. The first to hook up was the HRV in-take. This brings in stale air. It’s recommended this chase be short and be separate from the recirculation chases of the rest of the house. So that was easy, we added it to the room next to the utility area where the HRV was being installed.

Next, we needed an outlet for that stale air to go (after it’s thermal properties have been exchanged into the incoming air. This outlet was added to our laundry room. We opted to lose some laundry room square footage over losing entry way closet space (about the only other alternative). 

Next, we needed an in-let for fresh air to come into the exchange. Liz had an amazing idea to use the space under our sun seat in our main bedroom for an in-take. So, below the west main bedroom window we now have an in-take vent.

Finally, we needed this new air to join the rest of the house air flow. This was the easiest one, as it just connects to our furnace, to evenly and slowly flow fresh air out of every vent in the house.

Whew! And we’re still just getting started with Week 33.

The front and back porches have had temporary wood bracing since the framing was finished back in October 2023. About six months ago. So we were ecstatic to learn and then witness our brand new permenant front and back porch columns getting installed. The plan on the columns is to put an exterior grade paint finish on them. The bases will be imbedded in the concrete slabs and the upper saddles will be concealed with the beam wraps.

Polycarbonate roofing! There’s so much to say here. If we can find it, we’ll try to locate the slides we used to communicate to the architects about our “skylights in the porch roof” idea. But, here’s the why behind our transparent polycarbonate roofing is being installed on our porch: We wanted another bank of windows in our dining room, above the oversized floor to ceiling windows. More light, plus the idea of being able to see through the house was an idea Josh and Elizabeth have both been dreaming about. So we communicated this idea to our architects. NEON came back, as they always do, with an even better alternative: Bigger windows AND polycarbonate roofing. So here we are with a porch that will primarily stay in the shade, with greenhouse roofing dreams, and we’re finally happy to report that we have ordered the polycarbonate roofing! Many of the components are in stock, so getting it installed should be relatively quick.

Finally, two interior doors have been installed! The back door from our garage to the back yard, and our first internal door from our garage to our hallway. Unfortunately, the door was installed opening closely to a wall. The story we’ve heard was we wanted the switches to be accessible when you open the door. Well, the electrical was able to move the switches to an entry area mud/shoe area. But the door never got switched around before ordering. So the install was correct, but the direction was backwards. We talked it over with the general contractor and their crack finish carpentry team that was there working on our columns were also able to spend a large portion of the day reversing the door. It was magic. This door was not designed to do this. I have no idea how things like that happen.