Wednesday, January 9, 2008

Jan 7-9, Dance with the Sun

We're suffering from weather whiplash here - this week has been a series of be-u-ti-full days in the 60s. The carpenters got the rest of the porch roof sheathed although we had to settle for finishing it off with lowly tar paper since springing another $400 for a roll of the fancy underlayment is certainly not called for on a porch roof.

Looking at the porch ceiling, I think the tongue & groove lodgepole pine planking fits very nicely with the exposed fir rafters. The skylight holes will remain covered until we are through working on the outside wall above the porch.
Meanwhile the HVAC tradesmen have started laying radiant heat floor tubing upstairs. The view below is of laundry room / west bathroom which will have a 1.5 inch slab of concrete poured over the tar paper and tubes, followed by tile. The bedroom floor on the left side of the image is framed higher and since it will have a hardwood floor, you can't put radiant tubes inside it...
so they run the tubes under the subfloor with aluminum heat-spreading plates. The picture below is looking up at the same bedroom floor from downstairs,
while the next shot is looking straight up to a junction between the higher floor and lower floor levels; the top half with the aluminum is higher, the lower side of the photo steps down and can have the tubes upstairs embedded in concrete. FYI, that round thing on the left is a recessed light canister.
After the inspection is done for framing and the trades, we will put reflective insulation between the trusses so the floor heat will be that instead of between-floor heat.
Our HVAC subcontractor is Sundance Power Systems with the cool truck

Dan (manhandling the tube) and Bob are doing the work.
You can't really tell from the picture that these Solar Energy workers are a different breed from the other guys we've had on site, but the "tell" is the fact that they listen to NPR on their job radio instead of classic rock.