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With the house completed and buttoned-up it was time for the final blower door test and checklist audit. Over the course of a few hours, my energy consultants checked-out the house from bottom to top. They started with a blower … Continue reading
There have been a couple of hiccups along the way; however, today’s problem is the biggest yet. Prior to starting the project I extensively researched how to build a tight-home, in-fact, how to build a Passive House. To my surprise, … Continue reading
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One of the areas the blower door and infrared camera test highlighted as a deficiency was around the windows. In-fact, the windows looked better insulated than the gap between the window frame and opening! So, I set out to remedy … Continue reading
This gallery contains 4 photos.
After the builder had left on Wednesday Structure Metrics stopped by to perform the blower door test and infrared scan of the house. The blower door (shown in the picture below) is used to determine the Air Changes per Hour … Continue reading
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The end is insight! The crew has spent the last several days installing drywall. One of the side effects of installing drywall is that mud puts a lot of moisture into the house. As a result of how tight the … Continue reading
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My builder handed me a key today! The house is officially dried-in. All of the doors and locks are installed. One of the most incredible things is how warm and quiet the house stays. When you shut the massive Intus … Continue reading
This gallery contains 6 photos.
The builder managed to dry-in the house just in-time for the first snow! Over the last couple weeks, the builder foamed all the joints in the SIPS, taped them, laid-down the Solitex Mento 1000 weather resistive barrier (WRB), put furring … Continue reading
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The SIPS have gone together incredible quickly. In two weeks time, the walls have been erected, loft framed, beams set, and roof erected. Of course, because the house is constructed of SIPS, this also means at this point it is … Continue reading
The SIPS arrived last Wednesday. By the time I arrived on-site they were piled all over the place. As you can imagine, the panels to build an entire house take up quite a bit of room! As you may recall … Continue reading
One of the challenges of the project has been determining how best to air-seal the structure. While SIPS are an inherently tight construction method, there’s no reason not to go a step farther to maximize the SIP performance. Two of … Continue reading