Grand Designs

A Passive House in England, designed by architect Richard Hawkes

I was reminded of a great UK tv show after speaking with one of our tour-goers. Britain's first Passive House, amongst others, have been featured on it. It's such a great show – Grand Designs. I really wish our HGTV had something more to offer... Host Kevin McCloud documents self-builds of particular architectural interest. It's in it's 16th season now and has off-shoots in Australia and 'Abroad'. It's worth checking out (although I noticed most of the videos have recently been removed from YouTube :( I found a couple for you through other channels:

Britain's first Passive House
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xm279a_grand-designs-s09e04-the-eco-arch-kent_tech

A Passive House in the Cotswolds:
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xm0zu1_aaf-grand-designs-s10e02-pdtv_tech

And my all-time favourite Grand Designs episode:
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2jmjo3_grand-designs-series-14-4-of-10-the-shipping-containers-house_tv

Construction week 24 & 25: lots of snow shoveling

We had record snow fall in Ottawa last week. Apart from shoveling, here's a quick summary from the last couple weeks:

• roof sheathing, membrane, and metal roof 
• truss blocking
• window bucks installed, reinforced and double-checked for size
• insulation started

Earlier today, Mark gave our first public tour of the house. We had around 15 people brave the construction site and cool temps to listen to how our house is coming together. Thanks to all who came out. Hope you learned something.

Here's Mark introducing our home on the tour.

This upcoming week, Mark will finish insulating. And our windows are getting installed. EeK!!!

Construction week 23: roof trusses

Mark did a pretty great job explaining the roof truss install, which happened this past Tuesday. Thanks to Mark Greenacre for helping out the team. With the remaining days, they built additional frame walls to support the trusses and added the cross bracing to keep it square.

This upcoming week, they'll be finishing the roof prep and installing the roof sheathing. The roofers are due to arrive Wednesday! We are going with a black/grey metal roof, which will be seen by no one.

I had a couple concerns with the metal roof at first:

1. Would it attract lightening bolts?
2. And would the dark colour add to the cities 'heat island effect'?

I'm glad to report, through diligent googly research, that I need not be worried, in either case.

If you're flying your drone overhead, our roof will look something like this:

Construction week 22: wall framing complete

The girls are happy (and toasty) in these walls.

At long last, our house has been framed in. (We still need a roof over our heads — a minor matter.) It feels good to have that massive task behind us. Our builders are, no doubt, also quite happy about this.

Our walls were no ordinary walls; they were an experiment/idea Mark had as to what they needed to be and how they needed to come together. This wall phase took a couple weeks longer than anticipated by Mark. There were bumps along the road, and a definite learning curve, but the team hit their groove, in spite of the bone-chilling temps, and put together one helluva house shell. We were fortunate to have such an open-minded and capable team, headed by Justin at Cornelis Grey.

We've rented a crane, for this coming Tues, to lift our roof trusses up so the roof can get going this week. Yay! And we're starting to line up tasks to follow. Windows, insulation, siding... Not to mention a whole slew of decisions requiring our attention, e.g. cabinetry, fixtures, flooring... There's no shortage of things to do.

And here are some shots of the shell from today.

Hello walls

Welcome inside

In the kitchen

The wander window in the 'void'. Only 19'10" high (HA!)

In the loft

Looking towards the back of the house

Rooftop patio

What's keeping Mark up at night

A cold house and throwing our heat/money outside. Whadda waste.

We are currently renting a home from some (wonderful) neighbours. It's an older home, a townhouse. And they've done many things to improve it over the years. However, Mark's been noting the depressing frequency with which our furnace turns on. His last count clocked it at 8 minutes. Which is to say that in 8 minutes, our house is losing one degree of heat to the great outdoors. If the furnace conked out and we lost a heat source, for whatever reason, our house would reach the outdoor temp, let's say a balmy -8° C for this scenario, in just under 4 hours. Half way through sleep. A couple hours and it's inhabitable. I find this shocking.

Construction week 20: 3rd floor framing

There's snow in the house. We always liked the idea of bringing the outside - in. But this is taking it too far. Wah-wah.

Our second floor (third if you include the walk-out basement) has been framed in. The cold temps have definitely come with challenges. We're using an adhesive on the edges of the wood fibre board that needs to be warm to be malleable. So we've rented space heaters to keep a small section of the basement warm for the adhesives. And there's snow on everything.

It's so bloody cold. Went out there for half an hour last week and my toes almost fell off. Props to construction workers in this city. It's unreal. And then I go sit in my cushy, warm office job, feeling slightly unworthy. Respect.

We took some friends on a tour of the house this past weekend. They had their children with them. The five year old said, "Mina's house looks like Elsa's* castle because it's tall and there was snow inside".

* For those of you who don't have a child, Elsa is a snow queen from Disney's film Frozen.

The third floor joists should be going in this week. In the meantime, Mark and I are trying to work out some design details for the inside, of which there are many. He's working on our kitchen & bath layouts so we can get them priced out to make decisions. We're agreeing on all the big picture items, so hopefully that bodes well for when we have to start selecting finishes.

He's also working on our HRV design. Where the fresh air and exhaust vents will be located. It's fascinating stuff. I'm working on a post with fancy visuals to help illustrate the concepts. I'm also doing a bit of research in to automated home technologies – ways to make the house smart. If anyone has any knowledge in this, please share! Just because the house is low-tech (crudely-speaking), doesn't mean other areas of the house have to be. Lights that learn? Maybe.

Dwindling winter daylight. Pano of the second floor.

Rear elevation.

Views of the city beyond the tree and rooftops.

2nd floor takes shape

Joists and hangers and LVLs galore

The joists and beams for the second floor are in! Today we start installing subfloor and railings. It's really exciting to see the views taking shape as we get higher!

This is the open space over the dining room, and the start of our tall south window

Getting closer and closer to the canopy of our silver maple! 

Construction week 15: wall to wall

This week our crew squared up the first floor walls, installed some LVLs (laminated veneer lumber) to support the floor above, framed some interior walls and started putting up floor joists for the floor above.

With the first floor framed in, it's starting to look and feel like a proper house :) Have a look at Mark's Periscope from this past Friday.

We can't believe our luck with the weather these past couple weeks. It has been positively balmy. If mother nature keeps this up, we can shave R-20 and a foot of insulation off our house. Just kidding...I have full confidence that Mother Nature will show up with a vengeance. As she always does for us here in Ottawah. We'll take what we can get.

Floor joists going in.

Our spectacular kitchen window. Deep walls = added counter top!