Gaulhofer windows on site!

After sitting patiently in storage for the better part of 8 months, the first set of our beautiful Gaulhofer windows were delivered to site today! Some of you may have caught a 2 second Periscope I tried to do earlier today before my phone died in the cold. So I took some video with my DSLR and have compiled it here! The video shows the installation of the frame of our dining room window, discusses the install detail and the Hannoband expanding tape being used, and shows some of the profiles prior to installation. You can also catch a glimpse of Andreas and Adrian Herrmann from Herrmann's Timber Frame Homes working on the install.

The team from Cornelis Grey continues to work on the shell, and offered a helping hand in lifting some of the heavy glass units into place. Handling the glass units when they are out of the frames is delicate work. The glass is tempered, so any sharp bump on the edge could be catastrophic. Many hands make light work! 

Keeping warm and holding one of the triple glazed glass unit that will keep us warm soon!

Upper glass goes in.  5 guys for this lift!

Looking up at the finished window in the dining room. 

Viewed from the outside. 

Window install continues tomorrow, and we will also be doing a pretty cool install of some Pavatex wood fibre board on the flat roof, using some very long screws!

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!!!

Update - Upcoming house tours

***UPDATE*** Due to the extreme cold forecast for Saturday Feb. 13th we have decided to postpone the tour scheduled for that date. Wind chill is expected to be -32 and we don't have insulation in yet! Still planning to offer the tour scheduled for Sunday Feb. 21st, so please sign up for then.

 —

Mark has offered to give tours of our place over the next couple weeks. If you're a Passive House junkie, architecture-enthusiast, nosey neighbour or just plain curious, come on out. We're happy and excited to show it off. The house is in Hintonburg, a neighbourhood in downtown Ottawa.

Please sign-up using this form.

If you can't make either of the first dates, have no fear – if there's good interest, we will continue to conduct them periodically throughout the build. Just make sure to sign-up on the form to let us know you're interested. And we'll email out the dates so you won't miss out.

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:

Persiscope(s): We have a roof

Yesterday was a big day. It started bright an early with the crane set-up on site. It was there to haul up and help install our roof trusses. Mark was in and out throughout the day and broadcast a few times with progress updates. Here they are: