Riverbluff Kitchen

May 26, 2011 by Jeff Erkelens

I thought I’d take a second to spotlight the kitchen at Riverbluff, as the kitchen is a space where we love to play with different textures and finishes. It’s usually the kitchen that is the time capsule and tip off for when the house is built, whether it’s avocado appliances and orange Formica counter-tops from the 70′s or cherry cabinets and granite cabinets in the 90′s.

I’d like to think we are building something that is timeless, but who knows. I mean we are using stainless steel appliances, which I have to think at some point will fall out of vogue. My tastes skew to both the comfort of the country farmhouse and to the crispness of modern design.  Maybe it’s too much of a mish mash, but I like this eclecticism and believe country and modern play well off each other.

Excuse the photos as I quickly took them myself.  It’s also a little difficult to capture as it’s a pretty narrow, galley kitchen.  This kitchen is another take on what we were playing around with on the Rockland house.  I love using two different sets of cabinet faces and counter-tops in a kitchen and how they play off each other.  On one side we have the sleek stainless cabinets with the soft butcher block top.  On the other side, we have the more coarser appearing concrete counter-top with the crisp white, foil finish cabinets.

The devil is in the details, and here are a few in this kitchen: I hate how hulking fridges are and how they protrude past the cabinets. So we made sure to place the fridge at the entry way to the kitchen, where a wall hides this fact. The cabinets are from IKEA, but they unfortunately don’t make a stainless steel toe kicks, so we are having custom made brushed stainless toe kicks made up (one of many punch list items). The IKEA farm sink, also from IKEA, which we love, is not meant to have the backside exposed, so Tommy made a custom wood trim piece that wraps the sink and masks the unfinished areas. Thinking about lighting, we made sure to put in a bulkhead between the kitchen and dining area as it both defines the kitchen and keeps the overhead lighting from spilling out into the dining room.  I also acknowledge that there is not a lot of upper cabinet space, as I love open kitchens with windows. Obviously, got to keep all the food somewhere, so we have a dedicated pantry closet with ample shelving right off the kitchen.

As far as appliances, we are sticking with a Bosch brand dishwasher, as it has proven to us over numerous houses to be extremely reliable and quiet. This is also the third house where we have installed an induction range by Samsung. Induction uses magnetism to heat cookware directly, so the actual cooktop stays pretty cool to the touch and is a great safety feature for kids. Plus, induction boils water faster than gas or electric and has the same precision of temperature ranges that great a gas range would have. My dad always had great industrial restaurant style gas ranges and I have a great nostalgia for that, but there is something to be said for the the ease of cleaning a glass top and not sacrificing performance.

Project: Riverbluff Circle · Tags: , , , , · Leave a comment

Slab is poured

May 9, 2011 by Jeff Erkelens

The latter part of last week was spent on the final few items necessary prior to being able to start framing.  Since we had excavated out a flat shelf cut for the foundation and formed our footers on top of that ground, prior to stacking the ICFS blocks, we had DIGS swing back by with a small skid steer and fill in the entire inside of the foundation with # 57 gravel up to the top of the footer.

My original intention when we began excavation was to have a level cut even with approximately the top of the footers and then dig a trench around the perimeter to pour the footers in.  If we would have done that, I could have saved a few bucks on gravel, but we had a few equipment issues during excavation and it was just easier to cut everything out level to beat the rain.

There are a few benefits to having all that gravel though.  It had rained a ton prior to stacking and pouring the ICFS and we would have had a mud pit for pouring the foundation.  It also makes it quite simple to install a passive radon venting system.

And, it made a nice detail for our under slab insulation as the 2″ of foam that was called out by our Passiv House modeling was able to butt right into the foam of the ICF of the wall.  The only thermal break down low that we will have really is the sill plate that sits on top of the foundation.

Our man Bo Collins of Collins Concrete poured another great slab for us.  When he rolled up initially, he was little dubious about the tightness of the site, but we were able to get the concrete trucks backed down the driveway a fair amount.  By the time he sistered on his own chute to the concrete chute of the truck, they really didn’t have to pull much concrete around.

For us, it’s a bit of a milestone having a foundation and slab in, plus all of our framing material for the basement and web floor trusses on site with plenty of time to spare.  We’re punching up the house at Riverbluff and it’s nice to have the next project completely dialed in and ready to roll.  It’s got me chomping at the bit to finish Riverbluff.

In the past, we’ve usually hit little lags as we wait for a spec house to sell, or the final design or financing details to come together on a client house.  We’ve found ourselves scrambling to pull together little jobs to keep everybody busy to also doing piddly stuff on my house to fill the time.

It makes me think fondly back to a few summers ago and by far the best use of down time. We were waiting for the Grady house to sell as we couldn’t start the King St project until that sold.  It was just Jesse Straight and I at the time.  He was totally cool not working and took the summer off to try his hand at urban farming and was able to start up a micro CSA on an empty lot that backed up to the Grady House.  And look at farmer Jesse now! (A quick plug: he is diversifying from just free range chickens to adding on free range pigs and a cow or two and is starting to make deliveries to Charlottesville).  I had killed myself on the Grady house and thought a great way to let my body heal up was to take off for Europe for six weeks and bicycle around with a buddy.  Ah, the good old days.

Now, with five of us working and having built up various infrastructure and perpetually growing soft costs, we can’t really turn off the Latitude 38 juggernaut.  So, we settle for folks one at a time slipping in and out during the year for various adventures.  Point in case: Mr. Hughes has left us in a cloud of dust for the month of May.  Unconfirmed reports place him in the vicinity of The Big Easy, but who really knows.

Enough rambling for now.

Project: 6th Street SW · Tags: , · 1 Comment

Fun with concrete

May 2, 2011 by Jeff Erkelens

We poured the foundation for 6th St this past Friday. I’m honestly not that motivated to write about as it was so low key and easy.  But, it is a major milestone for us as we had never poured a 9′ tall wall of concrete ourselves before.  It went off without a hitch and it gives us the confidence to strongly consider going up with a full house of ICFs.  As much as we love the process of stick framing, I love the idea of the durability of a house built of concrete coupled with no thermal bridging from the continuous layer of foam.

I also have to give a lot of credit to Allied Concrete for giving us plenty of in the field support as we got comfortable with this process. Obviously, they ultimately just want to sell concrete, but they’re smart for moving into more forward thinking products.  Now onto the more exciting pour of the day:

Any time we are getting ready mix concrete delivered, not to mention a pump truck, we try and pour anything else that we possibly can.  In this case, a large concrete countertop that will be the island for another house.  The only hitch to pouring it on the job site is that we don’t yet have a flat, out of the way place for it to set up.  Luckily, there is an abandoned old house directly across the street that has a concrete front porch that was ideal for the pour.

The owners and soon to be renovators of the house, Lou Baron and Mike Clark, were kind enough to let us comandeer it.  We’re excited to see what they end up doing with the house as they brought a lot of interesting elements into their current renovation project:  711elsom.com

We were so focused on prepping for the foundation pour that we forgot to pick up wire mesh for the countertop.  My truck was also completely loaded down with giant wall panels from our shed that we hauled over that we couldn’t run out and pick any up.

We weren’t sure what we were going to do, until our happy-go-lucky pump truck operator Allen said any of our neighbor’s wire fencing would be perfect.  Cut to us scouring for some wire cutters and cutting a giant swath out of the yellow house on the corner’s fence that is currently being fixed up.

All the Allied guys were a little surprised how cavalier we were for ransacking the neighborhood, but I knew the owners of the house were on vacation in California for a week and thus unable to protect their property.  (Actually, for full disclosure, they are friends of ours and are planning to rip out the fence in another month’s time anyway.)

 

Project: 6th Street SW · Tags: · Leave a comment

Stacking Legos

April 25, 2011 by Jeff Erkelens

We roasted a little bit in the sun today getting are farmer’s tan prepped for summer.  Still, a good day for stacking the ICFs (insulated concrete forms) that will become our basement foundation.  The ICFs are like giant lego pieces that easily snap and stack together provided you have a level footer.  They consist of 2.5″ of foam on the inside and outside and space in the middle for concrete.  In this case, we have an eight inch cavity.

Every six inches there are plastic webs that connect the inside and outside foam together and give it tremendous rigidity.  We’ve poured six foot high crawl space walls before unbraced and it barely moves because of these webs.  They also give a perfect channel for dropping in horizontal rebar.  With a perfectly level footer, the stacking is a breeze and we were able to stack everything in half a day.

Because the site drops off so precipitously from the street we elected to step down the foundation.  The finished basement will actually all be the same height as we will build little cripple walls out of wood and stack them on the lower ICF wall.  We’ve elected to go this route for a few reasons: 1)It’s honestly easier for us to frame a wall with window and door openings out of wood.  2)We will be able to pack in more insulation than the ICF. 3)We still don’t quite have our act together and haven’t finalized our window specs.

Hoping to pour later in the week.

Project: 6th Street SW · Tags: · Leave a comment

Concrete Countertops

May 11, 2009 by Jeff Erkelens

Kitchen is starting to come together. We have a fairly large kitchen island that we decided to pour a concrete top for. It’s been a few years since we’ve gotten to do one, so it was exciting to go through the process.  Of course, I say this before having to lift it off the floor into place.

Like most people that have done a diy concrete countertop, I just  bought Fu Tu Chengs Concrete Countertops and followed the instructions. This was pretty easy as there were no sink cut outs or anything fancy.

I just love the texture and tone of finished concrete. It’s such a great material as it take the form of whatever you use to make your mold out of. We used melamine board, which is perfectly smooth, so hopefully when we flip it the top will be completely smooth to the touch.

The only thing I’ve really come up on my own is how to vibrate the concrete to get out any air pockets and voids. They sell mini portable concrete vibrating snakes, but their really expensive. So, I just use a palm sander with no sanding pad and put a plastic bag over the concrete so it doesn’t get on the sander.

I’d like to think I’ve made a lot of progress in terms of thinking about passive solar design on this house. Besides the window orientation, great insulation and large roof overhangs, we have gone with a concrete floor on the first floor as a way to capture that solar gain in the winter time, such that it can be released at night.  In the kitchen, we have a large south facing window, but the combination of the height of the window and the cabinets in the kitchen will probably prevent a lot of the sun from striking the floor.

Now, I’m not just saying this as I actually believe the concrete countertop is large enough and properly placed to actually capture heat from the sun and radiate heat.

Project: Rockland Avenue · Tags: , , , , · Leave a comment

Foamed in

March 29, 2009 by Jeff Erkelens

Well, Weatherseal Insulation Company just spent the last two days spray foaming, caulking, and firestopping the house in anticipation of drywall. So, I thought I would take a second to talk about the various insulation strategies used in the house.

First off, let’s start with the biggest limitation: this house is a traditional wood framed house. When people think about insulation, they generally think about what’s in between the studs (fiberglass, cellulose, foam, ect), but not actually the studs themselves. For instance, a 2×4 stud wall can have an r value of 13 for the insulation, but the studs themselves have only an r value of about 4. Cumulatively, all those studs are like a big hole in your house.

So, there are great technologies out there, if installed properly, that don’t give you that thermal breakage. We just finished a S.I.P framed house (which is foam sandwiched between osb on the inside and outside). There is also thermasteel panels, superior walls and ICFs among other options.

But, again, we did not use any of these options for the simple reason of cost.  I hope as these there options gain more and more market share, the cost will come down, but it still can be a little prohibitive.  The SIP manufactures make the pitch that it is about the same cost, for the extra material cost is covered by how much you save in labor costs. But, honestly, I build relatively small houses, and the three of us have become pretty efficient in framing up a house.

Anyway, to counteract this limitation, we do a bunch of things: One is to wrap the entire exterior in 1/2″ rigid foam board, which acts kind of like a blanket over the entire house and doubles the r value of all those studs.

Another thing we do is value framing techniques, which I feel most builders around here are pretty hip to these days. I took all these pictures to show what that means, but I think I’m going to hold back on posting them as this post is probably dry and boring enough.

But, in a nutshell, it means limiting the amount of wood in the exterior wall as much as possible to increase the whole house r value of the house. Some of the strategies weuse include ladder blocking, stacked framing, 24″ on center stud spacing, insulated headers, minimized cripples, one stud corners. Again, thankfully, a lot of builders have made this the norm. 

Another consequential item when it comes to framing is that we are building are roof systems out of manufactured wood i joists (tjis). These have the same profile of a steel I joist, in which you have  a top and bottom wide flange separated by a long narrow vertical member. In the case of the TJIs, the vertical member is only a 1/2″ thick meaning the roof system has an extremely low level of thermal breakage when you spray all the foam in there.

As far as actual insulation, we have been using an open cell foam spray foam for the walls and roof. While the idea of recycled newspapers (cellulose), or recycled blue jeans (demim batt insulation) sounds cool, I just don’t think you can beat the performance of foam. Anecdotaly, our experience is the difference is night and day. Basically, spray foam expands and hardens and fills every crack and void to make an air impermeable barrier. Cellulose or fiberglass works by trapping and slowing air movement.

The only other thing to add on the foam is that not all foams are the same. To be honest, I’m still trying to increase my awareness, but we have been using a polyurethane foam rather than a polyiso as it has a much higher r value per inch.  The big thing is it maintains it’s air barrier, vapor barrier and r value properties over time. For example, celullose can settle leaving holes up top.

The product claims it is made sustainably made from renewable resources, but if you dig deeper, only about 20% is renewable (namely vegetable oil), so it seems like there is room to grow in that regard. Another reason we have switched to 2×6 walls instead of 2×4 is that we don’t have to spray the whole 2×6 wall cavity with foam to get an extremely high performance house. (Basically a 5.5″ thick wall is only 2 percent more effective than a 3.5″ thick wall at heat flow reduction). The upshot is if properly installed there should be no waste if done right. However, in a 2×4 wall, they have to overspray and then trim back the foam flush meaning you end up with all these garbage bags full of extra foam. Honestly, we did a house where this technique was used and the installer probably left with 20 garbage bags of trash, which is extremely disheartening.

When it comes to indoor air quality, I do know the foam contains zero formaldehyde, cfcs, hcfcs, hydrocarbons, or penta bde. Also, the one material I use when building a house and that most builders use is the OSB sheathing (the chip board stuff that goes on top of the studs and give shear strength) and honestly, I just think that stuff really off gases. But, by sealing in the wall cavaties with foam it should stop any offgassing to the inside of the house.

I’ll try and write a post about indoor air quality at some point, but we have a bunch of strategies to maintain a healthy house.

Alright, running out of steam. Really quickly: The Weatherseal company has had superb attention to detail on my houses, including caulking any piece of framing that touches one another as well as where framing touches the ceiling and floor to prevent air infiltration. To some extent, this is redundant in my system with the exterior taped foam board, but it’s nice insurance.

We are also using high performance low e-4 Andersen windows. The only bad thing I have to say has nothing to do with the performance but that the exterior is vinyl, which in terms of the manufacturing process, is pretty bad for the environment. Contrast that with Pella, Marvin, Jeldwen, Loewen which are all wood aluminum clad. My only defense is that I bought all the windows from two separate builders that screwed up their order (wrong color), so  I see it as effective reuse.

Lastly, the first floor has a concrete slab in order to capture, store and emit heat collected from the sun as were trying to do more and more with each house with passive heating and cooling strategies. The big thing to say about that is that concrete will slowly leach the heat. So, even though the slab is at at minimum 18″ below ground already and the exterior of the slab is completely insulated, we laid 2″ rigid foam board under the entire the slab.

The other big heat loss for concrete slabs is around the perimiter.  To solve this, we used the Superior Wall XI foundation system (www.superiorwallsva.com) around the perimiter of the house.  This precast concrete foundation has 2″ of rigid foam imbedded into it.  We then poured the non loadbearing concrete slab inside of that, avoiding any heat loss. The other bonus of this foundation system is that it is wider than our walls and is 3’6″ off the concrete floor. So, we plan on building  a little ledge on top of it around the 1st floor, which will be a great place to set drinks down or maybe have small sculptural pieces of art.

 

I think that’s it for about now. More power to you if you actually read all this. Hopefully, moderately coherent.

Cheers, Jeff

Project: Rockland Avenue · Tags: , , , , , , , · Leave a comment