Coming Together

January 27, 2012 by Jeff Erkelens

We’ve been pretty lucky this last month or so with the weather.  All of the tradesmen have been working on the inside forcing us to be outside installing the siding.  Except for a few ridicuously cold and gusty days after after the new year, the gods have been smiling on us.

We have worked our way around the whole house installing almost all the hardiepanel siding.  We went with the prepainted variety this time around mainly because we didn’t want cold weather to halt the painting process.  We also had our friends at Martin Roofing bend up a whole slew of specialty siding joints and flashing out of aluminum, which we prepainted prior to installing.

These last few days, we’ve rolled onto installing the galvalume metal roof that wraps down part of the backside.  We’re hoping to have our cypress siding in the next week to complete the outside soon.

Project: Riverbluff Circle, 123 · Tags: · Leave a comment

One side done

July 6, 2011 by Jeff Erkelens

We’ve finished one whole side of the house, including the metal roof. It’s always a good feeling to tear down the scaffolding and reveal our handy work. Although with the corten weathering steel, we have to play the waiting game for the house to turn to that beautiful rust color and for our blue window trim to really pop.

A few details: While our material choices are pretty bold, we wanted our trim details to give a nod to tradition. For the window trim, we did a simple picture frame, but made sure to have a stool and apron on the bottom of the window. Before putting up the exposed trim, we used blocks of 1″ thick trex deckboard around the window that we butted the 7/8″ corrugated siding to. For the trex board that was below the window, we made sure to cut a bunch of kerfs on the side mounted to the house such that the drainage plane wasn’t impeded.  We used a brown trex board that is barely noticeable right now as the siding is still silvery, but once the siding ages, you shouldn’t be able to make it out at all.

The actual window trim is pressure treated yellow pine that is treated with borate that we got from Nature Neutral.  Our primary reason for choosing the borate treated instead of the normal pressure treated was not any environmental reason, but aesthetic.  Normal pressure treated that is treated with heavy metals always has a dark greenish tint where as the borate maintains it’s natural yellowish, clear tone.  Joey really wanted stained wood trim where you could still make out the wood grain.  I was really hesitant because of maintenance issues, but the pressure treated solution along with a Sherwin Williams semi transparent deck stain has got me feeling pretty good.  Throw that in with the trex blocks, the corten siding and the galvalume metal roof and we’ve got a shell that will be around for awhile.

One other play on a historic trim element:  At the top of the house underneath the roofline, we ran a frieze board of 1 x 8 miratec trim.  On top of that we  nailed up a 1 x 4 miratec and a 1 x 2 miratec to give the feel of a cornice wrapping the house.  We firred this off the house with the same trex deck boards such that the corten could slip behind it and our ugly cuts could be covered up.

The only last finishing touch is to build some window boxes, but that’s definitely way down the list of things to get done.

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

You’re putting rusty siding on your new house?

June 28, 2011 by Jeff Erkelens

Yup.

For the most part, our house is a very traditional form (long gable roof with hip front porch roof), so we wanted some elements of the exterior to bring in a little bit more of a modern aesthetic. At the same time, Joey and I are both drawn to old things and wanted the exterior to somehow tip off that the interior is an eclectic mixture of old and rustic and crisp and modern. Ultimately, we thought cor-ten metal siding would bring this all together.

Cor-ten (A606) is basically a weathering steel that contains copper, chromium, manganese, and nickel. Cor-ten resists the corrosive effects of rain, snow and ice by forming a coating of dark brown oxidation over the metal. The weathering (or rusting) process occurs after the panel is installed. It eventually decreases and from that point on the finish acts as a protective coating for the base metal. This protective coating essentially stops the corrosion. Laboratory analysis of the rust film have shown that the alloying elements in the steel, particularly copper, chromium, and nickel produced insoluble compounds that clogged the pores at the rust/steel interface, thereby ending the regeneration.

We’ve had the cor-ten on site in our backyard for about a week. Just in that week, the piece of metal on top of the stack, which has been exposed to the elements has already started to get a great rust patina on it. You can see the difference between the first and second course on the house.

We went with a 22 gauge 7/8″  corrugated panel that is 3′ wide and had to get some panels almost 30′ long as we are running them vertically along the house. Needless to say, it’s been interesting hoisting them into place. Tom, our resident “idea man”, has already come up with some tricks involving bottle jacks, c clamps and strapping to make life a lot easier.

Overall, it’s going up really fast as we can obviously cover a large swath with just one panel. Plus, this is the first house where we haven’t had to put on firring strips, which is time consuming, as the 7/8″ corrugation provides a huge drainage plane.  I’ll try and do a post on our window trim detail later in the week.

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

Moving Indoors

April 1, 2009 by Jeff Erkelens

For us, it’s always a milestone when we can pack up the scaffolding and haul it away from the job site. It was a beautiful day to wrap up the siding on Monday. Today it rained and we worked on mosaic tile in the bathrooms.

Quickly on the siding: I’d have to say one of the most important things to me is building a house that will last and will require minimal maintenance.  We keep evolving and improving, but I’m really happy with the exterior trim detailing for this reason.

Besides using a prepainted hardiplank that has the paint baked on for maximum durability, we’ve moved away from any sort of painted trim on the corners, fascia, soffit ect. All the trim is galvalume that we get bent specifically for the house. I like the lines it creates and I also like the bursts of cedar that add some warmth.

The big thing to note is that we put all the siding on firring strips. We started doing this just with porch ledgers as I had read and witnessed how that starts to block water running down and rot away. So, by getting the siding off the house with an air gap it just gives me tremendous peace of mind that no moisture is going to collect leading to mold or rot.

One happy accident we learned is that the hardiplank actually warms a lot in the sun and heats up that air gap behind the siding creating a process of convection. So, we’ve started leaving a little gap at the top for the hot air to escape.

I’m a little hesitant to show a picture of the front of the house as it is missing the front porch, which we have to wait to build until after final grade. I think the porch will add a lot of dimension to the front elevation and tie a bunch of elements together.

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

First feeble attempt at blogging

March 26, 2009 by Jeff Erkelens

So Joey has been pushing me for awhile to give this whole blogging thing a go. But, the idea of sitting in front of a computer after a long day of construction doesn’t sound appealing when a beer, a block of cheese and NPR is calling out to me.

But, besides making my mom happy by forcing me to take pictures, it allows me a forum to show that a lot of thought goes into the house whether that be in matters of design, durability, energy efficiency or anything else.

So, as I move forward I’ll try and play catch up on the work we have already done since beginning building in early February.

These photos show the rear of the house. I like playing around with a classic two tone look with the grey down below and the white above.  Along with the galvalume trim, the house is somewhat muted, so we have these bumps out of cedar around certain windows that give a real extra warmth and pop to the house.  A large deck will be built out on the back of the house shortly that will tie in with the cedar.

Cheers, Jeff

Project: Rockland Avenue · Tags: · Leave a comment