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Tuesday, 23 October 2007
It was exciting to see the slab foundation of our home where there
was once weeds, water and wind - and our dreams of what might be,
of course!
We had already contacted the Maritime Forestry Stewardship Council
and ordered sustainably-harvested lumber to frame the house. Most
other building materials would be readily available at our local
hardware and lumber store, except for windows, doors, roofing and
siding. These other big-ticket-items would have to be ordered ahead.
We made the difficult decision to use vertical cedar siding, despite
its unavailability from local forests. We had talked with people
experienced with using other types of wood siding, and everyone
recommended that, if we could get cedar, we should use it. It has
a nice vertical grain and contains natural preservatives. We considered
using cedar shakes (these are available from the Maritimes) but
our designer, Don, suggested that they would not suit the style
of the house. As well, installation of shakes takes many hours
of labour - thus making the overall costs of vertical vs. shake
siding similar. We know that many homebuilders are choosing vinyl,
fibre/cement and other types of manufactured products, but these
are imported products that use energy and chemicals in their production.
Natural cedar suited our needs.
Now, finding cedar siding that was both wide and long turned out
to be a big challenge. A nearby lumber store could not find any.
We went to the internet, phoned a dozen local mills, and also struck
out. Finally, we discovered a building supplier further afield,
who investigated for us and found some - lo and behold! - through
a wholesaler in Moncton. Go figure. We examined various profiles
of siding (e.g. shiplap, clapboard, etc.) and chose to have our
cedar milled with a pattern of one-inch channels on boards 8 inches
wide.
We explored various options for preserving the siding. There are
many products that clean up with mineral spirits - a sure sign
that strong chemicals are involved. We discovered a product called
Lifetime™ that says it is `eco-friendly' and non-toxic to
plants, soil and water. It dissolves in water, and apparently only
requires one coat and no maintenance - who can argue with that!
It is referred to as "pickling" since it changes the
pH of wood, turning it a natural grey colour. We'll see how it
works over the long haul.
We decided to use metal roofing because of its longterm durability.
Many warned us that, incorrectly installed, we could have leaking
issues, but our tradespeople assured us that they had lots of experience
with this product, and it would not leak. We found a supplier on
PEI, and pored over their colour choices. We chose a light green,
that we felt would blend in with the surroundings well.
There are some good companies building windows and doors in our
region, and they are all very competitive. We compared hardware
quality, energy-efficiency, price and service, and selected a New
Brunswick company to work with. And work it was! Our designed solar
home doesn't have 2 windows the same size! Each one is unique,
and many are not even rectangular. It's a good thing our salesman
was good-natured, because he would be seeing a lot of us by the
time the windows and doors were installed! It took us several weeks
to confirm just what we needed.
We chose triple-pane, Low-E, argon-filled white vinyl windows.
The Low-E aspect refers to a transparent coating on the glass that
allows solar heat in and reduces radiant heat loss out from the
house. Argon is an inert gas that minimizes the conduction of heat
between the panes of glass. Both of these increase the R-value
of windows. If we wanted our window frames coloured, this would
cost us thousands of dollars more. Our windows will be white.
Our home will also have a 9-foot sliding glass door on the south
side. Because of weight issues, there is no such thing as a triple-paned
sliding door. We ordered a double-paned, Low-E argon door - the
best we could do.
With all these things on order, we hoped that the building process
would proceed smoothly.
You are probably wondering about the chicken coop. My interest
in healthy food production extended toward an interest in raising
chickens for meat and eggs. Taking a design from a book, I worked
with our sons to begin building a small coop. On the flat concrete
slab of the house, we lay out and framed the coop walls, and for
a while, it looked like the chicken coop project was well ahead
of the house. We laughed at the thought of passers-by thinking
that our dinky coop was actually the beginning of our solar home.
Next time: Putting a house on top of our solar slab foundation
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