The Roof Deck!

Spent the last few days working on the roof deck between our two upstairs living areas...
It's gotten really hot here the past few days- 100degrees and up.  That means early morning work- starting out at 6 or so and skipping out by noon to miss the heat of the day.  Electrical work and such inside where it's still nice and cool in the afternoons...

Nathan put up the rubber roof last fall to keep us dry through the winter, but the time had come to seal it all up and get the pavers installed.  The big roll on the table is the adhesive rubber sticker that seals all the seams...

That rubber stretches like crazy to fold over itself and seal even inside corners...

We had a temporary "bridge" to get back and forth over the rubber membrane all winter and spring, but we got rid of it now...

Nathan put down a "weed barrier" fabric on top of the EPDM rubber membrane- something that would let the water drain through and add a layer of additional protection for the roof before we added the gravel...

... hauled up and spread out all over the sloped roof...

... just a couple of buckets at a time, loaded up by Papa and our friend Dennis!

and hauled upstairs by Slade & Nathan...

Once the whole deck was leveled out with a couple inches of gravel, Nathan put down another layer of "filter fabric" and started putting down pavers...

and spread out some sand and pea gravel that we swept into the cracks to keep the pavers stable...

So that's it!  A concrete patio on the roof deck for cool morning breakfasts and evening dinner parties!

What is LEED?

I had a few questions regarding "what is LEED?"

The LEED site says it pretty good:

"LEED certification provides independent, third-party verification that a building, home or community was designed and built using strategies aimed at achieving high performance in key areas of human and environmental health: sustainable site development, water savings, energy efficiency, materials selection and indoor environmental quality."

For the source of the information, here is LEED's site.

LEED counts some really wonderful things & passes up opportunities in other areas.  For this reason, we weren't looking for LEED certification, as we were using a higher standard. 

PLATINUM (contender)

Just got back from a couple days of vacation where Kristen and I got a chance to go over the "LEED for Homes Rating system from the US Green Building Council.  There are a lot of different ways to get points, but in just our informal review of the criteria, it looks like we'll be able to get the highest level : LEED Platinum!   We'll have to see if it makes sense to pay for the formal paperwork to actually get ceritified, but it looks like we could make it with room to spare...

It's Potty Time!

Another whole month has flown by-  we are coming up on the one year anniversary of breaking ground!
There has been a lot of progress, on a lot of different fronts, but they are a little random...

Here are a few of the highlights on Nathan and Keith's recent projects:

We did an open house when the Mother's Day runners came by the house.  15-20 people dropped by afterwards and got tours from Terese, Kristen and Keith while Nathan and Gary worked on the front porch posts...

We've had some wonderfully warm weather, and some serial rainy days... tarping up over the front porch provided shade and dry working conditions as Nathan was finishing up the floor framing...

Nathan- installing 1-1/2" styrofoam ("XPS") as planned, on the exterior of the house prior to installing the porch roof...

The first of the pre-cut, pre-painted rafters over the front porch...

And, as a side project, it really is Party (or as we like to say "potty") Time! After months of having the old house for plumbing, we had to have a port-a-poty on site... Now we actually have a working toilet in the house!  Notice the sheet rock! The first few sheets are UP!


Electrical work is still continuing on the inside-  nice to have interior work to do on hot afternoons or rainy days!  Not much for photos there, just spaghetti...

Nathan got the first 2 of about 30 planned raised beds built.  The plan was to do this next spring, but Kristen picked up some heirloom plants- rasberries, strawberries, and fruit trees from her grandparent's place in Hamilto that needed to go in this year, so...

Here they are...  The 3ft by 8ft dimension has worked well for us in the past, and now that chickens are approved for Billings residences, we'll have a "chicken tractor" that can be be lifted onto any bed for the fowl to scratch out a living....

Jocie and Terese working to unload the composted soil from Nathan's truck into wheelbarrows for transferr into the raised beds...

Everyone doing what they can to help keep the project moving along...

More to come in future posts...  Keep in touch!