SBF# 20 Escaped heat

How can you tell if your insulation and air sealing is effective?

On this cold morning there was a frost on the roof. And where heat was getting through, you could see the frost melted. I caught this shot this morning after it was noticed a week earlier.

So what is going on here?

The melt spots are where the hallway wall meets the top of the sloped ceiling and the flat ceiling on the 2nd floor. On further inspection, I found that the top plate of this wall actually penetrates the plane of the slope, where on the other side there is no wall and no melted areas.
I also found some air leakage where a piece of tape failed to stick to the top plate.
So the next question is does a little bit of air leakage and a 4" thermal break on an 18" cellulose cavity result in this kind of heat escape or is there perhaps some gap in the cellulose? The installer did check this area with an IR camera, but it was done when we had a much smaller stove and not a large of a temp difference as we currently are running.

What do you think?
I will follow up as we get to the bottom of this one.

SBF# 19 Local, Natural and Reused Materials

Today we made a lot of decisions around using local, natural materials for finishes. Most of it revolved around the kitchen design, which is being coordinated with Eyrich Stauffer of Worcester, Vt.
In order to make design decisions about the materials used for the kitchen cabinets and counter tops, we wanted to coordinate with the other finishes that would be impacted by these decisions and make sure everything worked together.
This included the wood floor, wood trim on the cieling, panelling on the back side of the bar- along the coat shelf and both the closet and book shelf at either end of the kitchen.
Eyrich initially suggested butternut from Vermont Wildwoods that sells Vermont forest salvaged butternut, for the cabinets. Jan liked the look of this wood along with soapstone counters. While Vermont Soapstone used to supply the stone from Vermont quarries and plans to in the near future, currently their stone comes from Brazil. Wayne likes the idea of using a more local slate. We'll see how that turns out soon, but we did come to agreement on using local pine for the floors, and planing the barn boards from the site for the paneling and window trim. We are having a tough time identifying this 100+ year old wood and are thinking in the range of fir or hemlock.
We also decided to resaw some of the old timbers from the barn into countertop material and trim for the ceiling. The tight grain of the spruce and pine is exquisite.

We found that these woods will create a consistent aesthetic throughout the house and have a similar yellow brown hue that will have a warm and relaxed feel.

Stay tuned for the post on clay plasters in the Dining/Living Room.

SBF# 18 PHPP

I have recently completed a 9 day intensive Passive House Training with Katrin Klingenberg mostly in order to learn the Passive House Planning Package (PHPP)
I am currently using this rehab as an excercise and will post the results. Passive House Institute does have a separate track for retrofits called EnerPHit. If you are interested in this check here http://passipedia.passiv.de/passipedia_en/certification/enerphit.

SBF# 17 Closing In

Most of the air sealing is complete.
The 1st floor is being mudded and taped, the 2nd floor is done. We need to seal the basement and root cellar doors. We are anxiously waiting for our 2 Linnwood, rebated, double gasketed doors. And the 2nd floor joist penetrations need to be sealed. Then we are ready for the blower door.

We did notice some spot melting on the roof where a wall met the sloped ceiling. I found a couple of old wiring holes through the top plate and an unsealed seam. But the melting seemed unlikely with such small air leakage given the 18" of cellulose. Upon closer inspection I noticed the top plate actually broke the line of the sloped ceiling, meaning we have a little thermal break here. I'd say the top plate pushes into the ceiling about 4". I am thinking that a few leftover foam pieces could easily fit between the studs to make up for the penetration.

One sign that the envelope is getting tight is that the plastic in the basement is billowing inward as the wood stove is sucking out the air. We will not notice this once the basement insulation is installed, but we are holding off for now until we do the blower door test.