Retrofit - Week 8

Another fine, fine week. Well, maybe only one fine since Peter was out with his sore foot. Despite that we had productive week learning more about how to dense pack cellulose. All last weekend after trying it out on the east wall I studied dense pack info on the web. So, on Monday morning we did some more experimenting on a small test wall the Shawn and Sam whipped up.

We tried several settings on the machine and a couple different hose ends and a few different techniques till we consistently achieved close to 4 lbs/ft^3. That's a bit higher than we needed, but I'm OK with a little extra at this stage.

Shawn and Sam making a test box.

Shawn and Sam filling their test box.

Sam insulating under a window on the South wall.

By the end of Monday we got the South side enclosed in house wrap. Most of the cavities that are open at the top are still nto filled, though.

On Tuesday, Mike and I worked on finishing the insulation on the East side. Here we see him up on a high plank inserting the tube into each cavity from the top. If my camera was quicker I would've captured some good geysers as the air blowing back would sometimes make the insulation erupt out the top and into his face. Shortly after that he took the rest of the week off for a trip to the cities and the state fair.

Sam and Ethan demonstrate that you can do more then save big money at Menards.

Here is an example of wiring in the dense pack cavity. Nothing special, but it totally met the code about being far enough inside the wall to avoid being hit my nails later.


And here Joel is working on how we'll mount the off-peak meter.

On Thursday our blue steel roof material arrived. Nice. We also got the siding colors finalized and ordered after some confusion with Sherwin-Williams.

Perhaps one of the highlights of the week is Wayne's fabricating awesomeness. He whipped out two of the coolest overgrown duct vents ever for the intake and exhaust of the underground air exchanger. These are going to be great on the side of my house. I will want to paint them, though.

Friday was cold, windy, and rainy. The roofers, rightly, did not want to be on a steel roof when it's damp, but they did get some trim put up.

Not pictured, but still pertinent was a visit by Jim Larson, Nor-Son's building science expert. He was intrigued and very helpful. Once we get the windows in we'll do a building tightness test and see if there are any small leaks we can fix sooner rather than later. He has many years of experience finding the things that went wrong and caused problems and I enjoyed getting a deeper appreciation for that part of "high performance". Another outcome of that is trying to figure out how best to keep my thick blanket of insulation dry in my walls, and how to let it dry if it does get wet. The most likely solution is to leave a 3/8 gap between the housewrap and the siding. So I ordered a couple books he recommended by a great building expert and funny author Joe Lstiburek. More next week.