Exterior Complete... Time for the Fun Part!

Since my last post, a lot has happened. The entire exterior of the house is now complete. We went a little over budget on the siding, which is all Hardi. The front of the house is a staggered edge Hardi Shake which looks like cedar shakes but actually comes in 4' long cement board panels. This stuff is incredibly expensive, but really gives the front of the house a "beachy" look. The sides and the back are Hardi 8-1/4" lap siding with a wood textured finish. It took the siding crew about 6 weeks to complete the siding installation, as there is a ton of exterior detailing work. The entire house is wrapped in cement board, with all joints and edges completely caulked with Shermin Williams Loxon polyurethane caulk. We went with the polyurethane as it is supposed to hold up better over time and retain its elasticity, thereby keeping the joints from cracking. To give you an idea of the amount of caulk used, we went through 9 cases (that's over 100 tubes).

Before the caulking and siding were finished, the roof was completed. The roofers did a really nice job considering the complexity of the ridge intersections, and the house remains completely watertight. The only leaks we have had (and they have been corrected) were are my vent penetrations for the plumbing, and those leaks were due to improper installation of the boots which seal the pipes to metal roof. I will need to install one 6' long piece of gutter on the house, on the high roof at the front to gather the water and direct it away from the front porch. Not a big deal and we expected to have to do this, but I really would have preferred to have no gutters at all. At least this gutter will be accessible from the nearly flat roof over the hallway upstairs, so it will be super easy to clean.

For exterior paint, we went with Behr Premium Ultra. I did a little research, and with the help of Clark Howard and his amazing team of consumer experts, discovered that this paint has been tested by independent agents and outperforms Shermin Williams Duration which is almost twice as expensive. We elected to spend our money on the caulking, in the hopes that the paint will last 10 years and we can repaint, but won't need to re-caulk, which is much more tedious. Lindsay picked the color, with is ironically called City Rain, and is a gray blue shade. It looks really nice on the house with the bright white trim. The painters sprayed the color in about 2 days, but the trim was rolled and brushed and took much longer. Overall, it took a crew of 4 people about 3 weeks to paint the house.

Now, for the cool stuff! HVAC, Electrical, and Plumbing (commonly referred to as MEPs for Mechanical, Electrical, and Plumbing). This is the part of the house, aside from the framing, that I was really excited about. We have done some neat things with these systems so this might be a little long-winded. First, the plumbing. The sanitary drainage is pretty standard, and you can go back and check out the details in one of my first posts regarding the new septic system. For the domestic water piping, we are on a well, so pressure is always a problem. Most well pumps can't get much past 50 PSI, which in comparison to city water pressure which is usually closer to 80 PSI, makes showers and kitchen faucets seem a little lacking. We installed a Simer booster pump on the house-side of the expansion tank, which has a flow meter and can sense when a valve or fixture is calling for water. It then kicks on instantly, and boosts the pressure up to 80 PSI. It's a great little pump, and we've actually had it installed for almost a year. For the new water piping to the addition, we ran PEX piping everywhere, with copper compression fittings or stainless pinch clamps. PEX is a great product and is widely used in residential construction in place of copper or PVC, as it is freeze-proof (it can freeze and does not burst), is relatively inexpensive, super durable, and much easier to make connections with than the alternatives. PEX used brass barbed couplings that are attached to the pipe with compression collars or clamps, which are installed with a special tool. No more sweating copper fittings or solvent welding (gluing) pipe. PEX is really a great product, and is also flexible enough that it can be bend around corners, reducing the number of fittings needed. In our house, we can a three pipe system, with a cold line, hot water supply, and hot water return. Both the hot supply and return are insulated throughout, and we are installing a Goulds recirculating pump at the Rinnai tankless water heater. This pump will be tied into the controller in the water heater, and will be set to come on in 15 or 30 minute intervals, circulating the water throughout the hot water loop. The tankless water heater will raise the temperature in the loop to a set point (120F), and then turn off. The pump will be timed to do this during the peak ours of hot water consumption (early morning and dinner time). That way, there will be instant hot water throughout the house, especially at the guest bathroom and kitchen which are pretty far from the tankless water heater. The benefit here besides the convenience factor is that overall well water consumption will go down, as we will not be wasting water waiting for it to get hot. This will go a long way in helping get the most life out of the septic field, especially during periods of heavy rain when the field gets saturated and may not work very efficiently. We also elected to use Aquor House Hydrants on the outside of the house instead of standard hose bibbs. These hydrants are freeze-proof because they are self draining and the actual water valve is well inside the wall. You activate them by turning the blue hydrant connector a quarter turn. Very neat solution to common problem of freezing hose bibbs. On a side note, I put in all the plumbing myself with alot of help from friends and family, so this part took the longest and was also the most grueling. Lots of crawlspace work! Thanks to everyone who helped along the way. You know who you are and I am eternally grateful.

On to the electrical. When we first started the project, we relocated the electrical service to the left side of the house behind the garage, and installed two 200A disconnects. One is currently (see the pun!?) being used to power the existing house panel. The electrician installed two new 200A panels in the upstairs hallway near the master. One panel will be used to feed the existing house panel until it is abandoned during a later remodel of the kids' rooms, and the other panel will be dedicated to the new addition lighting and power circuits, and the new HVAC. It's definitely more power than we need right now, but it gives up room to expand if we ever change anything down the road. The electricians have roughed in all the can lights in the vaulted addition, which was a challenge, and all the other exterior lighting and fixtures we specified. We opted to put can lights in the exterior front soffit lining the vaulted roof line, which would be a cool effect at night when coming down the driveway. We will also be installing two huge fans (8 foot diameter) in the great room and kitchen to circulate air since the room is so tall (28' floor to peak). I flirted with the idea of a solar panel system, but the money wasn't in the budget. FYI, these systems are incredible and there will never be a better time to install one. Right now, the South Carolina government will pay for 30% of the cost of the system, and the feds will pick up another 25%. This makes a system extremely affordable, but these payment come in the form of tax rebates so you do have to pay for it up front and wait til April to get your money back. However, for $15K - $20K out of pocket, you could potentially eliminate your use of grid power to house of this size.

Ahh... the HVAC. This is my baby, and I was fortunate to have some great help in putting this in. I do mechanical (HVAC) designs for some very large and expensive houses downtown in Charleston, so I have a great relationship with one of the best HVAC contractors around, Airmax. They specialize in ductless VRF (variable refrigerant flow) technology, which is what mini-splits use. Airmax was gracious enough to help me out with sourcing the equipment, and helped me install it at a very reasonable cost. Mini-split HVAC is the primary means of cooling in most countries outside of the USA, as it is incredibly efficient and much easier to install into a retrofit application. Think about it like this- Traditional split system air conditions use a big fan to move the air in your house to a cold coil and then push the cooler air back out in to the space. That coil is either on or off. There is no in-between so it's either fully cooling or not at all. Mini-splits or VRF units move the cold refrigerant to where you need it in each room, then use a much smaller fan to move just the air in the room across the cold coil. It's alot easier to move a small amount of liquid refrigerant than it is to move huge volumes of air, and these systems are designed to work precisely and only pump as much refrigerant as is needed to each space. One outdoor condensing unit supplies cool refrigerant to as many as six indoor units, and the outdoor unit can ramp up and ramp down based on the load. They are extremely quiet, and can have SEER (the efficiency rating of the unit) ratings over 30. Compared to the SEER rating of most conventional systems (14-17), this makes for huge savings in electricity, and a longer lifespan on the equipment. My system uses a 5 ton Mitsubishi heat pump to serve five (5) indoor units. We have ceiling mounted unit in the master, two wall units mounted high up in the great room, a wall unit in the guest bedroom, and a concealed ducted unit in the pantry ceiling serving the kitchen. Each unit will be controlled wirelessly and will be cloud-managed, so temperatures and operational parameters can be maintained from anywhere via smart phone. We also installed a whole-house Aprilaire dehumidifier which is controlled in conjunction with one of the great room wall units, and will serve to pull moisture out of the hotter humid air at the ceiling of the second floor, thereby reducing the overall cooling load on the other equipment. The dehumidifier is installed in a new mechanical room in the attic, which also houses the electrical panel wall, the branch box for the HVAC system, and some of the central vac plumbing.

From day one, Lindsay has insisted on a central vac system in the house after having used the one at her parents' and my parents' houses on numerous occasions. People's opinions of these systems are largely polarized, but here is our logic. A good vacuum cleaner costs $400-$600. The central vac system is roughly twice that. It should last 20 years easily. The amount of suction this thing has is hard to describe. So much more powerful than any other vacuum. Of course ours is slightly oversized for the house, but you know me. I installed all 2" vacuum PVC lines, with connection points in the pantry, under the stairs, in the master bedroom, and up on the loft. The connection points are located within 3 feet of an outlet, which is used to power any attachments for carpets, etc. Using 110V outlets rather than built-in DC power or even worse, vacuum-driven attachments, allows the unit to have 100% of the available suction while also utilizing normal 110V power to agitate carpets, etc. We also installed a dust bin connection under the kitchen cabinets, which is foot operated. You sweep all the dirt on the floor over to it, kick it on with your foot, and the dirt is whisked away. Cool! We have tested the system out quite a bit since I roughed it in and we are truly impressed. The main unit is mounted in the garage out of the way, and will eventually be set up to exhaust outside the garage on the back wall. So as you are cleaning, all the allergens (and dog dander) go outside. The smells go outside. The noise is outside. Linz already loves it so it was worth it already. I would highly recommend one of these for any new construction.

So our next steps will be tie up some loose ends with these systems, triple check all penetrations and roofing for leaks, and then call for the rough-in electrical, mechanical and plumbing inspections, and then the framing inspection. Once we pass those, we can move on to insulation and drywall. Still alot to do, but progress has been made!