Paul Brannon, Realtor®

Major Hurdles

With electrical, plumbing and framing inspections passed, it's time for the foam insulation to start. The crew is going to be using an open cell foam by Johns Manville. It will be a complete foam envelope. An P8230854-small amazing feature of the foam is that in 24 hours of full sun exposure, the radiant heat will only penetrate 2/3rds or so of the foam insulation. Drywall will be following the foam rather quickly. The drywall crew already has all the drywall laid out, ready to go. P8230853-small

So far, some of the green features of the house are proving to be a bit of a challenge with the plumbing of the radiant floor heating. The factory engineers are being a help and the plumbers have attached the zone pipes to the headers. With factory support from Uponor things seem to be moving right along.

Hopefully, the pace will pick up. Cabinets, lighting, ceiling fans, floors and the appliances are all picked out and ordered. It will be fun to watch the trades complete the house.

Now We're Talking

Framing is finished and the house is dried in. Electrical and plumbing should be finished soon, then the foam envelope goes in. Dried in!

The home is generating a lot of interest in it's green features. Just a few of the green features is complete foam envelope, solar radiant flooring, double pane-low e windows, lot orientation, and renewable bamboo flooring. There's going to be a lot of activity from here on in. Now if we can avoid delays....

And it begins

So the construction has begun. First, the lot was cleared of the cedar trees. p5120491 This took about a day, then the lot was leveled.

The picture is a little small, but you can kinda see the little dot on the cleared area near the middle. A jack rabbit was trying to figure out what happened to his cedar tree.

p5140504 The foundation forms are up and fill dirt has been brought in. p5190545 It looks like we have the final plans for the radiant floor heating.

They now have the rough plumbing in and are waiting for the city inspector to give them the green tag.

It's a shame that BTU has suspended it's Solar Rebate Program until October. But, then again, it's not that long after the house is finished that we'll be able to put on the finishing touches.

Finally - progress in action.

Rain, design delays, and shipping from Wisconsin are finally behind the project. steel

The steel for the foundation is in and the tubing for the radiant flooring is going in. RadiantTubing

It started slowly, and picked up steam. Can't tell you how many people think it's a little weird to put a solar radiant floor in central Texas, but I have a feeling that when the winter heating bills come in, there will be some grins when the negligible utility bills hit. If things are on schedule, the cement comes in next week and we'll have a real live slab. Then the real fun begins.

Ground breaking this week!

Looking forward to Wednesday. That's when the actions to convert a vacant lot to a home begin. This is going to be quite a "green" house. It will have a foam envelope for insulation, an air exchanger for fresh air, hydronic radiant floor heating, electrics will be stubbed out to include future incorporation of solar panels when BTU puts the solar rebate program back into operation, LED lighting where appropriate, low-e dual pane windows, a bunch of other goodies as well.

The radiant floor heating was interesting. At first the Bryan building inspector wasn't sure he could permit the floor, wanted an electrician to do the plumbing - it was making us pretty nervous. The radiant flooring was finally approved and the pieces are falling together.

I'll be tracking the progress from this P3120447 empty lot to the completed home. Unfortunately, the cedar trees are going to have to come out since they are in middle of the slab. It should be an exciting time.