double smart house #2: Feb 6th 2009

forgot to add pics of the front of the house as of yesterday. The carport and front porch.


The rafters are almost all up. these are carfully cut, since they will be left exposed and stained to the same colour then the LVL rim joists. one of our assignments in class was to figure out all the math of the un equal intersecting hip. 6/12 slope on the front and ~4.48/12 (if my memory is correcte) on the carport side.

Al

-- BigAl, Ontario Canada

Hi Al,

Nice work. Not the best time of year to be putting up a house but it seems like you enjoy it.

Ok, what exactly is a PIC? I can see that it is probably the foil faced insulation but why is it called PIC? I’ve been away from Canada for a long time so probably you are using terms which are common but I’ve never heard of it.

Also, if you are using the PIC as a vapor barrier, then doesn’t nailing 1×3 furring strips to it puncture the barrier? or do you put some caulking behind it before you nail?

Btw, I’m in the middle of staining my exposed wood rafters and I would recommend against it! It’s gonna take me about 4 days to do it -it’s just a maintenance headache. Looks great when you put it in but nobody considers how often it will have to be maintained and how much of a pain it is… Or at least make sure the roof covers the rafters sufficiently. Even though mine looks like it does, it still weathers from sun and rain drips.

thanks for your comment Daltxguy,
Yeah I enjoy it alot, but I d’ont recommend it to anyone who’s not used to it…. or that wants 110% as the quality, since some things don’t seam to stick anymore at less then -20 degrees Celcius.

sorry, I thought I explained what it was. PIC is short for PolyIsoCyanurate, here’s the one we use: http://www.jm.com/insulation/buildinginsulation/products/can283ap_foilfaced.pdf

It is a foil faced rigid insulation, available in 1/2” TO 3” (in our area). According to my studies, vapour barriers don’t need to be continous, but probably overlap. We are taping it because we are using it as our air barrier as well. If it was my house, for ultimate performance I would use caulk around each screw to prevent possible leaks from the straping. I was told it is not necessary because the screws(we are screwing the straping to the framing through the PIC) are skishing the straping to the pic to make tight enough. Since I’m not the boss (yet :P) I do it the way I was told.

For the front porch, I agree aswell. I would not taint them neather. The architect and my teacher liked the LVL colour (somekind of orange) over the SPF framing wood colour. I have no say in the design of the house, but I was there when they were deciding (it was -40 degress celcious, only me and an other showed up with the teacher that day). I’ll mention it to the teacher because I know low maintenance is also green (less embodied energy)...

and by the way, to make things worst, we are staining after having the metal roofing is installed. So we’ll be tight.

This is probably (to my opinion) the best way to train new carpenters, get them to build a home. We’ve worked on every part of the house so far except the concrete for the foundation. the best experience i’ve had so far :)

Al

-- BigAl, Ontario Canada

I see it’s coming along nicely Al.Even with all that terrible weather we had.It should be nice and much warmer for awhile now.I’m enjoying the progress pictures.Keep them coming.

-- Dustygirl Hastings,Ont. Life is too short to sit around doing nothing

thanks, I hear we might be getting rain or something for the next few days. the house already feels warmer with the poly in the windows. with this weather we shouldn’t have any problems of getting the concrete slabs in by end of Feb.

Al

-- BigAl, Ontario Canada

Nice post again, Al. Thanks for keeping us in the loop.

thx for a great job keeping us up on this very interesting build , great job al

thanks alot for the feedback guys, i’m currently writing the next one.

al

-- BigAl, Ontario Canada

looks like the house coming along fine. Nice snow.