Sunday, November 13, 2011

Insulation, Nichiha siding, Theater gets going...

There are a huge amount of HVAC and other system runs in the walls of the office!!  They will be incased in spray foam insulation and drywalled over, of course.
The last of the metal siding is complete.  All of the systems runs leave the building on this little ~2 foot bump out, which leaves the rest of the siding uninterrupted and really clean.
The detached garage is also wired for speakers, along with 3 runs of Cat6 ethernet and RG-6 quad shield coax cable.  It will be spray foam insulated too.

This is a Middle Atlantic brand cooling fan mounted inside the garage roof of the main house.  The flexible duct line running to it comes from the component rack in the Theater.  The idea here is to cool the components and dump the hot air they create into the garage.  The fan is automatic, it turns on when the inside of the rack is 88 degrees F and turns off when it cools to 85.  It is super quiet and also remote mounted 25 feet away to keep the Theater as quiet as possible.  It will be serviceable from inside the garage via a dummy cold air return panel.


The spray foam truck.  There were actually 2 of these working at once on Saturday.

Last coat of Seal-o-Flex flooring (actually roofing) to protect the porch floor.  Espresso colored Trex decking will be installed on top, so you will never see this.  The direction will let water go through the deck and flow down and off the porch.

View from the porch looking up.  4 Velux skylights installed, which should add some natural light.  The brackets are for 8" diameter in ceiling PSB speakers.  The porch ceiling will be finish grade plywood, or maybe even some very light colored flooring material (natural wood).

The penetrations through the Nichiha siding make installation, especially right here, SUPER complicated.

Some detail of a Nichiha corner.  Nichiha supplies the corner details so there are no miter cuts anywhere.

Some detail of the transition from Nichiha to cypress, along with the iron ore painted canopy roof.  We like it where all 3 come together.  Note the copper flashing on the roof canopy, it will turn gray/green with time.  Alex the roofer made all of these flashing details himself and insisted we use them so there is no way rain can get between wood surfaces.

View from the front yard in the early morning sun.

Nichiha siding all the way to the roof, some Hardiplank fascia and soffits are started.  They will be painted Iron Ore color (matches windows) too.




View from the ground floor hallway looking out the atrium.  Note speaker bracket in the ceiling.  This will let us broadcast music or audio to match what is being played in the Theater or some other source if we want.


View from the atrium outside our bedroom.



View of the finished cypress siding on the detached garage.

Home theater screen wall.  We ran 2" flex conduit to the left, center, and right speakers.  This will let us upgrade wires later without having to tear into drywall.  The theater walls are made with staggered 2x6s and are 8 inches thick total.  As you can see here, the spray foam is almost 8 inches thick everywhere.  Should be pretty quiet inside this room!!

Ceiling of the theater has spray foam too, to keep noise from other parts of the house OUT of the theater.

Theater ceiling, note the soffits around the perimeter.  They break up the ceiling and add an interesting detail.  They also allow us to instal LED cove lighting, which is coming later!

This is a view from inside the tech closet at the wiring we ran.  Some of these wires are for the side and back and rear subs of the theater, some are for the atrium and ground floor bath in ceiling speakers, and others are to other parts of the house in case some day we switch to a very large mutli-channel amp that can run every speaker in the house.  The conduit to the left, center, and right speakers, and to the projector in the ceiling, ends here.  Rack cooling duct is is the black thing hanging.

Structured media panel in the tech closet.  Amp rack will get its own dedicated 20 amp circuit for power.  Dedicated circuit reduces noise in the AC line that you might hear or see in the theater.

All of the junction boxes in the theater are sealed from behind with a product like clay.  This prevents sound transmission from outside the theater and helps keep everything quiet.  Jon installed all of these.

View looking out of the theater at the atrium staircase.  There will be 14" of flooring installed here over the concrete.

Frame for side left speaker.  

Where 2 LVL beams run together, the insulation guys drilled holes and filled the voids between them with spray foam.

TV wall in our master bedroom.  All of the interior walls are insulated with rolled insulation.  You can see the recess for the TV and the speaker brackets much better now.  The opening is sized for a 46" TV to give you an idea of the scale and how big this wall is.

View from the atrium looking in to our bedroom.

The ceiling of the living room is insulated too, to keep the sound from the third floor bedrooms out and also to make them more quiet inside.  This will also allow us to have 3 separate zones for heating and cooling.

Staircase to the third floor.  Walls of the half bath, under the stairs, are insulated too.

View out onto the screened in porch.

TV wall in living room.  All of the wiring is incased in foam now!



More clay sound proofing in the theater, this one on the water supply shut-off box in the Costco closet.

Every doorway has custom made copper flashing too.  Alex made all of them.

The garage roof gets closed cell spray foam, which is being sprayed here.

View of the fastener pattern in the sun.



More of the theater wall insulation.  The start of the 14" riser in the theater to create 2 rows of seats, is shown at the bottom.

View of the Nichiha from standing on top of the atrium.  Fantastic detail and meticulous alignment.

View looking down the side of the house from the atrium roof.  We really need to build a roof top deck up here some how.  It's like you are standing on top of trees up here!!

Details of the parapet wall from inside.  Roof is completely Seal-o-Flex coated.  One of the 2 vents tubes you see on the roof surface is actually an emergency roof drain incase the scuppers ever get clogged.

View of the atrium upper roof.  Roof top deck should be here and small door should be through that wall of Nichiha siding!!

Sunday, November 6, 2011

November 6, Too Long Since Last Post!

Since the last time I posted there have been some big developments with the house......
Framing Complete and Tyvek Wrap Installed
Canopies Installed and Tar Paper Installed (Prep for Siding)



Detached Garage getting Cypress and Canopy Prep for Paint

Copper Flashing Installed all over, Front Door and Atrium View


Roof top above Master Bedroom with Seal-O-Flex. We Picked Silver to Reflect Heat :-)



Master Crafted Staircase by Graham Gault 

Another View waiting for Stair Treads


Bedroom with TV spot cut out and on R & L speaker frames


5V Roofing on Detached Garage, Again Silver to reject heat

Upstairs bathroom has Kohler BATHTUB installed!



Detached Garage almost COMPLETE! Cypress done, Iron Ore Paint Matches windows done, Door (which will be painted later) done! Waiting on Garage Doors which will be commercial silver.
Back office door installed. 8ft all glass. 

House from the neighboring lot. This view shows Nichiha cement empire block board getting installed. 

Corrugated metal siding getting installed. 


Shower Pan for Master Shower with a ledge up front for Rachel (Shaving legs) and Body Sprayers on sides (Jons Lingo Nutsack Sprayers) :-) 

Kitchen Ceiling and Living room, lights installed, speakers frames installed. Jon Installed 15 hundred feet of speaker wire in the house!

Close up of Nichiha. It will never need paint and looks like concrete.

And the last pic....On the end sliver below the brown piece of wood we had to have an "additional" drain installed per the Mt Pleasant Building Inspector because he didnt feel as though we had sufficient drainage from our Master Bedroom Roof. So there ya go Mr. Mt Pleasant Building Inspector! 























So there you have it! So far that is the progress. Monday we are checking out installed Pecan floors to see if we like them and Wednesday they are installing insulation. Its finally coming together and looks like a house!

Till next time......