Landscaping, Solar Panels

The solar panels are finally going on the roof, which was just finished last week. There are eight panels here, but there are supposed to be nine. Right now, nine don't fit. Unbelievable as it may seem, with all the planning that went into this roof design, and all the tens of thousands of dollars I've paid to designers, consultants, roof framers, and solar providers, my custom roof isn't the correct size for the solar panels it was designed for. I don't want to use this blog to name names and place blame, but I am extremely unhappy about this. How could this have happened? It's a custom designed roof!

I now realize why I couldn't find a builder to build this house. Builders who build houses have a limited number of plans they will use. They've made all the mistakes, and have these plans down pat. They won't deviate from them because too many things can go wrong, so they stick with what they know. I've tried to keep the negative out of this blog, but this is just one more thing in a long line of mistakes which have happened on this project. It's all a matter of people not paying attention to detail, and not double and triple checking figures. Unbelievable.

The problem is supposed to be fixed, so we'll see what happens. The mistake occured when we had 4 foot wide panels, and there is more space between the panels than the designer allowed for. Plus the roof framers were not given a figure that said, "you must allow this much room for the panels," so they took some liberties when framing the roof that took a few inches away, when there was absolutely no margin for error.This is my brother in his bobcat, backfilling the holes around the front window wells. It was supposed to rain, but luckily, it held off. A backhoe would have been better for this job, but the bobcat was free.

Here Cliff is taking out a little more of the side yard. I'll put a short retaining wall in along the property line with my neighbor. I had to bring the side yard down a bit when I realized the elevation on the drawings was incorrect and the tops of the basement windows were not at ground level, as the drawings showed, but a good two feet below ground level. I want light and air to get into the basement.

You can see below where the retaining wall will be--off the to the left.

Here's Cliff breaking up the driveway.

All the asphalt is piled in front for now, and will all be recycled. Old asphalt is melted down and mixed with new. After all, asphalt is mostly pure petroleum, and doesn't deteriorate for hundreds of years.

New Roof, Masonry in Front, Interior Wall Work

My green roof is nearly completed. A close up where you can see the seams. The solar panels will be clipped to the seams.

This is how the roof was delivered.

Parging the inside of the exterior walls. A brown coat of cement was applied to seal the walls and provide a smooth surface for the clay plaster. You can see the obvious difference when the Faswall blocks are covered.

The front walls nearly completed.

Below, the walls and window wells are complete except for the porch under the door. I need to fill in the part under the door with dirt, halfway up, to provide stability before Eberhard puts the cap (front porch) on the top to complete it.

Eberhard Construction put in a small retaining wall to hold the hill up to the front door, and put in one large window well in front of the two front basement windows. Eberhard had a great crew and did a very professional job.

Here, the blocks were delivered and readied for the walls.

Windows, Interior Framing Complete

Here is the view from the basement bay window. To the right in the middle window, you can see the black silt fence in front. The pile of dirt to the left of that will be no higher than the top of the silt , so there will be a lot of light coming in from the front. This is why I wanted the hill dug out in front, to expose the windows in front. I have been living in a basement with tiny windows for the past four years, and will be in heaven when I will have natural light and be able to OPEN the windows for fresh air. Mom will be living on the handicapped accessible first level.

This view shows the installed bay windows in front. The windows to the right of each are bedroom windows upstairs and downstairs. Below is my pride and joy, the cold room, which is along the back of the basement behind the laundry room. There are no heating tubes in the floor underneath, and the walls will be insulated. With no heat, and outside walls on 2 sides, I'm hoping to keep it under 60 degrees in the summer, and 45 to 50 degrees in the winter. I'll store root vegetables, squash, and apples there in the winter, as well as all my home canned goods.

This is the view from the front of the basement to the rear, looking through the bathroom and laundry room to the cold room. The black pipes are the plumbing. You can see that there is a lot of natural light coming into the basement.

Below are the two large heat storage tanks for the solar heat. Innovative Power Systems (IPS) is ready to start installing the solar heating system, but we still have to do some work on the inside, and the metal roof needs to go on. The roofer was supposed to start a month ago, but has come up with various excuses for the delay, which I'm not happy about. Hopefully, we'll have a roof (and it's GREEN, for the green house) in the next two weeks.

Here, you can see the upstairs front bedroom framed in, looking through the kitchen and dining room.

Below, the basement bedroom framed in. This photo doesn't show it, but the windows have been put in and let in just as much light as if it was above ground.

I thought I had more up-to-date photos, but I found I didn't, so I'll take some more this weekend. Most of the rough-ins have been done for the electric, the air exchange system and AC, and the plumbing.

Today, Jeffrey picked up a small electric cement mixer I had bought. Devin, my neighbor, is going to do the majority of the parging of the interior walls, which has to be completed before I can apply the clay plaster. It's a hard, messy job. The parging is just a thin application of cement to smooth out the walls and fill in the holes in the surface of the FasWall. Because it is cement with a rough surface, the clay plaster can be applied directly to it. If I used the plaster on the interior wallboard walls, I'd have to apply a special sandy surface first to get the clay to stick to the sheet rock. I will probably paint the interior walls, and just have the clay plaster on the interior of the outside walls. Clay plaster is expensive, and a lot of work to apply.

We are planning on having the rough-in inspections next week for the electric, plumbing, HVAC, and framing. After that, we'll get the sheet rock hung, and then finish the first floor radiant infloor heating installation.