INSTALLING WINDOWS, A "STAYCATION" AND THE START OF ELECTRICAL

As with the other concrete pours we needed to wait for the patio concrete to fully harden, so while the concrete was doing its thing ... just sitting there, the team moved on to installing all the windows except for the big wall of windows on the south side of the house that overlook the patio.  They didn't want to walk on the patio until it was completely hardened so those windows would have to wait.  As we discussed on the previous post, installing the windows in a Passive House is not as simple as one would think.  Not only do they need to be level and plumb, they also need to sealed so there are no air leaks.  The area around windows is traditionally one of the worst areas for air leaks.

The tandem Craft room windows overlooking the courtyard

The northern kitchen window over the sink

The western kitchen window

The main bedroom window

The main bathroom window

The main shower/tub window

The view from the hall window

With the patio concrete fully hardened it was time to install the big wall of windows!  The team did this while Jeff was at work so  we waited to go out and see the finished install together.  It was cool!

The view as you step out the door!

If you're sitting in the living room

The small veritcal windows on the left in the above picture are casement windows.  These windows will have screens on them and will open with the "hinge" on the right (west) side.  Jeff discovered that the US Department of Agriculture's Natural Resources Conservation Center and National Weather Climate Center had a data base of prevailing winds from Tucson International Airport.  So with that data we determined that we wanted to take advantage of the prevailing SE winds, thus the casement windows open to the east and will hopefully direct the wind into the house when we decide to open the windows.

 

The view that will greet you when you come through the front door

The full 40 foot wall of windows!

We were going to take advantage of the long weekend in January and plan a camping trip but instead we decided to take advantage of all the windows being installed in the house and do a hyper-local "staycation".   First we parked Nancy's car at the east end of Marsh Station Road where Cienega Creek makes a sharp turn to the south.  Then we drove Jeff's car to the new house site.  We then began the first phase of our "staycation" by climbing over the fence on the southern border of our property and making our way down the hill to the wash, past the big cliff, under the railroad tracks and then making a turn to the east at Cienega Creek.  This creek holds many secrets.  For the majority of its length it is a seasonally dry sandy wash, but there are a couple of areas where there is surface flow year round!  We've hiked up stream through some of the surface flow but never all seven miles to the east end of Marsh Station Road.  It was magical!  There were several large pools of water, plenty of areas to get our feet wet, multiple large Cottonwood galleries, a huge stone "throne" and we even ruined a young naturist couple's afternoon of solitude.

One of the large pools of water

We got our feet wet in this section

One of the many Cottonwood galleries

We even found an erosion cave!

Jeff on the throne

After driving Nancy's car back to the new house we began phase two of the "staycation" which involved something we have been looking forward to for a long time ... having a beer on our patio!  Yup, we got to break in the patio!!

The first of many sunsets on the patio!

Not sure you could find two happier people!

The third phase of our "staycation" was the stay.  We stayed in our new house for the first time!  Once again Jeff showed off his creativity and built a bed in our bedroom.  We put a couple of pieces of plywood down on the floor, stood cinder blocks on top of the plywood, put 2 x 4's across the cinder blocks, and then laid sheets of plywood across the 2 x 4's.  We upcycled the fabric from our sun shade (that took a ride in the dust devil back when we were stacking straw bales) to act as a "ground cloth".  And then used our thick Thermarest sleeping pads and car camping foam mattress to complete the set up.  We even ran an extension cord from the main breaker box so we could have a working lamp!

The bed "frame"

Not quite a queen sized bed but pretty close!

The first night in the new house was nice, but if you noticed in the above pictures the wall above the wall of windows had not been sheathed in plywood yet and it was January.  It was a bit nippy which we were ready for with our down sleeping bags but there was some loose plastic that started flapping in the wind sometime during the wee hours of the morning that was a little annoying.  We also realized how efficient our windows are at not transferring the heat of the sun.  Jeff had to open the sliding glass doors and sit in the sun coming through the opening in order to stay warm while he was having his morning coffee.

Within a few days of our "staycation" the team completed sheathing in the house.

Exterior view of the south wall sheathing

In addition to all the taping on the exterior of the windows to ensure they are air sealed, all the gaps need to be filled with insulation to ensure there is no thermal bridging.  To accomplish this, wool is pushed into the gaps with a thin plastic scraper tool.

Our bag of wool

A gap filled with wool

Next up on the agenda was starting the installation of the electrical.  The first step in that process was installing all the electrical boxes.  We began working on the plan for this project with Ray back in the summer of 2018 so one would think we would have figured everything out.  Well you would be wrong.  Nancy spent the better part of a weekend staring at the electrical sheet in the master plans and Jeff walked through all the buildings and together we came up with myriad changes and additions to the plans.  And believe it or not, Doug the electrician didn't bat an eye when we told him everything we wanted to modify or change.  He just smiled and said no problem!  We like Doug.  Of course this is why he hangs all the boxes first.  It is much easier to make changes before all the wiring is run. 

The electrical boxes are hung

Nailing the electrical boxes to the studs is easy.  Installing the electrical boxes on the straw bales is not.  The first step in the process is pounding in a block of 2 x 6 wood that is cut to a point on one end.

Pounding in the electrical blocking

A block of wood fully pounded into a straw bale

Once the block of wood is fully pounded into the bale the electrical box is screwed to the block.

An electrical box installed on a straw bale wall

Once all the electrical boxes were installed Doug and his assistant Ryan began the very complicated and long process of stringing all the electrical wires.  The picture below is from the first day.  This process will go on for many days to come.

The first day of stringing wires