Showing posts with label i. Show all posts
Showing posts with label i. Show all posts

Friday, October 21, 2016

I Recogize Those Cabinets and Those Floors and Those Views

I Recogize Those Cabinets and Those Floors and Those Views


Res4 has managed to get themselves into the paper again. Heres a NYT profile of a prefab they finished in the Bronx on what is basically an urban infill lot - on the water. (Even having grown up and lived in and around NYC, it still surprises me that there are so many working-class neighborhoods with homes on the water.) This house was in design when we first met with Res4, and was a point of reference for a lot of Res4s answers to our questions (timeline, matls, etc.). Fun to see it finished.








I Recogize Those Cabinets and Those Floors and Those Views

Wednesday, October 19, 2016

I was thinking I coulda just used Hardiboard but

I was thinking I coulda just used Hardiboard but


...this stuff looks great! Its Cembonit, a cement board product like Minerit. Never needs to be painted. Heavy, but not too bad too install. (The manufacturer has an entire book worth of installation instructions/warnings/qualifications of the warranty, apparently owing to excessive heat retention issues. You are supposed to use a rainscreen application. Weve only got a few pieces, and only one in the sun, so no rainscreen for us - dont tell anyone...) When we were designing the house, we talked about Cembonit in all the spaces between windows and sliders. But the tolerances were awfully tight in those spots (usually about six inch gaps). And on-site cutting is really messy and difficult, meaning we were looking at pre-ordering all the twenty or so pieces. And that seemed like a recipe for trouble. John at Res4 recommended using cedar panels in those spots, which turned out really well. (Harrison Hays was my contact at CBF.)

(***UPDATE: I see at CBFs site that they are no longer selling Cembonit and Minerit owing to supplier issues. We had about a twelve week lead reqt for our order, and Harrison had told us that there were HUGE demand issues from European builders that was making it really hard to get product into the US. Guess it got to be too much of an issue...)

Install was pretty easy, though the pieces are heavy. They came crated:


Heres the first piece, with rubber furring strips and stainless steel fasteners from the manufacturer):




Also lots of rules about where and how frequently to install the fasteners; this pic is before I got all the fasteners on:


Second location, under the deck; you can see the hot water heaters intake/vent pipes in the top corner. Unfortunate location; I wasnt there when the HVAC guy did it, and we hadnt talked about it. I used my grinder to cut a notch out of this piece:








Res4 recommended the pinwheel application for the seams:





***UPDATE: Heres the initial estimate from CBF (invoice was identical):

MATERIALS

QUANTITY DESCRIPTION UNIT PRICE TOTAL

3.00 5/16" x 4 x 8 Cembonit 144.25 432.75

1.00 5/16" x 4 x 10 Cembonit 180.40 180.40

1.00 Rolls of 1 1/4" EPDM Rubber Strips 40.00 40.00

1.00 Rolls of 3" EPDM Rubber Strips 58.50 58.50

150.00 Stainless Steel screws for wood furring 0.30 45.00

204.00 Cutting Charges 0.60 122.40

1.00 Crate Charges 75.00 75.00

1.00 Freight Charges 314.49 314.49



Materials total: 1,268.54
*Freight Quotes are good for 2 weeks only


I was thinking I coulda just used Hardiboard but

Sunday, October 16, 2016

In a world where I have infinite funds

In a world where I have infinite funds


...and am not horribly in debt, heres what would be going up on the walls in this house. These:








And these:






In a world where I have infinite funds

Wednesday, October 12, 2016

Where I got my shed plans

Where I got my shed plans


Ok so some people have been emailing me where I bought my plans at ...

I went to get the URL of the site and the guy is giving away plans for free right now! I dont think it will last but how can you pass up free stuff! :)

Anyways the product was well worth the money. It came with over 12,000 plans. And I mean step-by-step, diagrams, photos, the whole deal. Its a great package and I completely recommend it!

Check it out now!


Where I got my shed plans

Monday, October 10, 2016

Things I didnt know

Things I didnt know


Apparently when you buy a gas range, the little nozzles underneath each burner are set up for natural gas. My gas service is "LP," or liquid propane. The nozzles for LP have much smaller islets - something about the combustability of natural gas v. liquid propane. The people who installed the gas inspect the gas lines, etc. to make sure youre up to snuff. One of the things on their checklist is the type of nozzle in your range. Apparently if he hadnt called to my attention the fact that my nozzles need to be swapped out for the correct ones, when I turned on my burners the flame would have reached to the ceiling. That would have surprised me.


Things I didnt know