Moving on...

As I wrap up the big projects in the barn and the vision of a grand opening appears on the horizon, it is time to start advertising more aggressively. We recently launched a new website at www.greengateguesthouse.com, so please check us out. The blog has been incorporated into our new site, so future updates can be found there instead of here. Please link up if you're interested!

The Stairmaster.

I started referring to the staircase as the 'stairmaster' because of the mental workout I get trying to build this thing. My last project was the railing, and I thought I could bend some wood strips around a curved plywood form to create the curve that was needed- however, after making the form I realized the railing must twist and curve 3-dimensionally, like a helix...and so my simple 2-dimensional form idea was useless. Rats. After a long period of head-scratching, googling (is that officially a word now?) and burning mental calories on the stairmaster, it seemed the best way to do it was to form the railing in place. So, the riser boards were removed and studs were lag-screwed to the framing to create an appropriate form for the railing path. Then, using every clamp in the arsenal, I glue-laminated maple strips like this:

Since there are two distinct curves to the staircase, I had to build two railing sections, separated where the pitch changes. Here is the upper section being clamped to the forms:

After removing them from the forms, I realized that I hadn't placed my uprights as accurately as I should've and the railing was pretty 'wavy'...another lesson learned on the stairmaster of life. Considerable reworking ensued, and I was able to get it trued up reasonably well, or at least good enough for a barn. I epoxied the two sections together, then painted the railing white to cover all my mistakes. I installed it with wrought iron balusters, tightly spaced to meet the latest code requirements (either babies are getting smaller, or their parents are becoming less attentive...). Voila!

A country kitchen.

After two years of kitchen building, I now understand why most people leave it to the pros and buy all this stuff! I'm finding my 'developing' craftsmanship results in a lot of imperfection, but it blends in well with the country look...here's the finished product:

Open shelving made from pine slabs: An induction cooktop, which so far has been great to cook on: I hid the microwave under the countertop:

As well as the garbage/recycling bins and Asko dishwasher, which have panelized doors:

Running on the sun.

The mega solar array has been active for over a month now and I am pleased to report that the everything has been working very well. I designed the barn foundation as a high mass sand bed storage system, capable of receiving the heat from the solar collectors during the day, storing it in the concrete slab/underslab sand bed, and slowly releasing the built-up heat to the living space. The benefit is higher efficiency from the solar collectors (since they are operating at much lower temperatures than a conventional system with tank storage) and it eliminates the cost and space required for the large water storage tank. The downside, however, is not being able to store the solar heat for more than a day or two. I was only able to find a few resources on this method (like here and here), but it seemed well suited for extreme climate areas like ours here at the north pole, where we pretty much need 100% of the heat capacity during the winter months and thus there is no reason to try to store it in a water tank.

Here are a few pics of the high mass foundation system during construction, showing the underslab insulation, high mass sand bed, hydronic tubing and finally the concrete floor:

Normally, hydronic tubing would be buried in the sand bed as well as the concrete, but here we only have the upper, slab run of tubing...in hindsight, I should've installed it in both areas. The poured slab. The concrete was polished and stained to be used as the finish flooring.

Unfortunately, I picked the snowiest winter in the last half-century to prove out a solar heating system, so the run time has been less than anticipated! However, when we have sun, the system is producing around 250kBTU per day, which is typically enough energy to heat the guest house this time of year. With multiple sunny days in a row, the high mass of the floor absorbs the heat and slowly releases it back to the living space- so far I have not seen more than a 8 degree change in indoor temperature during sunny periods, and we were able to make it through a cold -30F night without the need for supplemental heat one day last week. Very promising indeed. More later....

Disentanglement.

One of my greatest fears is to have a failure in the heating system's PEX tubing, which is inconveniently entombed within the concrete slab of the barn. Having thought about if for a few years now, it just doesn't seem like a good idea to seal off any electrical, plumbing or HVAC systems behind walls or under floors- while it may be aesthetically pleasing to have the nervous system of the house well hidden from sight, this makes it difficult if not impossible to upgrade or repair things that break...and sooner or later everything needs fixing, right? Alternately, the concept of disentanglement keeps these systems separate and accessible, usually in chases, raceways and conduits, to increase the adaptability and longevity of the building. I like it, and kept the idea in mind when installing the HRV system, as well as plumbing and electrical runs going to the upper floor of the barn. With all the utilities in place, it looked like this:

Then I built removable soffits and a chaseway to cover it all, which looks like this:

Admittedly, the wood soffits wound up being quite heavy, but can be removed if necessary without destroying anything.

Embellishments

The bedrooms are basically finished, and the guest house is at least 'sleepable' now! Here are the details:

We purchased a natural mattress from OMI for the slab wood bed, and topped it with organic

linens from Coyuchi. The comforter is organic wool from our friends at Prarie Glenn Wool in South Dakota (we'll be getting more of these shortly- they are great). The night stands are Box Elder slabs bracketed to the wall.

The dresser was saved from the landfill and is in the process of being refinished.

Bedroom #2 with similar linens.

I made night stands from salvaged lumber and antique sewing machine bases. The lamps (made from wagon wheel hubs) were found in an antique store and seemed appropriate for the barn:

My mom donated a really nice antique dresser as well:

Solar Sundays Part IX- Finishing up

We purchased Palram's twinwall polycarbonate panels from Farmtek to glaze the collectors. Since it is now the dead of winter, I brought them all inside to warm up before applying the gaskets. I sealed the top edge openings with Tyvek tape, and the bottom edge with a vapor-permeable tape supplied by Farmtek. Next, the perimeter was lined with adhesive-backed gasket strips. Back outside, I put the glazing panels up and covered the seams with cedar trim boards...as you can see, it has been a snowy winter so far. The finished solar array: The 'closet' at the far left end of the array houses the supply & return plumbing and wiring before it goes underground: The hot fluid exits the solar array at the top and connects to the 1" pex line below. The tee fitting at the top left leads to a schraeder valve for purging air from the high point of the system. The two valved tees midway down the closet are for a summer bypass loop- this is yet to be completed, but will likely lead to a heat exchanger in an outdoor shower system I'd like to build. The return water enters the array bottom right. Since I separated the 9-panel array into two 'banks', there are two separate supply lines. The two stubbed lines in the middle are for a spring/fall diverting loop which will dump excess heat into our garden beds to preheat the soil- this will be connected later. The diversion is controlled by the 3-way diverter valve at the first tee.

Inside the barn, I installed addition plumbing and controls to tie the solar system in to the existing hydronic system. My dad said it looks like "an organized Rube Goldberg project" and I can't really argue with that. I have managed to fit a 3-zone hydronic system, boiler and the solar hot water controls in about 4 square feet of floorspace...not bad. And it is actually quite simple- The solar heated fluid enters the barn through a pump (the pump is activated by a snap switch inside the first solar collector via a single-zone relay). The pump will send the hot fluid through the in-slab hydronic loops (2- 300 ft lengths of 7/8" pex tubing embedded in the concrete floor) then back to the collectors. Should the slab get too warm (say, spring and fall when not much heat is required), a thermocouple in the slab will signal an aquastat to switch a pair of 3-way diverter valves, thus bypassing the slab and sending the hot fluid to the diversion loop instead. The first diverter valve is located middle left in the photo below and the other in the closet at the collector array. Finally, the two stubbed lines at the top left are to send the hot fluid through a yet-to-be-installed DHW preheat tank. The photo below was taken as I charged the system with glycol, so the temp hoses and bucket-o-glycol are shown as well. Again, there are a lot of dangling wires since the controls for the diversion system are not yet connected, but you get the idea.Here is a shot from inside the utility room (actually just a 2 foot deep closet). The existing hydronic system is on the facing wall, and the solar branch controls are on the left wall.

SOOOO, I'm ready to flip the switch- all we need now is some sun!

Eccorok'd all over again.

Despite my previous not-so-wonderful experience using Eccorok for the kitchen countertops, I thought I'd have another go at it. This time the project was smaller- making a curved vanity to fit in the silo bathroom. Since I had enough Eccorok left over from the countertop job, and my labor is still free, I could fabricate a $1000 vanity (yes, I got bids) for nearly nothing. Here is the form, made from leftover panels of Skyblend particleboard and other materials I had on hand. The sidewalls are strips of 1/4" plywood bent to the desired radius and held to the form with wood blocks. I cut a piece of XPS foam board for the under mount sink opening and glued it to the base with caulk. The three stubs of PVC pipe, also caulked to the form base, are for the faucet plumbing penetrations. The interior surfaces of the form were given several coats of shellac, then caulked around the perimeter.

I mixed the Eccorok using a cement mixer in the yard, and tinted it with carbon black to match the slate flooring in the bathroom. There are no photos of the mixing and casting process because it was done in EXTREME HASTE- unlike the countertop job (done in the winter) where the Eccorok was very slow to harden, this vanity (done during late summer) set up so fast that I ran out of time trying to pack the material into the mold before it hardened. Within 35 minutes, the Eccorok was rock-hard, and I got to spend a couple hours with hammer and chisel trying to clean the chunks out of the cement mixer that afternoon...apparently, ambient temperature is very critical when working with this stuff! Anyway, here is the rough cast vanity after it cured for a few days and was stripped from the form:

I "wet" polished the vanity using diamond sanding pads and a small amount of water from a spray bottle- just enough to keep the surface wet, but not so much as to make a mess in the barn. Then it was coated with the same Ecotuff Clear Coat used for the countertops. I used smaller pieces of Eccorok (randomly cut from larger squares that I cast along with the vanity), to make my own backsplash tiles. Here's the install:

I'm done with Eccorok for awhile.

Drain water heat recovery.

Even after installing high-efficiency water heaters, low-flow fixtures, and practicing water-conservation habits, we're still faced with the fact that almost all our expensive hot water goes right down the drain. What a waste! Fortunately, I learned about Drain Water Heat Recovery (DWHR) devices from a friend who has been using this technology for over a decade, and was able to incorporate a DWHR unit into the barn. The drain water heat recovery system is basically a large heat exchanger designed to recover the heat from your shower water before it reaches the sewer system. The units consist of a large 3 inch copper pipe with smaller copper pipes wrapped around the outside. As your hot shower water drains through the 3 inch pipe it warms the pipe exterior. This heat is then transferred to the cold incoming water which is flowing through the smaller tubing wrapped around the drain pipe's exterior. There are no moving parts and nothing that can wear out- a very simple design and quite effective because there is lots of surface area and copper is highly conductive. By replacing a vertical section of your drain plumbing with the DWHR unit, a large percentage of the energy in the outgoing hot water can be used to 'preheat' the incoming cold water. I installed the DWHR pipe in a small vertical chase on the main floor to capture the hot water coming from the upstairs master bathroom before it goes under the slab. Putting the DWHR pipe in the basement would obviously be preferred, but since this is a slab-on-grade structure we don't have a basement- this is the only way I could incorporate the DWHR unit into the floor plan. I installed the GFX S3-60 model, which looks like this: Before testing it out, I insulated all of the drain plumbing between the sink, shower and the DWHR pipe. Before...

...and after. The insulating project is to retain the heat and also for sound abatement, since the bathroom is directly above the dining room. For this I used several layers of foam 'sill seal' material wrapped around the pipes and taped.Here is the vertical transition going into the chaseway:

I noticed most of the water noise was coming from the vertical transitions, so I insulated this area with XPS foam board and copious amounts of spray foam- not pretty, but it really cut down the noise and will contain the heat very well.

The building's incoming cold supply water (from our well water) always passes through the heat exchange unit on its way to the hot water heater, automatically extracting heat from the warm water running down the drain line. When I installed the DWHR plumbing, I added two gauges for monitoring the water temp going in, and coming out of, the heat exchanger: Today, I ran hot water through the shower to see how the DWHR would perform- results look good! With the shower running at 101F, the incoming cold well water was being 'preheated' from an initial 50F temp up to about 72F, capturing 44% of the otherwise down-the-drain heat! The manufacturer claims up to 57% efficiency is possible with this model, but that figure is based on a drain water flow rate of 5gpm- much higher than our low-flow sink and shower will ever provide. I'm guessing that around 40% is to be expected and is still very good. And the best part- the DWHR unit was virtually free- our electrical utility provider offered a $400 rebate for installing this $500 system, so the payback should be less than one year. Even at full price, this appears to be a very wise investment and a great energy conservation project. I'd be curious to hear what results others are having with the DWHR units.

The final steps on the yellow brick road.

It feels good to be actually finishing projects on the barn lately- this time its the yellow brick road. When standing in the original barn before it was deconstructed in 2007, I always felt that the brick floor gave the building a unique feel. Since the bricks were simply laid on the ground without mortar, it was easy to remove them undamaged, so we saved as many as possible. Some areas were heavily coated with oil and grease from decades of tractor parking, but the majority of the bricks cleaned up nicely using a pressure washer (thanks mom and Lisa!). To incorporate the old bricks into the new floor, I formed a meandering pathway across the new barn slab before the concrete was poured, which looked like this: After the structure was roughed in, I mortared the salvaged bricks into the recessed pathway- it soon became aptly named, the 'Yellow Brick Road". Since the bricks were laid with tight joints, I wasn't sure exactly how to go about the grouting process. Having absolutely zero experience with tile work at the time didn't help- so I decided to leave it 'as is' and come back to it later...that was 2008! Finally, almost two years later, I vacuumed all the debris out of the cracks (which amounted to over 3 gallons of sawdust and wood chips), and got started. I mixed some home brew grout using 2.5 parts sand to 1 part Portland cement- then with my mom's help we worked the powder it into the cracks using an experimental sweeping, rubbing and putty knife-packing technique. This worked relatively well, albeit very messy.

Working in sections, the dry grout was packed into the joint lines, then the excess was vacuumed off the top of the bricks and gently wiped clean with sponges. Once the bricks were fairly clean, I sprayed water over the dry mix using an HPLV sprayer to start the hydration process. We worked from one end to the other in this manner, taking an entire day to do the pathway. I gave the pathway a few more sprayings of water over the next few days, letting the grout set up. Then it required about a dozen moppings to remove the haze of grout that was all over the rough-textured surface (I had put two coats of AFM Mexeseal on the bricks before starting the grouting process, but it didn't seem to help that much). After alot of scrubbing, here's the nearly finished product:

The grout was VERY slow to harden using this method, and required some touch up in certain places where there didn't seem to be enough Portland in the mix for it to set. I changed the sand/Portland ratio to 2:1 for the touch up work and this seemed to be much better...more lessons learned on the rocky road of barn-building.