Honey, where'd the towels go?

Since I was determined to use 1/2" material in the upper story of the silo, my final drywall bending challenge was the most difficult. To get the radius just right, and keep the sheet from breaking, I built a form out of leftover drywall and lumber scraps. Then I robbed the house of several bath towels and used them to saturate the drywall sheets with water. After sitting for an hour or so, they easily sank into the shape of the form. Next, I screwed some crossmembers into the form to hold the drywall in place while it dried.

A perfect fit...now that I've become an expert at this, I should never need to do it again.

Almost airtight.

Because the barn was too tight to produce accurate readings when they were here the first time, Minnesota Power returned to complete the air infiltration testing with a more precise blower door assembly- the results were as good as we could've hoped for. The magic number measured in this test is referred to as CFM50, which represent the amount of air leaking through all the gaps in the building when it is under a negative pressure of 50 pascals. The smaller the number, the better. Most houses today, being of older stock built before we knew much about air sealing, are very leaky, so CFM50 values of 1.0 or larger are common. A "Code" house built today should be .50 or less. To meet the minimum Energy Star requirements, we needed to be .25 or better. The more stringent Energy Star Tier III requirement is .15 or better. To satisfy the even stricter PassiveHaus standards (arguably the most stringent energy-efficient building standards on the planet), the barn's CFM50 would need to be under .08. That said, I was thrilled when our building measured .05 in this test- one of the tightest buildings they have ever measured...we did it! Since the CFM50 value represents the air infiltration per square foot of building size (in other words, the barn was .05 cubic feet per minute airflow per square foot at 50 Pascals pressure), it can then be converted to the ACH50 (Air Changes per Hour) number, which takes into account the total size of the building. This number represents how often the air is exchanged through the building due to uncontrolled leakage. Obviously, when you are trying to conserve precious heated air in our brutally-cold winter climate, the lower the number the better. the ACH50 value for the barn was 0.4, so we bettered the PassivHaus requirement of 0.6 ACH by 33%. This is exponentially better than many of the older homes in this area, and a substantial improvement over even the well-built new homes today. So what does all this math mean? Minimal heating system requirements, low heating costs, and a comfortable indoor environment...we'll take it.

Harvesting the rain.

I spent the last couple of days working on our rainwater collection system- a great Spring project that happens to be about 5 months behind schedule- just in time for freeze-up. The big delay was finishing the silo exterior so that the rain gutters could be installed. Fitting the gutters around the silo proved to be a challenge- nothing seems to come easy in the life of a bad-boy barn builder. A couple months ago, while prepping the silo for stucco, I needed to find a way to divert the water away from the roof-wall interface and keep it from working its way under the stucco. After pondering it for quite awhile, I modified a section downspout and attached it to the silo wall. Then I lapped the step flashing, housewrap and foamboard over the top of diverter piece to make it waterproof. Once the stucco was applied and the scaffolding moved out of the way, I was finally able to install the gutters and downspouts, which look like this: Now how to collect the rainwater? Actually, collecting the water is the easy part- the problem is dealing with our 6 months of freezing weather that has me worried. Usually I can find alot of useful problem-solving information via our good friend Google, so I spent several sessions searching for examples of rainwater cachment in cold climates. No luck. The only suggestion I came across was to "drain and remove the rain barrel in the fall." The system I have designed aims to collect and store 100% of the available rainwater, which means we'll have ALOT of barrels by the time this is all done. Removing them all at the end of each season would be a nightmare- not just the work, but also the logistics of storage and dealing with downspout extensions, etc. Call me lazy, but I want to make a system that can stay in place year round. So, without any good examples to work from, I'm just going to experiment. Using recycled plastic barrels that we repainted to match the barn, I started by cutting a hole in the lid and covering it with window screen (held in place using a metal stovepipe flange). I terminated the downspout directly over the barrel here.

Each barrel will sit on a stand to keep the collected water high enough for gravity-feeding to all the gardens. The stand also gives me room for the plumbing connections below the barrel. I drilled a hole in the bottom of the barrel and threaded a 2" fitting in place. Using PVC fittings, I installed a "tee" leading to a faucet that I mounted off the front of the stand, then below that a shutoff valve before the pipe goes underground. Below grade, I transitioned to ABS pipe, which will continue around the perimeter of the barn and connect all of the rain barrels in series. By maintaining the same height across all of the barrels in the system, they should fill equally regardless of where the water is coming from...

With the first two barrels installed, I decided to quit for the season. I can drain the underground line and close the hand valve to keep them from re-filling during the winter. I plan to remove the hose from the tee fitting so that the barrel can self-drain should it rain anymore before winter. I'm not sure what will happen during the snow season- will melting snow from the roof fill the barrels with water, causing them to freeze and rupture? Or will they survive here at the North Pole? I'm not sure. Any suggestions????

Time for a Silobration

As (bad) luck would have it, I was ready to start the stucco job just as the monsoon season arrived in northern Minnesota. It seemed to be raining- or threatening to do so every day, so I decided not to fight it and took the time to cover the entire silo with a big giant tarp. Way to be proactive for once, Self.

Over the course of two days, I applied the cement basecoat of Parex to the walls. Is is basically troweled onto the EPS foamboard in a thin layer, covered with a reinforcing mesh, then troweled again to embed the mesh in the basecoat. After the basecoat cured, Keith came over and helped trowel on the finish coat of Parex, which is like a thick gritty paint. This layer went on much faster, and we were done in only a few hours this time.

After another day of touch-up work, caulking windows, and installing the vents, I was FINALLY ready to climb down the ladder for the last time. It's been almost 2 years since I sketched out this crazy idea on some graph paper, and about a year since I first buckled up the tool belt and started building the big upside-down test tube. No doubt there have been several hundred (if not more) labor hours invested and likely a hundred more spent lying awake at night wondering how to actually finish it. As I started to disassemble the scaffolding, a friend stopped over and the first words out of his mouth were, "Now do you know why people make square buildings?" I think I get it...

The pot of gold?

After a day of rain showers, we got this.

The Silo.

The last task before the stucco goes on the silo was to install a 'skirt' around the base of the roof to divert the rainwater out and away from the wall. After spending several days talking to every sheet-metal fabricator within a 60 mile radius of The North Pole, Minnesota, I finally gave up on the hopes of getting something custom formed to fit the curved wall. So, on to my backup plan. Using the leftover flashing from the milkhouse roof, I formed my own 'curved' skirt by lapping short pieces and screwing them together. I also added several vents around the perimeter to flush out the airspace above the 2nd floor ceiling of the silo. It's not as pretty as I wanted, but when you are standing on the ground, 20 feet below, it looks just fine. The silo is now ready for stucco!

Bending drywall- 2nd attempt

To finish the arched ceiling of the barn meant that I'd have to force drywall to bend beyond its theoretical limits. Since my previous method of using 2 layers of 1/4" drywall added alot of cost and time to the job, I was determined to find a better way. So I fashioned a very simple station to elevate and wet the concave face of the sheet using a couple of water-soaked towels. After sitting for an hour or so, the sheet turned into a noodle and slowly sagged to the floor. I removed the towels and let the fan blow on it for another hour, which "set" the sheet into its new taco shape. Since this seemed to work so well, I cut and formed all 14 sheets needed for the ceiling so they were ready to go up when help arrived. My dad came over and we double-teamed the installation. With the sheets pre-curved, we just needed to screw down a couple of cross bars to pull them into the exact shape of the ceiling, then secure with ALOT of drywall screws. The last sheet ready to go up. Now if I could just find a crew to tape and mud all these seams!

Pictures from above

I have a co-worker who is an avid pilot. She and her husband fly and restore vintage planes. It is quite amazing what they do and how many hours they log flying. I had mentioned taking aerial photos and to my delight she agreed to fly over our property. So, one early morning "Yellow-Bird" came flying overhead. These are a few of the photos they took. We are hoping to use them in advertising for Green Gate. Aren't they great? Thank you Yellow Bird and her companions!!!

Judgement Day.

In addition to the LEED certification program, we also enrolled our project in the Triple E Construction/Energy Star program through our utility provider Minnesota Power. This program rewards energy efficient construction techniques by verifying the thermal performance of the house and awarding cash rebates when certain levels are achieved. To verify the energy efficiency of the barn, a blower-door test was conducted. This procedure consists of sealing off the doorway with an expandable frame and fan assembly that depressurizes the building by blowing air out of the house. As the building is depressurized, air will rush in through the various "leaks" in the walls, penetrations, windows, etc. Sensors on the blower unit measure the amount of airflow required to achieve a given pressure level- the "tighter" the house, the lower the flow. While the blower door test was running, I got to walk around with the thermal imaging camera, which displays the temperature variation in the surfaces of the building. If any air was finding its way into the house, it would show up as a "hotspot" on the camera. Pretty slick tool! I have been anxiously awaiting this test for months, and can now say the results were even better than I had hoped for. The little white barn was super tight- the air infiltration was so low that we could not get an accurate reading with the blower door test! He will need to come back to retest it with a more precise blower setup before we can know for sure, but for now it looks like we may be building the most energy efficient "barn" in the world...and a rebate check is on the way (finally, greenbuilding pays!).

New uses for old trees.

In keeping with the circular theme of the project, we found a tree trunk table base for the silo's dining room. This cedar piece was made by Ryan's Rustic Railings in Orr, MN (check out their work, wow!). Ordinarily, it would've been too expensive for our budget, but we found this one for sale on Craigslist and picked it up for a deal. It came with a tabletop that was too small for our needs, so I will build a new one from the wood salvaged from the old barn...

Is this a funnel cloud?

Okay, weather aficionado's. Is this a funnel cloud? The day after I took this picture, I heard a funnel cloud was spotted in the Aurora area. Even if it's not a funnel cloud, it was pretty amazing. I was taking pictures and the cloud just dropped.

Kayaking

It's not all work on the Homestead. Sometimes we play. Shawn's sister and niece spent the week. One day we decided to go kayaking. Instead of having to load the boats on cars, we were able to walk them from the house to the lake. (Thanks to Shawn's kayak carrier, one person can tow our kayak). It's pretty slick.

Who needs technology?

We were preparing to start the insulation when we realized that our 2-way radios were not working. Okay, we thought we could do this without radios. Shawn was on the second story of the barn and I was outside on ground level. The first day, we tried the shouting method. With the blower running, we could not hear each other. So, then I would either turn off the blower and shout to see if he was finished or I would walk into the barn, up the ladder and ask "Are you done yet?". This got to be a tad bit tedious. Luckily the first day we had a room for error. If I didn't turn the blower off in time, the cellulous would just go to another area that needed to be filled. On the second day, we were getting to the end of each "pocket". There wasn't much room for error. I guess the worst that could happen would be that there would be cellulose everywhere. We went looking for a battery for the 2-way radios. Couldn't find one. Shawn had a great idea of using a string. He would pull it when he was finished. I was worried that if I was doing something like loading the blower, I wouldn't see it move. So, I added an accessory and it worked beautifully! My family goes to the state fair every year and plays the "frog game". Every year we get stuffed frogs that hang around the house. So, I have finally found a good use for our frog. After a hard days work, Frog now has a place of honor in the barn. He is the Green gate official mascot. Really, who needs 2-way radios?

Super-insulated? Definitely.

The trusses were filled with 10+ inches of Icynene spray foam last winter, giving the barn an airtight seal and exceeding code requirements for insulation levels. But there was still plenty of space left in the trusses to go the extra yard with insulation, so we decided to do just that.

First, I stapled up some Insulweb netting to the bottom cord of the trusses, which will contain the insulation before drywall is installed. Then I screwed a double layer of 3/8" plywood strips in place to give the segmented trusses a smooth, radiused contour for the drywall to attach to.

With the prep work done, I cleverly convinced Lisa that being in the driver's seat of an insulation blowing machine would be "fun", and we filled the trusses with Greenfiber cellulose insulation.

Lisa kept the hopper filled and I worked the receiving end of the hose- after 2 days of "fun" and about $500 in materials (less than some people's monthly heating bill in this part of the country), we had packed 1600lbs of recycled newspaper into the ceiling. This puts the R-value of the ceiling at R50 (near the bottom of the trusses) to over R100 (at the peak).

More adventures in silo-building.

With all the flat surfaces in the barn covered with drywall, it is on to the more difficult areas. I started on the ground level of the silo, which will be dining room once finished. Because of the sharply curved wall, standard drywall wouldn't make the bend, so I went with two layers of thinner 1/4" drywall. After the entire wall was covered with the first layer, I trowed on a coating of joint compound before screwing the second layer in place. The end result was a standard 1/2" thick wall that formed a nice curve, but it took twice as much time and twice as much money to do it (ironically, 1/4" drywall costs more than 1/2" drywall, and you need twice as much!). I am rethinking how I do the upper level....

My dad came over and helped rig up the scaffolding around the silo exterior so I could prepare it for the stucco. Thanks to Keith borrowing me some of his scaffolding, we were able to circle the entire silo and tie everything together solid. I have been dreading this job all winter, but with the scaffolding so rigid, it is actually pleasant to be working up high now. The original layer of XPS foam was covered with Tyvek Stuccowrap, windows flashed (again), and then covered with 1" EPS foamboard, screwed through both layers and into the studs.

The endless salad bowl

Before filling the new garden frames with dirt, I ran ABS pipe underneath with a vertical stubout in each one. Once the rainwater collection system is finished, the pipe will gravity-feed water to the gardens.

Next, the beds were lined with 2" foamboard insulation, followed by a couple loops of PEX hydronic tubing to provide future solar heat to the plants in the spring/fall (summer only lasts about 3 months up here!). The PEX tubing enters and leaves the frame through holes I drilled on either side of the vertical black water pipe. Fortunately, I had just enough leftover foamboard and PEX tubing from the barn foundation to complete this project without needing to purchase anything...

Finally, the beds were filled with dirt and seeds were planted in July. I also built temporary covers using permeable cloth to help retain the heat and (more importantly) keep out the deer that have suceeded in eating virtually everything we planted in our other gardens.

And 3 weeks later- Voila! The endless salad bowl.

The Whitehouse

In the name of progress, we tore down a piece of history here on the farm. The shed building that has occupied a spot in the yard for probably 60 years is now gone.

Back in the 40s, the family drilled a well in the yard to bring water to the farm the easy way, likely ending a long, laborious tradition of hauling water from the river. They had somehow acquired two little buildings (probably taken from the mines or the railroad, as that seems to have been the source of most of the building materials and farm supplies back in those days) and then joined them together to form one larger structure. It was placed directly over the well, and a pump was installed inside to send the water to the main house. To keep everything from freezing in the winter months, they added a fireplace to heat the building with wood. As the story goes, the local men would congregate here in the evenings to share stories, heat, and likely a fair amount of alcohol. Apparently, the yard was filled with pickup trucks some nights, and the little pumphouse became known as "The Whitehouse", where they solved all the problems of the world.

By the time I purchased the abandoned farm in 2002, everything had been stripped out of the buildings, including the plumbing. So that first year, we installed a submersible pump in the well to eliminate the need to keep The Whitehouse warm year-round. Since then, I have been using it as a makeshift workshop and storage area for tools, bikes and barn-building supplies. With the new barn now erected next door, it has become more of an eyesore, blocking the view and the southern sun...so it the time had come to take it down.

We didn't have a need for more salvaged materials and I really didn't want to spend a couple of weeks deconstructing the old building, so I posted it on Craigslist and found a farmer who was glad to come and take it for free (he'll be reconstructing it at his place near Duluth to use for his animals). So even though it is leaving our homestead, The Whitehouse lives on...