Jen and Sean's House...From the Beginning!

the birth and growth of our solar house at N 44^o05'54" W 121 ^o16'49"

(aka, 63309 NE Stonewood, Farewell Bend, Oregon, 97701)

We moved to Bend for many reasons. Living in a solar home was one of them, but pretty far down the list. We didn't worry about it too much; we figured there would be acres of solar homes from which to choose. After all, Bend has 300 sunny days a year (cough). What a surprise, then, when we got here to find only one home for sale that had even the remotest version of active solar. So, we resigned ourselves to building our own piece of low - impact homedom. In July 2004, after looking at literally dozens of bare lots on which to build our house, we realized a few things, most notably that we didn't like most of them. The two we really liked were so far up on the west side it would cost us half a million dollars to actually build the house (retrospect: well, maybe not now!). Jen had the great idea to go back and look at the lots we looked at in the beginning, which made sense because now we could compare them to all the other lots...and that's when it hits us...lot#8 in Quail Crossing was it! It's big by Bend standards (0.27 of an acre) which is perfect for me, because I hate cutting grass. But with only a quarter of an acre, we can spend some quality time landscaping, which brings the next great thing into focus: the front half of the lot (where the house will sit) is really flat, but the back half is very slanted, which would be perfect for our pond and a veggie garden.

back       next A slideshow of our house being born!

We had already met with a builder that Jen had found, Solaire. Jen had even picked out a house style she liked, and I was all for it. So, we went in to meet John (our builder-guy), set up some preliminary plans, and went to see one of the houses we wanted being built elsewhere in town...it was great! Unfortunately, Quail Crossing has this small problem...you can't build a house with the garage that sticks out further than your front door (even though over 90% of homes in Bend have just that). Oh well; back to the drawing board, and now we're into August. But, we got a great idea from that house...a third garage (for my shop and to make the house actively solar... more on that later). John sat down with us again, and we were able to locate a good base plan for a garage that didn't protrude (I think Bend calls the garage-front houses "prow-like"...whatever). The basic plan is called the small farmhouse. We took those basic plans and did a little flip-flopping and adding on. The flip-flopping was to make the house passively solar...that is, to position lots of windows facing south to allow the sun to heat the house in the winter, but be blocked in the summer. The adding on was to create a workshop area (third garage) and a bonus room above the main garage (attic). We're also going to install solar panels on the shop to heat our water. We inceased the area of the house a bit, so we have about 2000 square feet (not counting the bonus room, which we may finish in the future).

So, yeah! Now we're off and running! We had to do a little additional reconfiguring once we got into the first and second floor plans, but that was fun. I want a fireplace, but the living room really doesn't allow for one without redoing that south wall...so I redid the south wall! Thanks, once again, to Geometer's Sketchpad.

So, we got the preliminary OK from the Architectural Review Committee (one of the annoying things about living in a resort-y area), and went out and staked our foundation! As always, we got to use a bunch of geometry to help out (most notably Pythagoras' Converse and the Side Side Side postulate to square up the walls). And, as an added bonus, someone dumped about 700 feet of extension cord on the lot, so, once I had staked, I also strung the stakes so as to get a good look at the foundation! The foundation will probably rotate about 5 degrees or so counterclockwise; right now, the south side is actually facing southwest, and we want to get it more south than west. That way, we can fully exploit the sun's rays in the winter (for heat) and block them in the summer (we also have to add an eyebrow on the south side, which will tie in quite nicely to the fireplace venting).


Week of 11.14.04...The excavation has begun! We're on our way! A comical side note: remember the stakes you read about up top? The ones that John told me that the excavtors were going to use just to get an idea of how much it would cost? Well, the excavators actually used those stakes to trench out the foundation...thank God I did a decent job of it! I got a call from Solaire saying, "You know that your stakes are 2 feet left of where they should be?" Oh, well...all is well! I'll try to keep a weekly journal of progress on this page from this point on, now that we're underway, and I'll keep the pictures in the slideshow above up to date, also.

Week of 11.21.04...So, we now have footers and stem walls! Very cool. Actually, the cool part is a bit of a pain; it's been getting cold here at night (like in the teens), and I think it's slowing down the concrete work, only because it needs more time to cure properly. But, the next step is to get some radiant floor pipes in there! WooHoo! We also got our excavation bill...and it was HALF of what it was supposed to be! That, in and of itself, paid for a lot of the extras we added on. Speaking of the radiant...we now have a new radiant floor contractor, since the original guy overbooked himself and doesn't have time to do our house. John was kind and called the guy an "artist", saying that he does great work, but can be flaky. I think John's overly nice. The way I look at it, Jen and I got the guy all the paperwork and funds he needed, and he bailed. That sucks. But, as John explained to us, the new contractor will actually be better in the long run. As one small example: the new guy will install an interchange between the domestic hot water and the solar hot water, so the system will "know" which water is better to use at any given time. He says it should save us between 20 and 30 percent on our gas bill (note: since 2008, I've been tracking our gas usage vs. Cascade Natural Gas averages. We save between 60 and 70% over average. Thanks, sun!).

Week of 11.28.04...So, we have backfill, and big machinery digging more holes in our lot! Yeah, the excavation bill might go up a little more, because I forgot they had to dig out the utility trenches. Once again, they hit very little rock (there's like 3 feet of black dirt here...the garden should be sweet!). The rock they did hit came out in big chunks, so I'm gonna go over and pile it in the "back yard" so I can use it for the pond. The footers are all buried now (and so is the rebar anchor that I had the concrete guy put in for our slack line), and all you can see above the surface is 12" of stemwall. Starting to look like a house! They've also backfilled the foundation with little rocks, and they added insulation around the inside, to prepare for the radiant, which I think is the next step. They laid blankets over the foundation also, to keep the ground warm so they can pour the slab...maybe this week?

Week of 12.5.04...Ah, yes; Mother Nature stepped in and slowed things down a bit! It snowed quite a bit here this week, so nothing got done from Monday to Wednesday, but the concrete guys more than made up for it by working their tails off Thursday and Friday. The underslab plumbing went in, as did the rest of the insulation and 1/2 foot of dirt, so we're ready for radiant tubes and hopefully a slab this week, since the weather's supposed to be sweet. Not that we're complaining about the snow; the skiing up on the hill's been great. But, yeah, That slab getting poured before it snows again would be really nice. Please, M.N.?

Week of 12.12.04...Thank you, Mother Nature! I guess that cold snap last week was a bit flukey. It was absolutely gorgeous all this week, which allowed the crew to get the heck out to the lot and lay down the radiant pipe in the foundation and...drumroll please...the SLAB!!!!!!! Woo-hoo! They can finally start building some walls! I was also able to get even more big rocks for the pond from the backfill...I'm sure what few neighbors are in the 'hood think I'm off my rocker for carrying these boulders around by hand, but they're beautiful (the rocks, not the neighbors). Anyway, next week, hopefully we get some frames up, and the slideshow up top will actually have some new-looking pictures in it, as our house begins to take its third dimension. Till then...

Weeks of 12.19.04 and 12.26.04...Not a lot to report here. Our slab got poured so quickly, the contractors didn't book the framing guys till January 3rd. So, the house will be in a resting phase till then. Check back soon!

Week 1.2.05...As you can see from the latest picture, the framing has been "started", by which I mean the lumber's been dropped off at the house site. It's currently sitting under a half foot of snow. For those of you checking this fairly regularly, sorry about the lack of progress...I hope next week brings some walls.

Week 1.9.05..."And on the 46th day, it was said, 'Let there be walls'...and henceforth, there was framing...". Yup, we have the third dimension! Since Friday, Brett, Franz, Beau and Kevin² have been busting their chops to get this baby framed. I even helped put up the first floor front wall! Brett says the second floor should be framed by Tuesday. These guys even work on Saturday and Sunday...what a nice change! Stay tuned...things are gonna change fast for the next few weeks!

Week 1.16.05...Well, it sure is warm here! It's freezing out east, so I hear, but it's 60 degrees and sunny in Bend, which makes for crappy skiing...but great framing! The first floor went on, and then was quickly followed by the second (notice the difference in weather that two days makes). Wow! The roof's due to go on Monday, and I guess the porch'll go on soon thereafter. It's been really neat watching the frames go up, climbing around on them, and checking out the views. As fas as I can tell, we can see a little of Charity (South Sister) out of the upstairs bedroom, which is a little bonus I wasn't expecting, and we get bomber east hills views, which, combined with the awesome windows we have facing east, will make for some sweet sunrises. What a blast!

Week 1.23.05...Another beautiful week of non-winter weather here in Bend! It feels like spring, which would suck, except that the house is coming together very nicely. We have a roof! We have the bonus room! My shop is totally enclosed...and it's HUGE! Our fireplace got dropped off, as did our tubs. I think next week, the dormers go on, and the porch gets finished off. Woo-hoo! We're cookin' now! I have a video of the roof trusses being craned up, and it's pretty sweet, but I'm waiting for BigVCR.com to upload it. I'll add the link when it comes through. Oh, and on the morning commute in from the house site on Wednesday, this was my view. Ahhhhh...

Week 1.30.05...So we've got our porch! It looks so cool tied into the eyebrow. Also, the radiant floor pipes for the upstairs are in, as well as quite a bit of the plumbing. Most of the windows are in, also, which makes the house look even neater. And, perhaps most importantly, I discovered a VO bouldering move out of the second bedroom onto the shop roof, to the garage roof, to the main roof. What this means, of course, is that we now have Cascade views. Hey, once the window goes into that bedroom, it might even go V1!

Week 2.7.05...The beautiful weather continues, as does speedy construction! On Tuesday, we met with the electrician to select locations for outlets, cable jacks, phone jacks and such. By Friday, they were in! Wow! We also have a shingled roof now (as opposed to just the felt), so the house is fairly watertight. Let it snow! I'm spending a few hours this weekend running speaker wire, so as to have ceiling speakers throughout the downstairs and outside, which'll be bomber. Now, the trick stuff starts showing up...the in-wall vacuum and the whole-house fan, for starters. Who knows what next week will bring? And the framers left enough wood behind for me to build umpteen shelves for all of our gear...speaking of framers, check out the roof video (BTW, it's "Hot Water Music", not "Hit Water Music". Duh).

Week 2.14.05...So, not much new to look at this week, since we're still waiting on the siding guys. Chris decided he didn't like the quality of the last siding subs, so he found a better team. They should start mid-next week. We also had two more inspections on Valentine's Day, both of which (of course) yielded things to fix. I group home inspectors in the same class of person as most US congressmen...they say a lot of unnecessary things, they get paid too much to say them, none of it really matters, and no one polices them, but you have to listen to it anyway or you end up breaking some bogus law. Oh, well. I moved my scrap wood pile to the shop, and Jen and I are headed over there today to take some measurements for shelves. That's gonna be a blast! Nine-foot ceilings in a garage...yeah!

Week 2.21.05...The roof is now 100% finished! For whatever reason, they left a little tiny bit until Monday (retrospect: there is no good reason for why subs did stuff like this. I was told by more than one person that the sub logic was as follows: start 5 jobs a week, and finish 20% of each a day. That way, each person for whom they were working felt as though they were getting something done. You know what I think? I'm glad the jackass subs that worked that way are unemployed now. morons). Also, as you can see from the pictures, the last three windows, as well as our front door, are in. And sunrise from our master b-room is phenomenal. The siding crew started Thursday, and would've finished Saturday, had they not run out of siding! What a crew! Next up: insulation and sheetrock! Time to hide that plumbing and wiring!

Week 2.28.05...Wow! We're all enclosed! Bring on the snow (yeah, right). Anyway, this week, we got the final bits of siding on, the soffet coverings in, and a lot of inspections passed. Whew...Monday, they start installing insulation. Then goes the drywall, and then we're in there painting like madpeople! Also, we got the solar panel installed this week! Yahoo! Bring on the sun! We also met with some brick guys, and they're gonna brick the fireplace, cuz' God knows if I did it, it'd look like Lincoln Logs.

Week 2.35.05...no, wait,3.7.05...More gorgeous weather in Bend. We've heard rumors that Mt. Bachelor is gonna be closing down for the season, and I hope that's not true. But be that as it may, the house forges on! The drywallers started this week, following the insulation. The outside of the house still looks the same, however, and probably will for another few weeks, until they paint it, but I'll keep you all up to date with interior work as it comes. Until then...send some of that East Coast snow out here!

Week of 3.14.05...So we finally got a little snow (emphasis on little) at the mountain... but the drywall's done, so that more than makes up for it! Yes! So, starting next week, the mudders'll be in to, well, mud, and then we paint. We got our garage doors, too (the picture's blue-ish because I took it at sunrise...don't ask). Now, there were some important decisions to be made this weekend. For one, carpet color and tile selection for the fireplace. We got a little help, tho...

Week of 3.21.05...Not much to report this week, unfortunately. The mudders have been mudding, but the mud they've mudded only amounts to about half of the mud they have to mud, so more mudding has to be done. Mudding, that is. Maybe we can paint next week...

Week of 3.28.05...This week more than made up for the lack of activity last week! First, I got a call from Chris, saying that the framers were off by 6 inches when they did the kitchen bar...of course, after it was drywalled. Oops. Then, outta the blue, the walls were textured (most walls in this town are sprayed with a light texture after mudding and taping...why not? I look at it as one more layer of primer. retrospect: apparently it's to hide imperfections...not to mention the fact that any touchups later are a pain in the ass, since the textures have three different, well, textures) on Thursday, so we painted over the weekend. We rustled up Dave, Kim and Rufus, who was in town, and we knocked out the priming of that bad boy in 7 hours. Not to mention that, as you may have noticed in the slide show above, the exterior is also painted. Woo hoo! More paintin' in the week to come!

Week of Ö16.Ö16.Ö0025...And this week was even radder! It doesn't really matter that the breakfast wall was off by a foot...WE GOT THE PAINTING DONE! Unreal! We got in there Tuesday with the ammunition and started painting and painting and, before you knew it, we had office colors and foyer colors and even clean windows (each window had two gummy-ass stickers on it. An attack with a razor blade and some nail polish remover took care of that). We finished today, about 50 hours later, and can proudly say we painted our entire house. That feels great. FYI...one of the best $200 investments I ever made was the Gorilla ladder in that one picture. I used all of its four configurations, and it's bomber. Oh, and I forgot to mention, the fireplace is started. Those are real bricks! What a week...I'm ready to ride some trails.

Week of 4.11.05...So, with every yin, there is the yang. Seems that much of the greatness of last week had to be cosmically offset this week. Chris called and told us our move-in date would be May the 24th...very exciting! And then he called back less than an hour later to tell me the cabinet people (who have had the plans for our cabinets for over 6 months) built them wrong. They'll be at least one week late (retrospect: we asked for the "nature" series, with no formalehyde. The word "NATURE" was written across the work order, in capital letters, in 3 places. Yeah, I can totally see why they mixed that up). That, in turn, pushes everything back a week. Also, the trim, which was supposed to be delivered Friday, well, wasn't. I was looking forward to getting at least one coat of paint on our doors, but, hey, I don't really need sleep this week, anyway. Good thing I cancelled that conference. Oh, yeah...the latest inspection results came back...and one of the radiant sectors still isn't holding pressure. No biggie...except if they have to rip out the walls to get to the pipes (remember, drywall's up). So, rather than getting all worked up about it, I'll let Chris deal with it all, and focus on the yang to each yin:

yin	yang
Cabinets at least a week late	After months of stretching, I can touch my toes, and my hamstrings don't lock up in the morning anymore.
Lost weekend on trim painting	While attending an Elvis Presley tribute, given by my friend Mike in Terrebonne, I saw this, which, as anyone will tell you, you don't expect to see in Terrebonne. "Story of my life..."
Radiant heat STILL not hooked up, due to missing gas meter	The fireplace looks phenomenal. It's really coming along (notice the soldier course), and it's gonna be a great focal point of the room, but...
Kyle and Kitch (masons) need 20 more bricks, and won't finish till next week (maybe)	While we were over the house touching up paint and cleaning, two lots down, an excavator was clearing out a LOT of basalt from a lot-to-be-built-upon. I strolled down and asked him if I could have a dumptruck full...you know, save him a trip across town. We're now the proud owners of a huge-ass pile of boulders large and small worth 25 cents a pound. I'm thinking there's a lot of poundage in that pile.

So, it's a lot easier to deal with this crap if you look at the positives, like Jen's awesome clouds in the west bedroom (notice the hall and master colors off to the left?), and the heating system. We'll see what next week brings!

Week of 4.18.05...It's been a good week, in a lot of ways. The fireplace is all finished, and it looks great! Chris got Brian's Cabinets to rough install on Friday, so they can finish everything off this week, and then we can start putting up some trim and getting the appliances in, both of which were dropped off earlier in the week, with the cork flooring, right around the time I was ragin' sick. I was supposed to go over to the house and paint some doors before they were hung, but I really wasn't into it, so I gave Jen a little hand painting upstairs. Her mural looks awesome! The weather has been short of spectacular, but still very good, so, after rescuing a cat, we're goin' out to find something dry to climb. See ya in seven!

Week of 4.25.05...In 1960, there were approximately 3 billion humans on earth. It only took the human race 40 years to double in number. Assuming uniform distribution of humans, that would mean that every town, villa, and hamlet from here to Katmandu would have doubled in the past 40 years (it would also explain the whole "this town isn't what it used to be" garbage that all the locals bitch about constantly). Of course, humans don't distribute themselves uniformly...they distribute themselves selectively; hence, why Jen and I are in Farewell Bend. This means that, in order to distribute the doubled population, some areas must have a doubling rate faster than 40 years. Why in God's good name am I telling you all of this? I think it explains something important...take a look at that level at right. That bubble represents the level of our "custom" kitchen cabinets. Not very, eh? That's because Brian's Cabinets (our subs for cabinet work) installed them wrong. According to Jen, and our neighbor, Sam, the monkeys installing the cabs appear to be high school dropouts with absolutely no concept of carpentry (retrospect: this description was more modal than I realized when I originally typed it). That might explain their inability to find studs (exhibits A, B, C, and D) and their extreme care when dealing with drywall (exhibits E, F, G, and H). They can't even keep the paint on the cabinets (let's not even talk about the fourth coat of paint I'll have to do in the kitchen) .

But again, why all of this talk of populations? Well, with a swelling population that's growing faster than builders can build, the demand for subcontractors far outweighs the supply. It becomes a "seller's market" on subs, so to speak. So, why should the subs work hard at all? They know they'll get other contracts, so why not sign on as many projects as you can, and offer only mediocre quality? What's the worse that can happen (retrospect: (chuckle))? Mike (the owner of Solaire) and Chris both went to Brian's and read them the riot act last week. I hope it helps.

On the upside, our radiant heat was turned on this weekend, and works great! What a rush to walk inside out of the rainy nastiness into a nice, warm house. And, to my amazement, there was actually a flooring guy still at the house after work when I stopped one day. I haven't seen subs at the house past 3 PM since the framers were there. So we have some marmoleum floors in, and they look very nice (forgot to take a picture of the laundry room, tho).

I dunno...maybe I'm just bummed 'cuz I fell leading Gumby Saturday.

Week of 5.2.05...I suppose I'm starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel. I mean, we even have our first spiders, and, as of today, our first moth. Although Brian's has not been back to fix the cabinets yet, they have been warned...Chris put those little dots everywhere they screwed up, and they're not getting paid until they fix every one. Amazingly enough, they worked only one day this week, and the cabinets still aren't done. Unbelieveable. On the other hand, we witnessed a miracle in our second bedroom. Jen's formerly barren mountain suddenly sprouted trees...and then the next day, they grew. Fairly amazing. They put in 95% of the cork on Tuesday. Why not 100%, you ask? I'm sure it all makes sense in the sub's mind. As for us...well, Jen and I put in 20 hours (each) this weekend painting trim. I now hate trim...but it sure does look good. Oh well... it sure was pretty out the foyer window today, after the storm...
So, fingers crossed for the rest of the cork and the rest of the trim so maybe, just maybe, we can go out and play next weekend.

Week of 5.9.05...Now we're rollin'. We have laminate, we have plumbing fixtures, we have a dishwasher, we have everything except the...wait, we have that, too. Doesn't that countertop look sweet? We even got 97% of the trim painted...the only reason it's not 100%? Can you guess? Sing it with me: "Subs are lazy bastards, subs are lazy bastards." Boy, am I ready to move. We started to pack, but I think it confused the critters a little bit. See exhibits A, B, and C (don't worry; she's only sleeping in that last one... see?). And, at long last, a nice continuous look at Jen's masterpiece. Till next time...

Week of 5.16.05...and we're still rollin'. Lots of stuff got done this week, from the fireplace totally done (doors, thermostat and all) to screens to the electrical to the silestone backsplash to this neat little gizmo that circulates fresh air throughout the house multiple times a day. Heck, I even got to feel my first solarly heated hot water (unfortunately, it feels the same as normal hot water...bummer). We added out first personal touch, a set of chimes from mom that look and sound beautiful. The weather's finally gotten around to being Central Oregon-like, so Jen, Rufus and me went over to the house yesterday way early to break in the new central vac and get the house ready for carpet starting Monday...and then we hit the trails. According to Chris, the final occupancy inspection should happen Thursday, which is amazing since the #$*#-ing trim carpenter still hasn't finished $#@!-ing installing the &%*$-ing trim, and Brian's Cabinets STILL has to fix two or three spots. So, we shall see. Till then...

List of subcontractors in order of how well they performed (scale of 1 to 10, 10 being best)

10		Siding guys, concrete guys, solar guys, silestone guys, fireplace guys, carpet guy
9		framers and drywallers
8		flooring guys
7
6
5
4		roofers
3
2		truss builders
1
0		everyone else except...
-1
-2
-3
-4		trim carpenter

Week of 5.23.05...Times's a tickin' down now! I know the critters can't wait. We'll all have to, though, for a little bit more. Lots of good stuff happened this week. The beautiful dual-fuel stove went in, as did some trim (emphasis on some; see the new, updated list of subs above). The carpets are almost all the way in, as well (sorry, I suddenly wanted to hyperlink the word "the"). We've got lots of shelves in lots of places, and I'm gonna go build more today in the garage. Some more painting (I'll never, ever, ever, ever trim paint an entire house again), and then mirrors showed up. Apparently, the house had an electrical inspection on Thursday, which it didn't pass (can't imagine why). So, I'm off to finally use some of the extra wood in my shop. See you next week!

Week of 5.30.05...and just when you thought the house couldn't get any greener...check some of the new garage additions! We've got shelves, a bench, kayak racks, and a backsplash for the faucet out there (so's the drywall doesn't get all soggy and cruddy). So what, you might ask, does this have to do with the house being greener? Well, every stitch of material (save the screws) in these things was scrap, left over from the house construction. You might remember the pile. For example, the shelves are made of leftover 2 by 4's from the framing, leftover OSB from the siding, and leftover soffet material. The backsplash? Leftover formica from the bathroom countertops, and leftover trim molding from the trim carpenter (speaking of whom...oh, why bother. You know he hasn't done a %#!!-ing thing this week, either). I feel so rad about building these; we're putting as little scrap into the landfill as possible. In keeping with the green theme, we're offering our house for the Solar Tour of Homes in Farewell Bend this fall. You technically have to apply, but the Earth Advantage guy, Ace, said our house was one of the best he'd seen to date. Sweet. The shelves are just the latest beautiful addition. See you!

Week of 6.6.05...and we're in! The wait is over! Thanks for stopping by and watching a rad, low-impact home grow. And if you're ever in Farewell Bend, Orygun, stop on by!