February 14th, 2010
Week 8: Plumbing and electrical wrap up
All electrical and plumbing work wrapped up this week. For the first time since construction began, the outside of the house did not change this week — everything’s been happening inside. I had a pre-drywall wak-through with Sean on Thursday and learned a couple things about energy-efficient construction.
As Sean and I walked through the house, I noticed the amount of spray-foam insulation/sealant. On the back of every electrical box, on every joint along exterior walls, there is spray foam. This is to prevent the smallest of air leaks…ever feel air coming through an electrical outlet, maybe on an older house? We shouldn’t ever experience that. There is also caulking along all the base plates on all the exterior walls, to completely seal the wall to the floor. Finally, spray foam around all the windows and doors, to form a complete seal between the window/door and the cutout in the wall, ensures there’s no possibility for leaks there either. You’d think this is “well, yeah, duh” stuff, but apparently not all builders do it. Those types of things plus various other little details we saw certainly make it seem that this house will live up to its 5-star energy rating.
One other interesting thing we can see at this stage is the water system. Unlike all the homes I’ve ever lived in or worked on, our water system has virtually no copper pipes at all. It’s all distributed via what are essentially plastic hoses — no soldering required to install them, they’re flexible, and they’re more durable, they’re harder to accidentally puncture, and they all go into this Medusa-like distribution panel in the basement that allows us to individually shut off the hot or cold feed to any location in the house. It’s a pretty cool system.
Today, Amanda and I spent several hours making one last pre-drywall addition to the house: ethernet lines for our computer network. Yes, WiFi is fine for Internet browsing, but I work with huge files and like to stream video throughout the house sometimes and wireless just doesn’t cut it for that stuff. So we grabbed a drill and 500 feet of cat5e cable and ran a number of network lines through the house, down to the mechanical room in the basement. We go it all done correctly (as far as I can tell), but let me say this: we are NOT pros. 
Tomorrow morning I’m having our friend and home inspector Scott Surette do an inspection, just to have another set of eyes on everything, and then insulation will be installed and drywall starts going up on Wednesday. The place should look a lot different by next weekend!
February 14th, 2010 at 11:27 pm
Brian Hall says:
I believe that red/orange colored foam is fire retardent foam.
February 15th, 2010 at 9:23 am
Matthew Rogers says:
@Brian… Yeah they use the fire retardent stuff on the higher voltage boxes like electrical outlets and light switches, to both air seal and prevent a fire from spreading outside the box.
February 15th, 2010 at 11:55 am
nick says:
Its really awesome to find a builder who will let you work with them on installing your own stuff. I’m hoping that whenever we get around to building we can find somebody with similar policies.
The home theater hookups look nice as well.
A suggestion, if its not too late to do so, have you looked into putting recessed outlets in the floor of your great room? a few scattered around makes it much easier/cleaner/nicer to add end tables with lamps, etc (not to mention laptops…). Looks like you guys have a pretty big open area in the living room, and i know you’re one who hates cables
February 15th, 2010 at 12:01 pm
Matthew Rogers says:
@nick: Most production-style builders will not allow you to do that (our first builder did not, even though they were kind of getting into semi-custom territory), but many custom builders like Bedrock Builders that we’re with now will allow you to contribute.
Bedrock asked us about a floor outlet in the great room, but I specifically asked to not have any. There are enough plugs around the periphery of the room, plus we put 6 can lights in the ceiling of the great room (I’m not a huge fan of lamps everywhere). The whole downstairs is hardwood, and floor plugs stand out like a sore thumb on hardwood.
February 15th, 2010 at 1:12 pm
Aunt Chris says:
Dear Matt and Mandy, the house is looking great! I was reading the email about plugs in the floor and had a thought for you. We have hard wood floors and after two years living here we found the furniture was in the same place the whole time. We also found that we had two recliners facing the fireplace/tv which meant they were out in the middle of the room so to speak (Not on any wall) At first we made do with the light from other places in the room, but overhead light interfers with the TV. Lamplight works better, because I find myself looking at magazines while watching TV and I need light beside me to see with. So after two years we were in luck the ceiling under the middle of our great room wasn’t finished so we could add that recessed plug that we hadn’t put in yet. It is so nice having electric beside our chairs for the end table.
So my thought for you is to try to anticipate furniture placement. If you are going to have your primary furniture facing the TV and it is not on a wall you might want to rough in for that plug then you have the option if you find you want it later. If not oh well it is not going to hurt anything to have it hiding there under the floor. But if you don’t do it and you want it later it will be harder once your basement if finished.
Love, Aunt Chris
February 17th, 2010 at 9:25 pm
checkingitout says:
I certainly hope it meets an energy star rating because it doesn’t appear to me at what they’ve done it will. You need to have the plate caulked on all exterior walls and spray foan shot in around all interior voids of windows and doors between jamb and studs. Why would they use pink foam board in lieu of OSB I have no idea. They tell people it’s a better insulator. Yeah right and structurally inferior to OSB. The things you really need are 92% or better A.F.U.E. furnace (if using gas) or Hybrid system is very nice (Dual-fuel), 14 SEER condensing unit, programmable stat, power vent water heater (if gas), cellulose insulation w/thorough seal-up (batts is much inferior product) and low E windows. It apprears they trussed the roof and not stick frame so putting foam board on knee walls doesn’t look necessary. Good luck!!
February 17th, 2010 at 9:27 pm
checkingitout says:
BTW the foam you was talking about in your pictures, pretty much every builder does that. And the other you referred to on your switches is called fire caulk (required by code). You will see it thru penetrations in the plate going from floor to floor.
February 17th, 2010 at 9:36 pm
Matthew Rogers says:
@checkingitout… How can you say that? They did plate caulk along all exterior walls, as I *noted in my post*. And all the window voids/door jambs are spray foamed. And we have low-E windows. And every exterior seam is getting spray foamed. I thought I mentioned all that.
The fire caulk is the hard red stuff that is used whenever something goes between floors, I know what the fire caulk looks like — I had to buy and use some when we ran our ethernet lines. I wasn’t referring to the fire caulk. Yes, that is required by code. The yellow and orange spray foam on the back of the electrical boxes, not every builder does that. The builders we were previously looking at certainly did not.
Those other things you mentioned…we have a 93% efficient furnace, 14 SEER condensing unit, and a power vent gas water heater. I think we’re doing OK.
February 18th, 2010 at 8:05 am
Matthew Rogers says:
I should add the house did pass its 5-star energy inspection before they started hanging drywall.
February 18th, 2010 at 8:02 pm
Chad Coyote says:
Nice to see you found a respectable Builder. You have to be careful these days.I recomend that everyone check with the BBB before you make your choice.
Good Luck,
Chad Coyote
February 18th, 2010 at 8:48 pm
Matthew Rogers says:
@Chad…isn’t that the truth! Unfortunately, our first builder went from an A when we signed to an F a month later. They still owe us money. I don’t totally trust the BBB ratings anymore.
Also, I’ve posted a letter from Bedrock in response to @checkingitout’s comments above:
http://rogersbuild.com/2010/02/18/a-note-from-bedrock-about-energy-efficiency/