The past seven days have seen excavation on two current projects, making this a holey week.

The shot above shows a trench dug to bury geothermal heating and cooling piping on Gates Avenue. After looking into horizontal boring and wells, trenching was selected. This method avoided rock and came in less expensive than the other two options. Today the trench looks like tilled lawn; it has been filled and leveled over the pipes. Soil corrections have already begun for the footings for the home’s rather significant addition. The home will appear as a cluster of buildings linked together with low, curved connective tissue.

Here is the hole for a petite addition on Union Street in Northfield. This will be a kitchen and mudroom addition to replace the sun porch and deck. Site constraints and the Owners’ sensibilities steered this addition toward a modern addition sympathetic to the historic home. Look for a low slope roof with greenery on top in the months to come.

With a smallish back yard and limited privacy, the owner of this home envisioned a new hot tub on the flat roof over the second floor three season porch. The project involved a master plan for converting the attic to a new master suite, bringing the porch up to four-season use, and remodeling an existing bedroom into a new bathroom on the second floor.

This was no mean task! The hot tub’s weight, including people and water, is about the same as the curb weight of a 2007 Volkswagen Beetle. Routing plumbing for the new restrooms without disturbing the existing first floor finishes also proved to be a challenge (that we were up to!) Add to that working out a feasible master suite layout in the attic with no knee walls and you’ve got a fine architectural adventure.

Working closely with the Owner, we found a way to make it all happen. More shots later of work in progress, but I just can’t pass up the insulation now.

The insulation shown here is a foamed-in-place cement product called AirKrete. It carries a relatively high R-Value, does not shrink after installation, and has great smoke and fire resistance. It will not burn, gives off no smoke or hazardous gasses in a fire, is insect and rodent resistant, and will not offgas. There is no petroleum in this foam, only cement, a foaming agent, and minerals found in seawater.

I’m currently checking with my insurance agent to find out if there will be any savings when we install it in my house. Whatever happens there, we will benefit from high performance insulation, safety and air quality from this product, just as the owners of this house will.

Here’s a shot of an office addition going up in Ellendale, Minnesota. It will become the new home of the Misgen Auto Parts, Inc. staff and sales department.

The photo shows the insulated concrete forms which form the walls. This is one strategy employed to create a low-energy building to better serve the needs of this business. The fire-resistivity of the concrete walls is also desireable in the industry.

Our design work included a master plan to address the overall flow of inventory from receiving, through draining and dismantling, and to the end user through warehousing and sales. A second addition will be built at a later date to streamline the draining and dismantling process.

We are impressed with the Misgens’ interest in minimizing the impact of their operation on the environment. The new office will require little heating and cooling. The future dismantling wing includes a state-of-the-art fluid recovery system that will collect over 99% of the vehicles fluids, and a radiant floor to reduce heating needs. A geothermal heating and cooling system is being considered; this is a switch away from the waste oil heat currently in use. This is a win-win-win: less emissions, efficient heating and cooling, and recycling income from oil that previously went up in smoke.

Here’s more on the interior framing; if you look close, you will see stamped on the 2×4’s, the FSC Label. FSC is the Forest Stewardship Council, which is the foremost certifier of sustainably managed forests. Check out their website to learn more. (Did you know that Northfield has the North American headquarters for SmartWood, an FSC certifying company?)

This is the stage at which our clients often wonder if the rooms will be big enough. The new floor felt huge before the interior wall framing; in contrast the rooms now seem small. No worries; the windows will expand them visually once they’re installed. As professionals, we know what will fit and how they’ll feel.

Here is the four-season porch and part of the new mud room. We opted for open web floor joists to aid in the routing of the new ductwork. Our hope is to save the barn siding on the existing wall; so far so good. The white door was our back entry door; it will remain so we can get our washer and dryer out of the basement when necessary. The new mud room will connect directly to the kitchen through a door at the existing window (hidden behind plywood and the ladder.) A double door will like the mudroom to the porch, providing a view through the new window to the north.

And, for an update on the exterior: The soffit framing is ready to receive the soffits. The pieces are being fabricated in the shop and will be installed quickly when they are ready. These must precede the windows, since the soffit abuts a continuous frieze board which, in turn, abuts the tops of the windows.

Yesterday ductwork began arriving on site with the new airhandler and boiler. Installation should start next week, in tandem with the soffit and windows!

A startup company called Freenerg (”free-energy”) will be leasing PV systems to homeowners, starting next year. This will help beat the up-front costs of the systems, allowing more families to reap free energy from the sun (for a fee, of course).

More at Minnesota Monitor…

I was delighted to find upon my return from the office today, a large hole in my yard. This hole will become the happy home of our new footings and foundation around our new and much needed mudroom.

We came across a large rock next to the existing basement wall, but fortunately, the new wall will just miss it and the old cistern north of it. The underground electrical feed to the garage defied logic and did not show up under the backhoe’s bucket, thank the Lord. These unknowns make remodeling an adventure.

Speaking of such, we spend a fair amount of time discussing the best way to blend the new construction into the sloping, sagging floor of the existing house. it is an art to handle these uncertainties gracefully and cost-effectively. With our contractors Gary and Matt, we reviewed several options to deal with the irregularities.

While we were at it, we decided it was prudent to save the porch walls from the wrecking ball; the existing headers can be augmented to do the job. Since we’ve decided to go with foamed in place insulation, we will get satisfactory performance from the existing 2×4 studs. This trade off will save us some money up front and won’t be too bad down the line, since this room can be shut off from the rest of the house when the weather gets cold. We are aware that this room will have some temperature swings; that is part of the package.

Saving the walls will require less time for the framing effort, too. That is important, since we would like to insulate the shell before the worst of the winter strikes. The low-slope roof must come off, to be replaced by new floor trusses. We’re going to see if the truss manufacturer can give each truss “feet” that can be trimmed as necessary to level the new floor. This will allow us to get the ceiling height we want without demolishing the porch walls.

Xcel Energy’s crew came by today to discuss burying our power, phone and cable wiring. They, too, have been set back by all the rain. But it looks like they’ll have the job done this week, clearing the way for removal of the roof and second floor walls. We asked Xcel to run the cable deep as it approaches the house so we can decide what landscaping needs to happen in the spring. Our plan is to install an egress window in the basement, which will require some dirt work. Now we will not have to worry about the wires.

This weekend, Mary and I took our salvaged clawfoot tub to be freshened up. We found a guy is St. Paul who has spent the last seven years rehabbing old tubs.

Despite the peeling paint, we were delighted to hear that the tub was considered in good shape. Although some of the glazing had been worn away near the drain, the tub was the second best tub he has ever seen.

We liked it for its length and depth, a true soaking tub. It came out of a second story apartment in Waverly, Iowa, when a fellow architect and I traveled down to pick up a pair of tubs. (That adventure is a tale for another day!) The outside of the tub will be sandblasted and painted; minimal work to keep its service life going.

The tub will find its new home in our master bathroom. We look forward to seeing it restored to its former glory.

Alas, but we don’t plan on painting the toenails red again!