December 8: Framing Up

The workers arrived with correct 2x6 framing around 11:30am and by 4pm (they were still working) the sidewall framing was up and they were working on the roof framing.   (Above photo taken by supervisor before work had finished.  By the end of the day, the roof framing had also been done.)

After months of delay, it's moving fast.

It's very impressive looking from the master bedroom window.  I'm glad I went with 9 foot sidewalls, it's not too high to block sky views from master bedroom as I feared it might be.

Supervisor texted me with photo and asked me to buy french doors I wanted at Lowes and tell him which store they could be picked up at on Friday.  I did so during my dinner break and texted Supervisor about location, and also bought a keyless entry lockset.  I'm going to have to extract my Fleetwood window from my junk room tonight also.

Before leaving for work at 4pm, I noticed the sheathing on my front lawn was OSB.  I had intended not to use any OSB, only real 5/8 plywood because according to many plywood is better.  In fact, the contract (which the contractor read aloud to all assembled this morning) specifies 5/8 plywood.  I mentioned this to Supervisor when I called at 5pm.  I told him the roof decking, at minimum, must be real plywood, because I am concerned about long term sagging.  He said he would check out the cost, it was no problem to do so, but he wasn't sure if it had been figured into the estimate.  His excuse: OSB is often called "plywood" and that was what he had assumed.  (The contract itself says plywood, however I have a long paper trail of emails where I insisted on "plywood not OSB.")  (See update at bottom.)  OK, minor error, shows you have to watch every step.  It does basically bug me that even top rated contractors are always looking to save a dime on materials.  My approach is that I always look for the best quality you can get, without making the price astronomical.

One can guess that even the fanciest homes (I was just looking at a $10M home on Zillow) are full of second class materials underneath the super fancy surfaces.  Well I can't afford the super fancy surfaces, but having good quality all the way through just makes me feel good.  It turns out, it's not extremely expensive to add extra good quality materials to a project.  Often it's amazingly cheap.  It's just a hard to get a contractor to actually use them because they're always trying to save a dime here or there with slightly inferior materials, and that is what they are so used to doing it's very hard to get them to do otherwise.

I have a paper trail of emails in which I repeatedly asked the contractor to use "plywood not OSB" and the contract was revised twice to remove the word OSB.  Plywood gets written into the contract, but the construction supervisor interprets it as "OSB, just another kind of plywood."

If I were building something for myself, I would not only use the higher quality materials, I would drive an extra 40 miles to get nicer looking material of the same general kind.  That's the kind of thing I do (and moreso) in my audio equipment.  I'll spend days online trying to find the best capacitor, within reason, for a given project.  It's like being a master chef, though I don't much cook as such.

But I don't get many projects like that done (most often, the nice parts just sit around), and if I were building a building it might never get done.

Update:

The supervisor brought plywood (nice looking too) on Friday morning, no more questions asked.  I intended to send email showing paper trail of discussion about plywood, but never figured out how to get the wording right.  And best of all, it wasn't necessary anyway.

December 8: New Construction Begins

During October, I interviewed 4 contractors.  In November, I selected one and hammered out some additional details, signed contract, and paid $500 deposit.  After he had been selected, the contractor said he would begin work around December 8.  On December 7 I got an email saying he would meet me at 9am on December 8.

And today, December 8, the contractor, supervisor, framing supervisor, and 2 workers showed up. We went over construction details, selected and marked positions for door, window, and A/C.  Window is now to be 8 feet from front inside wall, with AC unit closer in, separated by 18 inches.  I paid $2500 additional deposit.

They plan to start work today, but it is quiet now because they have gone back to lumber yard because contractor got 2x4 studs instead of the 2x6 specified.  They plan to work on Saturday.  Supervisor suggested I make appointment with electrician for Monday or Tuesday to do electrical rough in.  I've made appointment with electrician for Tuesday.

Temperature is 45 degrees.

Heater Controller

Here is a very nice thermostatic heater controller.  It features a thermostatic relay made by Johnson Controls (their factory just a few miles from where I live!).  It is intended to control heaters to keep cold blooded reptiles alive.  (A reptile can die if it gets too cold.) My application is keeping all my antiques in the workshop from getting damaged by cold.  I will turn on a small radiator heater set to 600W and a small fan to help circulate the air.  A controller will prevent the heater from running at all on warm days.  (The thermostats on portable heaters are bad about that, they often run just a little even on warm days.)

Solar Metal Roofing

I'm not planning to do this anymore, but solar metal roofing is discussed here.

The Best Climate Control Option

I need 5000 cooling BTU or less to maintain temperatures below 82 degrees in my supremely well insulated 165 sq ft room.  Generally through-wall A/C start around 6700 BTU or more, and don't include heat until you get to 7500 (lowest I've found, but old fashioned mechanical control model) or 11900 (top of the Friedrich line Kuhl with auto changeover) BTU.

So I'll have to forgo built-in heat, and supply heat separately.  The lowest BTU through-wall unit I've found is actually very nice, a 5500 BTU commercial grade Friedrich XStar XQ05M10 with digital controls, MoneySaver auto-fan (fan is off unless compressor is running), and other nice features.  The XStar is the 2nd in quality and features only to Friedrich's Kuhl line, but nearly as nice and sophisticated.  Instead of 7 day setback system, it features 24 hour timer, actually I like that better anyway, much easier to set.  It has auto adjusting SmartFan and Comfortwatch temperature monitor and remote control.

For heat, I'll use my Delonghi radiator, set to low (600 W).  It's very safe, only getting touchably warm, and I believe 600W is high enough to get the job done (assuming it's online all the time, and not simply turned on for a blast of heat, which it doesn't do well anyway) and low enough power draw that even if, due to malfunction, it ran simultaneously with the above AC, it wouldn't come close to overloading even a 15 amp circuit (my intention is to get 120V 20A circuit).

The problem in this application is that the Delonghi, like most portable electric heaters, has a horrible thermostat.  No matter how hot or cold it is, it cycles on and off.  So it cycles on during the hottest days, wasting energy, and cycles off on the coldest days, especially if you've set it low enough to minimize on cycling.  The solution is to get some sort of remote thermostatically controlled AC switch.  I'll look for that.  In the worst case, in principle, I could build one with conventional thermostat and relay.  Then an additional fan could plugged into the same thermostatically controlled switch to help circulate the air.

Then, with AC and heat through separate units, I've achieved both low cooling BTU for max efficiency and auto-changeover.  That's what I want.  Set it up and forget it.  I hate being turned into a slave to operate my climate control systems semi-manually.

*****

At Amazon, the XQ05M10 air conditioner gets a lousy review from some guy who complains about the noises it makes.  The XQ06M10A gets great reviews.  The "A" suggests it is a slightly revised model.  The difference is only 300 BTU (from 5500 to 5800) and it uses only a few hundred milliamps more of electricity.  So I think I will get the XQ06M10A.  Seems like Friedrich would have intended to make 5000 and 6000 BTU units, but somehow it didn't work that way.

Roofing lifetimes

Turns out steel roofing does not last forever, though it almost sounds like steel roofing manufacturers make that claim.

The longest life roofing may be some kind of tile.  According to Eagle Roofing, modern metal roofs have a projected lifetime of 45 years.  Of course, that is a projection, galvealume and modern PVDF coatings haven't been around that long.  Top quality roofing manufacturer Berridge only guarantees the finish and the roofing panels for 20 years.  Meanwhile, Eagle claim tile roofs have a 75 year lifetime, and their tiles are guaranteed for a "lifetime" (lifetime of what or whom?). Tile roofs have on historic buildings have been around for centuries (however not without maintenance).

Concrete tile roofing is available in highly reflective colors, all the way up to a white with SRI of 96, exceeding the reflectivity of PVDF white coated steel.  (Eagle makes that color, Hanson tiles only do a light colors with SRI up to 45.)

Two shortcomings of tile: (1) it rarely has the highest impact resistance.  Hanson tile is only rated to class III.  Most Eagle tile is rated to class III also, the exceptions are the flat tile which is rated to Class IV.  (2) Freeze/thaw cycles, though concrete tile manufacturers claim their product is fully resistant.

But the different lifecycles themselves of different roofs need to be considered.  Tile, especially of the non-flat variety, randomly breaks from hail and other weather events.  Thus it needs to be inspected periodically, perhaps annually.  The cost is not in replacing the tile, which is either cheap or lifetime warrantied.  The cost is in the work of replacing tiles.  Metal roofing does not require annual breakage inspection.  What happens first is that the coating deteriorates.  Thus, repainting is required in about 20 years.  Since externally applied paint probably won't be as good as factory coating, future repainting could be 5-10 years.  If you're not fussy about appearance, it could go longer.  But failure to recoat could lead to premature failure (though that seems doubtful for galvalume, one would think it would be OK without coating).

Thus the maintenance story goes like this: tile roofs require frequent, but relatively inexpensive maintenance, to maintain water shedding performance.  Metal roofs require infrequent, but comparatively expensive maintenance, largely to maintain appearance and long term lifespan.  Then, the metal roof will need to be replaced entirely sooner.

A third type of material shows up as well as metal in Eagle's roofing lifetime charts.  Polymer shingles.  I need to check those out.

Foam Insulation; Metal Roof

So far, I've interviewed two new contractors.  They had very different styles.  The first, a licensed general contractor, arrived exactly on time, asked questions, said little, left in 30 minutes, and delivered a written estimate the next day.  The first estimate included metal roof and foam insulation.  I suggested those, and the contractor didn't debate them at all.  Actually, a little more discussion would have been nice.

The second contractor I interviewed last week was very reluctant to do foam insulation, so I said I would also accept fiberglass batts, as on my written specs (because that was what Ronnie wanted to do, and he convinced me it was OK).  However since then, I've decided I must do closed cell 2 lb foam insulation as mentioned by the first contractor (though strangely not included in his estimate, apparently I agreed to 0.5 lb foam because of better acoustical properties).  Foam insulation is by far the best, and 2 pound foam is the best of the best (see below) for thermal insulation, though 0.5 is somewhat better for acoustical insulation.

Here's a great link recommending 2 lb spray foam insulation.

Here's an even better link with all the technical data:

Open cell (0.5 pound) vs Close cell (2 pound):

R Value per inch:
Open   3.9
Closed 6.9

STC (Sound Transmission Class)
Open   51
Closed 43

Noise Reduction Coefficient
Open   0.7
Close   0.2

The really relevant number is the STC, that's a complicated measure of how sound is attenuated as it passes through a structure, very roughly speaking, the dB's of loss in transmission.   The NRC is a measure of how well a material prevents sound from reflecting, therefore it is more applicable to surface treatments (studio foam panels, traps, acoustical ceilings, drapes, etc.) than wall structures.  Normally STC needs to be evaluated as a complete structure, because leakage through any part (such as, the studs) can compromise the whole, so it's not entirely clear what the above specifications mean (were they evaluating a pseudo-wall of nothing but foam, and if so, how thick was it, or were they evaluating a real wall, and if so, what were the other materials and how thick?).

But it seems both types of foam have excellent STC.  The STC of a standard uninsulated interior wall is 33, the STC of a typical insulated exterior wall should be above 40. 44 is the STC of a cinderblock wall 4 inches thick.

Although no doubt 0.5 pound foam is better for acoustical insulation, 2 pound foam is not shabby, and it's hard to know how much difference it would make inside a wall structure.

All spray foams have one thing in common, unlike old fiberglass insulation (which gets worse over time in this regard) they much better seal against airflow.  But in that regard, closed cell foam is the best.

Contractor #2 also didn't like the metal roof idea, and tried to convince me to use composition shingles instead.   It's cheap now and cheap to replace in 20 years.  No, that's not what I want to have to do, I don't want a roof of rotting shingles.  So I gave him some links.  Here's a great list of metal roofing manufacturers in Texas, several in or near San Antonio.

Here's one in San Antonio, Berridge, which seems to make top quality 24 gauge Class IV galvalum roofing.  Here's the Berridge color chart, showing that both natural white and almond meet Energy Star and LEED 2.2 requirements for low slope roof (2:12 or less).  Natural white has higher reflectivity but almond has higher emissivity.  Combining the two in SRI, White is naturally the best overall at 93 but almond close at 82.  Above 2:12 slope, actually most colors qualify for Energy Star and LEED, despite typical SRI's in the 30's.

Another roofing manufacturer with branch in San Antonio, MCBI, also has white and almond colors.  However, they only offer almond in their higher end Signature 300 series which uses Kynar and/or Hylar.  In the Signature 200 series, which uses a proprietary siliconized polyester, the SRI's are generally lower so that the white (a non-pigmented polyester) actually has lower SRI than the Almond in the 300 series.  And it has no almond, only a similar Light Stone which brings the SRI significantly down to 58.