Category Archives: BUILDING A PASSIVE HOUSE
Half of the East wall
Welcoming our new front door
Installing SIPs: The first wall
Preparing SIPs for installation
The panels at the sunny South end are the first to go up. Before assembly, the panels are reinforced with LVL inserts along the edges that will frame and support the large Intus window panels. The side inserts finish the panels, providing structural support and the connection surface between adjacent panels. More: What are SIPs?
Looking for gaps, engineer Jordan Dentz
Expanding foam insulation fills a gap behind the deck soffit. Jordan, from The Levy Partnership, adds expertise in building science to our Passive House project.
L. to R. – On his first site visit, consulting engineer Jordan Dentz meets with Susan, general contractor Bill Stratton, and architect Brian Marsh of Dennis Wedlick Architect.
Bill Stratton updating the group on construction progress. Next week should be good weather for raising the SIPs onto the glulam structure.
Heavy lifting when the windows arrive
It takes six men to lift the triple-pane sliding glass door. The windows arrived in a shipping container filled in Lithuania, where Intus windows are manufactured.
Four of these large windows will fill the wall on the Southern exposure.
The shipping container is elevated on a truck, and there’s no loading dock.
Even the smallest windows are very heavy, requiring two people to lift them.
SIPs arriving from Vermont Timber Frames
Structural insulated panels (SIPs) fabricated by Vermont Timber Frames will become our walls and roof. Each panel is numbered to match the assembly plan.
Neopor rigid foam insulation sandwiched between oriented strand board.
The wall panels arrived one day, followed by the roof panels the next day — for a total of two 30-foot truck loads delivered directly to the site.
Unloading the SIPs with the boom forklift.
Tidy stacks of SIPs staged for preparation and assembly.
Completing a cathedral in the morning
With careful preparation and staging the day before, the final two of five glulams are set in place first thing in the morning. By 9 am we have a cathedral in the field.
Raising more beams
