Late update: Front porch and HVAC

   Sorry for the late update but thw long Memorial day weekend had me all over the place.  The weather has been hot in the mid to upper 80s and I got a chance to swing by the site on a sunny Saturday afternoon.  I was greeted by the beginning of a front porch roof.  I knew that Porter and Heckman have been out so I was looking forward to reviewing the HVAC supply and return placements.

   All the main laminated beams are up with most of the porch roof trusses up on the side of the house.  Most of the installed posts are permanent, with the exception of the posts that flank the front door.  I think the concrete slab needs to be poured before these posts are mounted.  One item that I reminded the crew about was the barrel vaulting that should be above the front door.

    Here's what the section under the turret looks like.  I'm not sure what the purpose of the curved lip on the deck serves, but it's nice that they placed temporary plywood everywhere.  You can see how they tie in the ceiling joists to the beam.  I'll have to ask how the final ceiling bead board will be attached here since the beam sits a bit lower than the joists.  This happens inside the house too since the beam sits lower than the LiteDeck.  I guess in both cases, the ceiling material can be cut out from the back side to fit the beams so the surface is flush.

   Here's a shot of the front porch, looking at the corner of the house under the turret.  These two windows belong to the study.  I think we gain a couple of feet on the curved part of the porch so it will make a nice place to sit, while still retaining the walking space of the porch.  I imagine this is where I'll be sitting on a rocking chair with a shotgun on my knees, waiting for the kids to come home after a date.  Just kidding.

   Looking forward on the front porch towards the turret corner.  The decking of the front porch is going to be Azek, so the plywood is only temporary.  You can see that they've installed the porch roof supports on this side of the house.  They still need to put up the roof decking, fascia, and overhangs.  I'm guessing a couple more weeks left of work on the front porch.  These posts are 6x6 and are permanent.  They sit right above the steel posts that support the steel I-beams that support the porch deck so the roof load is transferred all the way down to the concrete footings below.

   I'm not going to bore you with all the vent placements, but here you can see an example of how P&H marked in the supply vent locations for the first floor.  Having concrete floors complicates things a bit.  As with any other floor, you can't cut away floor joists to install vents, so they have to be placed in the spaces between.  With the Lite Deck system, there are wider concrete beams that you can't cut away since they're integral to the strength of the floor.  There are spaces 16" wide between these poured beams that you can route HVAC venting through.  Also, from below, you can cut away the foam under the concrete slab inbetween the beams so for the most part, the supply and return runs can sit completely flush with the concrete beams.  Likewise, as with wood joists, supply and vents that run perpendicular to the beams can only sit below the beam themselves so in the basement, they'll have to be boxed in.  

   This makes the supply and return to the second floor a bit more complex.  Usually, second floors are supplied from below as with the first, and they're all creatively boxed in, in the ceiling of the first floor.  While we could have gone this route, it would make odd soffits and intrusions in the first floor rooms.  To counter this, P&H suggested that we run one main supply and return trunk up to the attic space and supply the second floor from above.  While we gain architectural zen, we expose our HVAC to some inefficiencies by running it outside the envelope of the house, in the attic space.  With enough insulation, this energy losses can be reduced, but it's never a great situation to run supplies in the attic space.  Air leaks are complete energy losses and opposite temperature differentials threaten to rob the system.  I'll have to do some research to see if we can spray foam the attic ducts to air seal it and insulate it completely.

   There seems to be some supply vents missing, and some need to be moved to allow cabinets and furniture.  I'll have to set up a walk through with P&H.

   Here's what the porch roof looks like from the upper window of the great room.  When the temporary catwalk is gone, I'll never get this view again unless I'm up in a ladder.  Those laminated beams span an incredible distance but since the roof isn't very large, they don't have to hold up much weight, even in the winter.

   Here's the master bedroom windows that will surround our bed.  You can see the duct tape P&H attached to the ceiling joists to mark the supplies.  They have the opening dimensions marked on the tape; these happen to be 6"x10".  In some retrofit ceiling applications, small diameter vents are used in conjunction with high volume output so the air is "jetted" into the room.  I imagine with vents these large, the air flow will be equivalent to those on the floor.

   Here's the study looking towards the door.  Nothing new on the construction front, but here's an example of how P&H mark the HVAC returns.  You can see the duct tape at the top of the wall just left of the door.  Again, these are marked with vent dimensions.  As with any other forced air implementation, the wall will serve as a duct for the return.  The stud sole plate will be cut through and the duct work will connect below in the basement, which runs to the return duct to the heat/cooling exchange.  

   So progress slowly moves forward.  I'm not sure how much will be accomplished this short work week, but the weather should be nice for some progress.  I just got word today that the initial roofers didn't feel like they had the time nor manpower to complete our project so Matt is contacting two other roofers to get quotes.  The clock is really ticking on this since the cabinets will be coming in at the end of the month.  While we have some leeway on storing them if we're not ready for installation, I would really like to be able to take delivery.  It will be a tight squeeze, as always.