Copper roof started. Lots of progress elsewhere.

   A week into October and we're starting to see the begining of colder weather.  Temperatures are bouncing between nighttime lows of 40's F and daytime highs in the 70's, but progress is hitting a little surge.

   The copper roofers started on the turret roof on Friday, prepping the valleys where it meets the rest of the roof and covering the cone with an ice damn material.  They also started the drip edge flashing so I can show you pictures of how it's supposed to be done.  Hopefully the difference between the turret roof and curved porch roof won't be so blatant to be annoying.

   Lots of other progress from the carpenters around the outside and inside of the house.  All the windows are in, save for the replacement in the great room and laundry room, which we should see this week.  Exterior window and house trim is going up and missing interior walls are filling in.  At this rate, we'll be sealed in for winter.  What a difference from months previous. 

   Here's the state of the front of the house.  The turret windows have been installed on this side, but there are still two around the other side that have yet to be installed.  They'll probably go in this week, but the copper roofers have a scaffold set up in one of the window bays, so once they're finished, all the windows can be set.  Additional roofing membrane was finally installed on the turret roof.  The weather vane rod still needs to be installed, but the sky-lift was having some issues last week, so they couldn't get it done then.  It will go in before the copper roof work starts.  We'll be getting the actual weather vane in November, so the Dragon will be guarding the house well before we move in.

   Here's a little closer look at the turret from the ground.  You can see the additional membrane installed in the valley between the turret and flat roof.  This actually covers some of the copper flashing that protects the valley.  It's a generous overlay and well worth the effort.  The red metal hook is temporarily installed so the roofers can support their ladders on something solid.  The bolts secure under the shingles, so there's little chance they'll affect the waterproofness of the roof.

   Here's a close up of the valley, taken from the ground.  You can see where they started the copper drip edge and the same thing is done on the other side of the turret as well.  The copper valley is complete all the way to the top, so I think once they finish the drip edge, they'll install the standing seam roof.  It should take them a couple more days to finish, so the next update will have the final product installed.  The copper roofers will then finish off the asphalt shingle to meet up with the copper valley.

   Window trim is almost completely installed on all the windows around the house.  Here's the self adhesive flashing material they used over the nailing flange, under the trim.  The trim itself is a 1x4 pre-primed rough-sawn cedar, that will be painted white.  Originally we wanted Azek white trim everywhere for ease of maintenance, but since the HOA rules state that we couldn't have cement board shingles on the first floor, and we didn't want to mix the exterior materials between the first and second floor, we decided that we would use wood shingles everywhere on the house.  Once we knew we were going to have to deal with the painting maintenance of the house siding, it was a small leap and cost savings to change the trim to wood as well.  That way, the painters don't have to mask off the Azek to paint the shingle, which makes the painting labor easier and less expensive.

   Here's the exterior of the dining room window.  The top and bottom trim pieces are missing because they'll be treated differently.  There's just enough room at the top of the window to have the house trim, the piece that goes across the entire underside of the porch roof, act as the top trim piece for all the windows.  The bottom won't have a wood trim piece, but rather, a stone sill.  The stone will be the same material as the brick ledge, just dropped down for these windows.  There's a single piece of trim board installed between the two casement windows, which is a really nice touch, and makes the window look like one unit.  Attention to detail is important in this stage.

   Here's one of the side windows under the porch.  Again, the side window trims are installed with the top one being a single long trim pieces under the porch ceiling and the bottom will be the brick ledge.  The brick ledge will be a limestone material and acts as a flashing and border between the cedar shingle and granite cobble.

   Moving inside, almost all the great room windows have been installed.  The only one missing is one that arrived damaged, and will be replaced by Pro Brothers this week.  All the windows on the back wall are non-functioning.  We wanted the best view and casements would have closed in the frames.  The upper windows have internal mullions to carry on the look of the rest of the house windows.  The arches still need to be boxed in, but you can get a good feeling how they're going to look.

   The lower windows on the side of the great room are double casements.  The upper window is a non-functioning full arch, but I forgot to get a good picture of it.  I think having these two lower windows, one on each side of the room operable, will give us enough ventilation for the room, especially considering there's almost always a breeze.  Not only were these rear windows set, but they were also insulated with expanding foam.

   Here's a shot of the same window, down on the sill plate.  They just used a standard low expanding polyurethane foam for the joints, which should be good enough.  Sure there are newer methods and technologies for air sealing windows but this is the standard now.  I'll take the thermal camera to the joint during the winter to see how well this method seals up.

   Here's one of the non-operable great room windows, all sealed up.  You can see they added a 2x6 to the window buck to adjust the opening to fit the window, then foamed against that.  That 2x6 will have to be extended into the rest of the window opening for the window finish but that's up to the finishing carpenters to do.  The difference in noise and temperature is amazing.  Because of all the water surrounding us, we can hear a bit of road noise from the main road that runs about a mile away from us.  With the windows in place, the noise is gone and the temperature of the house is much more stable.  Winters here are going to be beautiful.

   Here's how they foamed in the oval window in the guest bathroom down stairs.  The gaps between the wood stud supports were filled with foam and trimmed down a bit.  I still need to discuss with Mike how these window openings will be finished.  I would expect there to be some kind of an oval "tunnel", which will be more difficult to make, but the correct implementation.  We just need to be on the same page.

   Besides windows, the carpenters built up some of the walls that needed to be moved.  Here's the final location of the turret bedroom wall, which needed to be moved because of the HVAC trunks going to the attic.  The same was done downstairs in the study but that room only lost the alcove rather than having the entire wall moved.  I'll have to see if we can get this duct space insulated, not only for energy efficiency, but for sound as well.

   Here's the study wall that was created to close off the alcove space.  Although we're losing the alcove, we'll probably make up for it by making this whole wall shelving/filing storage space.  The plan right now is to have and L shaped desk, that sits more towards the middle of this room so that we're facing into the room when sitting at our computers.  My back will be to this wall so I'll have a nice view out the front of the house.  We're making sure to get enough electrical and data pulled through the floor here so we don't have cable runs from the wall to the desk.  I'll have to make sure to keep a clean desk in the future because my current desk is a mess.

   All three sliding doorwalls have been installed.  The one pictured here is in the kitchen area and two more are downstairs in the basement.  The opening needed to be furred down to fit the height of the sliding door and although it looks and feels a bit low, it's a standard height sliding door.  In my next update, I'll detail the features of the door itself but my initial impression is positive. The door comes with a foot actuated lock and the door itself is lockable.  The screen has a latch as well, but it's not lockable.

   Here's what the doorwall looks like from the outside, on the back porch.  The door and screen glides smoothly on the track and I don't expect any troubles from them.  All the gliding hardware is stainless steel with multiple rollers.  The door handle is powder coated steel with a single thumb latch for the locking mechanism.  The frame, rails, and stiles are all foam filled for insulation, and the sill is aluminum.  We had the option of internal blinds, but decided to forego that feature. 

   Here are the numbers for the doorwalls, which are closely in line with the rest of the windows.  The air infiltration is 0.12 CFM, which is just about as low as the windows, which is impressive.  There aren't as many seals, and the by-pass design of the door inherently allows more air to infiltrate.  The glass spacers are non-metallic like the windows which reduces condensation on the interior.      Regardless, I'm happy with the numbers and don't expect the door to be overly cold.

  Here are the installed windows on the side of the garage.  Even though this is a great view, we decided to get casement windows here so we can vent the garage.  Looking back, it's probably not necessary since we have garage doors on both the front and back of the garage, but it still might be nice to have these operable.  I'm really looking forward to building a gardening workbench in this space and having a colder place to overwinter plants, or put seeding trays for the garden.  This south-facing windows will allow for great sun during the winter.

   Here's the work that was done on the master balcony.  There used to be a straight pony wall here, but we had the idea to make this wall angled down to the pitch of the roof.  When we finish this, we'll have triangular glass piece fabricated to act as the railing here with normal rectangular glass railing on the face of the balcony.  Angling this wall really opens up the balcony and allows more light through.  There's big difference to the feel of the space.

Here's what the inside of the turret looks like now that the windows are in.  Two to the right aren't installed yet to give the copper roofers some space to work.  We decide to go with a full grid in these windows and feel that it really adds some charm to this room.  I'm not sure how we'll do window treatments, but it will be a trick since there isn't much room between the windows for curtains.  The sills should be deep enough for blinds if we go that route but I think that would detract from the aesthetics of the tall windows, even when the blinds are open.

   Here's a single window from top to bottom.  They're actually comprised of two windows attached together with brackets and all together stand seven feet high.  We're not planning on installing any window benches here, but rather keep it open and put comfortable furniture in here when needed.  Each of these lower windows are casements and open to the left.  We're hoping this will make a nice little play room for the twins, so we don't have to have toys all over the house.  Wishful thinking?

Here's the second floor oval bathroom window from the outside.  You can see how they applied the window flashing in a overlapping manner to shed water downwards.  Also you can see some of the house trim that runs under the roof overhang, that will be incorporated into the window trim.  Here it cuts into the oval, as it does with the round window in the front.  The rest of the round trim will just meet into this house trim. 

   Here's how the window trim ties into the house trim on one of the regular second story windows.  I think it's an elegant solution to a tricky situation.  Ultimately, when the trim is painted, it will all match nicely against the gray cedar shingle paint.  All the trim is the same 1 inch thickness, just different widths depending on where it is.  

   Here's a shot of the side of the house looking forward towards the turret.  It gives you a good idea of how the house trim meets up with all the windows.  This will happen on both the first and second floor, as well as some corner trim on all outside and inside corners.  The trim needs to be installed first so it can be caulked and painted before the shingle goes on.  The shingle will butt right up against the trim.

   I climbed up on the scaffolding a bit to snap a picture of the copper valley that's being installed between the turret and the house.  This is how it should be done.  The copper is overlapped to shed water downwards, and the seams are soldered tight.  The valleys that the other roofer did overlapped properly, but are caulked, which might be okay in the short term, but in the long term will eventually fail due to the different expansion rates between dissimilar materials.

   Here's a close up of one of the solder joints.  This type of joint won't break with temperature fluctuations and will remain waterproof for at least 100 years.  It might look a little messy, but considering the joint itself is a couple inches wide, it's not too bad; you're just seeing the edge of the joint.  The copper sits under the ice and snow membrane a good six inches so I'm very confident in this valley. 

   Here's how the straight roof overhangs were boxed in and terminated at the turret.  These were left open by Matt and no that the turret roof is going up, they can be closed up and finalized.  It will all be painted white before the shingles go on, so even the old cedar boards won't be unprotected when the winter comes.  We'll have to make considerations for all the water that pours off the valley since it might hit this area.  We didn't think we would need gutters on most of the roof, but we might need something here.

   Here's a close up of the start of the copper drip edge around the turret and a fine example of how it should be done.  This is a single piece that is snipped on top and crimped below to form the curve.  The other roofer just used lots of 6" sections to form the curve, which is a much less elegant solution.  Also, make note of the nails...

   Hey look, stainless steel nails.  Remember that the other roofer used hot dipped galvanized (zinc) nails, which is a huge no-no on copper.  The best way to go is copper nails, with stainless steel nails coming in second.  The stainless steel is not too far away from copper as far as galvanic potential so they won't be eating each other up.  Do it once, do it right.

   Here's the exterior side of the great room.  The top windows are arched so they can match up with the arch of the rear windows.  Below is the operable casements.  This is one area where we will probably need some gutters so the water falling off the roof can be taken far enough from the house.

   This window opening will eventually be filled with glass block when the masons come through.  It's a window for the mechanical room in the basement, so we don't need anything fancy or clear, just something to provide good light.  Right now it's just boarded up to prevent access.

   Both of the sliding doors are installed in the basement, so with the plywood in the glass block opening, and all the other basement windows installed, the basement is now closed up.  I have one set of keys for all the sliders and kept the other with the doors.  The basement is the first floor to be completely closed up.

   Some of the metal studs are in the master bedroom, waiting for installation for the dividing wall.  It will be a little bit of a trick to pull off since it's a free standing wall.  Some of these studs might be used in the bathroom as well.  We might need to end up making more of a narrow box rather than a single thickness wall so it can remain rigid and self supporting.  

   These turkeys decided to check out our build progress.  Don't they know Thanksgiving is coming up?

   So that's it for this week.  The next week should see the completion of the copper roof, installation of the geothermal wells, and maybe the completion of the house and window trim.  We need to decide on steel doors for the garage entry doors and get final measurements on the exterior doors in the mud room and great room.  The carpenters are also framing out the garage door openings and all the interior door openings since they weren't quite at finished height.  We have a meeting with Mike this week to review the proposed budget and settle up on some of the work that has progressed outside the bank.  Things are definitely moving in the right direction now!