The 20th trip to Minneapolis: Caught a tailwind yesterday to Minneapolis—averaged 44 miles per gallon in our Corolla.  The day begins with an unpleasant encounter with a neighbor up the street that severely rattled my cage.  This being Friday the 13^th, there was other bad news as well.  First, survey markers were planted and show that our neighbors to north and south both have transgressed our property line by a foot or more, with constructions that will be awkward and difficult to remediate.  Second, a massive rainstorm sent water into the freshly paved basement last week—for the second time in two months!  The problem is that the wall assembly to keep out water is not yet complete, as Marc explains at length in an email.   He assures me that no system can stop all water, and that the wall assembly when complete will keep virtually all water out, and allow what does get in to evaporate harmlessly.  I’d be more comfortable with 100% exclusion, and am guessing that in his cautious way he is asserting that we will not get enough water in to cause any problems.

Things look better in the basement, where Caleb’s crew has torn up the broken old floor, laid down 2 inch-thick foam insulation, then poured a new floor.  Much better…but yet another change order, since this work was not envisaged in the original contract.

 

And on the first floor, the structural work proceeds. A temporary wooden brace holds up a steel beam that makes it possible to have an open entryway.

The open entry truly is open at this point….

Another sign of more-progress-to-come are the sturdy struts being inserted all around the house just above the foundation; these will support the wall structures that will hold thick blocks of insulation.

I devote much of  the morning and all afternoon to interviewing, serially, three competing cabinet builders—for the entire array of cabinets in the house.  Each of these conversations takes two hours as I present all the particularities of what we want.  Quite an unloading.  In between, I meet with Marc and Pat O’Malley, a seasoned LEED rater, who explains the process.  I think we are ready to sign on.  Then I race home at a mere 38 miles per gallon.  Where’s my tailwind?

Sean, head of Morrissey Builders, has been talking up the idea of monitoring the house long term to see how the various systems function.  That, he says, is rarely done.  As usual, I am happy to have the house serve as guinea pig, so Marc and Sean meet with a local expert in the performance of building systems, Pat Huelman, a professor at the U of M.  Sean also would like to do outreach in the elementary schools; I can see the kids relating to him.  And I begin to concoct a variant on ‘three little pigs’, to plant the value of insulating buildings.  Could be fun.