Wall Assembly 2

Outer Wall Assembly

A lot has been happening! Since the last post we have...

Completed the Breezeway and Garage Foundation

Completed the Septic System 

Completed the Outer Wall Assembly (We'll refer to it as the Cladding Wall from now on)

(View of the Front and South Side)

(View of the Back)

(View of the North Side)

Needless to say we have turned a few heads. The most common question is where the windows are going or why are they covered up?

        Simply put, we are not just going to say we are building a super tight house, we are going to test it before any insulation, drywall, windows, plumbing, or electric is installed to ensure its tightness. And then after those other components are installed we can test again to check those individual components for air tightness. When we are ready to perform the initial blower door I will go into this into a little more detail. 

Lets take a look at the Cladding Wall Assembly and Details:

         

The Cladding Wall sits on the mud sill and extends upwards to the underside of the truss (just under 20 feet in total length). We did change the bottom plate from a 2x4 in the detail to a 2x6 to improve bearing on the concrete.  We did this "step" to allow for continuous insulation around the rim board.

           In a perfect world we wanted to wait to install the cladding wall until after the 1st blower door test but to keep the framing crew busy we decided to frame and install the cladding wall. We built the wall in "window sections" meaning we framed the full 2 story section on the ground to include only any 1st and 2nd floor windows and doors. However we are glad we installed the cladding wall before the trusses. The gable end truss will now have the cladding wall to sit on, and we don't have to "cantilever" the last 2 trusses off of the last common truss. It was also much easier to work from the top of the 2nd floor without trusses in the way.

We were able to lift the wall from the 2nd floor with a pulley and drop it in place. Once all of the window sections were placed we filled in the rest with 20 foot long 2x4's one at a time.

We did install blockers about 1/2 way up the cladding wall to provide stability and maintain spacing. 20 foot long 2x4's are not always the straightest.

The total thickness of the wall is 15.5" from outside face of cladding wall to inside face of structural wall. 

The space between the inner wall and the cladding wall is 7.5"

Here is a screen shot of the Passive House Planning Package (PHPP) calculation of our wall assembly:

This overall wall assembly, framing included, has an R-value of R-52. 

AND...
Trusses have been delivered

(House Trusses dropped next to a 40' storage container for perspective)

Another post will come shortly!