Decisions! Decisions!

Brabble Insulation Fills the Gaps

Who has seen the wind?

Neither you nor I,

But when the trees bow down their heads

The wind is passing by.

Christina Rossetti

Writing this entry about insulation and its effect on the comfort of the house evoked some wonderful memories of growing up in North Carolina in a time before air conditioning was the norm. I do remember living with storm windows when I was a teenager, but I can’t think when it was that we first had air conditioning at home. In the summer, it was common to close the blinds against the heat of mid-day, opening them again when the sun was lower in the sky. At my own childhood home, summertime meant that the windows were always open, and the sound of the screen door slamming cheerfully meant that the arrival of summer was official. We had oscillating fans and cardboard fans and community pools…all of which worked fine for my home town. I remember waking up to the sound of my neighbor trimming her rose hedge and the smell of mown grass. During summer evenings, the grown-ups sat outside drinking sweet iced tea and talking while we children ran the neighborhood and played. That was a wonderful time, and I miss the freedom of having the outside and the inside blending together.

In the early years on the Outer Banks, most houses were summer homes and had no insulation. The houses were built to stay cool with balloon framing, which also contributed to their being able to dry out. The first cottages in Nags Head were faced with either juniper or cypress shingles, and interior walls would be made of knotty pine. Although things might get wet over and over again, the sea air and the sun dried it all again. I sometimes wonder if it is crazy for us to want to live by the sea all the time and to do all of these things to make that life possible. From my personal perspective, I often think that simpler is better and that most of the time we can be fine with what’s what, but at the same time we want to house to stay in place with us in it for a very long time.

Our house is now fully insulated, thanks to the great guys at Brabble Insulation. They used a combination of closed cell spray polyurethane foam and unfaced fiberglass batts to get to R50 in the roof, R40 under the house, and R28 in the exterior walls. Unfaced fiberglass batts were used alone between the floors and in the interior walls, primarily for sound reduction. For the exterior shell of the house, we would have preferred to use only foam insulation, but that would have been extremely expensive for not an incremental gain in insulative value.

What is spray polyurethane foam, and why is it such a good idea for a coastal environment? For our application, Brabble used InsulStar, a 2 lb/ft3 closed-cell foam from NCFI, a North Carolina company based in Mt. Airy, NC. NCFI produces spray polyurethane foam by “mixing two chemicals, polyol and isocyanate, in the presence of catalysts and other additives using a specially engineered spray applicator system.” When the chemicals are mixed, they expand to form adhesive foam that sticks to everything it touches, hardens, and seals the surfaces. The foam expands 20 to 30 times its liquid state to fill cracks and crevices, providing a solid air and moisture barrier that “stops air leakage in and out of your home, reduces noise, and blocks dust, pollen and other airborne pollutants.” For us, the application of a moisture barrier was the primary reason for choosing the closed-cell foam, especially since we sealed the outside of the house with the Grace Perma-Barrier House Wrap. Not following through with a low permiance barrier inside the house would have risked the integrity of the sheathing, knowing that any moisture that penetrated the sheathing would be stuck there rotting the wood.

An equally important benefit of SPF is that it reinforces the exterior sheathing and studs, increasing resistance to “racking” from hurricanes and other strong wind events. Racking is a structure’s response to a shearing force, causing the house to distort its shape from a rectangle to a parallelogram. For example, a strong wind blowing hard against the front wall of a house applies a shear force to a side wall, literally pushing or pulling it out of shape so that the house can topple over. Simply put, SPF makes the walls harder to push or pull. That is an amazing benefit!

Because there are no penetrations in the roof and a conditioned attic, Vince wanted to use 3 ½” of SPF covered by 10 inches of unfaced fiberglass batts. This specification for insulating the roof deck became quite a challenge. It was important that the two types of insulation abut, both for the accumulated R value and to be sure there was not an open space to accumulate condensation. Since the roof was constructed of open web trusses, there was no good way to attach the batts. Karl had the great idea for Currituck Construction to fur down the rafters to provide a support web, and Brabble used nylon webbing to strap the batts in place. It was a terrific system. There are alternate methods for doing a job like this, as in long stick pins that go through the batts and adhere to the roof deck, but this was a much easier and cleaner method. Vince and I really appreciate Brabble’s willingness to do this extra step to give us what we needed in the roof. As in so many of the house systems, not being able to have the correct R value in the roof would have resulted in stressing the HVAC system, skewing the application of Steve Jenkins’ Manual J calculations and leading to less energy efficiency.

Because of his particular interest in energy efficient homes as well as in the quality of his own work, Pat Brabble offered to conduct a Blower Door Test on the house, even though the house was newly insulated and neither drywall nor woodwork had been installed. Pat is no longer a credentialed Blower Door test GUY, but he is trained in its administration and able to “score” the results. A Blower Door Test is basically an energy audit to determine a home’s airtightness. Establishing the building tightness shows how to lessen energy consumption due to leakage, avoid moisture condensation problems, and eliminate uncomfortable drafts. Basically, a Blower Door consists of a frame and flexible panel that fit in an exterior doorway, a powerful variable-speed fan that mounts into the frame, a pressure gauge to measure the pressure differences inside and outside the house, an airflow manometer and hoses for measuring airflow. The fan either pulls air out of the house, lowering the inside air pressure OR pushes air into the house, increasing the inside air pressure. Pat did the test for us both ways. Here’s how it works: If the house is DE-pressurized, the higher outside pressure pulls air in through all the unsealed cracks and openings. If the house is pressurized, the higher inside pressure forces air out. Auditors sometimes use a smoke pencil to detect air leaks, but Pat’s guys were happy to use lit cigarettes instead. By following the smoke and listening to the sound of the air flow (it’s LOUD!), the leaks can be found and then sealed. Blower Door Tests can be either calibrated or uncalibrated. An uncalibrated test only detects air leaks but doesn’t measure the overall tightness of a building.

The Blower Door Test measures the air exchange rate for the total volume of the house, expressed as Air Changes per Hour (ACH). A good score for a completed house is .35, which means that all of the air in the house is exchanged with outside air every 3 or so hours. That is roughly the equivalent of having a small window open all the time. A good score would qualify a home as an Energy Star House and make available various tax credits. Our test results came back as .08, which is phenomenal, especially considering that the house is not complete. Pat will come back and do a “final” Blower Door Test for us when the interior is finished just for his own satisfaction, but BC Custom Builders may also want to have an official test done by Dominion Power to help in green building qualification assessments. Having a score of .08, which will surely be less the next time, lets us know that the house is very tight, which is good, but also that the use of the Energy Recovery Ventilation system is really important in providing good indoor air quality.

Here’s a little video that shows the Blower Door Test:

Vince and I would highly recommend Brabble Insulation for any job. These people were just great to work with, and the work was beautiful and neat. They even put straps on the fiberglass batts under the house so that it would stay in place until the underpinning could go on. There was a level of hard work and professionalism that is gratifying to see and to enjoy.

Lights, Camera, Action!

Light Bulb
by Joan Bransfield Graham

Thomas
Edison didn’t
hesitate to let
ideas incubate, and
try again, if they
weren’t right. One
day to his intense
delight, he squeezed
his thoughts
into a bulb
and then
turned
on the
light
light
light
!!!

Imagine for a moment that you are fishing the Nile River in Egypt around 2750 BC and catch a fish that delivers an electric shock. What would you do? Would you tell someone or pretend it didn’t happen? Would anyone believe you? What if you lived in the Mediterranean 2,000 years later and noticed that rubbing an amber rod on a cat’s fur could attract things like feathers? (My guess is that a five year old boy discovered that one!) Would that lead you to try other things might work on different kinds of fur? For thousands of years, people have used their curiosity, intelligence, and ingenuity to both delve into intriguing observations and invent solutions to nagging problems, and that’s pretty much the story of how electricity was developed. First one thing was noticed, explored and added to, and then another and another, until finally that power was harnessed and refined into something that most of us consider to be a vital necessity.

Fast forward to the 1940's in Currituck County on North Carolina's Outer Banks, where electricity was scarce and a young man named Jesse Owens was just starting out in life. After working as a merchant marine and learning something about electricity and the electrical code aboard ship, Jesse came home to Currituck to work, be with his wife, and raise a family. At that time, many houses on the Outer Banks had little or no electricity, and there was already an established electrician in the area. This made it hard for young Jesse to get enough work to make ends meet unless there was a job that the other electrician did not want. According to his younger son, Nathan, Jesse would and could do a lot of different kinds of work: Painting, plumbing, electrical or carpentry…anything that would pay the bills. Back then, one crew would build a whole house from start to finish, unlike today’s situation where all the trades are separate companies. During that time, Jesse was contacted by a local furniture company that sold appliances. Even in the '40's, appliances required electricity to operate, which was a problem. In order for the furniture company to make sales, an outlet needed to be provided so that the appliance could be plugged in…hence the call to Jesse. The idea was that when the traveling salesperson would try and sell the appliance, enough money would be included to pay Jesse to add the required outlet. As Nathan explains it, “Once that got him in the house working ... the home owner would ask about adding other outlets or lights. In some cases the house had no electricity at all. That would require adding the service with the panel (fuse) box along with the outlet. At the time water heaters were a luxury as well. A 100 amp service on a house at the time was a large service. Most had 60 amp service, and when they would add a water heater that would be metered separate. Now most houses have a 400 amp service with two 200 amp panel boxes.”

Jesse went on to raise his family and a very successful business in Currituck County, which his sons have carried on in both electrical work and HVAC. Both Owens boys worked in the family business growing up, and they each do different pieces of that same work today. Nathan remembers going out on the job with his dad by the time he was 10 or 11 years old, working after school by the time he was 14 years old, and leaving school mid-day to work during High School. Here’s what he told me about working up where my house is being built:

“At that time doing a job in Corova was a big deal. You watched the weather and tide charts, you would check the truck over more so than normal, and plans would be made weeks in advance for the trip to Corova. So, I would be the one sent to Corova, leaving the shop in the dark. I would do the HVAC and then also the electrical. Most nights we would load the truck to come home by the truck headlights. If you remember back then the road above Duck was sand, and there was a guard gate at the Dare/Currituck line and no cell phones so it was up to you to get in and out. You carried extra clothes and food just in case you had to spend the night. To back way up ... Daddy did jobs in Corolla that it was quicker to go by boat because he did not have a vehicle that could make it up there. At that time the road was a dirt path beside the power lines (everyone called it the pole road). He would get someone to run him over and then come back to get him that afternoon. Back to me .... I would be the one sent to Hatteras, Elizabeth City, Knotts Island. "

It is Nathan Owens and HIS son, Randy, along with Ernest Meekins, who are doing the work at my house, and the company is called Jesse N. Owens Electric Company. Randy has the wonderful energy of being a young knowledgeable person, and he goes about the job with calm and obvious competence. Randy is endlessly patient as well, even when faced with unending rows and rows of wire that all have to be connected to the right things. I teased Randy once as he stood on a ladder with wires everywhere, saying he was probably excellent at putting the lights on the Christmas tree. He grinned and replied that was a job he really didn’t much care for. These guys are excellent at their work, and they are such great people to talk to that it makes you want to break something just so they can come out and fix it for you. Any time you can get Nathan to tell a story is time well spent.

The remarkable thing about the electrical installation in our house on the beach is not so much in the technology of electricity itself or in the differing functions of LED vs. incandescent light bulbs. It is more about the fact that there is electric service out there at all and the hard working company who did the work on the house. Of course, Vince did a lot of work planning and deciding what kind of lighting and which appliances to use in the house. The main goals were/are to use less energy and to plan for the systems of the house to work together well, which is really the same thing, isn’t it? This is really the only big technology in the house that was not “engineered,” but then it was, because Nathan did it. Vince addressed concerns about power outages and power surges and appropriate grounding and protecting the house and its parts from lightning strikes, noting that there are some key differences between what the building code requires and. what Mother Nature does, but the majority of the planning was in regard to how the house will be used. Where will the lamps be plugged in, and how much light will be needed in the guest bathroom? Will it be better to stand to the left or the right of the stairs to turn on the hall lights? For me, those decisions were honestly difficult, not being a person who really notices her own behaviors, but Nathan is very astute and detailed and leaves nothing to chance. Here’s what he said about part of his early experience:
“Back then you had to do the job in your head and imagine every piece that was needed and then make sure you have it. If not it had to be ordered, so you could not wait until you realized you didn't have it and run to the supply house or Home Depot. I was not the one that would be sent to do what people called the beach boxes (rentals). Daddy would send the other guys. I would do the bigger home owner houses. I guess that is where I learned to pay so much attention to detail.”

Well, thank goodness!

Randy’s wife, Candace, is a gifted artist. I was recently introduced to her work, but I haven’t yet met her in person. Vince and I both love the pieces that we have seen. In particular, I am intrigued by the expressions on the faces of the animals that she paints. There is a wonderful intensity in Candace’s work that gives the paintings life and vitality, especially combined with the vivid colors that she often uses. I absolutely want Candace to do a mural or a piece for us, and I can’t wait to find out what ideas she may have for our house. Here’s a video of some of her paintings. I wanted to post this here, because finding her work is much too wonderful to keep as a secret. Take a look:

The Believe in Magic Gazebo

Down in the Hole

Down in the hole

Lord, it's deep and the sides are steep

And the nights are long and cold

Down in the hole

Light and love and the world above

Mean nothing to the mole

Down in the hole

James Taylor

What would the answer be if this question were asked of a group of four-year-old children: “What do you think you would find if you dug a hole at the beach that was 200 feet deep?” In my experience, the answers would range from the fantastic, “an underground sand creature that has a secret passage to the ocean”, the whimsical, “a special land where fairies had a magical kingdom,” to the mundane, “worms and dirt and maybe some dead stuff.” In truth, after watching the guys drill the holes for the ground loops, I think the answer is really just “more sand.” How about this one: “How deep is 200 feet?” Since the average American four-year-old child is about 3.3 feet tall, it would take 60.6 children standing on top of each other to make a tower 200 feet tall, even if the boys were standing on tip-toe. Put them down instead of up, and that’s a really deep hole!

On Valentine’s Day, Steve Van Horn and his Chesapeake Wells crew began the installation of the vertical loops for the geothermal heat pump. Vince and I took the dogs up to the house and sat on the walkover to watch the process. As Steve had told me earlier, his is one of the world’s dirtiest jobs. I would add the adjectives “cold”, “wet”, and maybe “tedious” to that description. Digging a deep well hole is definitely hard work!

At the beach, a geothermal heat pump requires a closed loop system, meaning that the fluid, in this case water, circulates through the loop fields’ pipes and does not pull in water from a water source. (Open loops would be subject to salt water intrusion.) The pipes run through the ground, but there is no direct interaction between the fluid in the pipes and the earth other than the heat transfer across the pipe. There are four choices for the shape of the ground loop system: Vertical, horizontal, and slinky (coiled), and pond. Because the beach environment is sandy and subject to erosion and overwash, vertical loops offered the best opportunity for damage control, and they obviously take up less horizontal space, so that was our choice. The length of loop required is determined by the ground formation, the ground temperature, the heating and cooling power needed for the house and the balance between the amount of heat rejected to and absorbed from the ground during the year. This determination was done our mechanical engineer. Steve dug eight wells that are about 200 feet deep, so there are about 1600 feet of pipe. (A well in this definition is a deep hole, rather than a place to fill your water bucket.) Although the tubing can be made from various metals, these pipes are polyethylene, also a common material for this use and more appropriate in the corrosive environment of the coast. The pipe pairs in the hole are joined with a U-shaped cross connector at the bottom of the hole. Oh, wait! That makes it 3200 feet of pipe!

Anyone who has tried to build a sandcastle knows how hard it is to create any kind of hole in the sand that will stay open, and the idea of a 200 foot deep hole seemed laughingly impossible, though I knew better than to say so. As it turns out, the borehole is commonly filled with drilling mud, a sodium bentonite clay that does a multitude of jobs in the drilling process. In the end, the clay surrounds the pipe both keeping the borehole intact and providing a good thermal connection to the surrounding sand for maximum heat transfer. Steve uses a product called Quik-gel, a sodium bentonite clay found in Wyoming. This is really neat stuff, and it can be used in outside stock ponds or lagoons, to prevent leaching in land fills, for waterproofing, on and on. Steve adds soda ash to the mixture when digging in a saltwater environment.

So, what happens, exactly, to make this possible? The well drilling rig uses a diesel engine to power an hydraulic pump. The hydraulic pump spins the drill string, a column of drill pipe that transmits the drilling fluid (via the mud pumps) and rotational power (via the top drive) to the drill bit. The drill string is hollow so that the drilling fluid can be pumped down through it and circulated back up the annulus (the void between the drill string and the formation). The drill bit has holes in it to allow the drilling mud to be at the site of the scour. As the hole is dug deeper and deeper, the clay coats the walls of the borehole. The bentonite clay is also a viscosifier, keeping the bits of shell and debris in suspension until they can be pumped out into the mud pit. The mud pit, in this case a horse trough, works as a settling tank for the debris, which is shoveled out before it can be re-circulated through the system. Thus, the mixture of clay and water is continually pumped down into the hole and the debris brought back out of the hole until the proper depth is achieved.

Finally, the ground loop pipes are fed down into the hole along with the same length of rigid CPVC pipe, which acts as a sort of guide for the flexible pipe. The CPVC pipe is then pulled back out, leaving the loop in place. After all the loops are installed, the loops are connected together in the form of a manifold, and the loop field is established. Finally, the loops are trenched in and fed into the house where they will be connected to the Water Furnace heat pump system. Voila! Oh, if it were only that easy…

Take a look at the guys in action:

How Will We Get to the Beach?

“Sponges grow in the ocean. That just kills me. I wonder how much deeper the ocean would be if that didn't happen.”

Stephen Wright quotes (American Actor and Writer, b.1955)

There is a wonderful children’s book called, How Will We Get to the Beach? (Luciani & Tharlet, 2000) that is a puzzle story about a young woman named Roxanne and the five things she wants to take with her to the beach. It’s a bright, delightful book that is fun for young kids, and the evolving story clearly shows how solving one problem doesn’t mean that all the other problems will politely follow suit. When thinking about the outside spaces for the house, there were similar things to consider: How will we get to the beach, and how does that impact where to put the doors or where the outside steps might land? We decided on big screened porches on the upper and lower floors on the south side, a porch with a shed roof over the entry on the west side, a small screened porch off the master bedroom upstairs on the north side, and an unscreened porch off the studio downstairs on the north side. There is a deck area between the first floor porch and the walkover on the south side, a walkover that travels from that deck to the beach, an outside shower off the walkover, and an octagonal gazebo down near the dune line. Each space and the pathway to it brought a series of different problems to solve and issues to consider.

Our decks and porches have been built primarily by Jim Berge, who works for Currituck Construction. Jimmy is really a deck specialist. He is absolutely meticulous in the way he puts materials together, and that pride clearly shows in his workmanship. On some sections, especially the walkover and gazebo, Jimmy has been working with Stuart, another excellent carpenter from Currituck Construction, but he seems to prefer to work alone. Both men take the time to do a great job, and they are good folks, too. We appreciate them and look forward to enjoying the spaces they have created for us.

Screened porches were a given from the very first conversations about the house. The climate on the Outer Banks lends itself to spending time outside much of the year, and we wanted ways to dine al fresco, for visiting children to have a place to play and for my Aunt Earlene to be able to smoke cigarettes without worrying about mosquitoes. We have envisioned the porches as places for puzzles, snacks, cups of coffee in the morning, glasses of wine in the evening and a lot of good conversation all through the day. The Currituck Beach Lighthouse is visible from the upper porch on the south side, and that will be a friendly beacon to watch in the night. Deciding to add porches off the north (i.e. stormy) side of any ocean front house can be problematic, so those are something of a calculated risk. Vince worked with Rick House on the structural bits and pieces to keep out the wind-driven rain and to protect the main house if the porches are lost. There will be many sultry summer days when the cooler breezes on the north side will be much appreciated. Admittedly, the north side porches were long a part of our imagined life while dreaming of the house, especially the one off of our bedroom with its image of the perfect place to start and end a day. The porch off my studio will not be screened, because I wanted one place to step outside in the shade without being closed in even by screening. We have one neighbor who is planning to call me every time there is a nor’easter to say, “I told you so,” regarding those north porches, and I am planning to call him with my own, “I told you so,” when the delicious north breezes turn that beach into paradise.

For many years prior to building our own house, Vince and I spent time a lot of time driving around looking at different styles of beach houses to get ideas. We also rented houses in the area where we are building both to be sure that our decision to live there was viable and to look carefully at what works well in a beach house and what doesn’t. We rented a house called Bear Inn that had a level walkover from the house out to the dune with an octagonal gazebo at the end. That was wonderful! Both things were integrated into the house plans, with the walkway and the gazebo as high off the ground as the first floor of the house. That will be fun! In the years of looking around, I began to notice a common quality in many houses that became a pet peeve: Lovely houses had oddly rough decks with rusty nails poking out. Vince began to look for a solution to that problem and finally found a product called Timbersil (http://www.timbersilwood.com) made from a process that combines yellow pine with glass. One huge advantage is that anything made from this material should continue to look good and function well for many years, especially with this use of Type 316 stainless steel screws. Timbersil is Class A fire retardant, unaffected by seawater or insects, and it is GREEN! Sounds too good to be true, but it’s real and a good choice for our environment. The budget for Timbersil ran out at the end of the deck, so the walkover and gazebo are made from double-treated MicroPro. (http://www.osmosewood.com/micropro/micropro.html)

Take a look at these videos to learn more about Timbersil:

One problem in attaching decks to houses is the gathering of moisture between the house and the deck at the point of attachment, causing rot. It is important to have an offset between the deck and the house to provide airspace. This airflow allows the house and the decking to stay dry, providing a much less vulnerable spot in the structure as well as a much less habitable place for insects. Maine Deck Bracket makes an effective product that all of the guys on our building site really liked. The bracket is made of a highly corrosion resistant tempered aluminum that will not rust and is securely bolted to the house. The number of brackets, type of bolts, and spacing of the brackets is determined by the load they must carry, so care must be taken in both the decisions and the installation. Here’s the link: http://deckbracket.com/

My two most important personal dreams for the house were the octagonal gazebo and a bathtub…both thoughtful spots. I know there will be other places to be comfortable with a book , a camera, or a journal, like the porches, the window seat, or even sitting on the steps at the window wall. I hope that will be the gift we can give our friends and family: a place to breathe easy and think good thoughts...and Vince’s wonderful food.

Up on the Roof

Tevye: A fiddler on the roof. Sounds crazy, no? But here, in our little village of Anatevka, you might say every one of us is a fiddler on the roof trying to scratch out a pleasant, simple tune without breaking his neck. It isn't easy. You may ask 'Why do we stay up there if it's so dangerous?' Well, we stay because Anatevka is our home. And how do we keep our balance? That I can tell you in one word: tradition! Without our traditions our lives would be as shaky as, as... as a fiddler on the roof!

From the play, Fiddler on the Roof
1964

The main reasons for having a roof on one’s house are obviously to keep the weather out and to have some control over the environment it covers. Although time will tell, our trussed hip roof is designed to be a secure system. The completing step is to use an outer skin that will do the job of preventing heat, cold, wind, or wind driven rain from leaking in and heated or cooled air from leaking out. In a High Velocity Hurricane Zone, it is important to use a roof covering that will not blow off or puncture during a storm, as well as an underlayment that provides a sealed skin over the roof deck in the case that the covering fails. Essentially there are two parts to a roof system, with the outer skin and covering protecting the underlying framework. The wooden part of the roof structure was put together by the framing contractor, Currituck Construction Company, and the outer layer will be completed by the roofing company, JBH Roofing, Inc. However, even the very best contractors can’t prevent storm damage if the roof design and the systems within the house are not carefully planned to maintain the integrity of the roof.

A primary goal for the roof on one’s house would be that it not have a hole in it, but that simple concept turns out to be quite a challenge. In fact, most roofs have more than one hole: dryer vents, roof vents, plumbing vents, range hoods, fireplaces, heating system vents, left-over pump-jack holes…lots of possibilities, including vented soffits. Our house was designed to minimize or eliminate any possible roof penetrations, and Vince worked with the sub-contractors to find ways to vent the house systems either through the west wall or through the south porch roofs…so far, so good. Using the spray polyurethane foam insulation applied directly to the roof deck eliminates the need for venting the roof by taking away any heatable air space between the roof deck and the insulation, so there will be no penetrations for roof vents and no vented soffits. A resulting benefit is conditioned storage space above the ceiling. The porches are built to be sacrificial, meaning that if they are lost in a storm, the main house will remain intact, including the roof.

The next task was to decide which underlayment and which outer covering to use on the roof. Metal roofing is a great choice in a hurricane prone environment, but for us (i.e. at our age) the costs outweighed the benefits. We chose the GAF-ELK Timberline Armorshield II shingles, which pass ASTM D3161 wind test Class F at 120 mph and ASTM D7158 wind test Class H at 150 mph. These heavy shingles are also rated Class 4 for impact resistance (that’s the highest) and Class A for fire resistance. They pass muster for Miami-Dade and the Texas Department of Insurance, so there’s good reason to expect them to do well in North Carolina. Oddly, these shingles are not sold in North Carolina, so we bought them from Texas. There are several different warranties available, but the testing was much more significant in this decision that was the warranty.

Vince wanted a continuous membrane for the roofing underlayment and chose Grace Ice and Water Shield. This membrane is composed of two waterproofing materials – an aggressive, rubberized, asphalt adhesive backed by a layer of high-density, cross-laminated polyethylene. The adhesive bonds tightly to the roof deck, creating an impermeable surface. The rubberized asphalt seals around roofing nails, resisting leakage. Our specifications called for Type 316 stainless steel ringshank nails, so that corroding fasteners would not create a gap in the underlayment. Ice and Water Shield is also slip-resistant, so I felt better about the guys walking around up on the roof.

The biggest frustration in trying to protect the roof from penetrations has been from the use of pump-jack scaffolding when siding the house. A pump-jack scaffold consists of a platform supported by moveable brackets on vertical poles. The support braces for the scaffold are screwed into the roof, with approximately four screws per support. That’s a lot of holes! Generally, the pump-jacks are attached through the shingles near the edge of the roof, so there are holes that go through the shingle and through the underlayment into the roof deck. Unless those holes are carefully repaired, wind-driven rain will easily find a path into the roof structure. On the east side of our house, the pump-jacks were removed before the shingles were applied, and each hole through the underlayment was sealed. On the west side of the house, the pump-jacks were removed to apply the shingles and then put back through the shingle after the roof was completed. I have asked for that row of shingles be replaced and the holes in the underlayment to be resealed. From the perspective of someone just observing the process, I have to say that it a foolish system. It makes much more sense to finish the work with the pump-jacks and then to put on the outer skin of the roof. Why voluntarily punch a hole in the roof? Aagh!

The key to feeling assured that the roof will not leak is to find a certified roofer and to talk with him about the many different aspects of the job before that roofer is hired. The roofer recommended to us by our general contractor was Jason Hill, whose company is called JBH Roofing, Inc. Jason has really been “on board” with the goals that we have for the house. It was Jason who taught me about the pump-jack problem, and it will be Jason who makes sure the roof is intact. Jason and his brother, Brian, met with us to talk about choices for shingles and underlayments, and he has been carefully attentive to the specifications and details along the way. He is an authorized GAF residential roofing installer, so we felt confident that he knew the GAF product applications well.

In addition to being a great roofer and a good person to be around, Jason is a gifted visual artist. He has been a student of Glenn Eure, a veteran artist who owns and exhibits works in his Ghost Fleet Gallery in Nags Head, NC. Glenn has given Jason not only the gift of his teaching but also the gift of his friendship in mentoring a budding colleague. Vince and I have commissioned Jason to create a piece for the new house, and we also plan to purchase a couple of the paintings and prints that are now available. The work is what Glenn calls “non-objective abstract in mixed media,” because Jason begins without a specific goal in mind, allowing it to unfold as he works with the shapes, colors and materials. I took some photographs of a selection of his pieces and created a slide-show video from those that I saw. Take a look. It’s really beautiful work, and we are honored to have this part of Jason’s spirit within our house…and on its roof!!!