A Place for Everything

A place for everything and everything in its place.
original quote by Benjamin Franklin

used by Isabella Mary Beeton in The Book of Household Management, 1861

If someone working on a house might want to have everything just so, the person who can make that happen is Jeff Granitzki, his brother and sister, and the team at Island Woodcrafts. Jeff can fill a given space with as many drawers, cubby holes and shelves as you can possibly imagine, beautifully organized and in all sizes, colors and finishes, made by hand in the cabinet shop or ordered from a reputable commercial cabinet shop. Island Woodcrafts has been on the Outer Banks since the early 1970’s and has three locations: The plant in Wanchese, the showroom in Kill Devil Hills, and the original office with showroom in Manteo. I visited all three sites and met Jeff’s brother, Cliff, and his sister, Linda. Island Woodcrafts is a true family business, with the elder Mr. Granitzki only releasing an active role in the late 1990’s. (He will be 90 years old in January!) Mrs. Granitzki also played a key part through the years, and she passed away in 2002.

Island Woodcrafts was founded by Gus Granitzki after he fell in love with the Outer Banks while vacationing on Sandpiper Trace in the family Airstream trailer with his wife, Evelyn, and their children. At the time, Mr. Granitzki was the founding owner of Country Cabinet Shop in Skillman, New Jersey. As a young man in the 1940’s Gus had been a tool and die maker and was later working for RCA Labs when he began making furniture and cabinets at home. That sideline became a successful business, and the Granitzki children grew up with Dad at home in the cabinet shop, Mom helping Dad and making things run smoothly, and kids reared to do chores first and play later. Having grown up during the Depression, Gus was one of those people who never forgot the lesson that consistent hard work can make all the difference between successful survival and utter failure. The decision to sell the business in New Jersey and move wife and younger sons to North Carolina came when Gus was in his early 50’s, and the concept of beginning all over again in a new place was a huge change for the family, especially Mom. In the early 1970’s, Manteo was still a sleepy little coastal town with a big history…quite a change from the Princeton, NJ area. As the cabinet shop grew, the family began to feel more at home and gradually put down North Carolina roots. My romantic side thinks the idea of having Dad at home all the time and the whole family involved in supporting his job sounds like the American dream come true, but I can also imagine that some free and easy time would have been welcome. Cliff told me that having grown up in the '50's and '60's with work being all important in his home life, he never doubts that he can find and keep a job, so that was a good lesson.

When Island Woodcrafts was new, all of the cabinets were custom built in the cabinet shop on Ananias Dare Street in Manteo, first in the family garage and then in their shop next door. In the last 15 years or so, as factory cabinets have improved both in quality and value, more and more people have chosen those cabinets. Island Woodcrafts still makes custom cabinets and is fully equipped as a custom shop, but now about 90% of the cabinets are factory ordered to Jeff’s specifications. I visited the shop in Wanchese and was given demonstrations for the machines by Cliff. It made me wish that I could have afforded to have our new kitchen built to the exact shapes and sizes of the needs that we wished to fill. Island Woodcrafts does beautiful work, and it would be a very special experience and a true family legacy to have that type of special kitchen. Maybe someday…

The guys all tell me that Island Woodcrafts is a great place to work. Most of the craftspeople and installers have been with the Granitzkis for 20 or so years, and the two men who put this new kitchen together for me were the same two who installed the cabinets in our house in Duck. It was great to see them again! These are all good people to spend time with, and it is a treat any time they come out to work at the house.

Vince and I had been hoping to have a big dining room table, 54” by 96”, so that Vince can prepare feast for our friends and family. After shopping for one in our price range with no luck, we asked Jeff and company to create a maple table with a top that would match the counters in the kitchen. I was hesitant, but the table is ideal for what we need here. It was fun to have Island Woodcrafts do the work. As we live in the house, we want to add more cabinets and shelves and special places, and these are the people that we want to provide these pieces for us. Can’t ask for better! Take a look! This is great!

A Creative Touch for the Tile

“If there is one spot of sun spilling onto the floor, a cat will find it and soak it up.”

unknown

There was a time when I thought choosing tile meant deciding which colors would look best in the kitchen and bathrooms. People at the beach would explain that tile works well in a beach house in terms of cleaning but does of course scratch and is slippery when wet. Actually, both of those assessments can be true but are not necessarily true. Floor tile carries with it more than 4,000 years of technique, trial, error, and success so that the intricacies and varieties of choice and quality are nearly endless…and yes, there is tile that will not be scratched by sandy paws nor slipped on with wet feet. Each of these aspects is measurable by the Mohs scale of mineral hardness and the coefficient of friction for slip resistance.

The Mohs scale of mineral hardness was devised in 1812 by the German mineralogist Friedrich Mohs (1773-1839). Mohs selected ten minerals that were readily available and based the scale on their linear order of scratch resistance. Conveniently, Mohs’ name also works as an acronym for “measure of hardness scale,” making it easy to remember. The Mohs characterizes the scratch resistance of various minerals through the ability of a harder material to scratch a softer material. Minerals with small atoms, packed tightly together with strong covalent bonds throughout tend to be the hardest minerals. Qualities of hardness are generally consistent because the chemistry of minerals is generally consistent. A scratch on a mineral is actually a groove produced by micro fractures on the surface of the mineral. It requires either the breaking of bonds or the displacement of atoms. A mineral can only be scratched by a harder substance. A hard mineral can scratch a softer mineral, but a soft mineral can not scratch a harder mineral. Therefore, a relative scale can be established to account for the differences in hardness simply by seeing which mineral scratches another, which is the essence of Mohs’ work. The Mohs Hardness Scale starts with talc at 1 and ends with diamond at 10 and is universally used around the world as a way of distinguishing minerals. Simply put; the higher the number, the harder the mineral. This method is actually ancient, having first been mentioned by Theophrastus in his treatise On Stones in ca 300 BC, followed by Pliny the Elder in his Naturalis Historia, written about 77 A.D.

Understanding the hardness scale is important when selecting tile for a beach house, because sand (quartz) is 7 on the moths scale. If the tile has a higher Mohs than seven, it will not be scratched by sand on the floor…really, no matter how hard you try. There are now more sophisticated scales and methods of measuring hardness, but the Mohs remains a reasonable tool for basic applications. Most ceramic tile manufacturers use the Mohs scale to test the scratch and abrasion resistance of the glaze that is applied to the tile and / or the body of the tile. Tile hardness is affected both by materials used and by the firing process. The amount of alumina (aluminum oxide) in clay determines the hardness of the tile. Alumina occurs naturally in some clay, like kaolin, but can be added into other clays to produce a harder tile. During the firing process, a longer and hotter firing eliminates oxygen and slightly shrinks and condenses the tile, which is another factor in tile hardness.

Coefficient of friction is used to measure slipperiness or the lack thereof. The coefficient of friction is a measure of the amount of resistance that a surface exerts on substances moving over it, equal to the ratio between the maximal frictional force that the surface exerts and the force pushing the object toward the surface. The measurement is not always the same for objects that are motionless and objects that are in motion. Motionless objects often experience more friction than moving ones, requiring more force to put them in motion than to sustain them in motion. In other words, a grandson running across a slippery kitchen floor in socks is more likely to fall than the person standing washing dishes at the sink. The static COF is the measurement that applies to objects that are motionless. The kinetic or sliding coefficient of friction is the measure that applies to objects that are in motion. In a COF measurement, a higher number indicates a less slippery surface. A higher COF is created by adding insoluble crystalline materials within the glaze. Textures in the surface of the tile also increase slip resistance. In our house, because we can often have wet surfaces from wet people coming in and out, the tile floors all have a wet COF of about 0.6. We all know when a floor “looks” and “feels” slippery, which is another reasonable first cut at slip resistance.

The important thing to remember about tile hardness and coefficient of friction in household applications is that tile is created with intention to be used in certain areas with given sets of parameters. Wall tiles are not the same as floor tiles, and tiles for outside patios and pool areas should not be the same as those inside the house. Tile manufacturers have developed processes for longer and hotter firing and for adding materials that affect the final product’s performance and durability as well as its beauty. Even though a tile sales person may say that these factors are not important, they are. If in doubt, have a conversation with the technical support or engineering personnel at any given tile manufacturer. The contact information is readily available online.

Once the tile and design has been chosen, which grout and underlayment to use are the next choices to be made. Without question, the grout choice for us was an epoxy grout, rather than the old style cement grouts. We specifically chose Laticrete Spectra-lock, because it is non-staining, non-cracking, helps to prevent leaks between tiles, and doesn’t require sealing. Epoxy grout is more expensive and requires a skilled installer, but the overall addition to the cost is minimal compared to the results and the performance. It is important to keep the comparative cost in perspective as well, since the old style grouts are extremely cheap but require yearly sealing and frequent cleaning. There is definitely an overall cost increase for epoxy grout, but when considering the house costs across the board, the additional amount is minimal for a permanently beautiful and maintenance free floor. As a plus for the aesthetics, epoxy grout has a luster and depth of color that truly outshines the old grouts, especially with glass and stone tiles.

Because cracked ceramic tiles are difficult to repair, it is important to try to prevent cracking. The familiar underlayments like Durock and Hardi-backer do the job of supporting the tile, but they can't prevent shifting and cracking. Because the tile is adhered to that substrate and subject to stresses from building movement or uneven applications, shifting and cracks in both the tile and the old-style grouts will occur. A relatively new product offered by the Schluter company addresses the issues of underlayment using both historic and current data applications. Read this excerpt from the Schluter web-site to get the idea, and then take a look at this video to get the picture:

Ceramic and stone tiles are durable, easy to maintain, and hygienic, representing the ideal surface coverings. However, today's lightweight construction methods can make the installation of hard surface coverings particularly challenging. In order to protect the integrity of the tile assembly, an underlayment that performs multiple functions is required.

Schluter-DITRA is a polyethylene membrane with a grid structure of square cavities, each cut back in a dovetail configuration, and an anchoring fleece laminated to its underside. Schluter-DITRA is bonded to the substrate using thin-set mortar. The anchoring fleece on the underside of Schluter-DITRA is fully engaged in the mortar to provide a mechanical bond to the substrate. Tile is installed over Schluter-DITRA using the thin-bed method in such a way that the mortar becomes mechanically anchored in the square, cutback cavities of the Schluter-DITRA matting.

Designed specifically for ceramic tile and dimension stone installations, Schluter-DITRA serves as an uncoupling layer, waterproofing membrane, and vapor management layer that accommodates moisture from beneath the tile covering. Further, DITRA performs all these functions while still providing adequate support/load distribution for the tile covering. Tile has been successfully installed for thousands of years by incorporating an uncoupling layer, or forgiving shear interface, within the tile assembly. Schluter-DITRA provides uncoupling through its open rib structure, which allows for in-plane movement that effectively neutralizes the differential movement stresses between the substrate and the tile, thus eliminating the major cause of cracking and delaminating of the tiled surface.

Once all the key decisions have been made about the structural aspects of the tile, then the design process can begin. Great tile that has the perfect hardness and slip resistance, installed with epoxy grout and ditra underlayment can still look perfectly awful, so it is important to find a creative and experienced tile designer and installer to make the ideas work. Here on the Outer Banks, the best company to pull everything together is Creative Touch Tile. Pete Sandfort, the owner of the shop, loves tile in all its many varieties and applications. Pete has a wonderful ability to envision and enhance the ideas that his customers bring into the shop. Because he keeps up with the tile industry, Pete is excellent at offering suggestions and tangential ideas that make his designs unique in both style and energy. He’s also fun, and that is priceless! Because Pete has been in the tile business for a long time and has years of installation under his belt, he knows how to create designs that are intricate but also doable for the installer. Our house is very simple in style, so Pete’s challenge from us was to create something simple but beautiful, and we think he succeeded. Pete’s office manager, Kathy Lucia, adds her ebullient personality and knowledge to the choosing process.

In the end, the most important person in the process is the tile installer. If the installer isn’t meticulous and knowledgeable, the project will lose its appeal. Our tile installer, Brian de Pedro, who owns T and T Tile, has the experience and expertise for the job, and he works to make the job beautiful as well. Brian and Tom, another “tile guy” who works with Brian, did a nearly perfect job with our floors. Vince and I have other tile projects that we hope to add over the years. I hope these guys are around to make those ideas come to life when the time comes.

Hanging and Mudding

“A house is made of walls and beams;

a home is built with love and dreams.”

unknown

One of the oddest things about the end of the drywall installation was saying good-bye to the profusion of wires, pipes, vents, brackets, adhesive fillets, flitch plates, and the myriad of little things that we will never see again if we are lucky. Watching me looking at the drywall and hearing my comments on the job, one of the guys reminded me that in a few days this, too, will be completely hidden. There are many layers to completing a house, and this one was a “biggie.”

Our drywall company was Seabreeze Drywall owned by J.D. Crawford, who has been “hanging rock” on the Outer Banks for many years. There were some choices to make in the types of drywall used, with a few compromises along the way. For the generator room, the workshop, and the mechanical room, Type X was specified because of its fire resistance. (Type X paperless was used in the mechanical and generator rooms.) The presence of crystallized water makes all wallboard fire retardant to some degree, but Type X is formulated by adding glass fibers which increase the resistance to fires, especially once the hydrates are spent and the gypsum is left in powder form. Type C drywall is also fire resistant and considered to be a better choice than Type X, depending on the thickness of the board and other factors. Given our remote location, using Type C drywall throughout the house would have been a wonderful safeguard against fire. Because of our ceiling heights and the standard sizes of Type C drywall, that choice became cost prohibitive, leaving us with Type X in critical areas and standard drywall in most of the house. We also used paperless drywall in the bottom of the elevator shaft and purple XP drywall as an increased moisture barrier in the bathrooms. As a precaution against "pops" and for added wall strength, all of the drywall was glued and screwed.

Although I had heard stories about rough drywall guys, I found our two crews to be great folks. The first crew: Scrounge, Bubba, and Roland, came to cut and hang the “rock,” getting that big job done in just three days. That’s amazing, given the glue/screw appliaction, the size of the house and the height and angles of some of the ceilings. The second crew, Steve and Johnny, did the taping, mudding and sanding. Steve and Johnny are brothers who work well together and take tremendous pride in their craft. The impressive thing to me was that they both know a lot about the materials and the history of their trade. Steve explained to me that the bazooka, a mechanized tool that applies tape with “mud” and has a built in cutting tool, was originally made with left-over bazooka parts after World War II, hence the name and the appearance. When I asked Johnny if he knew anything about how long drywall had been used on the Outer Banks, he explained that a lot of knotty pine had been used through the years prior to drywall, because houses shifting in the winds and sand would cause plaster to crack. I wish that I had asked more questions, because this is a subject that is deeper than one might expect! Our specifications called for a Level 4 finish for drywall, which means that all joints and interior angles have tape embedded in joint compound, two separate coats of joint compound applied over all flat joints, and one separate coat of joint compound applied over interior angles. Fastener heads and accessories are covered with three separate coats of joint compound. All joint compound should be smooth and free of tool marks and ridges. It is recommended that the prepared surface be coated with a drywall primer prior to the application of final finishes. In our case, the painter will use a high solids primer prior to painting, which will complete this step for Level 4 and bring the finish up to a Level 5. Because the walls will have a slick finish rather than the textured “knock-down” finish common to this area, the extra care provided by Steve and Johnny will make a big difference.

The many uses of gypsum would make a terrific category on a game show for people who know a lot about unusual topics. Gypsum is used as fertilizer, a soil conditioner, as a binder for fast-dry tennis court clay, a tofu coagulant, a calcium supplement, blackboard chalk, an ingredient in Portland cement, a medicinal component in Chinese medicine, in foot creams, hair products, and is well-known for both plaster and drywall. Gypsum is an amazing and plentiful resource, but whose idea was it, anyway?

The word gypsum is derived from the Greek word meaning "chalk" or "plaster". Gypsum is a common mineral found in sedimentary rock formations in a crystalline form known as calcium sulfate dihydrate. Gypsum is found in layers that were formed under salt water millions of years ago before the water evaporated and left the mineral behind. The oldest traces of plaster renders (likenesses) are 9,000 years old and were found in Anatolia and Syria. Five thousand years ago, the Egyptians burnt gypsum in open-air fires, then crushed it into powder, and finally mixed this powder with water to make jointing material for the blocks of their monuments, such as the magnificent Cheops Pyramid. The ancient Egyptians also created models of plaster taken directly from the human body. Because gypsum from the quarries of the Montmartre district of Paris has long furnished gypsum used for various purposes, this material has been called plaster of Paris.In 1775, the prominent French chemist Antoine-Laurent Lavoisier discovered the chemical formula for gypsum: CaSO4,2H2O. The discovery that gypsum consists of calcium sulphate and crystalline water paved the way for the industrial processing of gypsum. Plaster results from the calcination of gypsum, which partially dehydrates to produce a hemi-hydrate (CaSO4 , ½ H2O).

Modern gypsum board has as its predecessor a product called “Sackett Board,” a composite material that was made of layers of thin plaster placed between four plies of wool felt paper. This board was patented in 1894 by Augustine Sackett, the man considered to be the grandfather of the gypsum board manufacturing industry. A sheet of Sackett Board was approximately 1/4 inch thick and 36 inches square. It had open edges, which tended to erode and the felt paper did not provide for a satisfactory wall finish. However, it was an excellent base for the application of gypsum plaster and it soon became a replacement for wooden slat lath in many places. To demonstrate the potential of gypsum plaster, the Alabaster Company used a mixture of gypsum plaster and fiber to finish the exterior of the 1893 Chicago World Columbian Exposition, thus filling the largest single order of gypsum plaster that had ever been completed to that date. In 1894, Sackett patented his manufacturing process for Sackett Board and opened several production facilities over the next eight years. By 1901, he was producing nearly 5 million square feet of board annually. Sensing the promise for the material, a group of small gypsum producers combined to form the United States Gypsum Company. By the end of 1902, the company had a total of 37 operations in the United States. In 1907, the Canadian Gypsum Company was formed, providing access to gypsum deposits in Nova Scotia.In 1909, Sackett sold his company to USG, where he served as a director until he died in 1914. In 1910, a process for wrapping the board edges was created, followed by the elimination of the two inner layers of felt paper, the replacement of the exterior felt facing with a paper-based covering, and the production of board in standard 4-foot widths. By 1916, Sackett Board had evolved into a ready-to-finish panel, and within a year, the production of the original product was discontinued. The demand for gypsum board accelerated during World War I. The first call-up of U.S. troops in 1917 created an urgent need for temporary military housing, both at home and overseas. The military used a variety of building materials to meet this need; however, a barracks fire led military specifiers to prefer gypsum board as a naturally fire-resistant material. Even so, wallboard use for residential housing was slow to gain popularity. After World War II, various industries seemed to simultaneously discover U.S. Gypsum Company and their amazing product, which they called "drywall" for obvious reasons. After the war, many builders were reluctant to return to the time consuming task of plastering walls, when the quicker completion of housing with the use of wallboard was more efficient and definitely more profitable…and homeowners liked it! Through the years, drywall has continued to evolve as the many uses and modifications of gypsum become apparent. From an inauspicious beginning as a basic building material, gypsum board has become the preferred interior finish material in North America. The ability of the basic gypsum mineral to adapt to a variety of circumstances has allowed it to be recast and reformulated over many centuries into a variety of different materials. Adaptive uses for gypsum are still being sought and its future as a building material remains bright. Very interesting!

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