Author: Albo

Cow Power™

One of the many “green” advantages to living in Vermont is that a large percentage of the electricity supplied to us comes from renewable sources, a major factor in creating a fossil fuel free house.

Here’s the breakdown from our supplier, Central Vermont Public Service.

Hydro is definitely nice to have, but I know that Nuclear has a much larger stigma attached to it, even though it’s a heck of a lot cleaner than coal. The one that interested us the most however is that tiny 0.1% from CVPS Cow Power™.

It may sound silly but Cow Power is actually a great little program, and is a excellent way to support local dairy farms in this region. Basically a farm becomes an electricity supplier to the grid, using the manure that their cows produce daily – a by-product that would usually be stored as “lagoons” on nearby land. By collecting the manure and processing it, they’re making energy, reducing odor, improving water quality and providing an extra revenue for themselves – something that many to need survive as farmers.

Even though it’s similar to wind power offsets that some utility companies offer, the major benefit in our eyes is that our extra 4 cents a month actually goes towards something more tangible and “real”, and somewhere we can visit in our state!

Here’s a nice little diagram to explain it all. Click to embiggen.

Interior Painting

It’s been slow going, but the interior painting is now coming along nicely. Both bathrooms are done – 1 coat primer + 2 coats color – and look great. The kitchen is also finished and ready for the cabinet installs.

The rest of the house is in the priming stage, and I’m trying to put in a number of hours everyday. It’s wonderful to see it all coming together, piece by piece. Rae picked up 8 more gallons of our “off-white” today, as well as the accent wall colors, and I can’t wait to put those on this weekend.

We chose Pittsburgh Paint’s Pure Performance line which offers Zero VOC, low odor and Green Seal Class A Certification. Since we’re planning on some bold accent colors, starting with a Zero VOC base is essential because the tinting process adds VOCs, especially the darker colors.

So far the paint and primer has been excellent, with good coverage and very little odor. We’ve gone all day and not noticed any symptoms of being in close contact with the paint (headaches, nausea etc.) but we’re still getting plenty of fresh air flow through the open windows just in case.
The primer and two coats of final color did peel off around the shower however when we attempted to remove the masking tape without scoring first, showing that it hadn’t soaked in, but this was a heavily mudded part and not the drywall. Thinning the primer for these types of area may have prevented this, allowing it to soak through the plaster a bit more. A full days drying may have done wonders too, but we were impatient!

Here’s our color swatch:

And here’s the latest gallery of painting progress:

[pictobrowser 46448896@N00 72157602579388441]

Fun with salvaged items

From the start, Rae and I had planned on using salvaged or recycled items in as many areas as we could, but things didn’t turn out quite that way. Nothing really jumped out at us in the local yards we visited, and a couple things we did like were beyond our budget even at this stage in their lives.

We’d given up hope of finding some stained glass for use inside the house above the bathroom doors and the idea of finding a set of cool looking lights for the kitchen, but then on a return trip from Boston we visited http://www.vermontsalvage.com/ and hit the jackpot!

Amazingly we found both – a simple set of stained glass windows from England and a pair of exterior “ship type lights” from India.

Mechanical Systems

It’s nice to finally see the various mechanical systems in the house connected.

Here’s a breakdown of what we’ll be running:

• Lifebreath Model 155 Heat Recovery Ventilator (HRV)
– The “mechanical leak” for the house
• Lifebreath Turbulent Flow Precipitator TFP3000
– Filter system that works with the HRV. Removes 99.97% of particles such as pollen, fungus spores, dust, animal dander and dirt
• WaterFurnace Envision Series Geothermal All-In-One Heat Pump
– Main heating and cooling for the house
• Superstore 45 Gallon Coil Booster Tank
– Water storage tank that collects the “waste” energy from the WaterFurnace, and provides us with 100° hot water.
• Eemax EX190TC On-Demand Electric Water Heater
– The “booster” unit to heat our 100° hot water in the tank to a pleasant 120-130° for showers, dish washing etc.

So…a little detail on HRVs.

When you build a super-insulated house you can’t always rely on opening windows to bring in fresh air, especially in Vermont where outside winter temps can drop to 30 below! This is where an HRV comes in.

As a “mechanical leak” for the house, the HRV automatically exchanges the inside air for fresh outside air, but the cool part is it “recovers” the temperature of the inside air and applies it to the new air coming in. Lifebreath claims 83% effectiveness for this unit, though we’ll have to wait to see if this is true. The advantage in winter is that you don’t lose your warm inside air as you bring in cold outside air, which also means less runtime for your heating system.

Drywall

Well the drywall is on, and the taping and mudding is done!
I spent most of today cleaning the master bathroom, guest bathroom and guest bedroom. It’s very time consuming checking the finish, sanding, wiping down the walls and vacuuming the huge amount of dust that it produces. All this is to prep for painting, which we’d like to finish before we move in.

Bathroom Vanity

We’ve already begun work on the interior finishing, and have the bathroom vanity “carcass” complete. Next we’ll work on the drawers, drawer fronts and countertop.

The basic frame is plywood that we edge banded with maple, and this wood will also be used for the drawers, fronts etc. They’ll be a total of 7 drawers, all with full extension slides. The countertop will be Marmoleum with a plywood backing.