Windows, doors, roofing and siding for our solar home -Resources (Education)- E

Solar Home Chronicles 15

Tuesday, 23 October 2007

It was exciting to see the slab foundation of our home where there was once weeds, water and wind – and our dreams of what might be, of course!
We had already contacted the Maritime Forestry Stewardship Council and ordered sustainably-harvested lumber to frame the house. Most other building materials would be readily available at our local hardware and lumber store, except for windows, doors, roofing and siding. These other big-ticket-items would have to be ordered ahead.

We made the difficult decision to use vertical cedar siding, despite its unavailability from local forests. We had talked with people experienced with using other types of wood siding, and everyone recommended that, if we could get cedar, we should use it. It has a nice vertical grain and contains natural preservatives. We considered using cedar shakes (these are available from the Maritimes) but our designer, Don, suggested that they would not suit the style of the house. As well, installation of shakes takes many hours of labour – thus making the overall costs of vertical vs. shake siding similar. We know that many homebuilders are choosing vinyl, fibre/cement and other types of manufactured products, but these are imported products that use energy and chemicals in their production. Natural cedar suited our needs.

Now, finding cedar siding that was both wide and long turned out to be a big challenge. A nearby lumber store could not find any. We went to the internet, phoned a dozen local mills, and also struck out. Finally, we discovered a building supplier further afield, who investigated for us and found some – lo and behold! – through a wholesaler in Moncton. Go figure. We examined various profiles of siding (e.g. shiplap, clapboard, etc.) and chose to have our cedar milled with a pattern of one-inch channels on boards 8 inches wide.

We explored various options for preserving the siding. There are many products that clean up with mineral spirits – a sure sign that strong chemicals are involved. We discovered a product called Lifetime™ that says it is `eco-friendly’ and non-toxic to plants, soil and water. It dissolves in water, and apparently only requires one coat and no maintenance – who can argue with that! It is referred to as “pickling” since it changes the pH of wood, turning it a natural grey colour. We’ll see how it works over the long haul.

We decided to use metal roofing because of its longterm durability. Many warned us that, incorrectly installed, we could have leaking issues, but our tradespeople assured us that they had lots of experience with this product, and it would not leak. We found a supplier on PEI, and pored over their colour choices. We chose a light green, that we felt would blend in with the surroundings well.

There are some good companies building windows and doors in our region, and they are all very competitive. We compared hardware quality, energy-efficiency, price and service, and selected a New Brunswick company to work with. And work it was! Our designed solar home doesn’t have 2 windows the same size! Each one is unique, and many are not even rectangular. It’s a good thing our salesman was good-natured, because he would be seeing a lot of us by the time the windows and doors were installed! It took us several weeks to confirm just what we needed.

We chose triple-pane, Low-E, argon-filled white vinyl windows. The Low-E aspect refers to a transparent coating on the glass that allows solar heat in and reduces radiant heat loss out from the house. Argon is an inert gas that minimizes the conduction of heat between the panes of glass. Both of these increase the R-value of windows. If we wanted our window frames coloured, this would cost us thousands of dollars more. Our windows will be white.

Our home will also have a 9-foot sliding glass door on the south side. Because of weight issues, there is no such thing as a triple-paned sliding door. We ordered a double-paned, Low-E argon door – the best we could do.
With all these things on order, we hoped that the building process would proceed smoothly.

You are probably wondering about the chicken coop. My interest in healthy food production extended toward an interest in raising chickens for meat and eggs. Taking a design from a book, I worked with our sons to begin building a small coop. On the flat concrete slab of the house, we lay out and framed the coop walls, and for a while, it looked like the chicken coop project was well ahead of the house. We laughed at the thought of passers-by thinking that our dinky coop was actually the beginning of our solar home.

Next time: Putting a house on top of our solar slab foundation