Remaining cordwood walls uncovered; temporary wall complete

How soon will we be able to move in to Sunnywood? That is the question. As the weather gets colder, the furnace in our rented mobile home runs more and more constantly. The structure doesn't breath, so even with all of the hot air from the forced-air furnace, moisture and mold build up and the air quality is really bad. Quite an incentive to move things along!

We removed the remaining tarps covering Sunnywood's cordwood walls, as they had been curing for the requisite month. Here is the north-facing wall. The only windows are the egress windows mandated by fire code.

Here are the east and south walls. The south wall has the most glazing of any wall, but is still insufficiently glazed for signficant solar gain.

Part of the balancing act we are struggling with concerns the small size of our house, and the fact that we need to maximize productive space. This means making use of wall space for things other than windows.

There remains the possibility that when we complete the last "wing" next year and fill in the last four cordwood panels, the remaining south-facing panel could be filled mostly with glass, making that corner of the greatroom a kind of sunspace. Proper placing of light-colored tile could act as thermal mass to moderate temperatures and reflect light and heat into the rest of the greatroom.
The temporary wall to close us in for winter is complete, except for the installation of the door. We were able to reuse the flakeboard that we'd used as a working surface over the floor joists while we built cordwood. When we build permanent interior walls, we will use wood planking instead, and put the flakeboard in service in an outbuilding, perhaps a wood shed.

The insulation that we've put in the temporary wall for winter will come in handy somewhere else when this wall comes down in the spring. You can also see the one-inch foam board insulation in the ceiling, which, in addition to the batting and wood above it, gives us about R-38 in the ceilings. Not quite the R-40 to -50 usually advised for passive solar, but close.

Floor and hearth half done

We have more than half of the floor boards installed, and the hearth is complete (half a hearth in the photo below). We ended up using ceramic tile for the hearth, because it provided a lower profile than brick and seemed easier to keep clean. State fire codes mandated the use of cement board under the tile. All of the windows are installed (well, those in the finished cordwood walls, anyway). The wood cookstove and Jotul wood stove get installed tomorrow.

We have done pretty well, doing all of this work together, while living out of boxes in a rented trailer, only getting slightly annoyed with each other now and then. We were warned that cordwood (and other) building projects can take their toll on relationships, but for the most part the process has been surprisingly satisfying. Lately, we have discovered the art of parallel play. That is, projects that require two people, we do together. Projects that can be done by one person, we assign. So we've been laying floor boards together, because they're big and heavy and need one person compressing while another is securing--- but I built the hearth while Joe installed windows. Parallel play. :)

Regarding the photos below: if you remember, we built a rubble-trench foundation. Which means that the three courses of hemlock grade beams you see sit atop a well-tamped crushed-rock berm that fills a drained trench (which sits on ledge). Any water that finds its way to the grade beams (very little because of the site grading and the roof overhangs) drains away. On the outside, the grade beams are surrounded by an insulated apron (rigid foam at about 35 degrees) to keep the ground around the outside of the house warm and dry. Inside the grade beam, we put some foam and bubble-wrap barriers for a bit of extra protection from any drafts that might find their way through 18 inches of hemlock. We covered the ground under the house with gravel, to act as a capillary break for moisture. The floor joists are 16" on center, and we added mid-joist support in the form of bricks with shims, and large blocks where heavy items such as woodstoves and water tanks would be installed.