Upstairs!

The next time we went out to the house, they had the second floor on! Still no roof, that will come next. Here is Larry in his office - great view, don't you think?

Here are the boys in their bedroom. They are so excited, I almost couldn't get them to stop jumping around long enough to get this picture!
Here are the little girls in their bedroom. Again, the hopping was only interrupted momentarily for the photo opportunity!

Slideshow of inner look of walls

Here is a slide show of what the walls looked like from the inside the day after they were installed. I just stood in one place and turned around to take the pictures.

More about the walls

Here is a look at what our walls look like in a cross-section. You can see there is a piece of OSB on each side, and there are 2x4's every so often that run vertical through the wall. Then, there is a very dense foam filling in the wall. This is what gives these panels such great energy efficiency. They are only 4 inches thick, but they are so well insulated! We are using the solar heated water to heat our basement, and a fireplace for the rest of the house. The fireplace sits in the middle of the main level, and will put out enough heat to heat all the 2,200+ square feet of those two floors! The walls will hold the heat in very well, so we will be able to heat with just water & sun, and wood! Both are renewable!I can't wait to get in there!

Slideshow of walls going up!

Ok, I can't seem to get this slide show embedded here, so I'll just give you all the link to the slide show on Photobucket. Here, you'll see a progression of the walls going up. It took only one day! They started putting walls up at about 9:20am, and the last one was set at 4:00pm!

Here's the link! http://s698.photobucket.com/albums/vv350/SuePerIdeas/?albumview=slideshow

You can see on a couple of the pictures, but not well, they used a strap with a big ole razor sharp arrow on each end to grab the wall sections and pull them together to get a tight fit, and then they would nail the two panels together. This is what gives an air-tight fit between the panels. That, and some weather stripping put between panels! Can you believe something so simple as that?! We have been in the house recently, and even on colder days, I'm amazed at how warm it feels already!

I'll be back to post more pictures, soon!

More Pictures

This was the day they placed the walls. January 2, 2009. Here is a picture of the sunrise - I can't wait to see all the sunrises from my bedroom window!Here are the walls arriving! It was about 7 am - the Thermacore guys drove up from Jefferson City, MO overnight. The same guys who built the walls drove them up and put them in place. This allows them to see exactly what happens in the field as they are putting them up, and then they can keep getting better and better each time they do it. Below is a picture of the crane in place getting ready to put the walls up.This is the first panel being set into place! this is along the back wall of the garage. The next picture will show you how the panel fits onto the foundation wall.

Everything fits together with grooves and then is pulled tight into place and then nailed or screwed together. So, the panels fit over the base, then they slide into the next panel, then they pulled them tight, and then nailed them to each other. This allows them to have strength, to prevent air and weather getting through. I'll add some more pictures from this day in the next post!

Pictures!

Here are some pictures of the joists and subflooring going in on the first floor. This was done way back in November, but I don't think I have put these pictures up, yet!

The last picture is what the frost walls and fill in on the garage floor looked like. You can see our neighbor's house going up in the background.