Our House

The north wall of the sun porch needs to be EPS-crete.  It’s the barrier wall between the new bedroom (not built yet) and the sun porch, so it needs to be okay with being splashed, non-wicking, insulating and have thermal mass properties.  It doesn’t have to be structural.  Don’t get me wrong, EPS-crete is great structural stuff, but the little guest house we’re building is a pole building.  Structural infill just isn’t necessary.

My brother, the whiz, is making me an EPS shredder.  We have masses of EPS foam waiting to be shredded for mixing with concrete.  I could stick all the EPS bits together and build a wall, but it would have zero thermal mass and would need covered on both sides to finish it off and make it durable.  Yuck.  I vote for EPS-crete and lime plaster.

I want to mix the EPS-crete and pack it into a form on top the foundation.  I’m going to bury a couple layers of 6x6x10x10 in the middle of the bottom half as there will be dirt against the bottom foot and a half on the sun porch side.  The extra support may not be necessary but I’d rather be sure.

We’ve actually been working on the sun porch!  I know that’s a bit of a shock, but progress is being made.  Wadly and I got one of the sill plates bolted down, erected the final corner post and got one of the headers up.  One header to go and we can start hanging rafters.  I have neither a speed square nor an angle gauge so I punted with a piece of cardboard and a level.  We’ll see how accurate I was when we get the . . . oops.  It’s a good thing I stopped to tell you about it.  I just realized the error of my method.  The angle’s going to be wrong.  I need a scrap of rafter (full dimension fir) to set under the string at the downhill end.

The weather should be good today so I’ll get that done first thing.  Yesterday before the rain hit I got some of the outdoor plants trimmed and the rebel canes of the climbing rose strung properly over the top of the arbor.  Wadly doesn’t like being grabbed when he whips through with his riding mower.  I can’t imagine why.

Wadly’s got the SW post in for the sun porch a couple days ago.  Progress!  Early the next morning I had a nightmare that the post wasn’t tall enough to accept the over-sized slider windows I was intending to install there.  As soon as I got up I grabbed my tape measure and checked.  Whew!  Just tall enough!