Timber Frame Hybrid Home - Owner Builder

   / Timber Frame Hybrid Home - Owner Builder
  • Thread Starter
#301  
One detail you will need to cover is areas that have 2 or more 2x's together - the spray foam won't get between these boards but air will - get a good caulk that will stay flexible and stretch - fill all of these including near timbers - actually these were some of the most difficult I found as the spray foam could not get behind them very well and your timbers will shrink (hence needing the stretchable caulking that stays flexible forever)
Also pay attention to the paper wrap - tape all tears/joints/transitions
Key to HVAC/insulation performance is air-sealing (that or $'s paid to utility company:eek:) - you don't want to give the money saved now to monthly bills increase later

As for your "extra 2T" heat-pump be sure the contractor is increasing unit and field loop (or explain to you why not) - now in reality your home should never need anything close to 8T (unless you don't get the air sealing right?), so your real interest is in low speed operation and how efficient the unit you are installing will be when minimal load is called for

Thanks for all of the suggestions. They are greatly appreciated. Hopefully your experience with the timberframers was as good as ours. John and Chris were fantastic to work with and we couldn't have been happier with the whole process.

Just got home from working on the house today. We finished wiring the 2nd floor this evening and are ready to move to the first floor. Plumbing was finished up today as well. Right now we have spray foam scheduled the week of Jan. 6th, sheet rock the week of Jan 13th, and cabinets the week of Jan 23rd if everything continues to fall into place. I still haven't taken any pictures since there really isn't much more to show from my last pics other than some wires and duct work.
 
   / Timber Frame Hybrid Home - Owner Builder #302  
Thanks for all of the suggestions. They are greatly appreciated. Hopefully your experience with the timberframers was as good as ours. John and Chris were fantastic to work with and we couldn't have been happier with the whole process.

Just got home from working on the house today. We finished wiring the 2nd floor this evening and are ready to move to the first floor. Plumbing was finished up today as well. Right now we have spray foam scheduled the week of Jan. 6th, sheet rock the week of Jan 13th, and cabinets the week of Jan 23rd if everything continues to fall into place. I still haven't taken any pictures since there really isn't much more to show from my last pics other than some wires and duct work.

Absolutely agree about working with John and his crew - was absolutely amazed at finding a TF'er so close and then being great people on top of that:)
Started working up a plan for a barn with Chris just last week and he is planning to come over this week to take finished pics of our home to put on their website.

Feel free to PM me if you have any questions or want some input from recent experience as you finish up your project.
 
   / Timber Frame Hybrid Home - Owner Builder #303  
Thanks for all of the suggestions. They are greatly appreciated. Hopefully your experience with the timberframers was as good as ours. John and Chris were fantastic to work with and we couldn't have been happier with the whole process.

Just got home from working on the house today. We finished wiring the 2nd floor this evening and are ready to move to the first floor. Plumbing was finished up today as well. Right now we have spray foam scheduled the week of Jan. 6th, sheet rock the week of Jan 13th, and cabinets the week of Jan 23rd if everything continues to fall into place. I still haven't taken any pictures since there really isn't much more to show from my last pics other than some wires and duct work.

always great to take a bunch of pics of the wiring in the walls prior to sheetrock. Also, I know a bunch of stuff is going wireless, but with your ceiling in the main area, it will be next to impossible to run any (after the sheetrock) wiring except to do it exposed. Make sure you run all you need. Especially if anyone likes to rearrange a room's furniture just for change. Cat cable, speaker cable, Jacks everywhere is my word to the wise. Are you doing any floor jacks? Really enjoy this thread.
 
   / Timber Frame Hybrid Home - Owner Builder
  • Thread Starter
#304  
always great to take a bunch of pics of the wiring in the walls prior to sheetrock. Also, I know a bunch of stuff is going wireless, but with your ceiling in the main area, it will be next to impossible to run any (after the sheetrock) wiring except to do it exposed. Make sure you run all you need. Especially if anyone likes to rearrange a room's furniture just for change. Cat cable, speaker cable, Jacks everywhere is my word to the wise. Are you doing any floor jacks? Really enjoy this thread.

Hi Kyle,

I plan to take pics of all of the rooms as soon as we finish wiring and running cat and coax cable. I may never need it but will be nice if we do. Floor jacks? Are you talking about jacks for cat5? The only thing we had planned in floor were a couple of recepticles for lamps. Can you elaborate on what type of jacks your talking about and the benefit of floor locations?

Going back to insulation and some comments on thermal bridging, I will make sure and seal between any of the double joists where they are not located in attic space as suggested. Any joists that are above the ceiling line I will talk to our insulator about spraying them so we at least get an inch or two of foam around everything. For the sloped areas of the roof that are not attic space we could add some rigid foam over the joist as suggested however I have some concern about moisture if doing this. The closed cell foam is a vapor barrier. My concern would be moisture getting trapped between the rigid foam board and the spray foam over time. Anyone have any thoughts on this?
 
   / Timber Frame Hybrid Home - Owner Builder #305  
Floor jacks for lamps and such were what I was talking about. It is just that floor jacks define where furniture goes and are a bit unsightly IMO if not covered by something. But if your room is that big, they are handy. I guess I'm just saying to try and plan ahead for your audio/video/network needs. Good luck.
 
   / Timber Frame Hybrid Home - Owner Builder
  • Thread Starter
#307  
Thanks Kyle,

my wife is not a big lamp person but the open areas are probably going to call for a few. I will try to hide these under end tables the best we can. I'll have to admit that lighting has probably been my biggest challenge so far. I could visualize everything pretty well up until we started thinking about lighting, how much is needed, and where to place it. We are going to end up using quite a few wall sconces as well as some track lighting for the ceiling in the living room and loft. Recessed cans in bedrooms. Kitchen will get recessed cans as well as some drop pendents.

For cat5, phone, and coax I am running these to two locations in each room. Audio/video in the loft and living room is pretty easy. We only have one good tv wall in each.



Jeremy
 
   / Timber Frame Hybrid Home - Owner Builder #308  
Jeremy we had our electrical sub add a few switched outlets on top of the beams in our great room - useful for Xmas decorations and for hanging lamps - and they are hidden if not used.
We placed wall sconces around the great room and tracks over our summer beam (I think that is what Chris called it) to up-light the roof area - the great room will take a lot of light to get it bright but not so much to add contrast - think about where your furniture will be placed and how you will use the room.

For your can lights - don't use them in insulated areas where they will "break" the insulation or air seal boundary unless absolutely necessary - if this is the case think about the detail of how you will air-seal and insulate (it is possible but know the plan before everything gets covered up and the spray foam guy is gone).

I would not be overly concerned about thermal bridge in areas with > 2" x 8" as the wood will provide reasonable r-value (zone 6+ you need to worry) - for any area above the ceiling do as you say - as the spray is applied to depth be sure to enclose the rafter/truss to 2" and no worry's at all about thermal bridge nor air leakage (also significant strength increase to structure).
On the sloped areas - checkout greenbuildingadvisor.com for some details on how to do this properly - use poly-iso with foil face and you have an air/vapor barrior or if in an area you need vaper perm use EPS/XPS but as stated earlier not that big of a concern in your climate for > 2" x 8" boards.
The areas I notice this the most is by pantry area that is 2" x 6" framed outside my TF - we have several corners and framing around window with 2 or 3 boards side by side and I can feel the cold and my buddies thermal imaging camera shows these very brightly. - if all my cabinets were not installed etc I would add layer of poly-iso in here (probably no more than 1") -
talk to your Spray contractor if you have any areas that need rigid board as he may be able to provide/install and spray around it - mine did this and worked well. In my case these areas were rim board to garage and needed backing to spray against
Also are you insulating the garage? or any rooms over garage? My spray guy put 2"+ out there in the ceiling then filled cavity with open-cell. My bonus room over garage is ~ 7000ft^3 (500ft^2 finished) that we heat/cool with a single 1T Mitsubishi mini-split (almost never runs) - key was spraying the entire barrier envelope and detailing all joints the spray could not cover.

On other item we did was have the electrical folks run a sub-panel to rear of house opposite my main panel - thought was for future hot tub, out door kitchen etc.
Ran 2 exterior switched circuits for Xmas lighting (can be used for other switched application also
Ceiling fan(s) for great room - make sure the box/mount is installed now and is sturdy as you may want a significant sized fan (I was looking at BigAss fans but found very nice units at Home Depot that fit TF style very well!) go ahead and wire for light kits, although I have not used them and not sure they are useful 18' up in the ceiling:). We put fan mounts in every bedroom even though we have not put fans in most rooms (easier to add now than later)

I notice you have several young people living with you - think about sound transmission - the large open room style of TF also allows NOISE to permeate :confused2: look for areas to add sound deadening material before enclosing - our house used all hard surface but we placed insulation in barrier walls between bedrooms and great room etc that helped - I found homosote before I finished the bonus room and placed this behind the sheetrock - works very well keeping sound contained
 
   / Timber Frame Hybrid Home - Owner Builder #309  
Also while looking for lighting check out barnlightelectric.com (I have no connection and did not purchase from them, but now that we found them we are thinking about replacing some of our existing fixtures)
 
   / Timber Frame Hybrid Home - Owner Builder #310  
A few years ago I thought Cat 5 wiring was a good idea, but with everything being wireless now, I don't know if there is any reason for it. I didn't put it in my house, or my parents house. All you need is a router that everything in the house can pick up, and as technology improves, there is even less of a need for Cat5 or any other internet related wiring.

Eddie
 

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