So out in Construction Land the team has been busy both inside and outside the house preparing for inspections and, even less forgiving, Mother Nature.  With storms rolling in this week following a grueling July heat wave, the team has to make sure that the house, though still under construction, will resist as much water as possible.  Luckily for us we’re using the ZIP System.  The Zip System kills two proverbial birds with one stone – the structural panels resist shear while the protective overlay eliminates the need for house wrap.  Once the panels are in place, you tape the seams and voila!  Weatherproofing!

Here’s a close-up of the sheathing and tape with a shop, err-um, field drawing scrawled on it:
And here is the sheathing in place and taped up over the WHOLE house (with Steve adding temporary plastic curtains):

There’s even more tape on the inside.  As we’ve been finishing up the interior sheathing for a framing inspection, Carly and Melvin have been busy taping up the seams and corners of the ceiling and floor.

As you can see Carly is having  a fabulous time with the Sicrall tape which will help to make our house airtight to achieve Passive House standards.

We’ve also been working on keeping the water in all the right places on the interior.  Josh and I have been busy installing the PVC waste and vent plumbing lines that he spent the greater part of the last couple of semesters perfecting.  Our plumbing consultant even came to give us a few tips:

After watching him it looked easy as pie but then doing it is an entirely different matter.

First you got to figure out how all the pieces go together according to the plan:

Then you have to fit them all in to place… in tight spots… measured correctly… cut correctly… with the right holes cut into the framing in non-structural places… measured to the right slope and swiveled to the right angle…

And then you have to take it all apart and glue it all together!

That purple you see is actually the primer for the glue.  It prepares the PVC for the “glue” that actually WELDS it together.  I’ve welded metal but I never imagined that I would one day weld PVC!