Plumbing Work

The plumber has been hard at work. The Pex tubing used for plumbing in most modern homes is being used in ours as well. Please see a link below for a PDF file on the green advantages of Pex as a plumbing material. You're looking at the connection for the clothes washer.

Some of the major green advantages of PEX plumbing systems over traditional copper systems include:

• Over fourty years of testing and use, so it is a proven material
• It is less expensive and uses less energy and raw materials for its production.
• PEX tubing is lighter than most other plumbing materials which means less mass being transported from the manufacturer to the construction site.
• Its flexibility calls for fewer fittings and an easier install by the plumber

Here's the link for Pex:

http://www.ppfahome.org/greenbuilding/PEX_green_brochure.pdf

More Buzz

It's been nearly a week since we've been by the house but I know plumbers have been "plying their trade" and folks were working on the porch when we were there last.

Doing a little internet browsing this morning, I ran accross this article (North Charleston – SC’s Most Sustainable City?) on the Blog site Get Inspired Charleston. If you get a chance, check out their other articles. Nice to hear about the good stuff going on in Charleston.

Progress in Oak Terrace

Take a minute to look over the press release about Oak Terrace. It's in the "News" section of the Oak Terrace Preserve website (http://oakterracepreservesc.com/).

Windows, Doors and House Wrap Too!

Well, I promised these would be the next items to be installed and here they are! The house wrap, windows and doors went up early this week.

I don't have a picture of it yet but the attached storage area on the back of the house is amazingly tall. A very nice space with plenty of room for a lawn mower, bikes and other such items. I see shelves in my future.

If you take a closer look at the picture, the houses you can see through the porch and a little to the right of the porch have been completed and the folks are living there now. They moved in a couple weeks ago already. It's nice to see folks moving in.

We have to pick a house color and shingle color before Monday. Decisions, decisions.

Roof is On

On the 13th of October, just a couple days after the previous post, we stopped by to take a look at the house. They finished putting on the roof on the 11th and were finishing up securing the exterior structure when I drove by on Friday the 12th. So a lot of activity in a very short time.

You can see here that they started on the roof to the entry porch on the side. Although there aren't any stairs to the second level yet, that is soon to come.

Windows, Doors and house wrap are next!

Exterior Walls

We were out of town for a while and although they had rain all last week, between Friday and Wednesday, they went from the block being laid to all the walls being up. Before the end of the week, the roof will be on and next week the actual shingles will likely go on the roof.

The SIPs we mentioned in the last post make the process of raising the walls and getting the house "in the dry" incredibly fast."

This photo is taken from the other side of the alley behind the house. The panels you see stacked are for the roof.