Construction Specifications – Part 2

The plan for today is to discuss the rest of the top-level construction specifications.

Roof

The roof system is an engineered roof truss system with hip style layout on the main portion of the housematched to the gable sections over the garage, family, and sun rooms. The roof is framed at 2′ o.c. with an 8/12 exterior slope and 16″ overhang around the exterior perimeter.The different areas of the roof are designed as follows:

• Garage: Trayed with attic trusses to accommodate the additional headroom required by the 8′ door.The attic trusses will provide a room approximately 10′ wide the length of the garage with 3/4″ Advantech sheathing on the floor and a fold up stairway.
• Dining/Living/Kitchen Area: Scissor trusses to create an interior 4/12 pitch cathedral ceiling.
• Family Room: Scissor trusses to create an interior 6/12 pitch cathedral ceiling.

All roofing will be as follows:

• 5/8″ Advantech sheathing to complete the roof deck.
• 8″ galvanized drip edge, flashing and ridge vents where necessary.
• Grace Ice and Water Shield around the eaves and in all valley areas.
• 15 lb felt paper covering the remaining.
• Roof finish to be Certainteed Landmark Woodscape 30-Year Architectural Shingles.

Exterior Finish

In selecting the exterior finish we decided to go with a combination that would look good for years and require very little maintenance.Contractors in this area seem to like the Mastic brand of siding and itscore well with Consumer Reports.We chose the following:

• Type: Mastic Qwest Vinyl Siding
• Color: Sage
• Style: Dutch Lap
• Length: Long length 25′ 6″ to lessen the number of seams

I have also been doing some research on their Structural EPS Siding.Depending on how we decide to build the walls, this might be the perfect product to give our wall heat resistances just that extra little kick.By bonding expanded polystyrene (EPS) foam directly to the siding they are able to provide a vinyl siding with an insulation value of approximately R-4 that has the added benefit of being stronger and more resistant towards water.I haven’t gotten the details on pricing yet, but expect with the added foam it will be considerably more.I’ll have to check into it and post back later on a subsequent update.

Just so there is no confusion, we would only consider this product if we were building a wall in the conventional 2″ x 6″ route and needed an additional bit of insulation.This would definitely not be necessary or worth the added expense with a double studded wall.

For roofing, we again turned to the preference of our contractor and building supplies store, SW Collins.They both suggested a brand of architectural shingle that is well noted as a Consumer Reports “Best Buy” product with strong marks for strength, weathering, and impact.We chose the following:

• Type: Certainteed Landmark Woodscape 30-Year Architectural Shingles
• Color: Asphalt

Interior Finish

We will be going pretty standard with our interior finish.All walls and ceiling will receive 1/2″ sheetrock with drywall finish, primed and painted with low VOC materials.Wet areas, including the bathrooms and areas around the kitchen sink will be upgraded to mold tough sheetrock.We may look into the merits of using hardy cement board in the walk/roll-in shower.All ceiling/walls dividing the garage from the house will be upgraded to 5/8″ firecode sheetrock.Trim will be pine 2 1/2″ colonial style casing for doors and windows, and 3 1/2″ colonial style baseboard stained with polyurethane finish.

The electrical and mechanical are two subsystems we are still sorting out.I will post more information about them in a later post once I get to discuss some thoughts and options with the subs.Expect an overview of the automation systems to come next.

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