Follow the construction of Tom's super-insulated home in Port Townsend, WA

Saturday, October 15, 2011

Siding, Paint, and Solar Panels




My initial plan was to put cedar shingles on the whole house. That plan ran into several snags: 1) Shingles are made from old growth cedar and plastering old growth wood over my house didn't seem like the right thing to do. 2) I wanted to see the wood grain through the finish which means that I woud have to use a transparent or semi-transparent finish. The people at Miller Shingles in Granite Falls told me that going that route, I'd have to refinish the south side every 3 years and would eventually need to put on a solid stain to hide the blemishes. That sounds like too much work. So I went with Hardie boards and planks. They are made from cement and fibers, take paint well and last forever. Glo and I played with color samples and patterns for a while with Jesse's help and finally decided to break up the wall area by using a board and batten pattern on the ground floor level coupled with 7" sidings above. We also decided to use a single color for both areas with a separate lighter trim color. Here are the results on the south and west sides.

The south view also shows the 3.1 kW photovoltaic array on the dormer. I hadn't planned to do this, but the incentives from the electrical utility and the IRS are quite attractive: there is a tax credit for 30% of the purchase price (which was $30k) and I get $0.54 for every kilowatt hour produced because the panels and inverter are manufactured in state - even if I use the electricity generated rather than dumping it in the grid. With those incentives, I should be able to pay off the purchase cost in 10 years. The control panel on thenorth side of the house is pretty ugly, but we'll cover it up with artwork further down the line.


For my sister Carolina, pictures of the kitchen granite counter.



What a relief to have the outside (almost) done just in time for the rainy season. I still have to put cedar shingles on the north side porch. I've stained them all and will get started on this project next week. In the meantime, there have been lovely meals outside, enjoying the view to the south.

11 comments:

  1. Great house, cool siding like hardiplank siding houston cool location and a clean place and also a great content by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  2. You are right about the cedar shingles, Tom! Although it is the most popular wood shingle, it is a very expensive material that requires regular maintenance, and is not ideal if you live in a sunny area as the sunlight cause the wood to crack when exposed too much. It's good that you've used HardiPlank sidings instead. It's from fiber-cement sidings class, meaning that it's half wood and half cement. These materials last for years. We'd love to read some changes about your house today. Keep the blog updated.

    Lue Madson

    ReplyDelete
  3. Is it alright to post a portion of this on my site fundamentally present a hyperlink on this site page? Siding contractor

    ReplyDelete
  4. Simple trick to cut your power bill up to 75%:

    Want to know how to easily produce all of the renewable energy you could ever want right at home?

    And you will be able to make your home completely immune from power failures, blackouts, and energy grid outages
    so even if everyone else in your area (or even the whole country) loses power - you won’t.

    READ THIS: DIY HOME ENERGY

    ReplyDelete


  5. Please keep sharing more and more information about this.This is a good information of the fashion licensing articles and really like your site.
    Primavera P6 Sales

    ReplyDelete
  6. I wanted to thank you for this great read!! I definitely enjoying every little bit of it Smile I have you bookmarked to check out new stuff you post.
    Primavera P6 Sales

    ReplyDelete

  7. I agree with you. Thank you for sharing the update. It is interesting to have it discussed widely, so that we can gain more objective opinions.

    Primavera P6 Sales

    ReplyDelete
  8. I thought it was going to be some boring old post, but it really compensated for my time. I will post a link to this page on my blog.
    Primavera P6 Sales

    ReplyDelete
  9. I wanted to thank you for this great read!! I definitely enjoying every little bit of it Smile I have you bookmarked to check out new stuff you post.

    Primavera P6 Sales

    ReplyDelete
  10. I wanted to thank you for this great read!! I definitely enjoying every little bit of it Smile I have you bookmarked to check out new stuff you post.
    Primavera P6 Sales

    ReplyDelete
  11. I agree with you. Thank you for sharing the update. It is interesting to have it discussed widely so that we can gain more objective opinions.P6 Training

    ReplyDelete