The property is starting to look like itself again

October came and went. It finally feels like Fall. Ryan and I completed work stripping off the branches this week. The property is starting to look like it did before we had four huge trees drop upon it.

The house plans are also coming along as we started working on the second floor which will house the Master Bedroom and bath, Shaelyn's room, the Pullman Car and another bathroom. That's going to be a lot of composting toilets for one house!

Work on the Trees continues... status update on many things

Seems like I look away and another week has past.

Ryan and I are busily trying to get to Washougal every chance we get to cut on the trees some more. We are making steady progress. We have just started to get into the trunks of both trees and have at least a cord of wood in our pile already as we have been taking the time to cut up the branches as well.

This is where we were at as of a few days ago. We are trying to be fastidious so that we don't have to revisit areas once the wood has been cut. I think this also helps Mike navigate with his mower better.



Other than that, Ryan and I are slowly letting ideas percolate in our heads for the house. In the last few weeks we have revisited the entire first floor layout to address an issue of providing a buffer space between the entry and the living space, this led to the total relocation of the stairs going into the basement (AKA Ryan's new train layout) as well as positioning of the mudroom in the garage instead of in the house.

Moving the stairs and the mudroom creates a condition where we can completely seal off the heat envelope of the main living areas from the "transitional" areas where there will be a lot of movement from inside to outside. I will be posting the layout of our house on this blog at some point once all of the major changes have been made.

We are also researching quite a few things for the house and yard. The Living Building spec  (of which I have not posted all of the Petals yet. My bad  :( ) wants us to locally source as much of the materials as possible. However, the "ideas" for what we are planning can come from anywhere in the world. I like that.

We were contacted by Barry LaDuke of LaDuke Radiant Sales. He is a resource that can get our grubby little hands on an actual Daikin Altherma, now that we have decided that that is the way we want to go. His website has a lot of cool stuff on it, so check it out. He has also introduced us to a product created, developed and manufactured in Tualatin, OR. Barry will be sending us a sample and we are excited about reading into the Ecowarm Panel

A while back, I had helped my friend Allen Poole install the tubing for his radiant heat flooring. His method was to use plywood sleepers to hold down the tubing and create a surface to attach flooring to as well as absorb and redistribute heat from the tubes to the room. The Ecowarm is the same idea except that the sleepers use a smaller tubing, there is a recycled aluminum layer that more efficiently distributes the heat from the tubes and the tube size can be smaller. Thinking about it, it sounds like a no brainer, but we are eagerly awaiting the sample and want to consult with Allen to get his opinion on what he thinks as well.

Isn't this ingenious? Allen's Kitchen floor

Allen, I continue to be blown away by your project. Just looking at this picture makes me smile because when we installed this tubing, it just seemed like this is how everyone should have their floors. Who needs a bunch of noisy forced air vents everywhere? Why aren't more people doing this?  YOU are an inspiration to me.

Trees Down

On Friday, September 9, 2011, Wright Tree Service cut down our four trees. According to our neighbors, the process was exacting and very professionally done. They put those trees down with precision. In fact, even though they could have, they completely avoided the willow tree smack dab in their way and opted to fell two trees on either side of it. A few of the neighbors have already approached us about the trees. Ryan and I feel that there is plenty to give everyone some for the winter. We are most excited about being able to help some others who burn exclusively and have been hit hard by the times. Mainly we are happy about the PUD being able to help us with these trees, because we were kind of lost in knowing what to do.

The dead tree delimbed itself!!

Me and Lacey chillaxin'

This is our current view from the north end.  See the Willow Tree? Those guys are amazing!!

Ground View

Trees.... Trees we want to cut down.

In our Solar Survey post, we demonstrated how the trees and buildings around you can affect your solar exposure. In general, our current solar exposure is truly great, but we can always dream, can't we?

That pesky bump on the right hand side of our survey was problematic for us on several levels: it limited both our solar and wind exposures (Ideally, you want your wind turbine to be above everything else.), they exposed our structure to a falling tree hazard and lastly, one of them was DEAD. D-E-A-D as a doornail. What is a doornail anyway?

Ryan called every tree man and yard he could find near our site. Four trees was not enough of a haul to even mess with.  We were at the property cutting down one of the damaged trees last week and our neighbor Mike showed up. He said, "You have a dead tree. Just call the PUD and they'll remove it for you."  Really!!!???  Seriously??!!!

These trees??    They're kind of tall. Mike went on to say that since the power lines go along the road, the PUD was invested in preventing an issue with the dead tree possibly falling over during the rough Washougal winters.


We were so disheartened that somehow we were going to have to figure out a way to cut down that dead tree ourselves.

Enter Jim Huggins of Clark PUD.   (Our new favorite man in the whole world)

We met with him and his tree man this week.

One signature on a permit and it's all set up.

The best part is that they are going to fall all four trees because the dead one is in the back and a real pain to get to.

Here is a photo of the marked trees. The dead one is the left one in the back. Right next to it is one that is dying and leaning.


They will be falling all four of these trees whole next week. We will try to be there and get a video.

For the next... year? or so, we will be chopping up these trees. We plan to give some of the firewood to our neighbors as a gesture. We will be able to use some of it but suffice it to say, we will have quite a bit of firewood if any friends or family are interested.