33) Between Snow and Summer
As the snow melts, a roofing crew came in to lay the waterproof membrane for the green roof:
Installation of the two Tesla batteries was scheduled for May 17th, but it didn't happen. Cancelled! Something about 'production delays'. Fortunately they did arrive to install the one ordered for the main house.
Here's Graham next to 13.5 kilowatts of sheer power. What's cool about this unit is that it costs just $15 a month. Green Mountain Power, Vermont's electric utility, installs the battery and you agree to allow them to draw electricity from it when the state needs excess energy, typically in the summer months when demand is at it's highest. Perfect for us since we really need back-up power in the winter months.
Red cedar ready for the hot tub room:
The insulation company came in early May to finish off the hot tub room:
Work continued on the two spring water storage tanks, though we can't get wood chips in to cover them until the the driveway's completed. The vertical black pipe is an air pipe to allow the water to flow freely into the hot tub when needed:
Two pics of the two stairwell 'solstice windows' that allow sunlight to stream from the upper southern window wall through the house to fall on the northern wall of the utility room. December 21st will be a day of special significance in SunCottage lore.
Sort of like this from 3200 BC in Newgrange, Ireland:
Sunny warm weather allowed Glenn and Dale to hit the outside painting hard:
Last week we were struggling with how to manufacture the aluminum sun louvers that were in the plan to shield the south-facing windows from the hot summer sun. One of the real hazards of building a house that takes full advantage of the winter sun is that in summer you can get extreme overheating.
As you can see in the architect's plan below, these louvers were designed to extend about 5 feet out from building. On May 21st we decided to forego them. We noticed that, though the house was a cool 68°, the sun was barely entering the house, falling on the white windows sills and not the black tile floors. Instead of being 5 feet wide, it seemed that they would only need to be 18 inches in width. In the next month, as the sun rises higher in the sky, it will hardly enter the house at all. Besides saving big bucks, we feel that the cottage will look better without them. There is still some danger of overheating in August, but we're hoping that internal shades will solve the problem for that one hot month a year.
Our new European doors arrived. We love their modern unique look:
The SunCar finally realized its true name. Here it is charging up from the sun. 30 miles of free solar power transportation!
And last but not least, the fam tries out the hot tub in all its swirling glory:
