Catskills PGH House : An Update + Questions

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It&#;s been awhile and I&#;m posting with some updates and questions on my PGH build in the Catskills.

It has been almost two years now, slow but steady, and we&#;re finally closing in in on rough-in for plumbing, electrical and minisplit linesets, and am working on FFE now (Fixtures, Furniture, Equipment)  I have a few questions to run by the community, see below, along with notes on latest house. Attached: Building envelope PDF, photos of latest house exterior, interior design layout from Sketchup (doing my best architect impression).

HOUSE INFO

* sq feet. Climate zone 6. Shooting for PGH. Floor: R30, Walls R38, Roof R-60, Anderson 400 Casement Windows, Dual pane Low E4 glass, and one Anderson sliding door. Two new Thermatru doors for two entrances.  

* House is 2X6 walls, with added 2X4 interior wall for service cavity and added R value. Siga Majrex directional, variable, vapor control layer for air seal and vapor movement if needed (didn&#;t fully calculate condensation point).

* Rockwool insulation in walls, blown cellulose in ceiling, closed cell spray foam in floor joists. Lunos ventilation system from 475. New minisplits for heat / cool, replacing removed oil furnace baseboard. New stuv wood stove with makeup air.

* Pier and beam with dirt crawl space for about 75% of house. Newer addition has a mini foundation about 6&#; down, also has mini foundation that is now clear (used to hold oil furnace and compression tank)

QUESTIONS

* There was great advice earlier from community on alternative to spray foam in floor joists, but but in practice pricing these options were too costly, as nobody wanted to crawl under there that long, making netted or plywood holding zones between floor joists to get cellulose or rock wool in there, also deal with the two poured mini basements. Same with trying to insulate the crawls space to include it as conditioned space, with two bilco doors.

&#;&#;* I have a quote for $9,600.00 to use Huntsman High Lift HFO Closed Cell Spray Foam at 4&#; for R30. It&#;s plastic, but here&#;s the eco pitch, &#;this product uses recycled plastic materials, rapidly renewable soy oils, and the blowing agent has zero ozone depleting potential.&#; No idea where they get this recycled plastic yet, need to ask. Question: Thoughts / experience with the product itself, in terms of VOCs, carbon footprint, etc? I know it&#;s not great, but would like to put best foot forward considering the situation.

* There will be some thermal bridging via exposed remainder of floor joists into cold crawl space.  So I know the R value will be reduced, but am hesitant to also cover exposed remainder of joist with foam, as I&#;d like to see how things go with water condensation, etc. Builder and insulator agreed, also said it&#;s cheaper initial spend. There was suggestion for dehumidifier in crawl space, venting the PVC skirting, no need for vapor retarder along floor for now. They said any water coming up from soil or moving under house should evaporate, get grabbed by dehumidifier, should not condensate. Does this seem like enough, along with crawling under there after a few months or year to see if there&#;s any mold or rot going on, take it from there? Can do without a moisture barrier for now on top of soil in crawlspace? &#;&#;

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* Floors and water damage concern. Leaning towards hardwood floors of some kind, wide plank panel style, light color, ie oak or something. Remote chance of cork but may not have time to figure that option. I&#;m paranoid about potential water damage to wood floor or floor joists underneath kitchen, bathrooms and stacked washer / dryer in . A junior architect from NYC who is helping with elevations for plumbing suggested waterproofing above subfloor, below wood flooring in these areas, ie some kind of membrane she&#;ll tell me about soon. I guess they&#;ve done it for renovations in city. It seems doable, except kitchen is tough, because it&#;s open format, where it would need to terminate in middle of wood floor, ie no wall. Also, it seems a bit iffy, like maybe all this does is make a shower pan for the water collecting under the wood floor and increase warp / rot / mold potentail. The spray foam insulator said closed cell spray foam is air tight but water still goes through it eventually, so accumulated water from a leak, etc, should drip down and into crawl space (in worst case, ie am not home and leak is occurring). Perhaps it&#;s better to just do the flooring and spray foam, hope for the best, and go with insulator&#;s input? Reason for paranoia: previous owner had pipes burst in winter, caused mold, and I had to pay to remediate as part of remodel cost.

* Blower door test. Not going for certified anything, but want to do blower door test to get air sealing best it can be. When is best time to do this? I&#;m guessing it&#;s after we do this rough in and do closed cell in floor joists, so everything is still exposed and can be tweaked / improved with air seal? Any advice, input, things to consider for this stage?

* Kitchen. I cannot find anyone to do plywood boxes with nice wood fronts for less than $15K, it&#;s crazy. Meanwhile, I can get an Ikea kitchen for about $6K that is not great environmentally, but a big saver, and would allow budget for a quartz waterfall on island, also counter and backsplash, to make for a decent end design + cost. If anyone has thoughts on alternatives before putting in Ikea order, please let me know. Am meanwhile going doing custom millwork bathroom vanities, wood shelves and desk using oak and maple from the property to try and make up for it. Also using kiln dried wood from site to make dining and coffee table, simple cuts off slab cut with prefab legs.

SIDE NOTE

If anyone wants to learn about DIY yakisugi (shou sugi ban, but fyi, that&#;s not the correct term), happy to share info / tips, just let me know.  I did it with propane and flame thrower. Yes, it&#;s not the traditional way, also there is a carbon toll, but total fuel used was low and I often had to truly do it myself, in middle of nowhere, aka I can&#;t tie three long ass heavy boards together with twine, burn center like a chimney, then put it out safely. Also, a tip: I used Osmo one coat black stain on soffits, because they were already mounted on house&#;this stain is plant-based, expensive, but great, truly one coat (on hemlock at least). And very close colorwise, almost matches the charred wood cladding.

THANKS!

For those who responded to my earlier posts, THANK YOU!! It helped so much. Shout out especially to Michael Maines, PGH posse, the book, BS and Beer podcast for lots of learning early on. For anyone new who didn&#;t see earlier posts, here are links fyi:

https://www.greenbuildingadvisor.com/question/input-on-building-envelope-design-for-pgh-in-castkills-ny

https://www.greenbuildingadvisor.com/question/pgh-building-envelope-design-help-round-2

https://www.greenbuildingadvisor.com/question/plywood-baffles-wind-dams

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