Insulation and Drywall

The rain continues, practically unabated, but we are still making progress! After a brief hiatus for Christmas which we spent drying out on the Kona side of the island, we returned to begin the interior painting. Prior to that, we had put up some insulation in the ceiling and a couple of interior walls. For the ceiling we used R-19 (6") kraft-faced rolls to reduce heat and noise from the metal roof; and for the walls, we used R-12 (3.5") primarily to reduce noise transmission between rooms. I would have preferred to use insulation without the kraft paper (less chance for mold and mildew), but apparently, this stuff is standard on the B.I., and plain fiberglass batts are hard to find.


Here's the living room showing the insulation stapled to the ceiling joists and the wall studs. We decided not to insulate the exterior walls because it doesn't get as hot up here at 1,900' elevation, and the wide roof overhang and the lanai both reduce the sun's impact on the walls. Time will tell if that was a good choice.

This is Mason and Francois starting to hang the drywall. These guys look small, but they were running around carrying 4' x 12' sheets of gyprock and lifting them up with no assistance. Very often, one crew does the hanging and another does the taping and seamfilling. Even our little house took 58 sheets of gyprock to do the walls and ceiling.



Rooms are taking shape, and it's starting to look like a house inside! It took them only 2.5 days to finish hanging the drywall including attaching the bull-nose molding on windows, doors, and corners.

Here's a shot after the taping and seamfilling were done. Unfortunately, I didn't get a picture of Eddie and his son at work, but their card is posted under the "Recommendations" post. They also sprayed on a light "orange-peel" texture. Because of the rain and low nighttime temperatures, we had a 1,500-watt electric heater going to speed the drying process. Even then, it was pretty slow.

And here's Katie rolling on the primer coat!

Recommendations

We feel that the sincerest form of praise is to recommend someone to your friends. So in this post, we will provide the business cards of those people who we have worked with on this project, and who have been helpful, honest, diligent, friendly and professional...and who will return your phone calls!!
This first one is Marlon's card. He handled all the foundation and framing work, and has been a valued advisor and friend on all aspects of construction.

Gutters & Catchment

This is Week 11, and we are pretty much on schedule. The weather continues to be rain, rain, and more rain, but at least we are working under cover! We hear this is an unusually wet December...something to do with El Nino or La Nina. We have had at least 14 inches so far!

Last week we had the gutters and catchment fill system installed, and none too soon because we were beginning to get erosion and gullying from all the water falling off the roof.

These guys are from Hawaii Island Rain Gutters. We decided to go with continuous metal gutters rather than the PVC ones. Some folks try to do the PVC themselves, but my experience has been that they always leak. Here is the machine that forms the gutter from rolls of coated aluminum...you can choose from several colors.

In this photo you can see how one continuous length is formed and cut...these are almost 40 feet long.
The corners are attached, and then the lengths are raised.


We designed the catchment system to have two downspouts which feed into the horizontal 3-inch PVC pipe. We wanted to keep everything up high to avoid having stagnant water in the feed pipe.

This shows the fill pipe going to a U-shaped loop which then goes over the tank edge. The vertical pipe and the pipe on the ground are the "first-flush" system that diverts about ten gallons of potentially dirty water before clean water starts flowing into the tank. Check out the free booklet "Rainwater Catchment Systems for Hawaii" available online from http://www.ctahr.hawaii.edu/ for more details.

This is water flowing out of the overflow pipe about three days after the gutters and catchment were installed. That's how long it took to collect 5,000 gallons (20,000 litres) with all the rain we have had! Our cup runneth over!

Update

Lest you think that we have been overrun by the lava or washed away by the recent flash floods, I thought it best to post an update! The weather has been "unusual" to quote the Tribune Herald... a cold front passed through the Islands bringing high winds and torrential rains. We battened down the hatches and rode it out in our RV, but we did have several trees come down, one too close to the power lines. We recorded almost eight inches of rain over 72 hours...and witnessed spectacular lightning one night...but no other damage. The RV sprung a leak in the bow section, and we had to remove all our books and the mattress in the loft area...but I think I have it caulked now.

During the past week, Marlon has been packing up his tools and equipment...it feels very strange not having him arrive every morning as he has for the past two months. It's a little like having family move away since he has been with us since Day 1. But he still has some odds and ends to complete, and he usually calls at least once a day to see how we are doing. He continues to provide help and advice on future work, although technically his work is done.

We have passed both our plumbing and electrical inspections and are awaiting the framing inspection tomorrow. Once that is done, we can start on the insulation and drywall. We also hope to have the rain gutters and catchment fill-pipe finished this week.

In the meantime, we have been cleaning up around the site and planting some citrus trees and flowering shrubs that have been patiently waiting in the wings for about a month. I've had the chainsaw going trying to clean up some of the carnage from the original ripping of the site, and Katie has been tending her veggies and doing some painting. We've had two sunny days without any significant rain, so we are slowly drying out.



I will keep you up-to-date as our project continues to progress. Here's a photo of the crew plus Katie during our "topping-off" celebration after the roof was completed seveal weeks ago! From left in back: Kalani, Marlon, Aiven; front row: Dayson, Katie, and Stanton.