Shiny happy hillside

     It's been two weeks since I’ve written anything. That should give you an idea of how the progress has slowed this past month. The wind chill has been brutal, and I’ve been lucky to get a few hours of work in a day. Plus, 20 inches of snow didn’t help either. But for the last four or five days, the weather has warmed a bit, the wind has died down, and(I am happy to report) progress has been made.
     I slowly have been finishing the insulation and strapping on the walls, and just completed the west side yesterday. The north and south sides are done, so that just leaves half of the east side, and our building will be completely insulated. The insulation is a 2-inch rigid foam with reflective foil on each side. So we effectively have a silver house right now. Thus, a shiny happy hillside, albeit one that is not microwave safe.
     We have made a major strategy shift in our plan of attack. Realizing that the roof (specifically the north side, which doesn’t see any sun) will not be snow and ice free until possibly April, we have moved on to installing windows. A benefit of having the windows in, and then the doors, is that the building will finally be closed in, and then interior work can begin.
     Installing windows is quite satisfying. Anne took Tuesday off from work, to take advantage of a warm day, and we started the process. I had spent the day before getting all of the strapping and insulation in order, so we theoretically could just pop the window in the hole and nail it in place. Ah, but we fooloishly forgot that the hillside is in some sort of alternate universe and the rules that govern the known world do not apply. Whenever something, theoretically, should be simple and easy, alas, it is not. But even with minor setbacks, we still managed to get six windows installed.
     The process of installing windows goes like this: one person inside the house, one outside. The person outside grabs the window, and lifts it into place, putting it into the hole. Usually it fits. If all is well, it fits perfectly, and no more work needs to be done besides nailing it in place. The problem arises in the strapping on the outside of the building. More specifically, the problem lies in the lack of mention anywhere in the instruction book on the importance of having the strapping line up exactly with the framing, creating an accurate ‘rough opening’ that mimics the one you so carefully created while you were framing the building. If the strapping rough opening is too wide, you have to remove it, cut it to size, nail it back up and then try again. Once the opening is correct, you run a bead of caulk all around the outside of the strapping, and put the window into the hole for the final time. The person inside then holds it in place and centers it in the hole. Then you make some adjustments to get it plumb and level, shim it if needs be, and then nail it in place. The final touch is to tape along the outside of the nailing fins, as a first line of defense against water infiltration.
     Some of that might not have made sense, but hopefully the pictures will make it a bit clearer. All in all, if you didn’t have to adjust the rough opening, the whole process would be pretty straightforward, which is why the lack of clarity in the instructions is frustrating. One paragraph would have saved us hours of work and moved this process forward much more smoothly. But now we know, and as a wise cartoon soldier once told me, knowing is half the battle.