Elementalbuilding

A few weeks ago we bought a display model kitchen from Arclinea– the italian cabinet-maker that the Italian government chose (and they could have chosen any Italian cabinet-maker right?) to do the kitchen for the Italian Embassy in Washington DC.

Arclinea prides itself on being green by Reducing Consumption of Raw Materials, utilizing Low Emission adhesives and seals, using Recycled Materials, and practicing Green Manufacturing to make a Superior, Durable Product.

The only downside of the product is the energy cost of shipping from Italy.  And though the unit has been in Chicago for approximately 4 years, it’s not really re-used.  That said it fit the space so well that it was too nice to pass up.

Aaron, Susan, and Charles from Arclinea have been completely generous with their time and help with figuring out how to make all the pre-existing pieces fit in our new space, as well as providing general design advice.

The future 1610 Kitchen

Work progresses on the inside and outside stairs.  The inside stairs are cut and welded on site.  The outside stairs are also cut, welded and bolted on-site, but will then be completely dismantled, sent off to be galvanized, then brought back and put back together.

Interior stairs facing south

Exterior Stairs facing west

Gregg Dunn- Project Manager

 

The source of concern on the initial site inspection

Dunn and Simpkin (specialized field consultant) on site - note multiple microlam beam and joist hangers

Next month we’ll go south of the border to ElementalBuildings- Melaque for a look at what’s developing south of Puerto Vallarta, Mexico.

Under the concrete we first placed 2 ” of  Polyiso Foil Faced Foam Board from AtlasRoofing.  The product will provide an R-value of 6.5 per inch under the slab.  It was also a bit hard to find, but we were steered in that direction after the August 1st article from Environmental Building News described the numerous downsides of Polystyrene Insulation which is still the dominant market product in below-grade applications.

Polyiso avoids many of the Polystyrene problems and the foil facing will help reflect the radiant heat from the radiant coils which were embedded in the concrete.

Since the concrete is going to be the finished floor we added ‘limestone’ color to lighten the look.

Polyiso Insulation as viewed from above

'Limestone' concrete comes down the chute

Vladamir (foreground), and Woytek, roll it out

A happy man

the calm after the storm

Woytek fesses up!

The new alarm system is working as evidenced by two calls in the last 36 hours.  The first was Tuesday morning at 3 am, which resulted in Chicago’s finest responding within 5 minutes, where a real attempted break-in was discovered.  Together, we did a walk through of the house (after I had slinked up to the house afraid I was going to surprise the potential burglars in the act), and discovered the break-in point.  They held a light on the door while secured it with two more 2 x 4s.

This morning, Woytek decided to enter the garage without turning off the alarm- presumably to test the system, which it seems was mildly amusing to John.

Ok- maybe not tragedy, but disappointment.  Apparently local burglars aren’t buying into the green movement yet, as some person (persons) broke in and tore out the copper plumbing that was already in the walls.  Not only do we have to replace the copper, and also redo the labor of sweating the pipe and re-installing it, but they also damaged some of the walls in the process.   They might have gotten a couple hundred bucks for the brand new copper as scrap.  Such a waste.  If they had only asked, I might have just given them some money.  Still – not a big setback and their situation is probably way worse than mine to need survive in this type of fashion.

Also- for like the 1st time since the building has gone up, I left my tool bag with drills, measuring tape, utility knife, bits and CAMERA- and they got that too.  So no new pictures for a while- I’ll post some old ones soon and then new ones once I replace the camera.