Entry 23: Senator Burr's (Assistant) is in town

Hello blog faithful,

Today, I went to the site to help with a tour for the environmental aid to Senator Burr, one of the 2 United States Senators for North Carolina. We talked about green ways of living related to the Smart Home and how to possibly create legislation.

Also, visitors from BRAE, the company installing our rain water harvesting system came down to the site discuss with Bovis specifics on their system for the home.

In construction news, check out the Picasa account for new photos. I want to highlight a couple of things:

1. The green roof is completely installed. everything has been planted and it will take some time for it to grow in, but check out some photos of it in the archive.
2. The bio-retention garden retaining wall is being constructed in front of the home
3. The outside decks and front ramp has begun work
4. Bovis is planning the process for installing the exterior siding product, Cembonit. It should begin going up soon and I will post photos of the builders working around the house.

Until next time,
-Scott

Entry 22: Welcome to the Summer!

Hello Smart Home Community,

It's that time of the year...summer and I (Scott) will be living in Durham for the next 10 weeks posting weekly updates to the blog to keep you up in the latest information with construction of our beautiful home.

Last week was my first week and it began with a visit from our sponsor, The Home Depot. We gave a tour of the home and brainstormed ways to strengthen our relationship. I think a really great thing that you should be aware of is their launching of the campain: Eco Options. They're really trying to make home owners aware of ways to save the environment and some money by investing in "eco" rated products. We also met with representatives from Philips and the home controls company, Life-Ware. I'll give you updates on what that might pan out to be in the upcoming weeks.

If you're wondering what the house looks like at this very moment, check out the Picasa account with pics of today's site visit. Newest changes are an actual staircase in the secondary stairwell and dry wall is installed on one side of each wall so that insulation (donated by Icynene) can be filled in and before new walls go up.

Today, was my first OAC meeting of the summer and here are some of the schedule updates:

1. 1 side of the walls are up, spraying Icynene next week
2. Footing for the deck will begin soon
3. Siding installation of Cembonit will begin next week and should last roughly 3 weeks
4. Green roof installation is complete

I'll get back to you next week with photos of changes to the exterior of the house.
-Scott