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00:01The forest fire had come through Patrick's neighborhood.
00:03The house was burned up in the fire.
00:09I really wanted to have the A's up in the first year.
00:12My whole summer is contingent on these beams arriving.
00:16I get an email, unfortunately your order can't be delivered.
00:19And Marty says, I can do better.
00:22And we're off to the race.
00:27I'm Todd Talbot, and after ten seasons of Love at Her List at Vancouver, my wife Rebecca
00:31and I invite you to join us on our building journey.
00:35We are building a net zero passive house on the shores of Okanagan Lake in beautiful British
00:39Columbia.
00:40A resilient, energy efficient, and architecturally stunning house.
00:44And even though this story doesn't end the way we planned it, it was an adventure.
00:57I know I'm not going to be.
00:58Go Todd.
00:59I'm going.
01:00No, say the words.
01:01Synonym, cinnamon, c-n-n-m-e.
01:03Oh so slow.
01:04Too slow.
01:05Faster.
01:06Synonym, cinnamon, cinnamon, cinnamon.
01:09Last year I had this idea, the family would have kind of a summer vacation while I was working,
01:13and then we would kind of get together at the end of the night.
01:15Wait!
01:16Synonym, cinnamon, c-n-n-m-e.
01:17Oh nice!
01:18Nice!
01:19but I think it's safe to say it was a disaster it wasn't a great situation to
01:27have Rebecca and the kids up here there was really nothing for them to do things
01:31went wrong but I'm not sure we saw a great alternative we were excited about
01:38the project and the end result we were willing to kind of go through that we
01:43knew it would end this wasn't gonna be forever this situation we get back to
01:47normal when we were done I would flip-flop between thinking I need to not
01:54bother him because he's got such a heavy load on his shoulders and then I'd flop
01:59to the other side and think he's up here every night with the campfire and he's
02:04building his passion project and gets to hold on to his hammer and bang things and
02:11I'm at home slog 24 7 like no break let's define bang things shall we banging things with his hammer
02:21we planned a little birthday for Todd we went out on the boat had like a little picnic lunch out there
02:30just floating on the water and gave Todd his gifts whoa what is this we wrapped it up in the kids
02:36decorated it with all drawings of stuff happening at the lake we got a sign that
02:44says a frame established 2019 how cool is that it's cool right it's good yeah it was nice but it was
02:56really hard to manage by myself at home it's not ideal anytime you're apart and in a relationship it's
03:03it's it's not it's not great but it's good in a way because I can just be focused and I can get up
03:10early in the morning and start working and there's no distractions right now the goal is simple step one
03:17is to get this place that the water doesn't come through we've got dry space it's protected from sun and
03:22rain then I can think about the next step which is insulation and then roof we finally got the a
03:36trusses up so everything's locked in place so we walk through the door here this is the main floor
03:42living space which is much bigger than I thought it was going to be we've got the staircase right down
03:48the center basically where the scaffolding is and then over here between this glue lamp and the back
03:56wall is the main bathroom and then we've got a pantry right here between this bay and then the next two
04:04bays we have my tool storage which is a bit weird inside house just kidding this is gonna be the kitchen so
04:12we're gonna have counters that run right along here with a sink this is all windows you can look out at
04:18the water and then we've got dining area here is just a big open space you can see these beams above
04:24me these are at 11 feet these column ties they form the floor of the primary bedroom all of the bolts
04:32are tightened on 300 how many bolts are there 332 332 bolts holding this together that's just in the base so
04:42that's all secured tightened down everything is plum and ready for our roof assembly with passive
04:48hosts we have a real simple saying it's not rocket science it is building science and that you know
04:54that can be a bit overpowering for people I take my hat off to anyone who project manages a build of any
05:02size party yeah because juggling all of these things give me 45 and three quarters to the short 35 and a
05:11half to the short you're doing mental gymnastics yeah with spicy fries too I need to get the roof on
05:29before the end of August so I got about six weeks is it possible I think it's possible I wake up every
05:37morning with enthusiasm my schedule is going to work and then at the end of every day I'm slightly
05:43discouraged because you never quite get as far as you want to know people say well why do you set goals
05:51like that if you don't then you'll just be discouraged all the time you kind of have to throw it out there
05:58and be like this is where we're gonna get to and if we don't get there then fine recalibrate reboot and go
06:07at it again the next day the first step of the roof was actually putting on the siding
06:17the idea was to build our way up with this TNG okay so we're gonna do one right here yeah we want
06:26to toenail it slightly 15 degrees yep now these are not your everyday screws don't mind that's out
06:36these are seven and a quarter inch assy screws and the structural engineer has required us to put three
06:44in every board at every beam we have to use an extremely strong grill the kick we drill through
06:54the TNG into the glue lamp beam on the other side you got a lot of screws three thousand dollars worth
07:00three thousand dollars worth and you don't even see them and it was meticulous because this was going
07:10to be seen from the other side this is what you're gonna see at the end of the day these are 2x8 tongue
07:16and groove boards that span our seven foot bays between our glue lamps so every section here is at
07:23seven feet they're flush their butt on the outside it's all been pre-stained to match our glue lamp the
07:30color was beautiful it was like the camera some type of pickle color it wasn't green but it was it was
07:36white pickle or snowy white snow pickle or something like that a camera what it's called pickled white
07:43pickle white yes pickled white that's what it was called what a great name and a clear coat on top
07:48of that just to make sure that we don't get sun damage or while we're building any rain damage or
07:54water damage I mean we screwed in thousands of screws we are almost at the main floor we are almost
08:00the main floor and little details people might not think about you want the screw head to bite into
08:06the wood just a little bit oh extra bite because we were gonna put sheeting on the outside so that
08:12screw head couldn't be proud of the wood at all I actually have some future risk damage from that
08:20we eventually climb our way up both sides of the a and we get all the TNG on my structural engineer
08:33wanted another layer and he spec'd five-eighths of an inch plywood so we needed to get four by eight
08:39sheets of plywood consistently across the face of the roof and stagger the seams it was impossible for
08:46us to bring those sheets up from the bottom we needed to actually bring them down from the top
08:52I'm not sure I had really considered how we were going to attack the roof it was going to be very
09:00difficult to be up there and be safe you know 80 to 100 feet down to the lake I mean I thought about
09:07scaffolding but it's not like you build scaffolding on a 65 degree angle maybe bringing a lift down to
09:13the beach but there was just no great way of doing this we really had to go back to a rudimentary way
09:20of of being up on that roof consistently being able to get up and down easily get material up and down
09:28and be safe while we were doing it fortunately enough my wife and I used to be rock climbers so
09:36I said if we get some anchors on top for the beam there you know we can rope ourselves in it'd be very
09:40safe Peter trained me we checked each other's gear rope is through our anchor at the top yeah that's
09:47good I check his tie off I check his blade and make sure it's looped through the blade properly
09:52then I check his auto block is on tight around your waist yeah you are good and then he would
09:56basically do the same for me auto block is on and we know that we're good to go
10:00I'll be honest I mean he launched himself out there on the roof with no fear
10:07so one guy would be up top and guy be at the bottom the guy on the bottom had their feet against
10:13the side of the first sheet that was put in so that when you slide the next sheet in it would
10:17actually sit on that little 5 8 inch of a lip of the sheet below so it wouldn't fall over I mean the
10:23first time that I went up to the peak and had the harness on and let my weight drop into the harness
10:32while looking back down to the lake there's a moment where you're kind of like show no fear here we go
10:43okay the first few times it definitely got my heart racing we were 45 feet up in the air so it was
10:54actually quite challenging if one of those there fell down you tried to decapitate somebody but there was no
10:58other option and Peter was doing it so I was like okay I'm gonna do this so after the plywood is on
11:18the next stage is getting that continuous air barrier on we're using ad hero which is a high
11:22performance peel and stick product okay then this side wrap back around it's breathable both ways but
11:28waterproof one way so if it rains on it you don't have to worry about it okay that'll work in order
11:32not to compromise our air barrier any screw or any nail that goes through it needed to seal and be
11:38airtight as heroes an exterior membrane that's extremely watertight airtight and vapor permeable
11:44it kind of works like a giant piece of tape it's fully adhered so there's an adhesive across the
11:50entire backing of it a lot of house wraps are actually little holes in the membrane and that's how
11:56moisture escapes this one has no holes so it stays airtight and watertight even with fasteners going
12:02through once you push down on that adhesive it's really not going anywhere then it's gone through
12:09some simulated age testing to show that will last for at least the next hundred years so we're really
12:14building to last through that timeline we would roll out a 12-foot piece we would cut it roll it back up
12:22and then tie ourselves into the ropes then we would rappel down the side one of us would hold the roll
12:33the other one would stick the beginning piece on and then I had to stare at Todd's ass because it was
12:42basically above me yes and then we peel the backing off this stuff roll it out a few feet and then with
12:49these giant scrapers scrape it down to make sure it adheres on to the plywood it's not very advanced
12:56you just scrape it with the weight of your body activating the glue can you reach up there yes if you
13:04don't there can be performance issues with the air barrier that you're spending so much time and money
13:10paying attention to so we just walk our way up the building day after day yeah it was quite the
13:18process the more I did it the more confidence I got in doing it in fact it was kind of cool I mean
13:29what an experience up there dangling in a harness off a roof like this hanging out with a buddy rolling out
13:37blue peel and stick and ending up with the biggest smurf hut in the world
13:51the next stage was the insulation we had a huge delivery from rock wall whoo gray wall of insulation
14:00is moving from the top to the bottom so we had to put in the insulation and make sure that that was
14:06all prepped cross strapped and ready for roofing yeah that's good but I also was looking way down the
14:14line realizing that I didn't have anyone to do the roof I'd reached out to somebody at the beginning of
14:22the process and they had said yes then something happened with their business they weren't able to
14:28do it they bailed I found somebody else they came in they were excited about it or at least they looked
14:36like they were excited about it and somehow they bailed this started to become a little bit of a pattern
14:42I'm not sure if it was that people were busy or they were intimidated by the project so it's late August
14:49and I always wanted to finish September ish kids are going back to school etc so I wanted to be home
14:56but I just kept running into roadblock after roadblock as you can see we got a wall of insulation behind me
15:06there's insulation all over the site all the bad insulation for the roof assembly and then also
15:11our four inch continuous cover boards the same time we were also framing up the kids bedroom this
15:22north wing hoping to have this whole thing done by the end of tomorrow the square footage is more
15:28than enough and normally we wouldn't have needed to do the extension however it's not as much as
15:34you think when you look at the structure and part of that is because of the a you start losing space as
15:39you go up and there was no room for a second or a third bedroom there's a really only room for one
15:45bedroom upstairs in the a-frame so we needed to figure out a spot for kids to sleep or guests or
15:51whatever so we're basically all framed up we got the roof on it's all sheeted it's all ready to go
15:57that was important because then we can actually stand on top of there and do our insulation and roof
16:03buildup on the a-frame this is really the cornerstone of our assembly as it relates to high performance
16:12passive house we'd worked with Rockwool to design a system that would deliver the highest level of
16:21insulation possible stone wool is a critical component in high-performance construction
16:27and that's true for thermal performance it's also true for fire Rockwool means stone wool we take wool
16:35from stones by melting it and spinning fibers we do what you do when you're making cotton candy you know
16:41melt something spin fibers and then collect them to make thicker or thinner types of materials out of it
16:48it's non-combustible retains its shape and it doesn't shrink away in the case of high heat or
16:54high radiation we put on the TGI we space them two feet on center then we fill that with two bats
17:03so 12 inches of Rockwool comfort bat so we've got this full cavity of bat insulation then our next level
17:13was four inches of comfort board I know some people are probably going to fall asleep at this point
17:18but this is important this gave us our continuous insulation so this stopped any thermal bridging
17:25what is thermal bridging it's really a simple process where the structure from inside the house
17:30extends to outside of the house and that acts like a highway to allow heat to travel in or heat to travel
17:37out you want to make sure that the wall of the building is thermally broken so that those structures
17:44don't meet that there's insulation between the two and that makes your house that much more comfortable
17:51so we're going to attach this comfort board with a 2x4 along the TGI we're going to screw this in
17:57all the way through to here so that holds this whole thing tight to the wall
18:03and then we cross strap with two by fours all the way up and that creates our ventilation for our roof
18:09and it also creates the connection point for our standing seam metal
18:16that's a lot and if you can imagine how tricky it is right here
18:20I mean we have got a lot of roof to go
18:40you can see behind me this is the front of the little a where the living room is
18:44and we've essentially completed our insulation build up and our cross strapping I like this
18:49four foot overhang to me those little details make it look super cool that part won't be insulated
18:55because it's on the outside of the envelope and then we'll put a nice facial board on the outside
19:00and then the metal roof will wrap around the front that is if we can find a roofer
19:07the roofer was supposed to be here on monday and they jammed which is in what four days from now
19:13three days from now so i'm back to the drawing board with no roofer
19:19it's still sunny out but i don't know i i don't know what we're gonna do
19:26we had a number of roofers come i don't know if they were intimidated
19:29once they got to the site and they looked at it and they thought
19:33this isn't for me or whatever the situation was but no one was willing to help us out
19:38we had people say yes and then once they left i never heard from them again so it was this weird
19:45scenario i i called basically everyone who was a top roofer in the valley
19:58so i've gotten referrals from different people that i know for other roofers i've called four other
20:17guys one who seemed like the perfect fit he comes out today and he is absolutely slammed with jobs that
20:26he's committed to he said i really want to do this but i just can't in the timeline that you need it
20:32but with the insulation on we can't have rainstorm after rainstorm we have to get the roof on quite
20:38quickly it's frustrating you know you're trying to like navigate all these things coming at you
20:45and things aren't kind of panning out the way you want them to
20:48i mean there's a few things in a house you need a roof is one of them oh yo yo
21:01i want it done before the rain comes i don't want it done before the windows come beginning of october
21:06and that urgency really is only with me because no one else feels the urgency of it
21:11when people come they care they they work but they're not
21:14they don't have that in the back of their mind plus school's starting in september i'm gonna have
21:19to be there it's a cool result it's a painful process to get there unfortunately
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