Indoor Air Quality during construction

Managing indoor air quality (IAQ) systematically during construction is becoming more and more common as contractors gain more experience with LEED. It benefits the health of everyone who works on the site, not just the eventual occupants of the building. Fot this project, Loven Constructiion and CDE have been doing a tremendous job keeping the site super clean following the IAQ Management Plan.

The plan is based in part on SMACNA guidelines that include:

• HVAC Protection: Make sure that dust and construction debris do not accumulate in HVAC ducts. Strategies include wrapping HVAC ducts in plastic and storing ductwork in dust free areas before installing.

Source Control: Address the sources of construction pollution and looking for ways to reduce them. Strategies include using low-VOC materials, paints, coatings, adhesives, sealants); exhausting gas-fueled construction equipment directly to the outside; and storing VOC-containing materials away from absorptive materials.

• Pathway Interruption: Use negative pressure and or temporary hanging plastic to contain areas that may generate construction dust, for example, wood-cutting and drywall-cutting areas.

Housekeeping: Keep a clean work site by sweeping, wet mopping and using low-VOC cleaners. This construction site has been exceptionally clean! Kudos to the Loven/CDE team!!!

Check out this clean site!!!! Great job everyone!

 

 

 The floors are covered, door frames protected, the place is broom clean, the low VOC paint doesn't smell. This makes working conditions better for the construction crew and will generate a better working environment for the NPS staff.

Exterior

Some recent exterior shots. Thanks to Chuck Ruscher for the photographs!

 

Day Lighting

The tubular skylights will bring tons of natural light inside the SRM. Day light creates a nice indoor environment and better work conditions compared to artificial lighting!

The tubular skylights doing their job during overcast sky conditions and the diffusers have not been installed yet! We anticipate that no artificial lighting should be required during regular working hours.

How about all that natural light! We can't wait to see the impact of the light shelves on the south windows.

Attic Insulation

One of the positives about spray foam is that the insulation itself is air resistant. The gas or air which does the majority of actual insulating is trapped in bubbles inside the plastic foam matrix and can’t be washed out by air flow.  As the influence of air leakage on a building's energy consumption is recognized, the SRM building is designed to try to get the building as “air-tight” as possible. Installing spray foams where air is leaking through the building envelope can reduce that flow rate.

The design of the SRM building turned to a hybrid insulation systems often referred to as flash and batt insulation. To fill the empty roof assembly cavity, a  flash coat of closed cell foam was applied  to the interior side of  the roof to a thickness of 3 inches, and  then a low density  batt was installed to fill in the space before the edge of the truss members. The result is the best of both worlds –  high R-value of the fiberglass batt combined with the air tightening effects of spray foam!

The flash coat of foam is installed first.

Batt insulation is applied over the foam.

Insulation

One of the key features of the building is it's exterior wall framing and super-insulation.

Using an exterior double wall, the design provides a complete perimeter thermal brake by leaving an air gap between the interior and exterior studs. This air gap will later be filled with insulation.

 If you pay close attention to this picture, you will see that there are two sets of studs, headers and runners! It might seem like overkill but the whole idea is to have an air-tight super insulated building envelope.

Can you imagine walls full of newspaper? For this project we are using  blown in wet cellulose insulation. It's made of recycled newspaper! How cool is that? Basically paper pulp! This makes blown in wet cellulose insulation a wonderful Green product.

The cellulose is blown in wet in the cavities of the walls under pressure to make the product stick to the walls and fill in the studs of the frame. When the insulation dries it stays in place and is very dense. Blown in wet cellulose insulation is up to 25% more dense than fiberglass insulation. It also fills in voids that fiberglass is not very good at doing such as around light switches and corners. It also contrubues to keeping the wall air-tight.  This saves energy on heating and cooling over the typical fiberglass insulation. 

This image shows how the air space between the exterior sheathing of the wall and the space between the two studs, is filled with high density wet cellulose.

Once the first layer of wet insulation is installed and is dry, a mesh is placed on the wall and a second layer of hard pack loose celluluse fills in the remainding wall cavity.

There is also little to no waste. Whatever falls on the floor, the installer can place back into the blower!!!

With this wall assembly, the building will be able to achieve an R-value of 49 on its exterior walls! The super-insulated windows combined with  the doors and roof insulation will keep the interior nicely insulated and with low energy usage for cooling and heating. The USGBC has anticipated that the project will obtain 19 points on its energy consuption credit. That is simply awesome!

August Update

It's been while since we last updated the blog. So here's a quick update!

DCM visited the site during the last week of August to witness the progress of the work first hand. We were really impressed with the contractor's disciplined crew and the cleanliness and order of the site. Kudos to our friends at Loven Construction and CDE! 

The SRM building is definitely shaping up.