Archive for the ‘Delta H’ Category

The entire building will be slab on grade with the exception of the wine storage room which has a full basement that will house the geothermal and electrical equipment.   The wine storage room will hold up to 900 cases of wine and the floor system had to be designed to carry all the weight.  Our structural engineer, Ernie George, consulted old design manuals for ships carrying rum (he also calculated the weight of the wine) and figured on a floor load of 200 lbs per square foot.

Two 7″ x 14″ beams support 12″ I-joists on 16″ centers.   To the right Tim Van Wormer and Breck Tully, of T and J Construction, are finishing the floor and laying out the basement stairs.

In the background Ca-Gin Concrete gets ready to pour the footing for the bearing wall in the beer cooler.

The walls and roof of the wine storage room, beer cooler, stair tower, and service entrance will be built entirely of Climate-Block panels and structural beams made of engineered lumber.  Below Ryan Gallant, Ed Joanis, and Traves Ogilvie meet with architect Megan Moynihan and engineer Ernie George to go over the details.

This morning we are working from the top to the bottom and pretty much everywhere in between.  In the big picture below the first of the upper roof panels is being set into place while the concrete truck pours the basement slab.

Meanwhile, on the lower part of the roof we are running the electrical wires and wires for the security and alarm systems.  We don’t want any exposed wiremold or electrical conduit so all ceiling mounted fixtures are being wired from the outside. This requires careful planning and skilled hands. To the left Sam Joslin, of Century Electric, confers with Dave Vinick, of Home Electronics.  To the right Len Capizanno locates the overhead fixtures.

And, while all this is going on up above, Ca-Gin Concrete pours the basement slab.  The blue foam blocks mark the location of the footings for the steel columns that will support the floor and roof structure.  Once the floor hardens the foam will be removed. And after the columns are set the diamond shapes will be patched and the concrete will secure the base of the columns.

For a quick history of the project scroll down to go back through Older Entries.

The new store is located at 4625 Old Post Road (right next to the existing store).

We are beginning to install the Climate-Block panels.  These panels will serve as the curtain wall for the timber frame portion of the building and the entire structure for the beer cooler and wine storage room. Made of engineered lumber and expanded polystyrene (EPS) the wall panels have a true R-value of 30, with no thermal bridging.

Both the timber frame and the Climate-Block panels are cut on a computer numerically controlled (CNC) machine and delivered to our site ready to install.  This requires careful planning and thoughtful engineering and results in a tighter, more energy efficient building.

Special thanks to our structural engineer, Ernie George who has worked closely with Oyster Works, South County Post and Beam, and Delta H to integrate the different building systems and help us bring our design to life.

With a timber frame building and Expanded Polystyrene (EPS) walls we have to be thoughtful about how and where we are going to run the wires and mount the fixtures.  Our design includes dramatic lighting, fire and security alarms, audio and visual systems, a cash register and inventory system, wiring for the geothermal heating and cooling system, and the usual array of outlets and switches.

We called everyone together – Tom, Tom, Ed, Traves, Ryan from Delta H; Meggin from Bay State Audio; Evelyn from Evelyn Audet Lighting; Sam and Lenny from Century Electric – to discuss the challenges and develop a plan.

We decided to build two horizontal chases into all of the wall panels and run all of the wires for overhead and ceiling mounted alarms through the roof.   This will require close coordination as Delta H will leave off the roof sheathing until Century Electric and the alarm company run their wires on top of the foam insulation.

While we continue to work onsite – grading, compacting, and backfilling, we are also building components of the Charlestown Package Store offsite.  We are using Climate-Block, made by Delta H of North Kingston, RI, to cover the timberframe and for the entire structure of the wine storage room, beer cooler, and stair tower to the tasting loft.

Made of expanded polystyrene and engineered lumber the wall panels have an insulation value of R30 and the roof panels a value of R40.   And  there is no thermal bridging as the structural components do no extend from the outer surface of the panel to the inner surface.   The horizontal chase in the wall panel will allow us to run wiring for the electrical and alarm systems and similar chases will allow us to run the plumbing. The outer framing member of the roof panel extends 3/4″ past the foam and creates an air space under the roof sheathing to allow for ventilation and a cooler roof.

Traves Ogilvie of Delta H and Oysterworks' Megan Moynihan inspect a mock-up of the Climate-Block system

We have been working with Delta H for several months and are very excited to be pioneering the use of these highly energy efficient panels.   We will be posting an article about the Climate-Block and blogging about our experience using them.