LEED Home in Construction Update

I finally got around to posting a bunch more pictures from construction progress at our SuperGreen duplex project in Takhini North.

Here is a link to the photo album (go to Day 23 for the new photos):




We got our project resisted as a LEED Canada for Homes project at the end of last month, so it is exciting to be the Yukon's first LEED Home in construction.



Construction is progressing, albeit slower than planned. The team is taking time to make sure the details are done right and so some of these elements are take us a bit longer. This includes using the ICF for the foundation and the I-joist floor system. We originally planned to use some specialty ICF blocks to integrate the floor system, but these blocks never arrived, which caused us to have to re-design the floor connections. We ended up switching to using LVL headers and joist hangers for everything, but this really slowed the work down (first waiting for the blocks, then a bunch of labour for installing all the hanger hardware). The second big factor I see that is slowing the project is we have a small framing crew - basically one lead carpenter and two assistant carpenters.

We are now on the second floor and things are going much faster. We have an concrete party wall between the two units, and the ICF for that went much faster. Similarly, the second floor went on much faster.

A Real Conan Run

Last weekend's US Long Orienteering Championships was the perfect Conan Run.

From 2010 Orienteering Trip

What's a Conan Run?

It's a term I use for a long, epic run that crosses vast distances. The term comes from my favorite clip in the movie Conan the Barbarian (fast forward to about 1 min in this clip) - it's a short segment where Conan and his buddy Subota, King of Thieves decided to go somewhere, and then there are a series of shots of them running - running through mountains, running across plains, running through deserts, day and night. It looks like they are running across the continent: wherever they go, they are running.


View Larger Map



Running Sunday's race at Fishtrap, WA was exactly like what I envisioned Conan to be doing - running on and on, across open grasslands, scorching heat, crossing vast distances, and always running. The race distance was 16km and it took me around 2hr18min - but the scenery was epic and the whole time I felt like Conan; well, minus the broad sword and I wasn't wearing a pile of furs....