http://www.60bragghill.com/index.php en barney@blendedmedia.net Copyright 2012 2012-01-26T00:22:31+00:00 http://www.60bragghill.com/index.php/site/green-technologies-in-action/ http://www.60bragghill.com/index.php/site/green-technologies-in-action/#When:00:22:31Z This is a 360 degree view of one of the mechanical rooms at 60 Bragg Hill.  This room contains the solar panel inverters, the geothermal water-to-water heat pumps, most of the radiant floor manifolds, our well water system, domestic hot water and wireless Lutron lighting system.  This is the hub of most of the green technologies that powers the home.  The room was designed and built by Frank Ent, Timothy Off, Mark Thompson, Tad Radzinski, Pusey Electric, and dozens of other highly trained professionals.  Does it work?  You bet. No, it’s not a submarine.  Most of the pipes represent a majority of the 11 radiant heat zones in the house, most of which are remotely monitored here in this room.  The lighting, by the way is all LED. Panorama Photos, Green Technologies 2012-01-26T00:22:31+00:00 http://www.60bragghill.com/index.php/site/reclaimed-redux/ http://www.60bragghill.com/index.php/site/reclaimed-redux/#When:13:39:14Z Handmade furniture from reclaimed wood has taken a new twist at 60 bragg Hill.  Our specification called for four simple wood vanity bases for the various bathrooms in our home.  Rather than buying new, we turned to Wolfe and Hale, a local thrid generation custom millwork and cabinetry shop.  Bob and Tom Hale worked closely with our architect, Matthew Moger to find the right wood for the vanities that faithfully represent the old barn look we saught.  What they found was truly authentic. Bob and Tom Hale researched and obtained very old oak beams with a storied local history 300 years in the making. For the first 200 years the beams had originally been used in a local Pannsylvania barn not far from Bragg Hill. A century ago, this barn was raized and the wood repurposed into timberframes for a local Wynnewood, PA home.  Recently, that home was dissambeled for new construction liberating the old oak beams once again.  Sustainability at it finest. See more photos of the Wolfe & Hale shop hand making new vanity bases with old wood. Construction, Evolution of Design, Land Stewardship 2011-10-03T13:39:14+00:00 http://www.60bragghill.com/index.php/site/the-end-of-wall-clutter-as-we-know-it/ http://www.60bragghill.com/index.php/site/the-end-of-wall-clutter-as-we-know-it/#When:21:31:59Z Go ahead, count the number of light switches in your house…  I’ll wait. If you live in a reasonably modern home built since electricity was invented, you probably have dozens of them.  Each one of those mechanical switches requires wiring, a box to house the switch and a hole in your wall and a plate to cover the hole in your wall.  Add modern conveniences such as digital thermostats, ceiling fans, timers, exterior lighting, alarm panels, home A/V systems and you start to realize how much of your wall space is cluttered with these ugly switches.  This wall rash or clutter can literally destroy your best efforts at maintaining your home’s order and interior design.  I’ve seen beautiful new homes with and kitchens, dens and dining rooms blemished with literally rows and rows of ugly switches.  Some of the wiring and switch configurations I’ve seen are so complicated that they have P-Touch lables under each switch to help the home owner identify its function.  At 60 Bragg Hill, we’ve decided to do away with all of that.  Working with a team of expert consultants at Lutron, a Coopersburg, PA lighting control company and Rittenhouse Electric,  we found out that we can have all of our hard wired lighting switches hidden elsewhere in our home while having complete control and convenience of our embedded technologies. Using Lutron’s RadioRA® 2 wireless control lighting system,  all of the lighting controls will be controlled by a simple, single touch pad, one in each room.  We can even control our HVAC, music systems and just about anything else with an iPhone or iPad, or from our car.  Pretty cool.  More than that, we’ve recovered precious wall space for more important things like artwork, family photos, or just nothing at all. The photo is of Joe Scarcelli, our electrian from Pusey Electric hard wiring the myriad switches in our mechanical room.  Joe is wiring 30 switches and ligting controls that won’t be seen in our walls. Green Technologies 2011-09-25T21:31:59+00:00 http://www.60bragghill.com/index.php/site/stairs-of-steel/ http://www.60bragghill.com/index.php/site/stairs-of-steel/#When:19:08:26Z After a year of planning and design, the fabrication of our “floating” stairway went into production.  The hand made steel and oak stair structure was designed to be the predominant element seated within the glass and steel solar chimney that is at the core of the barn.  The open tread design will facilitate the natural convection of air currents through the stair chamber and out the cupola, keeping the house cool in the summer and warm in the winter.  The aesthetic design of the staircase pays homage to the surrounding landscape enhancing natural light and the woodland views in the profile view upon entering the home.  The oak treads were milled from the same old oak tree used for the stairway timberframes. The custom steel work was performed by a dedicated team of engineers and craftsmen at O’Rourke & Sons, a West Chester based fabrication company.  The stringers, landings, treads and anchor plates were made from a combination of 1/4 inch steel plate and 12x6 inch tube steel.  Architect Matthew Moger’s design was rendered on an SDS computer system by Brian Feick where it was aligned, balanced and pre-stressed and virtually tested for structural integrity.  The digital measuremnts were then loaded into a computer guided plasma burning table where the riser plates were precision cut.  O’Rourke’s Steve Tuel carefully formed the flat treads into is final shape and then precision welded it to the stringer spines.  The entire staircase contains 4 “floating” stringers two mid-story landing platforms and thirty-three riser plates. See additional photos of the O’Rourke fabrication process Watch a video clip of the staircase SDS 3D computer rendering Review the original architect’s staircase concept renderings Construction, Evolution of Design 2011-09-15T19:08:26+00:00 http://www.60bragghill.com/index.php/site/waiting-for-irene/ http://www.60bragghill.com/index.php/site/waiting-for-irene/#When:14:47:23Z While the entire Northeast suffered the wrath of hurricane Irene, 60 Bragg Hill did pretty well.  Still without electricity three days after the storm, the house is solid and dry.  Having a house built of concrete goes a long way to provide security, especially in such a violent, prolonged weather event. Mark Thompson and his team worked tirelessly the day before the big storm to secure the new home, seal up unfinished exterior doorways, and lock down any construction materials left outside. Construction 2011-08-31T14:47:23+00:00 http://www.60bragghill.com/index.php/site/hand-built-kitchen-cabinets/ http://www.60bragghill.com/index.php/site/hand-built-kitchen-cabinets/#When:13:43:41Z For the craftsmen at Superior Woodcraft, the past few weeks have been busy working on the 60 Bragg Hill project.  While the careful planning and design for the kitchen took a year in devleopment, just last month they focused their full production staff on our kitchen. Much has been said on this web site about the quality and craftsmanship of Superior Woodcraft’s kitchens, but you can’t really appreciate the quality and care that goes into each cabinet until you see them being made for yourself.  Patrick Kennedy, Vice President of Superior Woodcraft opened his doors for us to document how 60 Bragg Hill’s kitchen cabinets were made.  Every cabinet in our kitchen—about 30 of them—is comprised of dozens of hand made parts including doors, hinges, shelves, dividers, pull-outs, etc.  In all, there are over 1,000 peices that had to be precision cut to the exact specifacations of our design, hand sanded, painted, finished, checked, assembled, tested, and checked again.  As part of Superior’s commitment to quality, a comprehensive, technical shop document followed each cabinet through the entire fabrication process. We got a chance to talk with the craftsmen, watch the deliberate and precise hand fabrication of each cabinet.  The entire team, many of them have worked for Superior for over a generation, worked diligently and with enthusiasm.  It’s clear that they love what they do.  It shows. View a slideshow of additional photos of the Superior Woodcraft team in action. Construction, Evolution of Design 2011-08-22T13:43:41+00:00 http://www.60bragghill.com/index.php/site/the-magic-of-drywall/ http://www.60bragghill.com/index.php/site/the-magic-of-drywall/#When:20:42:12Z These past few weeks have seen a flurry of activity at 60 Bragg Hill.  A small army of finishing experts including drywall and flooring professionals, kitchen cabinet installers, painters, and stucco masons have descended on the new home.  For us, this is the beginning of the end of a three year long process.  A good thing too, because we are itching to move in and start enjoying actually living there. After many months of working around framing and other forms of natural and engineered lumber, the installation of drywall fundamentally changed how the interior of the home looks. For the first time the eye comprehend the actual dimensions of a room rather than looking through a maze of studs and framework. When completed, 60 Bragg Hill will absorb 18,000 square feet of drywall that defines many of the internal surfaces.  Vince Gallo from R.V. Drywall heads up a veteran team of experts/artisans who have worked tirelessly over the past 10 days.  Due to the high ceiling heights, much of the time has been spent on scaffolding and stilts. Vince and his team will consume about 20 buckets of compound to fill in the screw fasteners, joints, seams and corner trim.  After that, we’re ready for our first coat of paint. While the use of drywall is not unique to green building, any drywall remnants from 60 Bragg Hill will be recycled and broken down into gypsum for use as fertilizer and other agricultural products. Click here to see more drywall installation photos. Construction 2011-08-13T20:42:12+00:00 http://www.60bragghill.com/index.php/site/drill-baby-drill/ http://www.60bragghill.com/index.php/site/drill-baby-drill/#When:22:10:21Z Five deep holes were drilled deep into the bedrock of Bragg Hill this week.  One for our domestic drinking water, the others for geothermal heating and cooling.  While not much to look at the surface, the science of drilling used here was sophisticated and was performed with precision. Ken Madron from K.L Madron Well Drilling performed the service. Of interest are the four geothermal wells.  Unlike the domestic water well, these holes were drilled dry to a depth of 330 feet.  This depth and number of geothermal wells were calculated based on the specific energy requirements used by 60 Bragg Hill.  Because our home was designed and built with extreme thermal efficiency, the added energy required to heat and cool the home will be quite modest.  Geothermal systems Uses the earth’s constant 55 degree temperature as a conduit for heating and cooling. This drastically reduces the energy load on air conditioning and heating units.  Because of this our heating and cooling units are much smaller than would otherwise be required for a home of our size. Our geothermal system is designed with four closed-loop wells.  Each well contains a sealed loop of pipe containing a special liquid designed to transfer heat from one substance to another. This liquid will be slowly cirulated from the HVAC equipment into the 330 foot well and looped back in to the equipment.  In our case we’ll use both a water-to-water unit for our radient floors and a water-to-air unit for our air conditioning.  The term “water” in the first part of the phrase represents the liquid cirulating in the geothermal wells.  The long pipe loop is inserted in the well hole and then encased in a special silica based thermal grout designed to maximize the transfer of the earth’s stable temperature to and from the sealed liquid in the pipe. It sounds very complicated, but it isn’t.  What is complicated however, is the maze of pipes and valves that will consume our two mechanical rooms in the lower level.  That will be detailed in another article. Green Technologies 2011-08-06T22:10:21+00:00 http://www.60bragghill.com/index.php/site/in-memory-of-drew-bauer/ http://www.60bragghill.com/index.php/site/in-memory-of-drew-bauer/#When:12:22:03Z All of us on the 60 Bragg Hill project were shocked and saddened to learn of the tragic death of Drew Bauer this week.  Drew died this weekend from a boating accident on the Sassafras River in Maryland. He will be sadly missed on the job site. Drew spent most of the last year of his life working hard at Bragg Hill.  The quality, energy and passion he brought to this home is evident everywhere.  Regardless of the obstacles brought on by inclement weather and routine construction hardships, Drew was always the “Can Do” guy.  He was truly the jack-of-all-trades.  He could operate any complex equipment with skill and grace and had the uncanny ability to anticipate the next move before anyone else. Drew was everywhere at the same time.  Strong?  Yeah, that too. It was a common site to see Drew casually pick up and gracefully carry heavy objects over his shoulder that a forklift would usually move. Drew loved working on this project.  Not because it was a good gig, but because it meant something to him. He understood the importance of sustainable home building and from the first day he quickly became a vital part of the integrated team.  Fundamentally, 60 Bragg Hill was lovingly hand built by three men and Drew was unquestionably one of the pillars of its success. He had a big heart and his positive attitude was infectious. Even our three dogs knew this as Drew was always the first person they would run up and greet on site visits.  Not surprisingly, Drew was a well rounded and accomplished sportsman.  Last fall, he proudly shared photos of his trophy catch on a recent fly fishing trip. We’ll miss Drew and will think of him often as we transition into our new home graced with his pride and craftsmanship. 2011-07-29T12:22:03+00:00 http://www.60bragghill.com/index.php/site/timber-frame-details/ http://www.60bragghill.com/index.php/site/timber-frame-details/#When:19:23:30Z While much of the attention on this blog has been paid to the exterior features of the nascent barn, not much has been said about the interior. One of the most significant and visible features of our home is its grand staircase. It’s the first thing you see when you walk in the front door and it will become its predominant visual element. Our staircase will command the giant glass solar chimney that defines the entire western side of the home.  It is the spine that connects and unifies the entire structure.  Our entire stairway will be adorned by massive oak timbers.  Timber framing is a centuries old building technique; it’s sustainable, gorgeous, and just plain romantic.  In our case, it has a special meaning. Our three story staircase is adorned with strong, massive timbers milled mostly from a single giant red oak tree grown at our current home.  The 100 year old tree was dying of natural causes and was carefully cut down and milled into beams, posts and stair treads for our Chester County barn.  A slide show of photos of the milling process can be seen here.  Seeing it reassembled and re-purposed in its new home is breathtaking.  To us, this exemplifies sustainability. Construction, Land Stewardship 2011-07-06T19:23:30+00:00