colder than normal but we are ready

The building is fully enclosed and we are starting the exterior rigid insulation with vapour barrier. The siding has arrived from Vancouver and will be delivered on site on Thursday. The large carport is fantastic for keeping materials out of the weather. Some drywall and mechanical has started and we have a 4.5 kw heater in the building to take the chill off.

Just to recap how the envelope works. We have to main zones in the building. The entry and stairwell will be kept at 5 degrees C in the winter. The stairwell has a very large southeast facing glazed area 1.8m x 9m. When the temperature gets over 5 degrees C we will start to cool it and store the heat in a domestic hot water preheat tank. Currently we are planning to use that heat only for domestic hot water as we expect the heating requirement for the building to be less than the hot water demand. The entry and stairwell are insulated in a conventional manner ( 6" batt for the most part). The wall between the stairwell and entry is also being treated as a conventional exterior wall. The other exterior walls are insulated with 2 1/2" batt inside the sheathing. The vapour barrier is on the outside of the sheathing, then 3" of rigid insulation, then tyvek, then strapping and siding. This way the building gets a full blanket of insulation and vapour barrier with no thermal breaks.

Here are some pictures with the leaves down.