Wired

    Here is the utility shed.  There are telephone wires, computer wires and many electric cables.  There are wires from the breaker box to heat pump compressors, and wires from the compressors to the room units.  There are wires to parking lot lights and wires to wall lanterns.  There are even grounding wires for water and gas pipes.

    The big pipe in the middle is our fire hydrant main.  It's not hooked up yet, but will tie in to the smaller shiney pipe down on the left.  The smaller copper pipes are water pipes.  The eight orange tubes, also not hooked up, are for radiant heating.  
    On the left is a condensing boiler.  It will provide warm water for heat as well as hot water to the sinks.  It is called a condensing boiler because it can operate at low temperatures and gets extra heat by condensing the water vapor produced by combustion. 
    The coils, hanging up on the right, are for air conditioning.  They run to and from the room units and will be attached to the compressors outside.  As soon as these are connected and the town inspector approves the wiring, we can finish insulating and putting up some wall board.

    Here is a picture from the other end of the shed.  On the right are time clocks for turning the lights on and off.  They are hooked up to light sensors on the outside so that, even though the clocks activate the lights, they won't go on until it gets dark.

Floored

      Progress on converting the barns to an art school is slow but happening.  This motley crew installed "old growth" white oak flooring, which we got for a good price from Elmwood Reclaimed Timber in Smithville, MO.  The boards came in three widths and have plenty of knots and blemishes that add interest and variety to a floor that would otherwise look too modern for an old barn.  Virginia and Doug debated on whether to put down wide pine boards like most ancient buildings have; however, pine is much too soft for the traffic and abuse we expect the floor to have to take.

      The installers were Tim Gothers and Jeb Wells of Gothers Woodworking, Wethersfield, and Gary Vivian, our architect, also from Wethersfield.  Someone once said: "Work fascinates me, I can sit an watch it for hours."  Watching these men work was truly fascinating!  They were competent, quick, knew how to work through difficult problems and a pleasure to have on the job.
      In addition to putting down oak boards in the classroom and studios, Doug laid tile in the bathrooms.

Crawl Space Pandomonium

    Working in the crawl space beneath the floor is fun!  There are about 18 inches between the concrete ground cover and floor joists above.  In addition to the joists and insulation, there are water pipes, drain pipes, tubing for radiant heating loops, electric cables, wires for phone and computer jacks, fire sprinkler pipes and a fancy exhaust fan.
     The exhaust fan set up is clever.  According to code, a crawl space must either be vented to the outside or made an integral part of the building envelope.  Handicapped accessibility laws require that the main floor be no more than 2 inches above exit walks, which means venting to the outside is difficult.

Making the crawl space an integral part of the envelope means that it must be conditioned to control moisture.  This is usually done by installing an air conditioner.  Our solution was to install an exhaust fan to vent stale air up a pipe through the roof, while another vent in the far corner draws conditioned air down from the classroom above.  The fan is attached to an humidistat.  Thus, when moisture in the crawl space exceeds a certain amount, the fan turns on and the vent opens, keeping the space dry.  Bugs, cobwebs, mold and rot stay out!!!
    To tool around in the craw space we have a low-boy crawler.  The model crawler is Maddy P.

New Ox Shed Ceiling Completed

We finally finished the ox shed ceiling, pine tongue and groove boards screwed down on top of the rafters. The task took a month!!! We had only a couple of inches to work the equipment between the top of the boards and the bat insulation above; it was a difficult, itchy job. When half of the boards were screwed down, and again near the end, we blew in additional insulation, then sealed the boards with a clear sealer. John Gardner, the electrician, and Doug installed track lighting strips. Radian heat tubing can be seen in the subfloor.