Today at the job site was humid and hot. Luckily, most of the scheduled work took place down in the much cooler basement. I had the pleasure of knocking out a section of the cinder block wall to make room for a new basement window, which was fun and much simpler task than the continued ducting adventure. The excitment/headaches continue to abound around the ducting and maneuvering in the confined basement ceiling space.
Several aspects of this project are making every little detail tug, nag and pull at the builder's attention. It's the nitty gritty details that are both so important and so annoying. The guys from UMR working on the ducting are having problems fitting all the connections for the heating, cooling and return duct runs into the confined space. The main issues were around getting through the squeeze into the mechanical room. Now what's happening is that we're running out of physical space in the main trunk ducts to attach the various offshoots needed for heating and cooling. The space between each floor joist is really the only option, and each joist space can only hold one connection going one direction. We're running out of joist spaces, an interesting problem.
We're finding that since many of the specific features aren't the everyday routine for the contractors, more planning and resourcefulness are called for than in a conventional remodel. For instance, in conventional construction the return runs aren't necessarily enclosed in their own ducts. It is common to simply seal off the joist space between the sheetrock and run that back to the heating/cooling units. Not so in LEED construction, where the fresh air and 'old air' are separated.
All these little details are where the real energy and resource savings and sustainability lie. They are also proving to be one learning experience (a nice word for a headache) after another.