Recycle the brick

Well, what can I say, we're learning every day.  Our big pile of bricks (much coveted by passers-by apparently) that were removed from the building to create the new door opening, has now been organized into a much smaller stack of usable bricks.  We're hoping to create a patio off the side entrance with these bricks.  My big mistake was letting the broken pieces go into the dumpster.  No, no, no, they can actually be separated at the site and then re-used.  So, we're getting a new dumpster specifically for the broken brick and which we will recycle with Hargett, who is supplying the dumpsters.

The mason should be back this week to finish up the brick jambs and then we should have windows.  We're ready!

Let The Sunshine In! We Have Openings

The mason has been busy cutting the opening for the windows and doors and doing a great job.  He's going to re-build the sills with a brick masonry rowlock at a slight angle to keep the water from sitting on the sill.  The steel headers are being tapped into place at the window head by removing some of the grout between the bricks on either side of the windows. This allows the weight of the brick over the opening to be distributed to the brick on either side of the window.

The front wall has been in-filled with a matching brick masonry where the old front door was a few days ago.

The brick walls are a double wythe (two rows) with a sizable airspace in-between. This is good for us as it acts as a natural insulator for the building.

I'm not sure if sunlight has ever touched the inside of this building!

Masonry cuts for my birthday!

What better birthday present than the first cuts in the existing masonry for the new windows.  This building has always looked so lowly with no windows, I'm excited to be able to shed some light inside!  The Mason is a great guy Raymond Howard who owns Reds Masonry 910-358-4550 and next week he'll be finishing the cuts and then re-building the windows sills so we can set the new windows.  We're looking at how we can incorporate the left over brick into the new project.

Low-E Glazing and Energy Efficient Windows

While waiting for the mason to create the openings for the windows we have been looking at our glazing options.  We've been talking with Craven Glass Company on Trent Road about supplying our windows and we've decided on an aluminum storefront system with some operable windows.  Our building gets so much direct sunlight we've decided to go with a low-E coating on our thermally insulated glazing with an thermally broken aluminum casing.

You can get glazing with high or low solar gain low-E coating (how much heat comes through from the sun). Since we'll be more worried about heat from the sun making the building too hot in the summer, we're choosing a low solar gain low-E coating.

The windows will be thermally broken (which means there is a rubber gasket in the metal casing around the window so heat or cold isn't directly transmitted from the outside to the inside) and reduces the chance of condensation forming on the windows.


And, we're making some of the windows operable so when we have a mild day (hasn't been recently!) we can open the windows for some air. I hope we get some of that weather soon!

Cool Roof

One item we'd really like to address is the black roof.  The long term plan is to put solar panels up there, but in the mean time we'd like to have a cooler roof so it will save us some money.  Dark colors absorb heat and lighter colors reflect the heat and can save you up to 15% in cooling costs.  See this recent article http://www.ecohomemagazine.com/news/2010/12-december/6-tips-for-selecting-an-energy-saving-cool-roof.aspx