Monday, October 12, 2009

Day 100: Interior plastering

On Monday we applied gypsum plaster to the interior north wall. It is nice to see the cold looking APEX blocks covered with a uniform finish. Here is a pic of the great room portion of the wall taken from the loft.

The guys from Independent Energy Systems were back again today to install another rack for the photovoltaic array. Thanks for reading. I appreciate your comments.

2 comments:

straussjf said...

I know you probably covered this many days ago but, what is the R factor of the APEX blocks? Being from Wisconsin, as you know, seeing the interior of a home finished without insulation is completely foreign to me. I am guessing that with the blocks filled with concrete make a huge difference.

Also what is the avaerage temps in your area in January, March, June and October?

Mike said...

Hey Joe,

The APEX block material is R-1.73 per inch. The wall is 10 inches thick where there is no concrete core, and 4 inches thick where there is a core. The cores are every 16 inches on center horizontally and vertically. My calculation shows the total R-value of the finish plastered APEX wall is between 13 and 14 - about equivalent to a well built and insulated 2X6 stick frame wall. Here is a link to my post comparing 2X6 stick frame to Rastra/APEX thermally.

http://a-green-home.blogspot.com/2009_03_01_archive.html

Average temps in the months you requested are:

January: 50.6
March: 54.0
June: 62.2
October: 60.4

It's a pretty benign climate. Thanks for the comment.

Mike