The cistern - insulation and top access.

Since I still haven't had a chance to draw up the details I promised in "Framing the sunroom - part 1", I thought I'd take a little detour with this post and take another look at the cistern. Since I buried the tank last summer, I haven't thought about it much - briefly during the coldest part of last winter ("I wonder if the water has frozen?" - it never did) and then again this spring when I noticed that during an unusual spell of heavy rain, ground water backed up against the access lids and leaked into the tank. Ground water leakage counts as contamination so I thought I had better do something about it.

Here is what the cistern looked like last August after its burial. After some rough grading work, the tank was insulated near the surface and equipped with some basic treated wood retaining boxes.

Framing the sunroom - part 1.

The first major goal for the spring of 2012 was to frame the attached sunroom on the south wall of the house. There are a number of factors that led me to build the sunroom in the way that I have decided to proceed. This first part of a new series on the sunroom will set the stage by covering some of the important design considerations.

The attached sunroom in an early stage of construction during the spring. Spring was early this year so I had plenty of time to get'er done before we were due to leave on a trip to the west coast at the end of May.

Framing the exterior wall trusses - part 4 - the forgotten parts.

This is essentially the final part of my series of posts detailing the framing of the exterior wall trusses - there may be a few revisits of specific things in the future. Part 4 is a short post on how I framed the corners (which I almost forgot to mention) and how I air-sealed the corners of the rim board (which I did forget to mention in part 2).

Choosing a picture to go "above the fold" is sometimes tricky. I chose this one because it shows a missing corner but also because I found the snow a refreshing reminder of a time when it wasn't so hot...